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.
I’ve been working my way through The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (1930), by Paul Dirac. (It’s available as a Kindle eBook for only 6.49 USD.) It’s perhaps best known for being where he defines and describes his 〈bra|ket〉 notation (which I posted about in QM 101: Bra-Ket Notation). More significantly, Dirac shows how to build a mathematical quantum theory from the ground up.
This is not a pop-science book. Common wisdom is that including even a single equation in a science book greatly reduces reader interest. Dirac’s book, in its 82 chapters, has 785 equations! (And no diagrams, which is a pity. I like diagrams.)
What I wanted to post about is something he mentioned about qubits.
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14 Comments | tags: Bloch sphere, bra-ket notation, Paul Dirac, QM101, quantum computing, quantum mechanics, qubits | posted in Physics
Last night I decided to enjoy a special double feature: Blade Runner (1982), the Ridley Scott classic (final cut), followed by Blade Runner 2049 (2017), the Denis Villeneuve sequel. I’ve seen the original many times, although not in years, so it was great to see it once again. For a 40-year-old science fiction movie, it’s stood the test of time well and is rightfully considered a modern classic.
The Villeneuve sequel, I think, will never be more than a forgotten footnote. It comes out the gate suffering from being an attempt to ride the coattails of an original work by another (better) artist. Stir in Villeneuve’s self-indulgent excessively languid pacing and tendency to put image over substance, and the result is (at least to me) unmemorable.
I started fast-forwarding scenes and ultimately turned it off 45 minutes from the end. I only lasted that long because I wanted to see the part with Harrison Ford.
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33 Comments | tags: adaptations, science fiction, science fiction movies, SF, SF Movies, storytelling | posted in Movies
Last post I mentioned that I’d started reading The Big U (1984), by Neal Stephenson, one of my favorite authors. (See these posts.) Other than a few books done with co-authors, I’ve read nearly everything of his. The exceptions are The Baroque Cycle trilogy (which I’ve been putting off) and, until now, The Big U, his very first novel.
Stephenson didn’t become popular until his third novel, Snow Crash (1992), which is still one of my favorites (perhaps, in part, because it was the first of his novels that I read). As with his second novel, Zodiac (1988), his first is a biting present-day social satire and not really science fiction.
That said, it does involve nuclear waste, giant mutant rats, and a student-made rail gun.
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5 Comments | tags: Neal Stephenson | posted in Books
As an intro with nothing to do with the post, yesterday I started reading The Big U (1984), by Neal Stephenson (one of my favorite authors). It’s his first novel and one I’ve been meaning to read for a while. As with his second novel, Zodiac (1988), his first is a social satire with a distinct technological flavor. Unlike most of his later work, these aren’t science fiction. That began with novel #3, Snow Crash (1992), still one of my favorites.
I mention this because I’m eager to get back to it, but it’s TV Tuesday, and I want to commemorate the ending of not one, not two, (…etc.), but four TV shows that recently aired their last episodes.
Two I was glad to see go, but I am in mourning over one of them.
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5 Comments | tags: Black-ish, Bull (TV series), Grace and Frankie, Grown-ish, Kenya Barris, Mr. Mayor (TV series) | posted in TV Tuesday
I learned a very long time ago that, when it comes to movies, it’s the little ones from the filmmaker’s heart I find most interesting and worthwhile. This seems ever truer in an era of endless, empty sequels and mind-numbing blockbusters with no more depth than an amusement park ride. Nothing wrong with amusement park rides, they can be fun, but they’re rarely memorable, let alone creative.
Sorry to Bother You (2018), written and directed by Boots Riley, is exactly the sort of thing I mean when I say my main ask of a story is to take me someplace new.
A bonus for me is that it stars LaKeith Stanfield, whose work I’ve found so delightful in the surreal (and outstanding) TV series Atlanta (which also nails the “take me someplace new” thing).
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9 Comments | tags: LaKeith Stanfield, science fiction, science fiction movies, SF, SF Movies | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday
I’ve been awaiting the sophomore season of Netflix’s Russian Doll with both anticipation and dread. Anticipation because I thought season one was outstanding, one of the best shows of 2019. I only mentioned it briefly in a post back then (and gave it a solid Wow! rating). I meant to write a whole post about it but never did.
The dread came largely from how complete the story arc of season one was. It was hard to see more story there. Dread also came from how good it was — a very hard act to follow. Maybe best not to try?
Season two finally came out last month. My best reaction is something along the lines of “Huh?” but the phrase “muddled mess” keeps running through my mind.
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10 Comments | tags: animation, anime, Futurama, Hulu, Japanese anime, Netflix, Russian Doll (TV series) | posted in TV Tuesday
Back in 2020, I posted about my surprise rediscovery of Agatha Christie. The initial discovery is lost in memory, a hand-me-down from my dad. I favored heroic action figures back then, Superman, Sherlock Holmes, Clint Eastwood. I enjoyed Christie’s Hercule Poirot but filed the rest of her work under ‘dowdy British library murder mystery’ and ignored it.
A mistake. My surprise discovery of 2020 was that Agatha Christie was a fascinating genius who rightfully earned the title Queen of Mystery.
Last week I watched a recent adaptation of Death on the Nile (1937), one of the more well-known Hercule Poirot novels. I had high hopes, but I can only give it a weak Eh! rating.
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8 Comments | tags: adaptations, Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot, Jack Reacher, Kenneth Branagh, Lee Child, Tom Cruise | posted in Books, Movies, Mystery Monday
It started when I watched Jack Reacher (2012), starring Tom Cruise. It was pretty good, and it’s as much fun seeing Robert Duvall in something as it is Christopher Walken. Plus, the bad guy is Werner Herzog! As it turns out, casting Cruise as Reacher is… interesting, but I’ll come back to that.
The movie is an adaptation of the 2005 Lee Child novel, One Shot, the ninth book in his Jack Reacher series. I enjoyed the movie enough that I thought I’d check out the book — my library had it (as well as the others in the series).
I’ve been binging on them ever since. To the point I’ve now read 16 of the 24 Lee Child Jack Reacher novels.
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25 Comments | tags: adaptations, Jack Reacher, Lee Child, Tom Cruise | posted in Books, Mystery Monday, TV
At one point I had the idea that I was going write a bunch of For The Record posts — position papers that attempt to be final words on a topic (at least until new considerations came into play). Other one about guns (back in 2015), I never really followed through.
In a sense, all posts, are final words (until further consideration), so all posts can be seen as FTR. The question is whether it makes any sense to mark an expressed opinion as more official or duly considered rather than off the cuff or casual. That was my thought, anyway.
So, seven years later, FTR take two: Free Will
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37 Comments | tags: causal determinism, determinism, For The Record, free will, physical determinism | posted in Philosophy
There have been good science fiction movies and TV shows going at least back to Metropolis. Of course, there is always Sturgeon’s Law, so we’ve also had ten times as many that were bad in one way or another. A few were memorably awful; a few are remembered as classics.
When it comes to fantastical material, I’m convinced books are best. Animation is a distant second, and live action can often be a mistake, depending on the material. Too much realism in visualizing the fantastic collapses the wavefunction of our imagination.
But our imagination is the best part, and it needs exercise!
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8 Comments | tags: Aldous Huxley, Discworld, Idiocracy, science fiction, science fiction books, SF, SF Books, Thorne Smith | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday
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