I was playing with the now-ubiquitous built-in webcam on my laptop computer a few days ago, and I started exploring some options and came up with a couple of favorite-book-based videos that made me laugh hysterically. It was very early in the morning.
To preface - Douglas Adams is by far one of my favorite authors. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is just after Jabberwocky on my ``must be read aloud whenever possible to anyone who will listen'' list that I just made up. So, it being 3am and my having many other better things to spend my time doing, I imagined these two pieces of silliness.
Below are two Guide entries, with myself as a ``friendly''-looking alien avatar relating them to you (the avatar was created from a still photo of myself using the Dell webcam central program that came with the laptop).
I, Dusty, was designed by the Guide's publishers to pleasantly relay the indispensible information contained therein with just the right amount of politely modulated, computer-generated emotion. A feat, by the way, covered in real life in a New Yorker article about voice recognition software. It was like reading a Heinlien story. More on that later...
Kindle, eat your motherboard out.
No, my eyes aren't really that color. NB: These videos are parodies (can you have a parody of a comedy?) and thus to the best of my knowledge are protected under copyright law. No infringement is intended. Buy Douglas Adams' books!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Heinlein
Started Heinlein's short story Waldo this week.
Waldo is a man who lives in a space station in freefall around the Earth. He lives in 0 G to overcome a congenital muscular disorder that makes him so weak he can hardly lift a fork with both hands. He has created several variations on mechanical ``hands'' (called Waldos by the Earth-bound public) that respond to feather-light pressure of his fingers inside gloves that work as remote controls. Even the subtlest movements of his fingers register with receivers on the robotic hands - some of which are enormous, some tiny - to allow him to build fabulously elegant inventions that would be impossible with normal human hands.
This story has a lot of links to practical uses. Similar technology was behind the workings of the tiny Doozers and the gigantic Gorgs in Jim Hensen's Fraggle Rock. Techno-wizard Faz Fazakas invented these little gloves that allow a puppeteer to manipulate a tiny or huge mouth puppet as though it were hand-sized. The puppeteer sticks her hands into a foam ``mouthpiece'' outfitted with servo motors, and this is connected by remote control to the actual puppet, which might be two inches tall. The movements of the puppeteers hand are sent to receivers linked to servos in the puppet, and it works and performs very close to a traditional mouth puppet like Kermit the Frog! Jim Hensen apparently saw the invention and said, ``Oh! It's a Waldo!'' It worked, and Hensen used them foreverafter. Learning this was what inspired me to pick the book up. It's in a small paperback with another short story of Heinlein's called Magic, Inc.
Apparently, gizmos called Waldos are also used in surgery. I'll be looking for other Waldos in the real world as I continue the story. If you know of any, please put them in the comments!
Waldo is a man who lives in a space station in freefall around the Earth. He lives in 0 G to overcome a congenital muscular disorder that makes him so weak he can hardly lift a fork with both hands. He has created several variations on mechanical ``hands'' (called Waldos by the Earth-bound public) that respond to feather-light pressure of his fingers inside gloves that work as remote controls. Even the subtlest movements of his fingers register with receivers on the robotic hands - some of which are enormous, some tiny - to allow him to build fabulously elegant inventions that would be impossible with normal human hands.
This story has a lot of links to practical uses. Similar technology was behind the workings of the tiny Doozers and the gigantic Gorgs in Jim Hensen's Fraggle Rock. Techno-wizard Faz Fazakas invented these little gloves that allow a puppeteer to manipulate a tiny or huge mouth puppet as though it were hand-sized. The puppeteer sticks her hands into a foam ``mouthpiece'' outfitted with servo motors, and this is connected by remote control to the actual puppet, which might be two inches tall. The movements of the puppeteers hand are sent to receivers linked to servos in the puppet, and it works and performs very close to a traditional mouth puppet like Kermit the Frog! Jim Hensen apparently saw the invention and said, ``Oh! It's a Waldo!'' It worked, and Hensen used them foreverafter. Learning this was what inspired me to pick the book up. It's in a small paperback with another short story of Heinlein's called Magic, Inc.
