Good times, shmood times

Well, in five and a half hours, I have to flunk German, on Monday I have to hand in a paper and Wednesday I'm going to flunk English literature and pass a way too optional philosophy course.

Good thing I'm intelligent enough to know what I can and can't do.

It's the same intelligence/arrogance that allows me to get through my days, so my highandmightitude equals an astmatic's inhaler.

Hey, you wouldn't laugh at a guy in a wheelchair, right?

At least I now know what ARD stands for: Arbeidgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten Deutschlands.

I'm proud of myself, and that's good enough, at the moment.

Panzerdivisionen, hier, hier und hier!

Dat was tot eergisteren het enige Duits dat ik kon, maar aangezien ik morgen een examen Duits heb, ben ik nu mijn best aan doen om het wat bij te benen.

Het lukt niet echt, maar wat had u verwacht.

Bij het leren van een reeks afkortingen in een gemoedstoestand die het midden houdt tussen 'ongeloofwaardig rustig' en 'monkey in a cage' ben ik op iets gestoten dat misschien niet echt grappig is, en zelfs niet zo vreemd, maar ondertussen ben ik hier al, dus krijgt u het toch maar.

'o.' betekent ofwel 'oben' ('boven'), ofwel 'ohne' ('zonder').
En wat blijkt? 'oben ohne' betekent zonder meer 'topless'.

Ja, talen leren is leuk...

So wonewy...

A better fantasy world

Well, okay, this is better. Enjoy, and find the rest here.
And ignore the party poker crap.
And, as always, I can only hope I'm not liable because I'm not hosting anything (I think...).

Space opera, apparently

Well, I should be studying again, so I'm escaping into whatever fantasy world I can find, even if it isn't completely fleshed out.
Enjoy.


The only indication was a small meter on his righthand side dropping from sixty-two to twentyone percent, but it made Peter Terson release the control handles and quickly wipe his palms on the sides of his pants.
“Sellis, divide weapon power over the shield and engine. Seventy, thirty.”
Elizabeth's hands slid over the control panel in front of her.
The meter went back up to ninety one and he saw the red circle on his radar move further down the screen. “Thanks, love,” he said. He was quite proud of his grace under fire, and in this case 'under fire' wasn't in the least exaggerated. He let the little frigate, shaped like a triangle shoved halfway into a similar one, roll around the protruding top engine to evade a stream of weaponsfire from the pursuing ship. Of course, this wasn't such an unusual situation. The giant discs, that represented the law in the known universe, were great in number and continuously patrolled through every explored solar system. And as they always wanted to scan everything they came across, the little frigate had no choice but to flee. Normally this consisted of transferring all power from the shield and the weapons to the engine and just get the hell out of there, but they had only noticed the disc when it had started firing on them, which would make lowering the shield somewhat too risky an idea. The fact that they hadn't yet sent fighters probably meant that they had been surprised as well.
“Can you scan the planet yet?”
“No,” Sellis said, “in range just a little over a click.”
The small, beige planet – a moon of the nearby gas giant – was their only possible escape. If it had an atmosphere. Terson wiped his hands again. If it didn't have an atmosphere, or one that was too thin, the fighters would cut them to shreds in minutes.
“Looks like you're gonna get lucky, Pete.”
“I like the sound of that. Find me somewhere to hide as soon as you can. And give all weapon power to the engine. The faster we get there, the faster I can get lucky.”
She laughed, surprisingly merry under the circumstances. The cruiser wouldn't be able to fly inside the atmosphere and the fighters would expend their fuel after a minute or so.
The shield had taken a grazing shot and without the extra power it fell back to fifteen percent.
“I'm retracting the engines. Switching to atmospheric flight. Tell them to strap in.”
Sellis tapped the control panel twice and grabbed the microphone. “We're about to go planetside. Pick up and buckle down, boys and girls. It might get a little rougher than usual, what with the incoming fire and all. But no use in worrying, as always.” She placed the mic back in its slot and checked the planetary scans. “Let's see, breathable atmosphere, sand, sand, sand, sand, well, what's this? A rocky outcropping and... What?!”
“What?”
She enhanced the scans. “There's nothing underneath.”
“More sand?”
“No, nothing. A void. Not even caves. Just, nothing.”
“Well, there are fighters on the way, so we may as well check it out.”
“Shouldn't we wait for the captain?”
“The captain”, Peter said, “can make that decision when on the bridge. Otherwise, the pilot is in command. Me, love.”
“Hmmm, your hunger for power makes you even more likely to get lucky, Pete.”
“Yeah, 'Pete', and also more likely to get shot for mutiny.”
“Oh...” Blushing, Sallis sunk deeper into her chair. “Hello, captain Karwin.”
“Hello, Sam.” Terson turned halfway towards her and nearly burst out laughing when he saw the towel wrapped around her head.
“Stow it, pilot. There are still fighters after us, no?”
“Yes, captain. Sorry, captain.”
“Shut up, Peter.”
“Sorry, but it's quite alright, we're going to hide in that rocky area over there. If you agree, of course.”
Sam sat down in her chair, behind the pilot's seat and to the left of Sallis. “Judging from the terrain, we don't seem to have a lot of options. And let's keep the fooling around for a safer moment.”
“Understood, we should be there before the fighters reach us. But, if I may ask, why the towel?”
Sam sighed. “A shower, pilot. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept? It helps to get lucky.”
“Well, I'm already getting lucky, it turns out. Right, Liz?”
Instead of answering, Elizabeth sank deeper into her chair, her face reddening even further.
“Still a prude, lieutenant? How will we ever save you?”
“Oh, not to worry, captain. She doesn't need saving. I can vouch for that.”
Karwin smiled. “Very well, find us a place to land.”
“I don't know about landing, but I think I found an entrance to whatever is down there. Navigation data on your screen, Pete.”
“Thanks, love.” He turned around and gave Sellis a boyish grin. “Almost there.”


