Tales of the Golem; or, the Modern Epimetheus

Trying to relax up in the capsule

Today's movie bug report: Serenity

posted by Richard Mason @ Monday, October 31, 2005 0 comments

Entire Family Killed by Ninjas, Need Money 4 Karate Lesson

I see a lot of panhandlers with signs on the way to and from work. I have to admit I thought this one was funny. But I still didn't give him any money.

It's interesting to consider the advancing state of the art in panhandler signs. Fifteen years ago, I think, "Will work for beer" was still original and edgy. Nowadays, "Need money for marijuana" is passé, and sign authors must do more to push the envelope.

posted by Richard Mason @ Sunday, October 30, 2005 1 comments

The Volkswagen, The

posted by Richard Mason @ Wednesday, October 26, 2005 1 comments

Scenes from Married Life

M: [Sneezes.]
M: Bless you.
R: You were the one who sneezed.

---

R: [Makes exasperated gesture at television.]
M: [Picks up television remote and turns off closed captions.]
R: That was good communication.

posted by Richard Mason @ Tuesday, October 25, 2005 1 comments

Doctor Atomic

We went to San Francisco to see the new opera Doctor Atomic, about J. Robert Oppenheimer. This was primarily Maribeth's idea. I don't consider myself an opera fan (and Doctor Atomic didn't change that), although I do like musicals such as Les Miserables and Chess.

What exactly is the difference between an opera and a musical anyway?

None of the "verse" in Doctor Atomic rhymes. And I certainly could not hum a tune from Doctor Atomic. Is that the difference? But the music in Carmen is at least as catchy as anything in Les Miserables. Suppose you made an opera that was as tuneful as Carmen, but was in mostly comprehensible English like Doctor Atomic. Would it still be an opera, or would it be a Broadway musical?

I put it to you that a modern opera is a Broadway musical that has been freed from the need to be affordable, understandable, interesting, or pleasant to the ear.

According to something I read, probably in the program, the early plan for Doctor Atomic was that the first atomic bomb would go off at the end of Act One, and then the rest of the opera would be about Oppenheimer's later life, his loss of his security clearance and so forth. I think this might have been a better idea. Instead what actually happens in the opera is that the Trinity bomb is hoisted into its tower, ready to be tested, at the end of Act One, and then Act Two consists entirely of everyone standing around waiting and waiting for the bomb to go off. Just hurry up and explode already! As the opera drags to a close, the characters receive a five-minute warning that the bomb will detonate, then a two-minute warning. But I'm pretty sure the audience had to sit there for a lot longer than two minutes before the blessed thing finally went off.

On the bright side, we spent some time with Jonathan in Berkeley, and we also dropped in on Evan and Nisha in San Francisco, so the trip was still worthwhile.

posted by Richard Mason @ Tuesday, October 25, 2005 2 comments

Happy Birthday to Me

My birthday was on Friday, and since then two reporters have asked me how old I am, which leads me to inquire, why do reporters always ask that?

They don't (necessarily) ask where you grew up, or what your ethnic background is, or where you went to school, or what book most influenced you, or what your favorite flavor of ice cream is. None of those facts is necessarily relevant. But always with the age!

I'm insecure about age since I spent so many years in grad school, tending to make me a chronological underachiever. Also, people meeting me for the first time often think that I'm significantly younger than I am, which makes it painful to disillusion them.

Young at Heart

posted by Richard Mason @ Tuesday, October 18, 2005 6 comments

Race Post-Mortem

I wrote up a summary of our DGC results.

posted by Richard Mason @ Monday, October 10, 2005 2 comments

Win Tony Tether's Money

Our Sunday run was perfect: no cones knocked down, no obstacles touched. Between that and our near-perfect Saturday run, I was feeling pretty good.

But then on Monday morning we smacked into a concrete barrier and broke our steering system. We rushed the truck back to UCLA for repairs and tried again this morning. This time we hit a stack of tires after emerging from the tunnel, but otherwise the run was pretty good.

The final obstacle is a tank trap, a thing like a giant jack, which had snagged a number of the vehicles before of us. Tony Tether, the director of DARPA, bet Bill Caldwell a dollar that the tank trap would claim us too... but we drove around it. Yee-haw! It is actually remarkable that we have never had any trouble with the tank trap.

posted by Richard Mason @ Tuesday, October 04, 2005 1 comments

Contender

Our first run at the Speedway on Wednesday was really miserable. We crashed right into the first gate, which was meant to simulate a cattle crossing, and didn't go any further. Immediately the Discovery Channel was there to ask us how we felt about our dreams going up in smoke. Damned media vultures!

However we ran again this morning and the results could not have been more different. We grazed that first gate again, but went on to race around the track, through the tunnel, around the parked cars, around the tank trap. We don't have official results yet but it looked almost flawless. Rumor has it that we had the fastest time of any team to run so far. We held that honor for about ten minutes, then Stanford/Volkswagen made their second run and topped us.

I need to find a Simpsons sun shade.

posted by Richard Mason @ Saturday, October 01, 2005 0 comments