Ender In Exile

I’m not exactly a die-hard Orson Scott Card fan. I’ve read a few of his books, but none of them really made much of an impression on me except for Ender’s Game. Of course, sci-fi addict that I am, I always look forward to any excuse that allows me to spend a couple hours wrapped up in blankets and reading something about aliens. So I picked up Ender In Exile.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say Ender In Exile is bad, but I get the feeling that Card has exhausted his literary creativity and is now using fiction as an outlet for social commentary. I’m reminded somewhat of Ayn Rand: the plot and characters are disposable. Only the political and social philosophy really matters.

This is an irritating trend that I’ve seen in other authors recently. Most notably, Neal Stephenson’s Anathem was, though interesting, basically an 800-page explanation of his theory that there are multiple universes. If I want to learn about the universe, I’d rather go to class.

Characterizing Ender In Exile in this way is a little unfair, though. Card’s stories are never really disposable, and his social commentary, blatant as it is, is held pretty well in check. That and his social commentary is actually pretty interesting. But just as a story, Ender In Exile is no more than an expansion of the last 10-or-so pages of Ender’s Game. There aren’t any striking revelations.

I suppose if you actually read the series in the proper order — not the order in which they were written — Ender In Exile’s existence is more justifiable. In short, I’d say it’s a fun read, but it’s not worth overnighting it from Amazon.

Terminator Chess

In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles season 2, episode 12, the character James Ellison plays a game of chess against a cyborg. Though we aren’t privy to the opening moves of the game, we do get to see the end of it.

The camera never really shows the board all that well, but I grabbed a couple screenshots (all from hulu.com) from which I could piece together not only the first position shown, but also the moves they made from there.

The first position we see (left — click to enlarge) reveals a few things. First, black has two bishops on the same color. This is entirely possible through pawn promotion, but it’s highly unlikely. A queen promotion, for example, would be the same but better. Second, black has mate in 6 no matter what white does. Third, ironically, the black guy is playing white and the white guy is playing black.

Initial position

Black moves first with 1. …Nxb2. This isn’t a particularly bad move, but 1. …Qxb4 is a little better, I think.

1. ...Nxb2

Ellison playing 2. d4

James Ellison does not appear to be a very skilled chess player. His next move is 2. d4?? A significantly better move is, say, 2. hxg3, but then again, a significantly better player would have resigned by this point.

It should be noted that the picture to the left is easily the clearest image of the entire game.

2. d4

The cyborg responds with 2. …Qxd4, clearly sensing mate with 3. …Qxf2#.

2. ...Qxd4

Ellison, oblivious to his fate (which he could prolong with 3. hxg3), decides to try 3. Nd5?? instead.

3. Nd5

The cyborg then plays 3 …Qxf2# and announces his victory with glee.

Cyborg playing 3. ...Qxf2#

Checkmate: 3. ...Qxf2#

Brief Analysis

Black, obviously, had this game won even before we were shown anything, but it’s surprising to me that a) he promoted a pawn to a bishop and b) that he hadn’t mated white earlier. Given that black has such a strong position and that he was able to promote at all makes me wonder how the board even ended up like this.

Tongue-in-cheekness aside, I do have to give kudos to the good people at Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for showing a chess game of entirely legal moves, and for finishing it with an entirely valid checkmate. Hopefully, though, they’ll hire someone who could create a more realistic chess game because, to be honest, I don’t think of Ellison as such a dumb person.

It’s also worth mentioning that there is no longer any doubt that this cyborg — “John Henry” — is the one the Connors are looking for. Remember that the AI they think will take over the world is one based on a chess-playing program, so my guess is that this chess game is symbolic of the origin of the John Henry program. Of course, it was pretty obvious that this AI was important to the story, but I take this scene as a subtle confirmation of my suspicions.

Burn After Reading

I’ve always been a fan of the Coen brothers — not obsessive-and-creepy-kind-of-fan, but rather I always seem to enjoy their films (particularly Fargo, which may be one of the greatest films of all time (up there with Pulp Fiction)) — so I was really looking forward to Burn After Reading. With the Coen brothers, you never really know what to expect: you’ll probably get some sort of gruesome violence, you might get some dark humor, there’s even a chance that you’ll get some romance.