“I hope everyone is still strapped in. We have to go vertical.”
The frigate shot up into the air before turning around and pointed its nose straight to the small opening the surface.
“Uhm, Liz, how big is this entrance?”
“A bit bigger than the ship, about a metre on each side.”
“Now she tells me. This is going to be damn close.”
“Can you do it?”
“I'll do my best, Sam, as always. I might need another pass.”
“Check your radar, pilot. If you take another pass, the fighters will know exactly where we are.”
“Right. No pressure. Liz, distance.”
“One click. A little left. Five hundred metres. A little to the right.”
“Don't do that!”
“Sorry. One hundred metres. Pete. Fifty metres. Pete? Twenty metres. Peter!”
“Divert all power to the engine!”
The corner of the rear triangle was torn off as the ship raced into the dark tunnel.
“That's not good.”
Terson gripped the handles even firmer, but couldn't prevent the ship crashing into two more walls before he pulled back as hard as he could. With a screeching grind, the frigate came to a halt in complete darkness. Elizabeth was the only one still sitting in her seat. She shook her head.
“You weren't listening when I told everyone to strap in? Again and again. Tsss, tsss. Are you alright, at least? Captain? Terson?”
“I'm fine, lieutenant.” Karwin crawled back into her chair with a small groan. “Pilot?”
Sallis unhooked her straps and rushed towards his motionless body. “Pete?” She saw the blood covering his monitor before she reached him. “Get Lestin!”
Sam moved a little slower than she would have, groaning as she reached for her comm. “Doctor, we need you on the bridge, faster than you can. Everyone all right over there?”
The answer came quickly. “Already on my way. We're fine, just a little shook up.”
The captain nodded and switched on the external lights. The beams showed part of a shining metal plate they had apparently landed on, but otherwise, they just went off into the darkness. Whatever this place was, it was huge.
“Captain!”
Elizabeth looked close to tears, but before Sam managed to get to her feet, the door at the rear slid open. “Captain?”
“I'm fine, doctor. See to Terson.”
“Liz, how's he doing?”
She wiped her sleeve over her eyes. “A head wound, and I think the control handles may have cracked his ribs. But he has a pulse and he's breathing, so he's going to be okay, right?”
Hannah didn't answer as she pulled him to the back of his chair.
“Lestin, he's going to be fine, right? Right?”
“Elizabeth, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker. So be quiet and shut up!”
“Reign it in, doctor. Get him to the infirmary. Lieutenant, give me a scan of whatever this place is.”
While Hannah pulled the stretcher from the wall and suspended it in mid-air, Sallis slowly got up.
“I was hoping I could stay...” but Sam cut her off.
“There's nothing you can do for him and I need you. If you really want to help Peter, however, you might want to grab his legs and get him on the stretcher.”
“I... Yes, captain.”


