Category Archives: Internet Culture

Six Seasons…

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Nostalgia

…and a movie?

So, today was the end of Community for us. For me, it was all the more poignant because I knew there would truly be no more seasons. They had been talking about the cancellation for years, preparing each season for it to be their last, but this felt much more final, with the original cast of seven whittled down to four, and two of those moving away.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that it was the last series of any note put out by Yahoo TV, but I didn’t know that until afterwards.

Perhaps it was because the endings of the last few episodes were so nihilistic so as to break five or six walls[1].

The interesting thing for me was how Jeff became the one to want to keep everyone at Greendale, having to learn to let things (and people) go. One could say that a lot of the series is about his character development, how it taught him to feel for others, to feel their pain, but that enabled him to feel his own pain, and perhaps learn to accept it[2]

It’s also clear to me that there’s a lot of pain in Dan Harmon, and perhaps the rest of the writers, to be able to so viscerally show that on screen. I feel this last season was where they really let that go. I wonder if something changed there, or if they knew this was really the end, with all of the actors growing up and having other major roles elsewhere.

Either way, I’m looking forward to what each of these people can do, and maybe even the movie. 😀

[1]Characters in a commercial discovering a script for their commercial, thereby proving that they don’t actually exist? Classic, but so so dark.

[2]Maybe I notice him more because I’m also a tall white guy. YMMV.

Toy Boxes and Connections

Internet Culture, Nostalgia, Organizing Systems, Space!, Things We've Built

Recently, I spent a few hours going through my old toy box from my childhood. I found a number of curiosities (which I’ll share later), but I wanted to give my first impressions.

The toybox my dad made for me so many years ago.
The toybox my dad made for me so many years ago.

Above is the toybox my dad made for me so many years ago. It was a lot of fun, even going through and unpacking all the things inside.

Interestingly, all the way through, I was thinking about all of the connections I could make with people based on the things in the box. Finally sorting my Lego pieces so that S and I could download instructions (or use the classic instructions still in the box!) and make things together. Taking all of the various parts of games and toys and putting them up on this blog or on fb, to see if people could help me figure out what they were (thinking they might enjoy that challenge (and the nostalgia) too).

Perhaps most poignantly, I came across the numbers ‘1’, ‘2’, and ‘8’, written on tape, attached to Lego pieces. I think that they were part of that one time I brought the miniature city I had built[1] and was so proud of, and labeled parts of it. Anyways, I was going to use this as an excuse to ask my dad if he had any pictures of that, or other things I/we had built, so we could bond over that.

And perhaps I could bond a little with that child from so long ago. One of the things I found was a mint. S mentioned that young me was eating mints, and had somehow left one for me, some way of communicating across the decades.

One of the things I want to do there is to build again my favourite spaceship (it had three parts which were each their own ship!), and my favourite town set, the classic fire station.

The toybox all sorted, with Spaceship! (And Fire Station! (And Space Station!))
The toybox all sorted, with Spaceship! (And Fire Station! (And Space Station!))

Happily, it seems that most of (or at least a lot of) the space parts are still there. Sadly, it seems that many of the essential parts for the fire station are not present. It had a really cool slidy-up-and-down front door to each of the fire truck bays. Of the 46 pieces involved, I was only able to find about 10 of the grooves, and three of the roll-top-desk-like part things. But then I remembered the internet! So, brickinstructions.com has a parts list for the fire hall, and they link to Bricklink, where you can purchase the part! And not even that expensive! I love online communities.

Maybe I’ll connect with other people about this, too.

Here’s to connecting with ourselves from so long ago, and maybe helping us connect with ourselves and each other right now.

[1]It even included a hockey rink! With a swimming pool underneath, with real water in it! Lego is surprisingly water-tight. Or maybe there was a lining. I don’t remember. I just remember the paper rink surface getting wet. 😀

TNG: The Power of Adversaries, Season 7

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Nostalgia, Space!

Season seven is a bit of an enigma for me. I don’t remember most of it, probably because I’ve never actually watched most of it[1].

S7: 20-100 2-102-1 210-11 -12-121 -102-122

High: 9 (2 for ‘All Good Things…’)
Equal: 3
Low: 6
Self: 8

Season seven continues with the themes of self-searching along with terrifically difficult adversaries which must be defeated using guile.

