Sense of Adventure

And I’d pay to see it!

No, not this video of a computer-simulated race. Who cares about that?

What I’d pay to see is a video of a T. rex actually running down and devouring an overpaid, has-been Brit soccer star. And I’d like the screen to then switch to his wife, Ubiquitous Spice or whatever the hell her name is, sitting in the stands watching and showing no more emotion than she did when hubby finally scored a goal for American “major league” soccer. Is that so much to ask, in this age of CGI?

Interestingly, the Telegraph article I got that from claims a top speed of 18 mph for the Big T, seven miles an hour less than claimed by the piece that so evoked my ire a couple of months ago. But whereas the Times Online sniffishly dismissed T. rex as a “slow, clumsy beast” for running 25 mph, the Telegraph calls it “no slouch” for doing 18.

Go figure.

I just got off the phone with a pleasant young woman reporter for the Weekly Alibi, mentioned below. Her name was Marisa Demarco. In my currently slightly-fuzzed mental state (still battling a low grade infection, which has migrated to my lungs, hopefully on its way out) I’m afraid I got her name wrong.

I hope she’ll be kind enough not to do the same to me.

Anyway, it was all set in motion by Patricia Rogers, a wonderful friend of mine and most of the New Mexico SF community, fans and pros alike (I consider myself both, by the way.) She got the notion she wanted to promote us NM SF authors - a noble notion indeed - so she called up her friend Devin O’Leary, who’s the alibi’s movie columnist as well as a star in some of Scott Phillips’ demented masterpieces. What with Bubonicon on its way in another month (!) or so he talked his editors into doing interviews with some of New Mexico’s dang innumerable science fiction and fantasy authors.

So I got my call as scheduled, and had a nice and what I hope was at least near-coherent conversation with Ms. Demarco. She said the piece is due to come out in the next issue next Thursday. So we shall see.

I have to thank her - as well as for taking the time and trouble to talk to me - for reminding me how scandalously behind I am in updating my online bibliography. I’m, good Lord, five or six books back. Although since I have plenty of actual writing to do before I head out to St. Louis it’s an open question as to whether I’ll actually get the page updated before then. Maybe on the road when I find a wireless node.

Anyway, my thanks to Patricia for heroically taking the trouble to get this rolling, and Devin and Marisa and the alibi. Subject to revocation depending upon what they actually say about me, of course.

The embargo is busted.

The New York Times and the Baltimore Sun have posted reviews of the (allegedly) final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The Sun reviewer specifically disavows the presence of spoilers. You may consider the NYT review to contain them. Read the reviews at your own risk.

But then, ain’t it always that way with these here now Interwebs?

To my mind, the real interest in the release of Tank Johnson by the Chicago Bears lies in what it says about the power of bloggers and the so-called “New Media”: blogs give unprecedented voice to the fan; but they aren’t necessarily representative of fans in general, and as such show us that in some very important ways the so-called “New Media” may not quite so unassailably hold the moral high ground in relation to the much, and justly, despised “Mainstream Media” or MSM.

Unlike most of the people I at least expect to read this blog, I enjoy certain sports. I like baseball and football. I also enjoy combatives such as boxing and martial arts. I suspect some of my hoplophilic fans might feel a little more sympathy with the latter, although of course as broadcast they don’t actually employ weapons.

But this piece isn’t really about sports. It concerns a sport which, as said, I enjoy, football. But it doesn’t deal with it as a sport per se; rather as a business. And even more, the effects the Internet community, particularly bloggers, may have upon that multi-billion dollar business.

Here’re the basics: the NFL and its new commissioner, Roger Goodell, have gone on a tear about players’ off-field behavior. Bears player Tank Johnson has been under a major cloud for several arrests, including for firearms possession. Obviously I don’t endorse anti-gun laws; but again, that’s not the point here. And anyway Johnson has repeatedly run afoul of the law in the last year or so.

I’m not an apologist for corporations for reasons I’ll undoubtedly bore you with at some later point. What I do accept is that professional major league football - the NFL - is a business. The Chicago Bears are a business. As such they have the right to protect their product.

I don’t approve of corporate attempts to interfere in their employees’ private lives. I do accept that getting in the headlines and getting yourself prominently featured on Sportscenter for being busted takes your behavior out of the realm of “private.”

After Johnson’s latest arrest for DUI (and again, I’m not dealing here with whether that’s a victimless crime or not) the Bears released him - which is to say, fired him.

