Warp Section

We have known for some time, as has Claire, that Mr. Bennet is not her real father. What we did not know is that he was given Claire 15 years ago so he could be her surrogate father and turn her over at the first sign of any emerging powers.
And we did not know that another father, Mr. Nakamura himself, was so wrapped up in this! Flashbacks from this week’s episode show us that 14 years ago, Mr. Nakamura and his son, Hiro, were on the same rooftop where the Invisible Man kept his pigeons all these years later, handing an infant Claire over to the man who would grow to love her like his own daughter. He would love her so much, in fact, that he’d be willing to take a bullet to protect her.

We also learned a lot about the secret organization that has been using Primatech as a front. In fact, we met (one of?) the boss(es) this week. We also met “Claude” before he was a pigeon-keeper and hero-trainer. We met him as a Hunter, like Mr. Bennet. And we saw him pretend to die on the same bridge where Mr. Bennet would complete a poetic circle Monday night.

There was also a fun look at a young Haitian who was, despite his youth, still very self-possessed. And who had a very interesting mark on the front of his body.

Unfortunately, Ted Sprague and the whole radioactive man angle really detracted from the episode. As if the werewolf comparisons weren’t obvious enough with his wild hair and unkempt beard, tonight we heard Ted howling away as he flashed with radioactive energy. Apparently none of this RADIOACTIVE energy did any permanent damage to any of the important cast members, thankfully. Just as strangely, the FIRE that Ted’s radiation started seemed to cool as soon as Ted did, after Claire apparently tranquilized him.

Tonight also made me glad that neither Mr. or Mrs. Bennet are Claire’s biological parents; at least this gives her a fighting chance of not being genetically stupid. How long does it take to figure out your daughter is invulnerable? Quit trying to save her! I know the parental instinct is strong, but please don’t step in front of the human shield.

So you take the good with the bad. The realizations and surprises are coming at a great pace now, and most of the acting and writing is good. I still find myself rooting for Sylar sometimes, the only one who appears to enjoy his powers as much I believe I would. Oh, woe is me, I’m super. Well, guess what, lots of people are outcasts without having the perk of unbelievable powers, so get over yourselves and start doing more cool stuff!

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SPOILERS

Welcome to Marxism 101…Er, I mean, the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Not one of the better efforts, mostly because the premise rested on the idea that Balter has suddenly started channeling Karl Marx — which is only slightly more believable than the idea that anyone would actually listen to him. Listening to Baltar’s political theories would be like hiring Nixon to run your 1976 Presidential campaign. Chief Tyrol has proven himself quite an able hand at politics and leadership. He could have come up with a theory of labor relations all on his own.

At the same time, I always appreciate it when BSG tackles the serious social implications of the Fleet’s predicament. I’m just not sure the standard union rhetoric covers a situation where the majority of labor goes toward basic survival and the usual economic theories don’t apply because there’s not really an economy to speak of. I think the story would have benefited from being spread out as a secondary storyline over 3-4 episodes. As it is, we’re left with the feeling that a problem that could undermine the survival of the Fleet has been tidily wrapped up in 60 minutes.

And my gosh, when is Tyrol going to catch a break? He’s certainly had a rough time of it lately.

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You can find in-depth reviews of the new Ghost Rider film in plenty of other places. Here’s the compact version:

It would have made a fabulous Sci Fi Channel Saturday night original movie.

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This is just to let everyone know that the Earth Destruction Alert Level is still GREEN.

If you or someone you know has an ambition to destroy the earth, this handy guide will get you started.

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Okay a little bad language in this, so sensitive ears be warned.  Just a great Saturday afternoon funny vid for you: 

Link to Laughing Squid » Fatal Lightsaber Duel at Leia’s 22nd Birthday

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That last episode of Galactica got me thinking. If you’ve got a story set in space, at some point someone’s probably going to be stuck in an airlock, or trapped in a compartment that’s undergoing explosive decompression. Space is a dangerous scary place, and an easy way to frighten the audience is to let space in.