Jammer’s Reviews mentions in the season seven reviews that there were a number of episodes designed to tie up loose ends, specifically having to do with the families of each of the main characters. Interestingly, the writers managed to do this while keeping the same mix of adversary power as they had in previous seasons.

This season includes some of my favourites, including ‘The Pegasus‘, about regret over decisions made decades ago (and some more meaningful conflict between Riker and Picard, more meaningful than Riker just questioning everything Picard says for the sake of questioning things), Wesley going off with the Traveler, Ro Laren going off with the Maquis, spinning off into many storylines for DS9 (and not incidentally Voyager).

But the crown has to be the season finale, ‘All Good Things…’, where for one brief moment, our (and Picard’s) eyes are opened just a little bit to some of the other things which are possible, both out there, and in here.

[1]I don’t remember why specifically, I think I must have been distracted by something, because I think I stopped watching TV somewhere around then.

TNG: The Power of Adversaries: Recap

Analysis, Internet Culture, Nostalgia, Space!

Now that we’ve looked at all seven seasons of TNG, we can look at the series as a whole.

Somewhere between season 3 & 4, the balance shifted from low-powered adversaries to the crew (or Starfleet) themselves as the adversaries. Perhaps this is because you have to have a certain number of ‘plot‘ episodes before you can have a ‘character study‘[1].

All the way through, the plurality in almost every season was adversaries of much greater power than the crew. This makes sense if you want to show your cast using guile, as in these situations, they simply have to.

As pithily explained in ‘Peak Performance‘:

”

Commander William T. Riker: You’re outmanned, you’re outgunned, you’re outequipped. What else have you got?
Lieutenant Worf: Guile.

”

Almost all of the episodes with ‘equal’ adversaries (generally Romulans, Klingons, or Cardassians) also involved guile of some sort. It wasn’t until the Dominion War on DS9 that phasers were commonly used to solve problems.

Below I have my categorization by episode, for those who enjoy arguments of this type.

Episode order is from Jammer’s Reviews, but should be the same as that from elsewhere, such as Memory Alpha.

Season 1 (25 episodes):2-102220-1202101020-1-1202211
High: 10
Equal: 4
Low: 7
Self: 4

Season 2 (22 episodes):02100-121-1-1222-10200-111-1
High: 6
Equal: 4
Low: 6
Self: 6

Season 3 (26 episodes):0020-121001002-12-11222-10-1-1-12
High: 8
Equal: 3
Low: 8
Self: 7

Season Four (26 episodes): 2-120202-1221112022-122-10-11-12
High: 12
Equal: 4
Low: 4
Self: 6

Season Five (26 episodes): 21122-1110-1-10002-102-1-1-12-12-12
High: 8
Equal: 4
Low: 5
Self: 9

S6: 2-102220-10-12101-1-120-1-1201-122
High: 9
Equal: 3
Low: 6
Self: 8

S7: 20-1002-102-1210-11-12-121-102-122
High: 9 (2 for ‘All Good Things…’)
Equal: 3
Low: 6
Self: 8

[1]I credit Ty Templeton’s Comic Book Bootcamp for teaching me about such things. All errors are my own. You should check out his classes!

TNG: The Power of Adversaries, Seasons 4-5

Analysis, Internet Culture, Nostalgia, Space!, Thoughts on Thoughts

Continuing from where we left off talking about TNG: Seasons 1-3, here are the stats for the power levels of the crew’s adversaries in Seasons four and five.

As before, I defined ‘high-powered’ challenges as those where firing phasers would only make the problem worse, so the crew must needs turn to guile. ‘Equal-powered’ challenges are those situations where firing phasers would lead to a toss-up. ‘Low-powered’ challenges are those where phasers or transporters would solve the problem handily[3]. ‘Self-powered’ challenges are those where the conflict is inside the crew, or between crew members, or between all or part of the crew and Starfleet.

Seasons four and five seem to be exploring alternately how the crew deals with very strong external adversaries and wrestling with themselves.

Season Four (26 episodes): 2-120202-1221112022-122-10-11-12
High: 12
Equal: 4
Low: 4
Self: 6

“The Best of Both Worlds (part II)” and “Family” are probably the best example of this.

