Sunday, August 25, 2013
"What Movie..." Trivia Post for a Lazy Sunday
All right, so we were watching a movie and in the background I saw train lines that had destinations of Long Beach and Santa Monica. I took a picture, and my question is (mostly for Dan): What movie is this?
Sunday, August 18, 2013
By "Collapse" I mean ...
...that people will no longer go to it. It will be either too dangerous (like Facebook is now) for lack of security, or too boring, or too old hat. Its power to make carloads of money from advertising will be severely curtailed, simply because people will not use it any more. Or at least to the same extent.
Information will still be available of course, but it will be from new sources, maintained in a forum as yet unfamiliar to us, delivered maybe to our phones, or maybe to earbuds, or maybe to microprocessors we have implanted in our forearms that feed special goggles that look just like glasses. Don't have a clue.
Oh, I can imagine a future where there are still a few bedraggled internet porn sites for people who can't get it anywhere else, but that will almost be it. Your banking, scheduling, email, entertainment, and research needs will all be served by a paid-membership service, which will try to be all things to you, because it wants as much of your money as it can get. I honestly don't know what the next big thing is; I'm just stabbing in the dark. But it seems inevitable that that's where it's going. The success or failure of such enterprises will depend on how well they play with others. I think Yahoo is a microcosm of this: it had its heyday, and then fell behind the times, and is now struggling in an environment where others (Google, MSN, Apple) are simply minting money. And almighty Google had better be planning very, very carefully and skillfully if they want to stay up front in the locomotive. They ain't guaranteed shit.
What the internet specializes in right now is pandering to people's egos. People post pictures of themselves, which nobody will view as much as they do, and caption their photos with drivel only they find witty. How will future technologies encourage this ugly impulse? I don't know, but you can bet they will find a way.
So as the poachers and miscreants (corporate and otherwise) pollute the internet with their greed, there are planners - scientists and visionaries and just smart entrepreneurs - who will inject some combination of hardware, firmware, and software that will throw over the internet as we know it. It won't happen all at once, but to me, it's already under way. Just look at the amount of advertising you see everywhere there. People just don't want that, and are willing to pay a premium not to have to deal with it.
Information will still be available of course, but it will be from new sources, maintained in a forum as yet unfamiliar to us, delivered maybe to our phones, or maybe to earbuds, or maybe to microprocessors we have implanted in our forearms that feed special goggles that look just like glasses. Don't have a clue.
Oh, I can imagine a future where there are still a few bedraggled internet porn sites for people who can't get it anywhere else, but that will almost be it. Your banking, scheduling, email, entertainment, and research needs will all be served by a paid-membership service, which will try to be all things to you, because it wants as much of your money as it can get. I honestly don't know what the next big thing is; I'm just stabbing in the dark. But it seems inevitable that that's where it's going. The success or failure of such enterprises will depend on how well they play with others. I think Yahoo is a microcosm of this: it had its heyday, and then fell behind the times, and is now struggling in an environment where others (Google, MSN, Apple) are simply minting money. And almighty Google had better be planning very, very carefully and skillfully if they want to stay up front in the locomotive. They ain't guaranteed shit.
What the internet specializes in right now is pandering to people's egos. People post pictures of themselves, which nobody will view as much as they do, and caption their photos with drivel only they find witty. How will future technologies encourage this ugly impulse? I don't know, but you can bet they will find a way.
So as the poachers and miscreants (corporate and otherwise) pollute the internet with their greed, there are planners - scientists and visionaries and just smart entrepreneurs - who will inject some combination of hardware, firmware, and software that will throw over the internet as we know it. It won't happen all at once, but to me, it's already under way. Just look at the amount of advertising you see everywhere there. People just don't want that, and are willing to pay a premium not to have to deal with it.
Dispatch from South Los Angeles
Gentleman,
Although we haven't been doing much on this site, I have been very excited by my recent connections with you fine gentleman: dad and the talks about Rieux and The Plague; and Dan, thanks for coming to lunch instead of going straight to the airport, and I'm sorry I ditched you for the guanciale.
