I’m thinking strongly about seeing the movie Solaris, whose plot revolves around an unknown force that makes manifest people using only the memories from others. Roger Ebert made a striking point in his review of the 2002 version:
The genius of Lem’s underlying idea is that the duplicates, or replicants, or whatever we choose to call them, are self-conscious and seem to carry on with free will from the moment they are evoked by the planet. Rheya, for example, says, “I’m not the person I remember. I don’t remember experiencing these things.” And later, “I’m suicidal because that’s how you remember me.” In other words, Kelvin gets back not his dead wife, but a being who incorporates all he knows about his dead wife, and nothing else, and starts over from there. She has no secrets because he did not know her secrets. If she is suicidal, it is because he thought she was. The deep irony here is that all of our relationships in the real world are exactly like that, even without the benefit of Solaris. We do not know the actual other person. What we know is the sum of everything we think we know about them. Even empathy is perhaps of no use; we think it helps us understand how other people feel, but maybe it only tells us how we would feel, if we were them.
Apparently the 1972 version is quite good as well, but who knows if I could even find it.
The iTunes we all know, love, and use has a convenient music sharing feature. It allows people on a the same network to listen to one another’s music. This is particularly useful in a University setting; you can see the music of everyone in a dorm, in a common area, and in the library. Recently, when Mykala and myself were studying for finals in the library, I decided to open up iTunes and see what libraries were available from my collegiate colleagues. The list of the library names that appeared follows:
DC’s music
zach neubauer’s library
porn starr
ballsack
snap yo fangalz 2 deez jangalz
What sort of college educated person names their iTunes library “porn star,” but with two r’s in “star”? It’s like these people’s 13 year old siblings named their iTunes library. They’re either not creative or offensive, with the notable exception of the final library name. That is a fantastic name. After that, I turned up the speakers on Mykala’s laptop and used the whoopie cushion dashboard widget. Who’s acting their age now?
Whoa. As I write, graduation with a B.S. in biochemistry and life-changing changes all crash down at once. I should brainstorm for some sort of longer form writing about these events. I could call my writing a “post” … and then, as they accumulate, arrange these “posts” in reverse chronological order on a sort of faux-forum online. I’ll call that a world wide web log of my life. Perhaps I could shorten that to “web log.” Or even “blog.”
Nah. That’d never catch on.
I lie awake because I’m scared
I’m not as fake as you once heard
But we’ll lay down now making sure we
Put these words between us
Can you hear us falling
We’re falling faster
It’s hard to remember
Where we were at a year before
I just wanted to take this moment to point out that, recently, the land speed record for furniture has been broken. Interestingly, I do not think that there is a land speed record for anything other than furniture. Anyhow, due to the engineering expertise of Marek Turowsk, a modified sofa traveled 92mph.
Add some blinkers, headlights, etc. to make it street-legal … and, well you still wouldn’t be able to make turns. But you’d be driving around in a sofa.
I bought a car off a couple of ladies way upstate
Took off the Greenpeace sticker and the New Hampshire plates
My friends are saying that I may have made a mistake
But I tell ‘em have a little faith now fellas, just you wait
Puttin’ in the new shocks and the anti-lock brakes
One touch ignition for convenience sake
And when I’m through it’s gonna look and run better than new
So baby don’t make a move
Because I’m coming for you
I’m coming for you
You better make way cause I’m coming through
In my late ‘92 baby blue
Subaru
KeyCue - Now this is brilliant: an application that shows you all the keyboard shortcuts for your current application. It’s like a little training program to help you use your computer faster … no more searching for shortcuts.