Or you could look at “Night Terrors” (‘One moon circles.’, still the best metaphor for Hydrogen I’ve seen) and “The Drumhead” as (for me) two other good examples.

Another example which marries the two is “Remember Me“.

Season Five (26 episodes): 21122-1110-1-10002-102-1-1-12-12-12
High: 8
Equal: 4
Low: 5
Self: 9

Season five’s “The Game” is a good example of an episode which is difficult to categorize between ‘high-powered adversary’ and ‘self-adversary’. To me, the episode is really about the crew struggling with themselves and an addiction. Else, you could see it as them struggling against magic mind-controlling aliens.

However, changing this wouldn’t really change the overall stats for the season.

“Conundrum” contains the line which was the inspiration for this series of posts: “One photon torpedo would have ended their war.” It had some excellent moments talking about the ethical use of power, I think a hallmark of TNG (and much of Star Trek).

Any conversation about season five would be incomplete without mentioning “The Inner Light“, perhaps discussing some similar issues to “Remember Me” above. For me, “The Inner Light” was the most poignant, for the way it portrayed memory and loss, nostalgia and time passing. May we all have an epitaph as powerful.

But for now, I will continue with analyzing TV from my childhood[1].

[1]And puns.

The

Internet Culture, Puns, Thoughts on Thoughts, Words!

Earlier tonight, I was at a dinner where awards were being presented. One of the awardees had a name with only four characters (two each for first and last name). S mentioned that this would be incredibly useful for anonymity, because you would never be findable[1].

This got us to thinking that if or when we have a child, we should call it ‘It The’. Of course to do this, we would have to change our last name to ‘The’, but since our most recent last namechange to ‘Spaceman’ that’s not as much of a stretch.

Of course, since our consulting group is called ‘the The Group’, this would make for some interesting descriptive sentences, such as:

‘The Thes of the The Group’

But we then decided that ‘The’ should be a title as well as a last name[2], leading to:

‘Sarah The, the The, and Bryan The, the The, the The Thes of the The Group.’

You’re welcome.

-S&B The.

“Ruining Language.”

[1]’findable’, or ‘findeable’?

[2]cf. ‘Thane’

TNG: The Power of Adversaries, Seasons 1-3

Analysis, Internet Culture, Nostalgia, Space!

Today, I was thinking about the power levels[1] of the various adversaries that the TNG[2] crew had encountered. They faced some truly powerful adversaries, like the judging trickster god Q, alongside challenges which were only challenging because they were being polite (anything to do with Lwaxana Troi or almost anything to do with the Ferengi), or because of the Prime Directive .

At the same time, they faced a number of challenges which of a relatively similar power level (Most things to do with the Klingons and Romulans), and more often than you think, the challenge was within them, or within Starfleet.

I defined ‘high-powered’ challenges as those where firing phasers would only make the problem worse, so the crew must needs turn to guile. ‘Equal-powered’ challenges are those situations where firing phasers would lead to a toss-up. ‘Low-powered’ challenges are those where phasers or transporters would solve the problem handily[3]. ‘Self-powered’ challenges are those where the conflict is inside the crew, or between crew members, or between all or part of the crew and Starfleet. So, without further ado:

Season 1 (25 episodes):
High: 10
Equal: 4
Low: 7
Self: 4

Season 1 starts with a Q episode, and of the first few seasons is the one with the most high powered adversaries. TNG also had not totally found its footing around the introspective episodes (the closest they came was the fanservice ‘Naked Now’ and Picard reliving his past on The Stargazer in ‘The Battle’), but was well on its way with a sheaf of episodes which only contained conflict because of the Prime Directive[4].

Season 2 (22 episodes):
High: 6
Equal: 4
Low: 6
Self: 6

A couple of good Klingon stories (K’Ehleyr!), we encounter the Borg for the first time, a couple of good Data stories. A workable season, reasonably even all around.

Season 3 (26 episodes):
High: 8
Equal: 3
Low: 8
Self: 7

A number of Prime Directive/Ethical stories, Riker getting himself into trouble, Tasha returns! And Tin Man(!), one of my favourites, if only for the poignant ending scene, where Tam finally finds his Gomtuu, and peace[5].