Now my residency has started fully.
That's what I am, technically, a resident teacher. Like a doctor, right? You know, they're doctors, just in residency before being completely credentialed. (Have you met my knee?) That's how we're not really "student teaching", as a verb that dad's familiar with. I am paired with a mentor teacher, as well as a partner from the cohort, and the three of us ultimately figure out how to make it work, the lead taken, obviously, by the mentor.
The school that we as a cohort worked in over the summer differs from the school I've been placed in for the residency in three major ways: 1) level; 2) demographics; and 3) location. In the summer we worked with middle school students; my residency is at a high school. The students that attended the middle school were nearly completely Latino; this high school is probably 57% black to 39% Latino, with a smattering of Pacific Islanders and Nigerians. What's more is that even within the two majority groups there is an entire spectrum of variation, and they all coexist as a vibrant and sometimes uneasy collective.
As far as location goes, according to Google Maps the middle school, which lives in a town called Huntington Park, is a little over eight miles away from the high school, which resides in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County called Westmont. When I used to think of unincorporated land, my brain would head to tiny pockets of community in San Luis county, the largest being Los Osos, which is an actual town.
Westmont has more than twice as many people as Los Osos, but is mostly neighborhood carved out of other people's plans. South Los Angeles surrounds the area.
I'm also trying something novel, but not so new for me: being the crazy white guy.
I ride my bike through some areas that other people---people I work with at the school---would do everything they could to avoid breathing its air, let alone hanging about to do some shopping. Even if shopping was a goal, there'd be limited choices.
But, dang, folks, it's not that bad; it's almost never as bad as the worst fears, and that's just about true everywhere outside of Syria or Iraq. Plus, the ride is not that far and has very little elevation change.
I ride from 103rd and Willowbrook Ave---the Metro Blue stop at Watts Tower, to basically 108th and Normandie, a not-quite five mile ride that takes about (read: exactly) twenty-five minutes. I do, though, use those twenty-five minutes to breach the seven o-clock hour. Any city traffic and attention at that time are far less than even two hours later, let alone the dusky hours of the evening.
I've been learning a good amount, and it's only been a week. Mostly right now the focus is on learning about myself. I'm trying to differentiate the three personalities that I'm harboring and shifting between daily. There's "Mr. Sherwood", the blue-eyed and golden-haired tie-wearing idealist who won't get the 'day-off' on Wednesday that the other members of the cohort get for our single day of all graduate classes (they're being held on this high school campus, and "Mr. Sherwood" doesn't turn off). There's also "Patrick", the overachieving and politically involved writer-chef that skips the party to stay late to help a comrade study for a major exam.
And then there's Pat. That's the guy that helps Dan install a ceiling fan while consuming numerous gin & tonics; or texts dad on how to pronounce a French name in his own head while he's reading. I've seen the response "Patrick" and "Mr. Sherwood" have been getting, and maybe Pat can get there someday. [[Dammit, I'm generally steadfast in my refusal to refer to myself in the third-person.]]
In a post a while back I mentioned the size of my physical world, and how, by and large, most people's physical world are pretty darn small. At that time, mine was the general vicinity of Long Beach south of the 405 and in between the 710 and the 605; the high speed corridor know as Interstate 405 that connects Long Beach to Costa Mesa; and a restaurant directly off the freeway, in the parking lot of a mall. That was it: a couple of square miles I bike around in and call home; a stretch of highway; and a restaurant in a mall's parking lot.
Using the bicycle opens up that daily experience and makes the commute more of an accomplishment unto itself. I get to harness the energy of the neighborhood, feel the undertones of anger and struggle, be present in their world, if only briefly. Also, I get to face a significant fear every single day, and I get to stare that bastard down. Also, I get to show the kids that extraordinary things are possible in this world.
