Category Archives: Fandom

Come With Me If You Want to Live

Over the past few weeks, people have been growing increasingly nervous about the Conficker worm. All anyone’s knew about it until now is that it was going to start looking for a message on April 1.
It appears Conficker has received its message, and it isn’t one that’s good for us.
Google has announced their new Artificial Intelligence, CADIE (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity).
I’ve already taken a look at CADIE’s homepage and YouTube channel and as far as I can tell, it’s indistinguishable from what most humans put on line. And if you can’t reliably tell an A.I. apart from a human, then the A.I. has passed the Turing Test.
Now we know what the Conficker worm is: It’s Google’s A.I. Or rather, it’s Skynet.
If you need me for anything, I’ll be hanging out with Sarah Conner.

Anticipation

For the sixth year in a row, I’m the webmaster for the Shore Leave Science Fiction convention. Clearly this proves I’m insane, but insanity can be a good thing.

A couple weeks ago I got the word from Kett (the person responsible for booking the actors) that there would be a bunch of actors to announce this past weekend and could I possibly put up a message saying that a guest announcement was pending. So I put a message on the home page, along with a set of photos of a plush bunny labeled “Guest to be Announced Soon!” The guest names, photos and biographies came in over the next several days.

Kett called me on Sunday so we could doublecheck that everything was ready to go with the announcement. During the conversation, she mentioned that the people who participate on the GateWorld message board (a Star Gate fan site) loved the bunny photos and had been digging into the web site, trying to find clues about who the guests might be and checking for updates on a very regular basis (I’d noticed a spike in traffic as soon as the announcement went up).

At that point, all I needed was the official “Go Ahead” from the convention chairs. In the meantime, I couldn’t help myself. I added a message on the home page saying, “Hello GateWorlders! The update is nearly here, just making sure we chase off all the wraiths first.” (Wraiths being the villains, or in this case, an analog for last minute glitches – nothing like having problems come up during a high-profile update.)
I took a look at GateWorld site and found the thread where they were chatting about Shore Leave. Kett wasn’t fooling about their level of activity.

6:28 PM EST: I posted the first “Hello GateWorld” message on the home page.
6:31 PM: The first GateWorlder reported that a new message had appeared.
8:08 PM: I updated the message to say “The update is nearly here, we’re dialing the chevrons now.” (“Dialing the chevrons” being something analogous to dialing a phone number people on the show do when they’re programming the stargate with a destination.)
8:11 PM: The update was noticed!
8:15 PM: A final message, “Chevrons locked. Update in progress.” (The “phone call” was connected, the exploration team can now walk through to another planet.)
8:17 PM: The message was noticed almost immediately and people started hitting the web site in earnest, trying to be the first to see the update.
The home page is always the last thing I update. That way nobody sees a guest announcement, until all the details are visible. (Even with my high speed connection, updates still take a few moments.)
8:22 PM: They even read The News Page! Nobody ever reads the news page! It doesn’t contain nearly as many details as the other pages.
8:24 PM: And the fans go wild….

Judging by the comments on the GateWorld site, some of those folks probably think I’m a bit cruel.

Trekkies Will Buy Anything that says Star Trek…

I forget where I first heard that rather cynical sentiment, but looking at the vast array of Officially Sanctioned Star Trek™ merchandise available in even fairly mainstream stores (e.g. Target), it’s sometimes difficult to dispute the claim, and even more maddening to find myself falling into that stereotype. (On the other hand, I’ve thus far avoided any temptation to remodel my house to look like the Enterprise™. The existing renovation project was daunting enough on its own.)
Tonight though, I ran across a particularly egregious example of that apparent belief: Think Geek is selling a light switchplate for $17.99 that you can make yourself for less than $5.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Think Geek and do shop there on occasion. (After all, who doesn’t need an Annoyatron or two from time to time?) I’m also well aware that when you buy from a boutique like that which caters to a particular audience (in this case, geeks like me), you’re going to pay a little more than if you bought the same product elsewhere. The two-to-three hundred percent mark up just seems a bit outrageous is all.
I’ll admit to being curious how many people will buy this product, but I won’t be one of them. (I bought mine 15 years ago and paid considerably less.)
(More on this at the Blah, Blah, Blog.)

Revealing Luke's Secret Plan

A while back, I noticed that one of the posts on Luke’s “Toothface” blog starts off with the sentence, “I was introduced to Keith Olbermann from my BSG Seminary Collegue this past winter.” I’ve been intrigued by that statement ever since.
I’m by no means well-versed in the names of the various seminaries in existence, but a reference to a “BSG Seminary” definitely catches my eye. Particularly when it comes from Luke, because the two of us share an appreciation for the TV show Battlestar Galactica or, as it’s known in some circles, “BSG.”
I don’t recall anyone on the show ever mentioning a seminary, but the show has embraced religious themes from the first episode, so it’s not much of a stretch for there to have been a seminary somewhere along the line.
There’s also an interesting distinction to be made: Luke subscribes to a monotheistic belief system. The human survivors of the twelve colonies, for the most part, follow a polytheistic religion (it’s not entirely clear whether the colonials worship the Greek/Roman gods).
There are exceptions of course. Along with a few atheists, there are a few who believe in only one god. I believe Kara Thrace (“Starbuck”) is an example of the latter group.
Of course, there’s another group in Battlestar Galactica who worship only one god: The Cylons. And the Cylons also have religous leaders, such as Brother Cavil.

The Cylons were created by Man
They Rebelled
They Evolved
There are Many Copies
And They Have a Plan

I’m onto your plan Luke!!!