Apparently, gizmos called Waldos are also used in surgery. I'll be looking for other Waldos in the real world as I continue the story. If you know of any, please put them in the comments!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Poetic Digression
On Sunday, I visited a couple of bookstores and among a few other things, I picked up a copy of Pablo Neruda's The Hands of Day.
Pablo Neruda is by far one of my favorite poets. His style is very observational, and he writes about conventional sorts of things. I almost feel as though I'm sitting next to him as he points to specific objects, talking to me about them. First, he points to the broom he doesn't know how to make in the first poem of the book, entitled ``The Guilty One''.
"Why did I not make a broom?
Why was I given hands at all?''
He talks then about the broom with a sort of sensual admiration. He talks about `the golden bundle' and `the yellow skirt' of the broom itself, and uses words like `uniting' and `gathering' to describe the act of making it. When I read his poems, I not only see a handmade broom - dusty, bent, and well-used - sitting in a slightly darkened corner, but I feel the stalks of un-united grass in my hands. First they're pliant and smell alive, and then they're dry and stiff after they've been prepared in the hot sun.
There was another poem that grabbed me for a slightly different reason: ``Cycle''. Beginning with the line-->
"It repeats itself once, the humid springtime"
and ending with-->
"On the stem a rose?
I set it ablaze."
The whole poem is about waking, about the force of spring and the new blossoms pushing upwards. Immediately I started hearing Tom Waits' ``You Can Never Hold Back Spring'' in my head.
"You can never hold back spring,
You can be sure I will never stop believing,
The blushing rose that will climb,
Spring ahead or fall behind,
Winter dreams the same dream every time..."
It's on the Bawler's CD (#2) of the 3 CD set Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. It's one of Waits' gentler songs, that sounds like a soft reminder not to try and hold things that are impermanent, because "remember everything that spring can bring...Oh, you can never hold back spring...''
And then I thought...anyone who thinks that lyrics can't be poems and vice versa can kiss my proverbial buttocks. Now, I'd put very few lyricists into the category of poets, but I can think of a couple without working too hard - Paul Simon, Tom Waits, and Neil Young for example. I've also heard some great renditions of old poems as songs. Loreena McKennitt did a great version of William Butler Yeats' "The Two Trees" as an accompanied solo voice, and it made a deep impression on me. On another album, she set Shakespeare's closing lines of "The Tempest" to music.
Anyway, a bit of a digression from my usual fare. I don't spend a lot of time reading poetry, as much as I like it. As it says in Proverbs ``A well-spoken word is like an apple of gold''. One of my labmates at work gave me that reference, by the way.
Pablo Neruda is by far one of my favorite poets. His style is very observational, and he writes about conventional sorts of things. I almost feel as though I'm sitting next to him as he points to specific objects, talking to me about them. First, he points to the broom he doesn't know how to make in the first poem of the book, entitled ``The Guilty One''.
"Why did I not make a broom?
Why was I given hands at all?''
He talks then about the broom with a sort of sensual admiration. He talks about `the golden bundle' and `the yellow skirt' of the broom itself, and uses words like `uniting' and `gathering' to describe the act of making it. When I read his poems, I not only see a handmade broom - dusty, bent, and well-used - sitting in a slightly darkened corner, but I feel the stalks of un-united grass in my hands. First they're pliant and smell alive, and then they're dry and stiff after they've been prepared in the hot sun.
There was another poem that grabbed me for a slightly different reason: ``Cycle''. Beginning with the line-->
"It repeats itself once, the humid springtime"
and ending with-->
"On the stem a rose?
I set it ablaze."
The whole poem is about waking, about the force of spring and the new blossoms pushing upwards. Immediately I started hearing Tom Waits' ``You Can Never Hold Back Spring'' in my head.
"You can never hold back spring,
You can be sure I will never stop believing,
The blushing rose that will climb,
Spring ahead or fall behind,
Winter dreams the same dream every time..."
