Falling Skies takes place in a near future alternate reality where aliens invaded Earth and just about destroyed everything. The series opens with a kid describing the first contact and subsequent invasion. All of the major cities and most of the military was destroyed all in one swoop. The series follows a group of resistance fighters that are struggling to survive. Some people want to strike back, but the military commander is convinced that splitting up and going to ground is the best move right now. The main character, Tom Mason played by Noah Wyle, happens to be second in command of a small splinter group. He has three sons, one very little, another in his late teens, and the last one has been captured by the aliens. The general feel seems to be something similar to Terminator and the new Battlestar Galactica.

Tom Mason was a US history professor, so quite often he quotes how some historical battles were won by underdogs. His repetition of this got on my nerves a bit. Another thing that bothered me was that his youngest son wanted to wish for everything to go back to the way it was for his birthday. His son asked if that was OK to wish for and Tom said yes. That really bothered me, because the sooner his kid understands nothing will be as it was, the better. Overall I would have to say the premier was mediocre at best. Some of the acting seemed a bit weak, but nothing terrible. I’ll have to watch the next few episodes so I can form a better opinion.

For all of you geeks that have had your head in the sand, artificial intelligence has hit a milestone. Yesterday, IBM’s Watson trounced these bags of meat known as Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in Jeopardy. If I ruined the result of the match, I apologize, but I figure posting a day after is enough notice for anyone that was following this from the start. For some more background on Watson and behind the scenes info, check out my original post on this. I have to admit that I was rooting for Watson from the start. I was a bit worried when after the first day in the tournament Watson was only tied for first place. I’m not sure what happened between the first and second matches, but Watson rocketed ahead in the second day and never looked back.

I think IBM might have been in a rush to show off their new creation. It was interesting to see the answer confidence levels during the rounds, often revealing some really wacky possible answers. Watson crashed several times during the second day of filming, nothing a regular viewer would notice while watching the recorded match on TV.  One criticism I’ve heard about the match was that Watson was fed the questions electronically rather than relying on voice and character recognition. I have to agree that the electronic delivery could have been an advantage.  Had voice recognition and OCR  functionality been used in Watson, the victory would be quite a bit more impressive. I could clearly see the two mere mortals struggling to buzz in and shake in frustration when Watson was faster. The producers touted the physical buzzer plunger that Watson had to activate, but I still think that Watson had the advantage.

I would be interested to see a rematch in a year but with only inputs into Watson be voice and video of the Jeopardy board. After all, Deep Blue was given a second chance versus Garry Kasparov, so why not give the humans a second chance on more equal footing? It is quite possible that programming algorithms over the year would improve enough so that Watson still would win, despite the reliance of voice recognition and OCR. In that case, the victory would mean that much more. Even if you know the outcome already, I still recommend watching the matches. I already saw the Nova special, so I skipped through most of the background stuff from the IBM folks. Here is a link to my YouTube  playlist that has the three episodes broken into 6 videos. Check it out! Then you can tell your grandchildren how you watched a computer beat humans in Jeopardy for the first time. Then they’ll ask, “Humans were allowed to play Jeopardy back then?”

Tonight with my wife, I watched an interesting episode of Nova titled “The World’s Smartest Machine.” Romantic, right? You can tell we are a couple of geeks at heart. Being a huge fan of Asimov and his robot creations, I am continually amazed at the progress of robotics and artificial intelligence. As a kid I was playing chess as early as the 3rd grade. I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty good chess player. When I heard about a computer that supposedly could beat a world champion chess player, I was intrigued. Garry Kasparov battled IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer in 1996 and won, however he eventually lost a rematch in 1997. Well, IBM is back at it, this time taking on Jeopardy. Nova takes us behind the scenes with the developers of “Watson,” the next step in AI. I was disappointed when the episode ended and it didn’t say who won. I didn’t realize until logging on PBS.org that the contest actually was taking place while I was watching Nova (on my media center PC). After some frantic Google searches, I eventually came across a Twitter feed with a link to a Youtube posting of the episode. This was not quite 2 hours after the episode aired! Isn’t technology great? I expect the Youtube post to be served a DMCA take down, so watch it soon if you plan on it. In addition to the episode at the end of this post, I’ve embedded the Nova preview and an humorous parody of the challenges Watson overcame during his development. I suggest watching the Nova episode first. If you are at all interested in AI, you must check these out!