The ramp at the back of the ship opened with a clang on the metal plate.
“So, captain. Why are we going to walk into a dark, eerie structure with the two most likely outcomes being death or nothing at all?”
Keltin Gud switched on the flashlight on his rifle and let the beam drift around in the darkness.
“Because it's the interesting thing to do, private. The repairs are going to take at least five hours, and we've been cooped up long enough.”
“Basically, after the harrowing spacebattle, you're still bored and prefer putting our lives at risk in whatever we might have stumbled upon?”
“Yeah, basically, I guess so.”
“Oh, ok. Nice.”
Kerwin, Sallis and Gud walked to one of the corners of the platform, the captain also with a rifle, Sallis with a handgun and a small computer.
“There's a shaft over there, I'm guessing it's an elevator.”
“Rappelling? I like it?”
“Sorry, Gud, there were some power readings on the scans, and, well, we all know I'm good enough to get this thing reactivated.”
“Peter is going to be all right, I take it?”
“Yes, captain. Two fractured ribs, a minor concussion and he needs a new eye, but he was already awake.”
“Has he made a decision yet? Organic or cyber? I'd go cyber, but then, that's just 'cause it'd go great with my arm and leg.” Keltin laughed loudly, almost a bellow.
“Keep your voice down, private. We don't know what's down here.”
“I don't think that's going to be a problem. No lifesigns whatsoever. We're here.”
The wall looked exactly the same as the floor, except that it was vertical. There was no indication of an elevator, or of anything else.
“Lieutenant?”
“Give me a second.”
Elizabeth traced a square on the wall with her hand, staring at the screen in her hand, before pressing it. The square slid upwards to reveal a small controlpanel.
“Nice!”
“Thank you, Gud.”
She pressed a few buttons, moaned, pressed a few more buttons and let out a triumphant 'Ha!'.
“Lieutenant?”
“Two things: firstly, this facility is old. Old as in before the Truth old.”
“That's old.”
“Yes, it is, Gud. Secondly.” She pressed a button and a doorsized panel vanished sideways, onto an elevator. “Tadaa. If I'm reading this correctly, the main controlroom is at the bottom, twenty floors down.”
“And what does this controlroom control, exactly?” Sam asked as they got onto the elevator.
“Not sure. The language is, well, old. But I think it's something to do with storage.”
“Only one way to find out, ladies. Time to get down!”
“Ugh. Why do we keep him around, captain?”
“Meatshield, lieutenant. He's our meatshield.”

Hifi, low fi, sci fi

Science fiction has been around for quite a while; the nineteenth century (well, 1898) 'War of the Worlds' is often seen as the starting point for modern sciene fiction, but it stretches further into the past. Simply put: if you consider it a theoretical science, it's called futurology (a silly name for a very uncertain science), if you consider it fiction, it's called science fiction and if you consider it truth, it's called religion or insanity (depending on the amount of people that consider it truth: this is just as likely as the church doctrine; this is just as likely as the islamic doctrine). Yes, that was a jab at religion; one has to stay in shape.

Recently, with changes in both knowledge and technology, science fiction has also evolved. While the concept of alternate realities is not a new one (in truth, every work of fiction can be seen as an alternate reality), science fiction usually took on one of two forms: either a single event impacts our reality (an alien invasion, anyone?), is resolved and the reality (ie. the story) ends. Just as often, the starting point is a universe different from our own, be it in the (far) future, or in a very different place, or simply slightly off.

