The Worldstream (and yelling: STOP!)

I consciously stay about a month behind in reading long-form items in my Google Reader stream. This is one of the reasons why I am only now reading this article by David Gelernter; and despite the fact that all the comments it has received on Wired basically accuse him of smoking something while writing it, I find it to be... well, visionary. Among other things, this napkin sketch the author did for Wired (on the left) struck me as one of the best representations of the new paradigm.

The web is changing - or has partially changed, and irrevocably so. We have gone from the "Web" metaphor of the 90s (when Google could capitalize on the way pages linked to one another to come up with a Page Rank) to the "Stream" metaphor, where companies like Twitter lead from the front, and those like Facebook or Google or Pinterest get it with their Timeline and Google+ products. In the Stream, you're not looking for things of interest alone, you're looking for things you should be looking at right now.

The Scab

In the face of mindless malice
This city shrugs, again.
Outrage, intrigue, blame, concern
Vivisected per usual, through a dull ache

Networks light up, with concern, with baying
Martyrdom is on the departed bestowed
The accused accursed, the vehemence ever growing
For pundits and experts with brows furrowed

Who was warned? Who is to blame?
Who was the sod who felt such hate?
Who got there first? Who got away?
Who wasn't lucky, and you, sir - what say?

Spare a moment here, I beg
Not in memoriam, nor lofty praise

One Last Turn of the Wheel

I've never been this excited for a book for so long a time. That was the first thought in my head when I finally got my hands on "A Memory of Light", by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan - the final book of "The Wheel of Time". I had been wanting to read this book, this ending, ever since I first read "The Eye of the World" back in 2002. Funny, I thought it'd been longer!

Rand al'Thor (finally) comes to Shayol Ghul

For me, as for many other fans of fantasy literature born in the 80s, this series was our post-Tolkein bridge into contemporary fantasy literature. It has now come to occupy that special place, reserved for ticklers of the imagination like Star Wars, or the Matrix mythos, or Middle-Earth, which once reached makes the thing that got there immortal. Never mind the flaws, apparent and unnoticed! Here  is a dream, an escape, that will be dear to you forever after. An old friend that you have spent enough time getting to know that you do not notice the rough edges, or the parochial attitude. A house so well lived in, you don't mind the crumbling paint.

Did I love this book? Absolutely! Was there ever a realistic chance I wouldn't? Not really. What follows then is not so much a review, but a retrospective. Reflections on closure, a long time coming...

The Armchair Astronaut

This video comprises 6 must-see minutes of the Internet.

On one level, it quite compellingly points out how our obsession with building an engine to propel us to faster than light (FTL) speeds is silly. The bigger challenge by far, even if we built a USS Enterprise, would be finding our way home again :)

On another (less abstract) level, it tries to visualize the path traced through space by an object "at rest" at the equator. In this, the frame of reference it chooses is one that accounts for the Sun's and Earth's motion, but not the movement/ drift of the Solar System itself. I was disappointed when, on a further 'zoom out', they didn't show a projected 3D path for the Solar System relative to the Galaxy near the end... but I suppose that is hard to show?

Here's the thing that hits me: despite all this relative motion at ridiculous speeds, the constellations as we see them don't change for thousands of years... I know! As if we needed more proof for how far and unreachable they are!

Finally, on a poetic/ romantic level, it reminded of one of my favorite pair of poems: The Morning Song of Senlin and The Evening Song of Senlin by Conrad Aiken. Both of those are worth reading in full of course, but still... below the fold, I quote what I think is an appropriate excerpt from the latter

The Intimate Grandeur of Hugo Cabret

What a way to close out the year! This is a visual - nay sensual, in the most epistemological sense of the word - tour de force that one cannot help but bow to.

Bravo Martin Scorsese, for your evident love of cinema and for the patient crafting that has gone into this masterpiece. Bravo, Asa Butterfield for being innocence personified, for acting as few adults can ever hope to once or twice in their lives. Not that Sasha Baron Cohen and Ben Kingsley, and the other child actor, Chloë Moretz didn't put up a mighty fight as he stole the show... Bravo, Robert Richardson (cinematographer) and Dante Ferretti (art director) for rendering 1930s France and the timeless imagination of Georges Méliès so magnificently!

Way back in February of 2012 I had resolved to watch this movie (along with a list of about 10 other movies with Oscar buzz); until the 30th of December, I had managed to watch every one of them except Hugo. As fate would have it, I would watch it in the closing hours of the year, in an almost private screening, right before descending into four solid hours of bacchanalia and revelry. Now, twenty four hours later, my body feels the tiredness from those four hours, but my mind is still fixed on the movie...

This movie has been amply reviewed and raved about, and so this is not a review. This instead is an account of my experience of the movie, which was not optimal in a sense, but fitting. I'll explain, I promise...