Burn After Reading did not disappoint. I can honestly say that this is the first film I’ve seen where a single scene has both horrified me and made me laugh uncontrollably for about 5 minutes. Seriously. I was a messed up person after watching this movie.

In all honesty, I was a little apprehensive about the movie. I don’t usually find John Malkovich very funny, just weird and a little gross. Somehow, though, the Coen brothers managed to turn his weird grossness into ridiculous hilarity.

The plot is, of course, unspeakably absurd, and the only (but necessary) departures in the film from the absurdity are a couple of CIA officials portrayed by JK Simmons and David Rasche (“necessary” because, as all good dramatists (e.g. Shakespeare) know, drama must be broken up by comedy and comedy by drama).

As a final note, I think both Brad Pitt and George Clooney were absolutely brilliant.

The Worst Thing About Identity Theft

Identity theft seems to be the number-one thing to be scared of in this modern world. Terrorism-shmerrorism, everybody feels safe enough to fly on airplanes, but everyone and his mother seems to be a victim of identity theft.

Not to say that I personally am a victim (my mother isn’t either). What really bothers me is not that there’s a chance some Finnish guy might steal my credit card number, but that it takes me like six and half hours to buy anything worth more than $30.

I was out shopping today, and I tried to, you know, buy stuff with a credit card. The limit on said card is like $25,000 and I was spending a couple hundred so I figured I’d be OK. I wasn’t. The card wasn’t exactly rejected: the cashier just had to call the card company and tell them I was who I said I was. Of course they didn’t believe the cashier, so they had to talk me. Our conversation went something like this:

Credit Card Guy: Hi, are you <my full name>?

Me: Uh-huh

CCG: Yeah, I want to confirm some past purchases. Did you spend twenty dollars at a gas station yesterday?

Me: Uh-huh

CCG: Ok, two weeks ago we rejected your card three times because it was being used in Ukraine.

Me: I was in Ukraine two weeks ago.

CCG: And two days ago we rejected it for being used out of state.

Me: Yeah, that was me trying to buy food on the way back from the airport.

CCG: So this isn’t a concern to you?

Me: My concern is that I can’t buy anything with this card. Can you approve this transaction so I can get my pants and go home? Please?

CCG: <mumbles something>

Basically, people are so paranoid of having their identities stolen that they’re willing to put up with the most annoying crap when they legitimately want to buy something. “Oh come on,” you might say, “it’s a lot worse having your identity stolen than having to deal with credit card protection.” You may very well be right. I’m not really angry at the credit card companies and banks for trying to protect their customers. I’m mad at the stupid thieves who get their ha-ha’s from stealing other people’s private information.

So I say to you so-called identity thieves: fuck off and find a less annoying way of stealing money.

Political Buzzwords

One of my favorite things about presidential debates is that candidates invariably latch onto a set of particular phrases and words that they use in almost every sentence. I don’t mean rhetorical tics like McCain’s “My friends,” and Obama’s “Look.” I mean the phrases that refer to a simple concept which the candidates feel the majority of Americans are too stupid to fully understand.

The easy example, of course, is “Joe the plumber.” God knows how many millions of times we heard that one. One of my other favorites from this past presidential race came up in one of the three debates. Both McCain and Obama used the phrase “litmus test” in reference to how they would appoint supreme court justices.

An actual litmus test

In politics, of course, a litmus test is a single question you could ask a potential candidate and their answer would determine whether he or she is appointed. But I, scientist at heart, thought immediately of the actual litmus test: the one you use to measure the pH of something.

So upon hearing McCain speak of litmus tests, I thought “Ooh! Science!” I was disappointed to learn that he meant it in the strictly political sense. My disappointment quickly became amusement, though, when I heard the phrase repeated for a total of 5 times (3 McCain, 2 Obama).

But 5 litmus tests isn’t nearly as amusing as Al Gore saying he’d put social security into a “lockbox” seven times during his first debate with Bush. I’m pretty sure nobody had any goddamn clue what he was talking about. Man, if he hadn’t said “lockbox” so many times he’d probably have won the election.

Finding Love With Google

Or not :(