Watch the full episode. See more NOVA.

Jeopardy Robot Watson’s Untold Game Show History (VIDEO)

Jeopardy Feb. 14 2011 – Human vs Machine IBM Challenge Day 1 Part 1/2

Jeopardy Feb. 14 2011 – Human vs Machine IBM Challenge Day 1 Part 2/2

There are two more nights to the match, airing Tuesday February 15th, and Wednesday the 16th. Be sure to check them out, along with some live blogging on PBS.org. I find myself rooting for Watson, not because I want to see humans defeated, but because I want to see humans capable of making something smart enough to do it. Who do you think will win? Who do you want to win?

A couple days ago I was able to visit with some friends I haven’t seen in a few years. After one of them cracked open a bottle of wine, we eventually ended up talking about gaming. One thing led to another and one of my friends asked, “Have any of you heard of Mazes and Monsters?” In mere moments we were watching one of the most horrible acting performances I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t sure if I should be shocked or amazed. In retrospect, the alcohol definitely enhanced the experience. We ended up adding our own commentary, MST3K style. About half way through I regretted that we didn’t start recording our comments to dub in later on. My friend actually had the recording equipment to do it too.

The movie starts out with a scene with a bunch of police cars and fire trucks responding to a missing persons report. A university student got lost in some caverns in a game of Mazes and Monsters that got out of hand. I was battling with trying to figure out if this was supposed to be some type of spoof or just an anti Dungeons and Dragons flick. After watching it all, despite how close it comes to seeming like parody, I think they were actually serious. In the midst of all the no-name actors this guy by the name of Tom Hanks shows up in one of his first roles. I’m sure if you ask him about it today, he’ll try to deny any involvement with this feature.

I’m pretty sure that anyone that has played classic DnD would be amused by this movie. Just watch it with a few friends over a few drinks, and I am sure everyone will have a blast. Here is a clip, it doesn’t contain any real spoilers.

I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from The Plan except that it was more BSG content, and that I just needed to watch it. The first glimpse I had of it was toward the end of the BSG series finale when there was an ad near the end. At the time I wasn’t sure if it was another series, mini-series, or just a feature like Razor. I was already pumped about Caprica, which came out just a little after the series finale. Because Syfy (formerly SciFi) released The Plan so much later, I had completely forgotten about it until one of my friends told me it was out.

Anyway, I had been hoping that The Plan would answer some of the burning questions I had from the series finale. I was extremely disappointed. The Plan came off to me as a disjointed series of events that kind of filled in some of the behind the scenes stuff that happened throughout the series. Since it has been seven months since I’ve seen any BSG, a lot of the stuff they covered I had completely forgotten about. I can honestly say that The Plan really doesn’t add much to the overall series. Sure, we get to see the “human” side of one of the Simon and Brother Cavil models, but I don’t think it really was needed. We already knew that the various models had the ability to break out of their programming.

At the end all I really thought to myself was, “Huh, that’s it?” While the running time of The Plan is that of a movie, it definitely is not a movie. It really reminds me much of those “flashback” episodes that rehash old content. I really HATE those types of episodes, no matter what program it is. The Plan isn’t exactly that, but it is close enough for me to say that I didn’t really enjoy it. Sure, I did learn some decent tidbits of info, but nothing groundbreaking. If you are a die-hard BSG fan like me, this is a must to watch, but otherwise I’d say this one can be skipped.

In 1992, the year of his death, Isaac Asimov was awarded the Hugo Award for best novella for writing Gold. This story, along with many others was published in 1995. Along with 14 other short stories, there are collections of essays called “On Science Fiction,” and “Writing Science Fiction.” Interestingly enough, I found the essays much more interesting than the stories themselves. I think this is partly because I have read a TON of his fiction, but haven’t got around to reading his non-fiction.  I’ll give a brief overview of the essays, saving the stories for later.