Stay tuned for the next update, where we learn that Data is actually a high-powered adversary.

Note Bit thanks to Jammer’s Reviews of TNG, which inspired and also made this a lot easier, with 3-line summaries of the episodes.

[1]Q is > 9000.

[2]Star Trek: The Next Generation.

[3]Although possibly with some casualties, in a hostage situation.

[4]Not necessarily a bad thing, just pointing it out.

[5]Also an excellent allegory to help understand people who are highly sensitive.

The Internet of Thins

Engineering, Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Puns, Science!, Thoughts on Thoughts, Words!

S and I were walking down the street today, and were thinking about the Internet of Things. Now, it’s a buzzword, and should be taken with a similar-sized grain of salt to all other similar buzzwords.

So we attempted to come up with the worst ideas possible for an Internet of Things.

The first idea was to put chips/sensors in each block in the sidewalk. But thinking about it, that would be really useful. Similar to rail lines[1], there is a widely distributed infrastructure, and checking each part individually is expensive.

Then we thought of putting individual chips/sensors in each tile in a person’s house. How silly would that be? But then you could know exactly what the person was doing, turn lights on and off correctly, rather than the current primitive motion sensors, help people track a daily routine, all kinds of things.

But the last idea we came up with led to the title of this post. What if every cracker you ate had a sensor/chip in it? You would have an almost continuous stream of data about your digestive system, what you were eating, how your body was responding to it. Think of the advances in nutrition science!

And we would owe it all to the Internet of Thins[2].

[1]Look it up! Think about the maintenance costs of surveying 140,000 miles of track.

[2]Gluten-free Wheat Thins for some.

Further Proof that the Internet is made of Cats

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Puns

If you’ve ever wondered[1] whether the Internet is made up of cats, think about inactivity timeouts. You watch cats playing, partway through, one of them will stop moving, distracted by something, and the other will wait for a while, then timeout and just walk away.

If you still don’t believe me, look at this picture and think about all the times your computer put itself into what felt like an infinite loop because of something you asked it to do:

Black cat being snowed on. "I can't believe I volunteered to pose for this picture."
“I can’t believe I volunteered to pose for this picture.”

[1]As opposed to it being obvious.

Computers Win when the Rules are Fixed

Internet Culture, Machine Learning, Programming, Thoughts on Thoughts

One of the important reminders from game four of Alpha Go vs. Lee Sodol was the difference between what computers and humans are each best at.

Traditionally, computers were best at the most repetitive tasks, that were well understood and could be completely described.

If you talk to any release or test engineer, they will tell you that once you can fully describe a process, it’s only a few more steps to be able to automate it.

What makes Machine Learning so tantalizing is that it’s been giving hints of being able to learn to perform not-fully-described tasks, most recently Go.

At the same time, Machine Learning still requires thousands or millions of examples in order to be able to ‘see’ things, whereas humans can understand and make inferences with many fewer examples. It’s unclear to me (and I’m guessing most people) exactly why this is. It’s like there’s something about the way we learn things which helps us learn other things.

But back to the topic at hand. What game four showed us (yet again) is that the better defined the problem, the better humans perform vs. computers.

A different example of this is how high paid market research analysts are being replaced by automation, doing in minutes what would take the analysts days.

So, how do you stay relevant as things become more and more automated and automateable?

As Lee Sedol showed, one strategy is to play Calvinball[1]. Find the part of your discipline that is the least defined, and pour yourself into pushing that boundary, leaving defined pieces in your wake[2].

Note: Playing Strategema like Data is another ‘fun’ option[3], but most useful only when playing against a computer opponent, not so much for forging your own path. It consists of playing sub-optimal moves so as to confuse or anger the other player, to thrown them off balance. It is postulated that Deep Blue did this to Kasparov.

[1]Calvinball is a mostly fictional game invented by Bill Watterson for Calvin and Hobbes. The game has only one rule, that it can never be played the same way twice.

[2]Technically, Lee Sedol played a very ‘loose’ game, which was difficult to define, where parts of the board far away from each other were more easily related. You can also use this tactic to find things and do them in a way where humans are better than computers.

[3]We called this ‘victory through annoyance’ during undergrad. It had mixed reviews.