The Dave Bowman Maneuver

This is the situation where someone is trapped in an airlock, or outside an airlock, without a pressure suit, and in order to get back to the safety of the ship, they must propel themselves for a few seconds through the vacuum of space. Dave Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey is the prime example of this, during the famous “HAL, open the pod bay doors” scene. After HAL refuses to open the pod bay doors, Bowman launches himself, sans pressure suit, from the shuttle pod into the airlock, and seals the airlock before space gets him. The film Event Horizon has another version of this: a suicidal character traps himself in the airlock, seals the interior doors, and cycles open the exterior doors. A crewmate rescues him by waiting outside, shoving him back in, and resealing the airlock. (In my opinion, it’s the best scene in an otherwise mediocre film.) In Titan A.E., two characters leap through space in order to reach their nearby ship from a shuttle that’s disintegrating around them.

Airlock Execution
Vacuum is a really great way to get rid of the bad guys. Open your cargo bay doors, and zip, they’re sucked right out. This is assuming you are very well anchored so that you too don’t get sucked out. The Alien movies have made liberal use of this technique. My favorite variation of this is in the Firefly episode “Out of Gas,” when the crew puts out an engine fire by opening the ship to vacuum, thereby removing the oxygen and extinguishing the fire. The Battlestar Galactica miniseries also put out a fire by evacuating the air from that section. Unfortunately, a score of crewmembers were evacuated as well. The good of the many and all that.

There’s nothing quite so heart-wrenching as looking through the view plate in an airlock door, meeting the gaze of a person you’ve condemned to death, then popping the exterior door and watching them fly. This seems to be the method of execution of choice in the BSG universe. Mal threatens Jayne with flushing in “Ariel.” And you have to admit: not a whole lot of clean-up required afterward.

Reality
It’s generally accepted that the human body is resilient, and exposure to vacuum does not mean certain death. In 1965, an accident in a NASA vacuum chamber involving a leak in a suit caused an astronaut to lose consciousness, but after atmosphere was restored, he recovered with no ill effects. In an earlier high-altitude balloon experiment, the test pilot lost pressure in his right glove. At an altitude of 100,000 feet, his hand swelled and became useless. Upon returning to the surface, the hand returned to normal, and he suffered no permanent injury.

In the history of human spaceflight, there has only been one recorded instance of a decompression accident, in 1971, on the Soviet mission Soyuz 11, which resulted in the deaths of three cosmonauts. Cause of death was asphyxiation.

The main threat from exposure to vacuum is asphyxiation. A person will lose consciousness in about 15 seconds, about the time it takes oxygen-deprived blood to reach the brain. Count out 15 seconds to yourself — a lot can happen in that time. A quick rescue, for example. If you have friends helping you out after you lose consciousness, you have even longer until permanent damage from lack of oxygen occurs.

The word from NASA:

“If you don’t try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury. Holding your breath is likely to damage your lungs, something scuba divers have to watch out for when ascending, and you’ll have eardrum trouble if your Eustachian tubes are badly plugged up, but theory predicts — and animal experiments confirm — that otherwise, exposure to vacuum causes no immediate injury. You do not explode. Your blood does not boil. You do not freeze. You do not instantly lose consciousness.”

So that bit at the end of Total Recall where Arnie ends up on the surface of Mars and his face swells up and goes into contortions while his eyes bug out of his head? Wouldn’t happen.

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Forever Geek is reporting the Saturn Award nominations today.  Much to my surprise Superman Returns received 10 nominations.  I have yet to see it, and from what my friends are saying about it, I think I can still wait.  X-Men III, yeah that was good.  Of course Pirates of the Caribbean was good.

The nominees for the 2007 Saturn Awards have been announced, with Superman Returns leading the pack with 10 nominations. Other nominated films include: X-Men: The Last Stand, Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, Casino Royale, Mission: Impossible III, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Stranger Than Fiction
Source: Superman Returns leads 07 Saturn Award Nominations at Forever Geek

Forever Geek picks their favs for the winners.  For the animated category I have to agree with Scanner Darkly.  That was one freaky film.