Now, I am fully aware that the examples I'm going to give of this 'evolved sci-fi' will undermine anything I have said or will say, but so be it. The concept of both examples, one British, one American, is a sustained alternate reality that has our reality as a starting point and anchor point. And while the fiction always outweighs the science, both have a terrestrial civilization (that's us) that evolves under the influence of other civilizations, human or otherwise, allies or enemies. And while national identities never disappear (and yes, both are in English, but the relation English-imperialism is the same one as bird-robin), it adds substance to the idea(l) of a planetary identity. At the same time, our technological evolution is sped up, and somehow I just love the concept of a human interplanetary fleet.

But more importantly, it enlarges the scope of what is at the core of 'good' science-fiction: ask the questions that will become more important as our technology catches up with our imagination, the key question being 'what is it that makes us human?'
Of course, as I said, as soon as I give you the examples, you'll probably be irritated that you have read through an entire text that misses a valid point (I thought I had one, but I lost it somewhere in the second paragraph). Still, both the Stargate universe (comprised of the film with the same name and the series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis) and the Doctor Who universe are intricate and potentially infinite sources of what are in fact elaborate allegories. And besides, the latter is the longest running sci-fi show, the former is the longest consecutively running sci-fi show. This is no argument for quality, as that many people watching does not mean anything, as that many people may very well be very wrong.

But to make a long story short: exploring the future, even only in our imagination, gives us the possibility to at the very least have some fun, and who knows, maybe, just maybe, some good may come of it.

Boy, what a time waster this was...

Oh, you can watch the Stargate series here; Doctor Who you find here.

Zouthoutertjes

Omdat ik eigenlijk moet studeren, zal ik u zeggen wat ú moet doen: films kijken! En wel de volgende:

The Man from Earth: kijk!
Een onconventionele, zeer rustige sci-fi film, die uitsluitend vanwege het scenario sci-fi is. Er is slechts één locatie, namelijk een huis, en meer dan 90% speelt zich in de woonkamer af. Eerlijk gezegd, het verhaal dat ik had willen schrijven, maar helaas...
Voor zij die een goed verhaal pur sang weten te appreciëren.

The Golden Compass: hiervoor moet u naar de cinema!
Zeer leuk fantasy, met een einde dat enkel idioot is als er niet genoeg mensen voor de film betalen: anders komt er een vervolg en is het einde niet meer dan een wat flauwe scène in een groter geheel.
Voor zij die houden van schattigheid en wat kritiek op de kerk (en van Kidman en haar oranje haarbal).

Eastern Promises: eventueel kijk!, maar ga maar naar de cinema
Een misdaadfilm over de Russische mafia in Londen, met Engels met dikke, vette accenten en af en toe wat vuil, bloederig geweld.
Voor zij die houden van nuttig geweld en blonde vrouwen (niet in combinatie).

I am Legend: kijk!
Een heel sterk en leuk eerste uur, courtesy of Will Smith en de Duitse herder Sam; het eindigt met wat onnodige actie en een 'God is een eikel of niet zo omnipotent'-einde, maar ja, eindes...
Voor zij die de Apocalyps als een uitdaging zien, eerder dan redding of verdoemnis.

The Illusionist: kijk! Nee, helaas, geen werkende links meer.
Ja, ik ben er wat laat mee, ik weet het, maar mocht u de film nog niet gezien hebben, hij is zeker het bekijken waard, ondanks het wat voorspelbare scenario. Het acteerwerk, de beelden en de algemene sfeer zorgen voor een op z'n minst goeie film. Enkel met die appelsienenboom klopt er nog iets niet...
Voor zij die liefdesverhaaltjes kunnen combineren met 'ratio victor!'.


Ah, amusement.

Een nieuw jaar

God, shmod! Again...

I was going to bitch about the idiotic, religious ending of the otherwise really great movie 'I am Legend' (and the ending is probably a consequence of the fact that it is an adaptation from an older film, but that's really no excuse: if you adapt the setting, the characters and the advertising, why not the shallow ethics?), but instead, I'm simply going to give you a link to a talk by Sam Harris, philosopher and neurologist, called Believing the Unbelievable: The Clash Between Faith and Reason in the Modern World.

And seriously: you believe a certain book is the absolute truth because the book itself says it's the absolute truth?
Smooth...

Alweer vreemd

Oorstokjes heten nu wattenstaafjes en mogen niet meer in de gehoorgang of de neus worden gestoken. Die vijf andere lichaamsopeningen daarentegen...