It's on the Bawler's CD (#2) of the 3 CD set Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. It's one of Waits' gentler songs, that sounds like a soft reminder not to try and hold things that are impermanent, because "remember everything that spring can bring...Oh, you can never hold back spring...''
And then I thought...anyone who thinks that lyrics can't be poems and vice versa can kiss my proverbial buttocks. Now, I'd put very few lyricists into the category of poets, but I can think of a couple without working too hard - Paul Simon, Tom Waits, and Neil Young for example. I've also heard some great renditions of old poems as songs. Loreena McKennitt did a great version of William Butler Yeats' "The Two Trees" as an accompanied solo voice, and it made a deep impression on me. On another album, she set Shakespeare's closing lines of "The Tempest" to music.
Anyway, a bit of a digression from my usual fare. I don't spend a lot of time reading poetry, as much as I like it. As it says in Proverbs ``A well-spoken word is like an apple of gold''. One of my labmates at work gave me that reference, by the way.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Change of plans
It recently dawned on me that just because I'm doing a book-review blog, that shouldn't change the way I usually read. I originally thought I ought to read one book and finish it before writing anything about it. But, rarely are my thoughts so linear, and rarely do I read one book at a time. So instead of only writing when a book is finished, I'll be updating more regularly with thoughts on the books I'm reading or leafing through each day. Hence the following diversion from Ravens in Winter, which has lain at the bottom of my backpack awaiting the completion of some writing projects at work.
So my holidays are just about over, but as I revisited some of the bookstores in my native Pacific Northwest, I picked up a used copy of Larousse Gastronomique in English. Not, perhaps, the wisest thing to buy at over 1000 pages just before getting on a plane...but for the most complete authority on French cuisine in existence (or so I gather in my limited experience of the subject) at under $10 I just couldn't leave it behind. I should probably mention...I like to cook almost as much as I like to eat.
And I couldn't be happier with my impulse buy. More of an encyclopedia of French-food-related terms and sayings, it also includes simple instructions for preparing everything from roast haunch of fallow deer to calf's brain fritters. It also includes instructions on how to recognize a true gourmand, and finally gave me some satisfaction as to why the Yeomen of the Guard at London Tower are called Beefeaters. Apparently, no one knows for sure. Score one for Dusty Shelves.
Larousse Gastronomique was first published in France in 1938, and was the compilation of Prosper Montagne. The edition I have is one of if not the first English translation, published in 1961. There are two prefaces by Montagne's contemporaries, Auguste Escoffier and Phileas Gilbert. Auguste apparently passed away before this magnum opus of his friend's made it to publication. There is also an informative Introduction to the Enclish Language Edition and unit conversion table.
So my holidays are just about over, but as I revisited some of the bookstores in my native Pacific Northwest, I picked up a used copy of Larousse Gastronomique in English. Not, perhaps, the wisest thing to buy at over 1000 pages just before getting on a plane...but for the most complete authority on French cuisine in existence (or so I gather in my limited experience of the subject) at under $10 I just couldn't leave it behind. I should probably mention...I like to cook almost as much as I like to eat.
And I couldn't be happier with my impulse buy. More of an encyclopedia of French-food-related terms and sayings, it also includes simple instructions for preparing everything from roast haunch of fallow deer to calf's brain fritters. It also includes instructions on how to recognize a true gourmand, and finally gave me some satisfaction as to why the Yeomen of the Guard at London Tower are called Beefeaters. Apparently, no one knows for sure. Score one for Dusty Shelves.
Larousse Gastronomique was first published in France in 1938, and was the compilation of Prosper Montagne. The edition I have is one of if not the first English translation, published in 1961. There are two prefaces by Montagne's contemporaries, Auguste Escoffier and Phileas Gilbert. Auguste apparently passed away before this magnum opus of his friend's made it to publication. There is also an informative Introduction to the Enclish Language Edition and unit conversion table.
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