From a standing start I’m willing to say that’s justified. He’s an extremely well-paid employee whose job entails being a public face for the product - Bears football, NFL football. He’s made both the league and the team look like schmucks. He’s manifestly impaired the saleability of their product. So it seems justified to me that they gave him the boot.

What I find more interesting is what all this might say about the power of the so-called New Media: the Internet, including blogs.

Both “major” sports I’m interested in, baseball and football, are on morality kicks. Baseball is undergoing Congressional investigation over steroid use - which is of course utterly ridiculous, even from a statist standpoint. (My own perspective is that if the politicians are busy posturing and woofing over something about baseball, they’re not infringing our liberties at large or endorsing any new disastrous foreign policy initiatives, such as wars. However, I’m forced to admit that no matter how much of this extracurricular nonsense they engage in, they still have plenty of time to work authentic mischief that harms us all.) Football is, as mentioned, flying up in the air about players getting arrested. And it’s not always for victimless crimes: Carolina Panthers player Rae Carruth was convicted several years ago for hiring his pregnant girlfriend killed. While that incident is ancient history by contemporary standards it did a great deal to start the league feeling nervous about its players more lurid legal misadventures.

It seems to me that the baseball steroids issue is driven primarily by the MSM. I don’t actually see or hear a lot of fan interest. What I do see and hear is ESPN, in particularly, relentlessly trying to convince us that we care.

Maybe I don’t get out enough. OK: I definitely don’t get out enough. But that probably has nothing to do with blogging, except inasmuch as I do it instead of going out, and little to do with baseball (other than I’ve yet to go to a game by Albuquerque’s “new” AAA team, after several years.)

Anyway, I have seen a lot of fan response to the NFL’s off-field conduct issues - on sports blogs. And I can’t help feeling that’s contributed to the league’s taking action. They’ve started paying attention, especially when massive negative publicity is involved. I don’t know that blogs played a huge role. It just seems a smart bet that they did - since they do give fans a public voice which they haven’t had before.

What I don’t know is that the blogs are representative of fan opinion. Do fans really care about Pac-Man Jones’ lurid (alleged) exploits in a Las Vegas strip club? Beats me.

But the blogs were all over that story, and many others of similar ilk.

Why should blogs reflect fan opinion? (Granting that their comment sections reflect the opinions of that segment of fans who feel moved to write comments to blogs.) Where’s the incentive?

Blogs, let’s face it, respond to the same pressures that drive the, gasp, MSM.

The MSM sell (remember: media is plural!) viewers, basically. Or readers. They harvest as many of them as they can (maybe I should retitle this entry “Harvester of Eyes,” in line with my usual obsession about referring to rock songs) and sell them to advertisers. The more eyes, the more income.

Bloggers sell page views. Is there a fundamental difference? Whether they actually have advertisers, or are just doing the blog for self-promotion (ahem) or even sheer self-gratification - how does that differ in reality?

So the blogs (I hate the awful clunky neologism blogosphere, and intend never to use it again, and will also now go and wash my hands, with soap) will tend to follow the classic MSM dictum: if it bleeds, it leads. What the blogs and the MSM really use to harvest eyes is entertainment - regardless of the disingenuous posturings to the contrary by “news” people, and even more ludicrously, by many sports figures, that’s what the media offer. And the lurid, the sensational - these things draw eyes like flies.

Now get that visual out of your head. I dare you.

One feature of entertainment the blogs make abundant use of that the MSM mostly stay away from is mockery. (Although Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are exceptions.) The off-field antics of NFL players provide irresistible targets for cruel humor. Some of it’s pretty damn funny. The mockery also generate tons of comments - reader participation - which leads to more page views …. more eyes.

I have many reservations about and objections to the mainstream media. Now we see an alternative, the Web-based media, showing real muscle. While I think in many ways that’s a good thing, let’s keep in mind that the online media are no panacea.

OK, last night I seriously came out (no, not that way), unveiling the big project I’ve been working on the last several years: a high fantasy novel called The Dinosaur Lords.

Remember that name. You will come to know it well.

I read a couple of chapters to the Albuquerque Science Fiction Society, to a gratifyingly enthusiastic response. (The able assistance of the museum-replica dino toys I brought, with additional sound effects by yours truly, helped a lot.) The book’s half done; I’m rockin’; and rollin’ on it; it’ll be great.

Expect to see lots more about it here and on my Forum in weeks to come.

