About Wyrd Smythe
The canonical fool on the hill watching the sunset and the rotation of the planet and thinking what he imagines are large thoughts.
When I was a college film student, one of the first classes putting theory into practice divided the students into groups of three. The class goal was for each group to make three films. The group would rotate among themselves the key positions of Writer, Director, and Cinematographer. This allowed everyone a chance to experience those roles.
Our group produced one that was silly fun, one that was weird and off-the-cuff, and one that was interesting and affected people.
Sadly, I have only memories (so I might be making this up).
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16 Comments | tags: An Unconditional Value, college, student film | posted in Life, Movies, Writing
Okay, so now I’ve seen the final installment in the Peter Jackson The Hobbit Trilogy. In a word, Meh! (And that high because I didn’t expect more.) One bit of common praise I’ve heard suggests, “Thank God! It’s over! At least there won’t be any more of them!” These days that may be rather wishful thinking. Never underestimate Hollywood’s ability to return to a lucrative well.
I also watched Lucy, the latest from Luc Besson. I usually like Besson’s work. He’s written many good ones and directed some as well. I’m leaning towards my lowest Ugh! rating here. I can’t decide if Lucy is so bad it’s deliberate self-parody, or if it’s genuinely, earnestly… just that bad. Or maybe just doesn’t care.
As far as I’m concerned, two big duds and I don’t mean milk!
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14 Comments | tags: Dracula 2000, Dracula 3000, George Lucas, Hobbit movie, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Luc Besson, Lucy (movie), Morgan Freeman, Peter Jackson, Star Wars, The Fifth Element, The Frighteners, The Hobbit | posted in Movies
We sometimes say that dogs are living in the now. Sometimes we say that of people who live in the moment and don’t think much about the future (or about the consequences). Whether we mean that as a compliment — as we generally do with dogs — or as an oblique implication of shallowness depends on the point we’re making.
There is the tale of the ant and grasshopper; it divides people into workers who plan for the future and players who live in the now. The former, of course, are the social role models the tale holds heroic. The grasshopper is a shifty lay-about, a ne’er do well, a loafer and a moocher, but that’s not the point.[1]
The point is our sense of «now» and of time.
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10 Comments | tags: Albert Einstein, ant and grasshopper, arrow of time, entropy, General Relativity, got time, laws of thermodynamics, Minkowsky Space, now is the time, sleeping dogs, spacetime, Special Relativity, Theory of Relativity, thermodynamics, time, time dimension | posted in Opinion, Philosophy
In a discussion a while back I mentioned in passing that humans sense wetness and time. That was challenged on the basis that we don’t sense time at all and — when it comes to wetness — sense only pressure and temperature. There is some truth to that. We don’t have an actual time sensor, nor do we have specific “wetness” sensors.
I’ve been thinking about this ever since (not constantly; you know, on and off). A key question is whether wetness can be reduced to pressure and temperature and remain wetness. And time is a topic all on its own!
For the record: Here is my final answer…
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15 Comments | tags: emergent phenomenon, emergent property, For The Record, FTR, h20, motion pictures, musical chord, pixels, pressure, qualia, temperature, water, wetness | posted in Opinion, Philosophy
You may know about the Drake Equation, which is an attempt to quantify the number of intelligent species that evolve in a galaxy. Depending on how you set the parameters, the answer varies from “lots!” to “almost none.” The first answer leads to Fermi’s Paradox: Okay, if there are lots of aliens… where are they? So far we’ve seen no signs (pardon the reference).
If you read science fiction you may also be familiar with the idea of Ancient Alien Ancestors (AAA) who are now long gone leaving only a legend. Sometimes there are The Ancients (now long absent), the current Elder Races (powerful, not always wise, not always kind), and the Younger Races (which Earthlings invariably belong to).
But what if we are those Ancient Ancestors?
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30 Comments | tags: alien contact, alien races, alien vistors, aliens, ancient alien races, ancient aliens, Drake Equation, Fermi Paradox, Rare Earth Hypothesis, science fiction | posted in Brain Bubble, Sci-Fi Saturday
I don’t often crack up over internet gags, but when I do I crack up over ones like this:
As an added bonus, back in June (during their slump) I wrote a little blues tune for my Minnesota Twins…
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9 Comments | tags: Darth Vader, funny, funny images, humor, Minnesota Twins, puns, Twins 2015 | posted in From My Collection, Writing
It’s been a week since Jon Stewart hosted his final The Daily Show. I still haven’t recovered. I may never recover. [salty goggles]
Jon Stewart: A man who was on TV.
Jon, you will be missed. Sorely.
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40 Comments | tags: B. Yeats, Bruce Springsteen, Comedy Central, ESPN, HBO, John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Larry Wilmore, Last Week Tonight, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Trevor Noah | posted in Life, TV
It’s all gone wrnog!
I have an email friend who is a baseball fan, and when her daughter was very young, she (the daughter, not the friend) conflated “serious” and “series” (as in “World Serious”). It’s one of those great things kids sometimes say that sticks with you because it’s so perfect. Baseball series are serious, and none more so than the World Serious.
When I manage to come up with one, I delight in having puns in my post titles, and now you’ll understand the one used here. The Minnesota Twins just finished a three-game serious against division rival the Cleveland Indians, and it was an extraordinarily painful one. Seriously painful.
How bad was it? So bad. So very, very bad.
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8 Comments | tags: Cleveland Indians, Ervin Santana, Mike Pelfrey, Minnesota Twins, Paul Molitor, Phil Hughes, Shane Robinson, Twins 2015 | posted in Baseball
Torii Hunter wonders “WTF?”
Yesterday my Minnesota Twins played their 108th game, which means the season is now exactly 2/3 over. And I say “my” Twins, but given their performance since the All-Star break, many of us fans are about to disown them. When I last wrote about them, I said, “Now everything depends on what happens after the All-Star break.”
They’d surprised us with a Mighty May, had a rough June Swoon, but seemed to wake up again in July and ended the first half strong. Unfortunately, their second half has been pretty awful all around. Their batting struggles continue, but now the pitching is going downhill, too.
After a giddy rush of “post-season is possible” we’re back to our original ask: “Please just don’t suck again this year.”
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11 Comments | tags: Glen Perkins, Miguel Sano, Minnesota Twins, Paul Molitor, Seattle Mariners, Target Field, Terry Ryan, Toronto Blue Jays, Twins 2015 | posted in Baseball
As a memorial to the loss of my favorite voice in fiction, I’ve been doing a Sir Terry Pratchett Discworld memorial read. I’d been planning to read the Witches novels again anyway, so I did that and then went on to read the Rincewind novels. Now I’m working my way through the rest in chronological order. I just finished Hogfather.
This time, as I go, I’m leaving tape flags behind to mark bits I especially liked and plan to share (and record) here. Part of what is so engaging about the Discworld novels is how intelligent and perceptive the writing is. Pratchett was a brilliant writer. After reading these books many times I’m still learning to appreciate his genius.
Today I thought I’d share some of those flagged bits with you.
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7 Comments | tags: Death (Discworld character), Discworld, Discworld novel, Hogfather, Pterry, Pterry Psnippets, science fiction, science fiction books, Susan Sto Helit, Terry Pratchett | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
Logos con carne 
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