On Science Fiction

Here, Asimov gives us a brief history of the roots of Science Fiction. He also describes the origins of the robot concept, tracing the roots back to the eighteenth book of Homer’s Iliad. Also, he goes over very early books like Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Asimov also describes the evolution of Science Fiction in media, from the early magazines (of which he was an avid reader), to books, movies, and TV. Some of the names he listed were completely foreign to me. I think at some time in the future, I’ll look up some of his favorite authors of the time and check them out. He also talks about Science Fiction’s effect on technology and gives a couple examples of some technologies that he is attributed to predicting.

Writing Science Fiction

As I was reading the essays, it felt like he was talking to me, and in turn I was getting to know him as a person, not just a writer. His writing style is very smooth and easy to read. I believe it is a testament to his claim that when he writes, he just writes. At several points he congratulates himself on his ability to simply write with very little revision, essentially just correcting grammar and word placement once everything is done. After all, being one of the most prolific writers his time, or any time for that mater, he did have the right to have a strong sense of self-esteem.

One tidbit that I found very interesting is that Asimov had never really made use of outlines when writing stories. He would usually just work out an opening, and an ending, and make everything up along the way. Simply put, his characters would take on a life of their own. Another fact, which I already was aware of, is that he heavily relies on dialogue between characters, and there is very little “action” along the way. His books, at least to me, seem to be more cerebral than many others I have read.

The Stories

The title story, Gold, is an interesting one, especially around these times of economic turmoil. Gold, today in the real world, is topping $1000(US) an ounce while digital money has lost much of its value. A relatively unknown author seeks the help of a world famous director to produce a compu-drama from his book. These compu-dramas were basically movies heavily reliant on technology, interestingly enough much as our current movies are evolving into. I won’t spoil the plot, but the book in the story is very reminiscent of The Gods Themselves. The author admits that he is just an average writer, but wants to be immortalized by having his book made into a compu-drama. The director, on the other hand, is already one of the most famous figures in the entertainment industry. The author has everything to gain, while the director has everything to lose. Why then, should the director take the risk of taking on this new project? Gold was the offer, nearly impossible to find, having an equivalent value in credits, but with the sense of tangibility, not just a number on a computer screen.

Gold was a very interesting story, well worth anyone’s time to check out. As for the other stories, there is a diverse mix of plots present. They include science experiments, space exploration, artificial intelligence, and time travel to name a few. Of these remaining stories, my favorites include Cal (which I’ve read previously), Alexander the God, and Kid Brother.

I highly recommend this book as a must have for any Isaac Asimov fan, or Science Fiction fan for that matter. Also, the final section can serve as a general starting point for those interested in writing.

Flash Forward

When I first heard of Flash Forward, I was intrigued. Time travel stories always have piqued my interest. This new show isn’t a typical time travel story. One day all of humanity is knocked unconscious, and most of them see what appear to be hallucinations (2:17 minutes worth) of the future. The rest of this pilot episode is the main characters picking up the pieces from the fallout of this event. Can you imagine the scale of destruction if that would really happen? Interestingly enough, by the end of the day everyone is home and contemplating what their visions actually mean. I would think they’d be busy cleaning stuff up for weeks after all of the crashes and looting that took place. I’m not sure if it was poor scripting or what, but quite a few times I felt like I was being spoon-fed information and “insights” as the actors tried to piece things together.

For example, some of the visions were disturbing. They didn’t like what they saw and were afraid the vision of the future would come true. The flipside of this is also touched on, but what about those that had no vision?  Also, how will seeing the future affect the future? It is apparent that some will fight FOR the future, while others will fight AGAINST it. Who will win? Can both sides succeed?  I am waiting to see how the writers can add a unique twist of their own.

Anyway, give it a try and judge for yourself.

Flash Forward – No More Good Days – Full Episode

If you read my last post, I was a bit disappointed now that Battlestar Galactica is over. I’m glad I’m not the only one!

I guess we’ll all have to wait until the new content comes out.

News story link

First, let me say that Battlestar Galactica is by far my favorite Sci-Fi TV series of all time. I was addicted from the beginning of the 2003 miniseries and followed it up until the series finale this week. I liked it so much that prior to season 4.5, I re-watched all of the previous seasons so I would have them all fresh in my mind. In doing so, I managed to get my wife addicted as well and took her along for the ride.  I highly recommend everyone watch the entire series.