Also, I'm back to being "a crazy white guy". As I was puffing along the other night on one of my final post-9 pm darkness-shrouded commutes, I found myself laughing out loud. A phrase had run its course in my skull, and it found its way out of my lips. To that dense Carson air that night I called out, "If your life isn't in constant jeopardy, can you even consider it 'living?'" I guess I was trying to justify to myself my own recklessness.
Jumping subjects, one pretty cool thing I think, at least at this early hour in my residency, is that my partner and I are stationed with a mentor that teaches the same subject all day, and that subject is geometry. The cool consequence of this is that we may be the only two members of the cohort that have freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors in every single one of our periods. We have a cross section of the entire spectrum for the entire day. It's as remarkable as it is fascinating.
And the kids are great. They exist in a world that's so different from mine...at least at home, I 'spose. But being able to not hold where they're from against them, to be able to understand their motivations their world, and then be able to reach them and respect them is the key, obviously. It's probably both possible and mandatory.
This is the first writing I've done that wasn't related to school or quick novel notes...wait, how is this not 'related to school'? I guess I meant that I spent all summer writing essays and papers (though one of which was a fever-dream of reflection and elaboration (my philosophy of education statement titled "The Three Moons and the Philosopher")), and this is the first real debriefing I've given myself.
I have so much more to tell, but will continue to be judicious with the details: privacy is something I'm obligated to recognize.
So...I guess that's what I've been up to...like always, more will always follow...
Although we haven't been doing much on this site, I have been very excited by my recent connections with you fine gentleman: dad and the talks about Rieux and The Plague; and Dan, thanks for coming to lunch instead of going straight to the airport, and I'm sorry I ditched you for the guanciale.
Now my residency has started fully.
That's what I am, technically, a resident teacher. Like a doctor, right? You know, they're doctors, just in residency before being completely credentialed. (Have you met my knee?) That's how we're not really "student teaching", as a verb that dad's familiar with. I am paired with a mentor teacher, as well as a partner from the cohort, and the three of us ultimately figure out how to make it work, the lead taken, obviously, by the mentor.
The school that we as a cohort worked in over the summer differs from the school I've been placed in for the residency in three major ways: 1) level; 2) demographics; and 3) location. In the summer we worked with middle school students; my residency is at a high school. The students that attended the middle school were nearly completely Latino; this high school is probably 57% black to 39% Latino, with a smattering of Pacific Islanders and Nigerians. What's more is that even within the two majority groups there is an entire spectrum of variation, and they all coexist as a vibrant and sometimes uneasy collective.
As far as location goes, according to Google Maps the middle school, which lives in a town called Huntington Park, is a little over eight miles away from the high school, which resides in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County called Westmont. When I used to think of unincorporated land, my brain would head to tiny pockets of community in San Luis county, the largest being Los Osos, which is an actual town.
Westmont has more than twice as many people as Los Osos, but is mostly neighborhood carved out of other people's plans. South Los Angeles surrounds the area.
I'm also trying something novel, but not so new for me: being the crazy white guy.
I ride my bike through some areas that other people---people I work with at the school---would do everything they could to avoid breathing its air, let alone hanging about to do some shopping. Even if shopping was a goal, there'd be limited choices.
But, dang, folks, it's not that bad; it's almost never as bad as the worst fears, and that's just about true everywhere outside of Syria or Iraq. Plus, the ride is not that far and has very little elevation change.
I ride from 103rd and Willowbrook Ave---the Metro Blue stop at Watts Tower, to basically 108th and Normandie, a not-quite five mile ride that takes about (read: exactly) twenty-five minutes. I do, though, use those twenty-five minutes to breach the seven o-clock hour. Any city traffic and attention at that time are far less than even two hours later, let alone the dusky hours of the evening.