Anyway, I was gonna go on about the reading - thanks so much to Craig and Steve and Kathy and Roslee and the rest for being a wonderful audience and supportive friends, and a particular shout out to Kevin for the suggestion about executions - heh, heh - but then this intervened.

According to the UK’s Times Online, scientists at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, assure us that Tyrannosaurus rex was “A slow, clumsy beast.”

Really?

(Time out. Note: when I write something like that, please envision me doing the Mr. Spock, “You’re not so freaking bright, are you, Dr. McCoy?” eyebrow raise. I practiced for hours in front of a mirror as a kid to perfect it. You might as well get the visual.)

Like so much of what’s called “debunking” today, the article’s assertions don’t seem to make much actual sense.

T. rex is alleged to be slow because it maxed out, at least in the study, at 25 mph. To prove its slowness, they compared Rexy to a cheetah - world’s fastest predator - and a marlin. That’s, yes, a fish.

How does that differ from saying the T. rex couldn’t have been an effective predator because it couldn’t swim fast and stay submerged for long periods of time . . . like a shark? Or for that matter, that the shark can’t be an efficient predator because it can neither move nor breathe on land?

According to Infoplease.com, a lion can charge at 50 mph, twice as fast. If T. rex maxed out at 25, it is slow . . . relatively. Yet an elephant also charges at 25 mph. So how slow is that really?

Also: we are assured Rex was not agile because “it would have been hampered by its long tail.” Then later we are told the dinosaur “would have been front-heavy.” Do those two things add up? Doesn’t the long tail counterbalance the heavy front? If it doesn’t, how much could it hamper Rexy?

“The findings were reached after researchers used computer modelling and biomechanical calculations to work out the dinosaur’s speed, agility and weight.”

Ah. We all know if it’s shown on a computer, it must be true, right? We know from first person-shooters, for example, that if you shoot someone with a normal small arm, a rifle or a shotgun, they either fly twenty feet through the air (”rag-doll physics”) or disintegrate in a shower of bloody gibs (Doom.) So that must be how it works in the real world, too . . . right?

Apparently, you can always get headlines - which can readily translate by not very arcane processes into increased funding - by dissing the Big T.

The study’s assertions may be true; I don’t deny that. What does the study show, at least as represented through the article, which would lead a rational person to buy it? Keeping in mind the scientists can be presumed to have used their most compelling case to cadge free pub, they showed nothing that impressed this one.

A computer game isn’t science. A computer “simulation” isn’t necessarily a simulation of anything real. And “scientists say” has the same rational weight as “witch doctors say.” Assertion is not science. Neither is appeal to authority.

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Subject line: Mott the Hoople reference, ladies and gentleman. Yes, I am obsessed with referencing late 1960s-early 1970s rock songs. Thank you for noticing.

Specifically, I salute music label EMI for firing a much-deserved 9mm bullet into the back of the head of the monster known as DRM.

Digital rights management - DRM - has never been about protecting the rights of creators. If by creators we mean the artists and authors and filmmakers who actually produce the works in question. Rather they represent an attempt by the giant corporations (i.e., governments-by-franchise) not only to usurp the status of “content creators,” but to destroy the property rights of the consumer.

But the market has spoken. DRM is not acceptable - especially in the form of invasive malware like the evil Sony rootkit of fond memory. I also salute Apple for offering DRM-free downloads now through its iTunes service: I may actually buy something from them now. And kudos to Steve Jobs for taking a big stand against DRM a few weeks ago. He may actually have been hopping an approaching wave more than standing; but it was a good thing withal.

I still recommend subscription service eMusic. They never have had DRM: everything’s MP3. I’ve subscribed for a couple of years now. If you insist in current chart-toppers you’ll no doubt have better luck on iTunes. But if you go for indy music, or Classical (they have the whole, superb Naxos catalogue), or New Age, or folk, or other less mainstream music, they’re definitely worth a look. And they still charge only, I believe, $.33 per DRM-free song. You might check ‘em out.

Clearly, we need a Congressional commission to look into violence at … Boston Pops concerts.

Just say no to the local symphony, kids. You’ll only fall in with a bad element.

And don’t even get me started on how the public schools are so bad, even the squirrels are dangerous.

A wise man I know (OK, I’m foolin’: it’s really me) is fond of saying, “I find myself living in the science fiction future I read about growing up - and, mostly, I enjoy it.”

Who else finds today’s headlines reminiscent of those you might find in an old Heinlein novel? Show of hands? Anybody?