[Edit: in Van Dale staat bij 'wattenstokje' (synoniem van) echter 'staafje met watten aan de uiteinden, gebruikt om de oren te reinigen'. Maar ondertussen vraag ik me vooral af hoeveel mensen die dingen te diep in hun lichaam geploft hebben...]

What else is new?

Let us consider just one aspect of human nature: race. Again and again in modern literary studies, ideas of race are traced to particular historical origins, not entirely coincidentally the period the critic in question happens to focus on. But in evolutionary studies the explanation digs deeper. There has been much work done on multi-level selection, that is, natural selection occurring at the level of the gene, or the cell, or the organ, or the individual organism, the family, the group, the species, the species and its symbionts, or the whole ecosystem.²⁶ Cooperation at one level can develop because it allows those entities (whether cells or organs or individuals) that cooperate well to supplant other entities that either do not cooperate at all or not so well; their superior capacity for cooperation allows them to out-compete and ultimately oust those who do not cooperate so well. Within-group cooperation, in other words, evolves through competition against out-groups; "in-group amity" is at the expense of "out-group enmity."²⁷ In many social species from ants to hyenas, dolphins and chimpanzees, recognition of out-groups, of others from the same species who belong to different groups, operates by sight, scent or sound, and it can trigger fierce antagonism and conflict. In the human case for instance differences between languages and dialects and accents can clearly mark group boundaries.

But John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, two founders of evolutionary psychology, wondered why humans should notice race so much, because after all during the time the human psyche was evolving in Africa, race would have been useless as an identifier, since most proto-humans would never meet anyone of a different race. "Noticing people's sex and age, on the other hand, would make good sense: these were reliable if approximate predictors of behavior. So evolutionary pressures may well have built into the human mind an instinct"—modified by local culture, of course—"to notice sex and age, but not race." But why should race also keep appearing as a natural classifier?

Perhaps, Tooby and Cosmides reasoned, "race is merely a proxy for something else." In the Pleistocene, "one vital thing to know about a stranger is 'whose side is he on?' Human society, like ape society, is riddled with factions—from tribes and bands to temporary coalitions of friends. Perhaps race is a proxy for membership in coalitions," and people "pay so much attention to race in some countries because they instinctively identify people of other races as being members of other tribes or coalitions."

Tooby and Cosmides set up an experiment. Subjects were shown a series of pictures each associated with a sentence putatively spoken by the person in the picture. At the end, they saw all 8 pictures and all 8 sentences, and had to match each statement to the right picture. It was the mistakes that mattered, since these indicated how the subjects had mentally classified people. As expected, age, sex, and race were strong clues: the subjects would misattribute a statement made by one old person to another old person, or a statement by one black person to another black person. Then the experiment introduced another possible classifier: coalition membership. This was revealed purely through the statements made by the people depicted, who were taking two sides of an argument. Quickly the subjects began to confuse two members of the same side more often than two members of different sides. Revealingly, this largely replaced the tendency to make mistakes by race, though it had virtually no effect on the tendency to make mistakes by sex. As Matt Ridley comments in reporting this: "Within four minutes, the evolutionary psychologists had done what social science had failed to do in decades: make people ignore race. The way to do it is to give them another, stronger clue to coalition membership. Sports fans are well aware of the phenomenon: white fans cheer a black player on 'their' team as he beats a white player on the opposing team." Ridley adds: "This study has immense implications for social policy. It suggests that categorizing individuals by race is not inevitable, that racism can be easily defeated if coalition clues cut across race, and that there is nothing intractable about racist attitudes. It also suggests that the more people of different races seem to act or be treated as members of a rival coalition, the more racist instincts they risk evoking." He concludes with the moral that, "the more we understand both our genes and our instincts, the less intractable they seem."²⁸

26. Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).

27. Richard Alexander, in Randolph Nesse and George Williams, Evolution and Healing: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine (London: Phoenix, 1997), p. 138.

28. Matt Ridley, Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human (New York: Harper Collins, 2003), pp. 265–66.

Source: Brian Boyd - Literature and Evolution: A Bio-Cultural approach