Let me start off with a huge ***SPOILER ALERT***

continue past the break for my rant

Going into the series finale, I had no idea how they were going to tie up all of the loose ends in just 2 hours. I really hoped that they could, but I was left a bit disappointed in the end because even more questions came out.

What the heck is Starbuck? Not a Cylon, but an angel like the shared vision of Caprica Six and Baltar? Why did Brother Cavil shoot himself? Where is Admiral Adama going to stash his Raptor? Did nobody stash away one small piece of technology to make their life on Earth v2.0 any easier? Where will the Centurions go with their basestar? What about all of the other rebel Cylons 1,000,000 light years away?

I’m a bit annoyed because I think that the producers wanted to leave everyone with a burning need for more information. I shook my fist at the TV when I saw the advertisement for “The Plan” which will cover the events prior to the destruction of the Colonies from the viewpoint of the Cylons. Also, there is the new series “Caprica” which will be straight to DVD and digital download on April 21st.  I’ll watch them both, because I’m hopelessly addicted. I just hope the BSG franchise doesn’t get beaten to death like Stargate, which looks like is getting yet another spinoff.

I’m sure that there will be lots of discussion going on in the coming months.

So, I’m interested in hearing other people’s thoughts on the finale. What did you like or not like? What do you think Starbuck is? Are you going to watch the new series?

I was a bit torn when I heard that the first installment of the new CGI Clone Wars TV series would be released in theaters. My first thought was that George Lucas was trying to milk Star Wars fans for even more money. I’d like to think of myself as a pretty loyal Star Wars fan, but to a point. Let me give you a little background on my Star Wars movie collection before I move on to the review.

One Christmas way back when, I asked for the Star Wars Special Letterbox Collector’s Edition (THX Remastered). I told my dad that if I only get ONE present, that it had to be this! One of the main reasons I wanted it was because I had never seen Star Wars in the theater, let alone in widescreen. The SE versions hit the theaters, which I went to see a few times each, then I bought the widescreen VHS versions. I mainly bought those because the special effects were a bit better, but I vowed to hold out on buying them on this new “DVD” technology until the original versions came out.

Well, they never came out! George Lucas said outright that the original unaltered movies would NEVER be released on DVD. I figured he would break down eventually, but before that happened, I gave up and bought the SE DVD release. When I watched them I just chose to ignore the whole Greedo shooting first in ANH and the stupid replacement of the Ewok song at the end of RotJ.

Several years later Lucas tried for one more money grab and released the SE on DVD again. He only offered the fans a “Bonus Disc” of the unaltered Trilogy, a crappy Laserdisc transfer (barely better than VHS according to my testing) with none of the restoration work that was done for the SE DVD release. There was no way buy them without buying the SE on DVD. So, I didn’t have a DVD of the original versions, and refused to buy the Trilogy a THIRD time just to get what I wanted. I vowed then to never spend my own money on Star Wars movies again. Sometime between then and now I got Star Wars: Clone War Volume 1 and 2 for Christmas. From what I remember, it was a pretty good series so I was interested to see how a CGI version would be.

Now onto the review:

With the goal of not giving George Lucas any more money than needed, I figured that a rental would suffice. I was correct. The plot and general feel after the first fifteen minutes or so was that I was watching a Saturday morning cartoon. This might have been the goal for the writers, but it didn’t really appeal to me. The “witty” banter between Anakin and his new padawan learner was somewhat annoying. The whole plot with Jabba’s son being kidnapped by Count Dooku and subsequent framing of the Jedi was laughable at best.

I just about lost it when I heard Ziro, Jabba’s uncle, speaking in English (or Basic if you prefer) with the weirdest accent. After searching for a sound clip to link to, I found a blog that had a bit more information than I expected. Lyle Masaki over at AfterElton reports that according to director Dave Filoni this accent is based off of Truman Capote. Lyle explains that Capote’s lisping speech is often associated with effeminate gay men. I’m familiar with the stereotype, and when I was watching the movie it just felt “wrong.”

Controversy aside, another thing that bugged me was the feeling that I was watching a really long drawn out episode. This didn’t have the type of depth and scale that you’d expect from a motion picture. Aside from these things, the special effects were dazzling and action sequences were pretty good. If you are a completist, grab the DVD or BluRay, but if not just grab a rental or skip it altogether.