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Someone flies, someone dies…

That was the promise, and Monday night they delivered. The invisible man finally forced Peter to develop his powers, but at what cost? Peter told us that his powers come not from shutting humanity out, but from embracing it. So perhaps it is not such a surprise that the materialization of Sylar’s powers should be accompanied by a bit of Sylar’s dark side. Still, how cool was it to see Peter go all Superman-style through the New York sky?

Meanwhile, “Zane” is accompanying Mohinder on the search for new heroes. I can’t help but think that Mohinder is going to figure it out if the people they go to visit keep getting eaten by Sylar. For now, however, chalk up super-hearing on Sylar’s ever-growing list of powers.

Hiro appeared to get his powers back tonight, at least a little. His confidence is still lacking, however. The exchange between Hiro and Ando after they narrowly avoided getting shot was pretty amusing.
Ando: Did you powers work? My eyes were closed.
Hiro: I don’t know; mine were, too.

You were all no doubt shocked and saddened by seeing Hiro push Ando away–who takes advice from a rogue gaming commissioner, anyway?–but the moment was lightened a little by a cameo from none other than STAN LEE (as the bus driver at the end)! Stan has a habit of showing up in any show or movie about heroes, since he created half of the most well-known heroes of our day.

While Hiro and Ando narrowly avoided getting shot, Simone Duveaux was not so lucky. Peter’s rage and Isaac’s misguided attempts to save the world ended in her death, the one promised by the advertising. Parallelling her death is the collapse of Claire’s mother, fallen in a pool of spilt milk. Too many brain-wipes by the Haitian have bruised her dura, or some such thing. Claire is through putting up with the lies and lets her father know it.

And Claire isn’t the only one. Matt Parkman, Ted Sprague, and Hana “Wireless” Gitelman show up in the Bennet home at the end of the episode! Whatever happens next, some serious stuff has hit the fan.

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Whew! I haven’t been that tense during an episode since they almost flushed Gaeta. Airlocks and anxiety: they just go together. (I can’t wait until our experience of living and working in space becomes extensive enough to see if the Dave Bowman Maneuver (as I like to call it) would actually work.)

Other thoughts:

• Galactica has daycare. Because you know, I’d wondered what Nicky and Hera do all day.
• I bet Mrs. Adama and Ellen Tigh used to hang out together drinking martinis in the Officers Club.
• 2 episodes now without Baltar. Bet that stubble’s getting pretty scruffy.
• 49 days without enemy contact. And you know what? I actually kind of miss the Cylons.

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William Gibson is one of my favorite SciFi authors.  I wasn’t always a fan, I was introduced to him relatively recently (within the last seven years).  I haven’t read all of his works yet, but I’m getting there.  We owe a lot of Gibson, an American ex-pat like me who lives in Vancouver, in fact I’d venture to say we owe a lot of how we conceive of the Internet thanks to him.

Gibson was the first to use the term “cyberspace” in his book Neuromancer.  His Bridge Trilogy envisioned a world where the virtual and the real worlds being to intersect.  Long before Second Life was close to becoming a reality, Gibson wrote about companies having “virtual” offices and avatars, Idoru, wanting to become “real”.

I’ve always been enamored with Gibson’s vision of the future.  Even as bad as the movie Johnny Mnemonic was, the concept of grabbing data from the air, pulling it together, and making new things is how I envision the Internet and how I brainstorm.

As strange as it sounds, and looks even stranger believe me, I start my brainstorming process by pacing on the deck and reaching and pulling pieces in the air.  One part of a project there, another there, connect these two.  Yes, it’s all from Gibson.  Yes, it was also done in Minority Report, but I saw that much later.

Today the term “cyberspace” isn’t as in vogue as it once was, but despite that Second Life has virtual offices of real things (companies, political campaign offices, even government) the Minority Report/Johnny Mnemonic vision of controlling computers and information with your hands, is in prototype stage.

William Gibson, a man who’s works, I feel, have inspired generations of geeks to bring his worlds to life

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