I've been learning a good amount, and it's only been a week. Mostly right now the focus is on learning about myself. I'm trying to differentiate the three personalities that I'm harboring and shifting between daily. There's "Mr. Sherwood", the blue-eyed and golden-haired tie-wearing idealist who won't get the 'day-off' on Wednesday that the other members of the cohort get for our single day of all graduate classes (they're being held on this high school campus, and "Mr. Sherwood" doesn't turn off). There's also "Patrick", the overachieving and politically involved writer-chef that skips the party to stay late to help a comrade study for a major exam.
And then there's Pat. That's the guy that helps Dan install a ceiling fan while consuming numerous gin & tonics; or texts dad on how to pronounce a French name in his own head while he's reading. I've seen the response "Patrick" and "Mr. Sherwood" have been getting, and maybe Pat can get there someday. [[Dammit, I'm generally steadfast in my refusal to refer to myself in the third-person.]]
In a post a while back I mentioned the size of my physical world, and how, by and large, most people's physical world are pretty darn small. At that time, mine was the general vicinity of Long Beach south of the 405 and in between the 710 and the 605; the high speed corridor know as Interstate 405 that connects Long Beach to Costa Mesa; and a restaurant directly off the freeway, in the parking lot of a mall. That was it: a couple of square miles I bike around in and call home; a stretch of highway; and a restaurant in a mall's parking lot.
Using the bicycle opens up that daily experience and makes the commute more of an accomplishment unto itself. I get to harness the energy of the neighborhood, feel the undertones of anger and struggle, be present in their world, if only briefly. Also, I get to face a significant fear every single day, and I get to stare that bastard down. Also, I get to show the kids that extraordinary things are possible in this world.
Also, I'm back to being "a crazy white guy". As I was puffing along the other night on one of my final post-9 pm darkness-shrouded commutes, I found myself laughing out loud. A phrase had run its course in my skull, and it found its way out of my lips. To that dense Carson air that night I called out, "If your life isn't in constant jeopardy, can you even consider it 'living?'" I guess I was trying to justify to myself my own recklessness.
Jumping subjects, one pretty cool thing I think, at least at this early hour in my residency, is that my partner and I are stationed with a mentor that teaches the same subject all day, and that subject is geometry. The cool consequence of this is that we may be the only two members of the cohort that have freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors in every single one of our periods. We have a cross section of the entire spectrum for the entire day. It's as remarkable as it is fascinating.
And the kids are great. They exist in a world that's so different from mine...at least at home, I 'spose. But being able to not hold where they're from against them, to be able to understand their motivations their world, and then be able to reach them and respect them is the key, obviously. It's probably both possible and mandatory.
This is the first writing I've done that wasn't related to school or quick novel notes...wait, how is this not 'related to school'? I guess I meant that I spent all summer writing essays and papers (though one of which was a fever-dream of reflection and elaboration (my philosophy of education statement titled "The Three Moons and the Philosopher")), and this is the first real debriefing I've given myself.
I have so much more to tell, but will continue to be judicious with the details: privacy is something I'm obligated to recognize.
So...I guess that's what I've been up to...like always, more will always follow...
Don't Click Start... Type 'Load "*" , 8, 1
I am a fan of Star Wars. I have been for a long time. Well, I saw something today that cracked me up... and thought there was no better time to talk about it and get it all out.
As a fan of Star Wars I have to be mindful of some things... not everyone sees things the way I do. And that goes for fellow fans of the movies I might add... for there are things that happen in the movies which is considered 'canon' and things that are assumed to have happened that are also 'canon.' This canon we speak of is what George Lucas, the Universe Creator, says is true and an actual part of the story line as described in the feature films and officially licensed spin offs.
This is a GD double edged sword. Why? Well, for a few reasons... here is one:
Barring that one... we will continue.
While in New York about three weeks ago (maybe two) my esteemed brother and I had a conversation about the Star Wars movies and how we, as fans, would show them to someone who had not viewed them. We came to the conclusion that some of the movies are not good enough to be watched even once... that some of the 'canon' created by Lucas is crap.
To bring this full circle (I mean, to bring in the title of this post...) I recently saw something. It is 0230 on Saturday night, Sunday morning and I can't sleep. I am up surfing the web when I come across a page on the very 'tongue in cheek titled' Wookiepedia. Let me set this up... I was checking out a page that stated Billy Dee Williams' son was an actor who was in Return of the Jedi with his father, and who also stood in for his dad in a stunt scene... Clicking the link for Williams Jr. takes me to the character site... which in turn made me look into another side character... who I have always thought was a pile of shit. Again, the title of this post. And, in the picture I am posting, please take care to notice the [SRC] for the Darth Vader quote for Boba Fett.
I took the screen capture while hovering over the source... I was a little interested to know when, and in what context, that line was ever uttered. But not anymore. To use that as the Source for any quote is awful, but it seems fitting for Boba Fett.
He is the absolute worst. He dies in Return of the Jedi. Arnold Schwarzenegger has more lines in Terminator than this character does in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I am not sure who thinks he was cool enough to expand on... oh, wait. Yeah I do. The gentleman who was responsible for this:
Who would have ever expected C-3P0 to shoot,
So, after all is said and done, the 'canon' is not to be trusted. Han shot first, Boba Fett should be dead, and why would the programming in a droid that was created by Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker compatible with droid programming that was from across the galaxy and mass produced? That would be like saying a Commodore 64 would run on the touch screen enabled Windows 8. Don't Click Start... Type 'Load "*" , 8, 1.
A few links for your approval.
Boba Fett Wookieepedia
More People Who Believe
Basically this is a post to ensure that people watch the video (second link) and laugh at the first one.
Wood Out
As a fan of Star Wars I have to be mindful of some things... not everyone sees things the way I do. And that goes for fellow fans of the movies I might add... for there are things that happen in the movies which is considered 'canon' and things that are assumed to have happened that are also 'canon.' This canon we speak of is what George Lucas, the Universe Creator, says is true and an actual part of the story line as described in the feature films and officially licensed spin offs.
This is a GD double edged sword. Why? Well, for a few reasons... here is one:
Barring that one... we will continue.
While in New York about three weeks ago (maybe two) my esteemed brother and I had a conversation about the Star Wars movies and how we, as fans, would show them to someone who had not viewed them. We came to the conclusion that some of the movies are not good enough to be watched even once... that some of the 'canon' created by Lucas is crap.
To bring this full circle (I mean, to bring in the title of this post...) I recently saw something. It is 0230 on Saturday night, Sunday morning and I can't sleep. I am up surfing the web when I come across a page on the very 'tongue in cheek titled' Wookiepedia. Let me set this up... I was checking out a page that stated Billy Dee Williams' son was an actor who was in Return of the Jedi with his father, and who also stood in for his dad in a stunt scene... Clicking the link for Williams Jr. takes me to the character site... which in turn made me look into another side character... who I have always thought was a pile of shit. Again, the title of this post. And, in the picture I am posting, please take care to notice the [SRC] for the Darth Vader quote for Boba Fett.
I took the screen capture while hovering over the source... I was a little interested to know when, and in what context, that line was ever uttered. But not anymore. To use that as the Source for any quote is awful, but it seems fitting for Boba Fett.
He is the absolute worst. He dies in Return of the Jedi. Arnold Schwarzenegger has more lines in Terminator than this character does in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I am not sure who thinks he was cool enough to expand on... oh, wait. Yeah I do. The gentleman who was responsible for this:
Who would have ever expected C-3P0 to shoot,
So, after all is said and done, the 'canon' is not to be trusted. Han shot first, Boba Fett should be dead, and why would the programming in a droid that was created by Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker compatible with droid programming that was from across the galaxy and mass produced? That would be like saying a Commodore 64 would run on the touch screen enabled Windows 8. Don't Click Start... Type 'Load "*" , 8, 1.
A few links for your approval.
Boba Fett Wookieepedia
More People Who Believe
Basically this is a post to ensure that people watch the video (second link) and laugh at the first one.
Wood Out
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