Monthly Archive for March, 2006

The Walking Dead: Vol 1 by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore

Published
by
Andy
on 3/28/2006
in Reviews
. 1 Comment

The Walking Dead Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye

The great thing about trade paperbacks is that they don’t take very long to read. About an hour and a half, altogether, for this one. It was a good way to make sure I kept my quota for March. But anyway…

I love zombie movies, books, stories and video games. Some of the highlights of my video game upbringing were blasting a zombie in the face in a Resident Evil game. There’s really just nothing better. And quality zombie literature is also hard to come by. (I do, however, recommend The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. It’s like a Worst Case Scenario book, but for a world dominated by the living dead.) That’s why I was happy to have this series recommended to me by a friend. His name is Adam. He’s from back home. He has also recommended plenty of other good titles. And he wants his due.

The story isn’t so different from other zombie stories. As a matter of fact, the beginning is quite similar to 28 Days Later. A small-town cop wakes up from a coma to an empty hospital, only to discover that the world has fallen to the undead. He leaves to find his family, and ends up finding a whole group of people in addition, of which he becomes ad hoc leader. The first book is about the group getting used to the idea of no longer being at the top of the food chain.

The writing is a tad goofy in places, but the art, overall storyline and attitude are top-notch, and I’ll definitely continue reading this series in the near future.

Next book, “Haunted” by Chuck Palahniuk.

[This article is part of the 26 Books project that I'm doing this year.]

The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil

Published
by
Andy
on 3/27/2006
in Reviews
. 0 Comments

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence

I had a much longer post written, but some fucking spell check plugin I installed ate it all. So forgive me if this sounds rushed. I’m tired.

This book has been on my radar for years. Ever since it came out, really. I guess the book was just hard to find. (Every bookstore has a different opinion of what section it should go in.) Or, if I did find it, I didn’t have the money. Or, if I found it and had the money, I was intimidated by the subject matter, and I convinced myself to opt for the James Bond novel instead. But no more. It is now downloaded to my brain.

Speaking of brains, that’s what Kurzweil spends the first half of the book talking about, before he even gets to the subject of machines that may or may not have spiritual experiences. But I get ahead of myself.

I was originally intimidated by this book, thinking that it would read like PC assembly instructions. It was, after all, written by someone known for his contributions to the field, not his gripping suspense novels. But I was surprised. Kurzweil is an excellent, albiet straightforward, nonfiction writer. And he has imagination and a sense of humor as well. He concludes every chapter with a short Q&A with a “reader,” named Molly, who, through the power of poetic license, is able to communicate with Kurzweil in 1999 even during the chapters in which Kurzweil gradually prognasticates decades into the future. In the early chapters, Molly has a hard time keeping up with what Kurzweil is talking about. But by the end, Kurzweil has a hard time comprehending what life is like for Molly, who in the year 2099 has fully uploaded her mind and soul onto a computer.

I’ll say I learned a lot about our current state of artificial intelligence. (Or rather, 1999’s state.) I knew that Deep Blue had beaten Gary Kasperov in a regular chess tournament, but I had no idea that Kurzweil and other had created “creative” programs that can write and draw original works of art. (Check out Kurzweil’s cyber art site for more info on that, including examples.)

I was a little suspicious of some of Kurzweil’s predictions for 2009. Some of them I just don’t see us accomplishing in 3 years. For one thing, continuous natural speech recognition technology is not nearly far enough along, and especially not ubiquitous enough for us to primarily switch over to that as a means of communicating with our computers. But maybe I’m just being pessimistic.

Overall, I think Kurzweil is a frickin’ genius. He has the ability to see simultaneously where we’ve come from and where we might be going. I’m going to have to pick up his recently released book, The Singularity Is Near : When Humans Transcend Biology. It should be equally as insightful. Man, I just can’t wait for the future to get here.

Next book, The Walking Dead Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye.

[This article is part of the 26 Books project that I'm doing this year.]

How far the mighty have fallen…

Published
by
Andy
on 3/26/2006
in Notes and Observations
. 1 Comment

I just saw Stephen Baldwin on that crazy religious channel. What is it with celebrities and religion these days? I mean, why was Mel Gibson so much cooler before we knew he was a crazy conservative Catholic? Why was Tom Cruise more respected before his scientology crap became well known? I mean, he’s been a part of that cult since the ’80s. It’s nothing new.

Oh, and Madonna, you treat your religion like most people treat their jewelry.

Oh, and here’s a message to all celebrities who use their fame to promote their religion: “I don’t believe you.”

March 25?

Published
by
Andy
on 3/25/2006
in Notes
. 2 Comments

Man, where did this snow come from?

Weekend of activity

Published
by
Andy
on 3/20/2006
in Log, Observations and Reviews
. 2 Comments

I was going to break the weekend’s events down into individual posts, but I decided I would rather play video games than write for an hour.

First, I saw the V for Vendetta movie on Friday, and I must say, I was impressed. There were the usual adaptation head-scratchers that left me asking “Why in the hell did they change that?”, but overall the Wachowski brothers were able to distill the greatness from what was otherwise a rather boring, visually uninspiring, long-winded graphic novel. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the book. But it was about twice as long as it needed to be, and the movie really trimmed the fat in my opinion. And I was impressed that Hugo Weaving was able to really flesh out his character despite being hidden behind a mask for the entirety of the flick.

Second, St. Patrick’s day at the McMenamins in Bend was unbelievably packed. Obnoxiously so. Unenjoyably so. But hey, who am I to judge?

Third, Michelle and I spend Saturday in Portland. We visited a bunch of places, including Powells, the Pearl District, Nob Hill, and finally we finished the day with an ear-splitting Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show at the Wonder Ballroom. And when I say ear-splitting, I mean literally one or two notches below the threshold of pain. It was to the point that my ears were thankful for the rest between songs. But the show was excellent. They played all the songs I knew plus a few more, and I was able to pick up a limited Howl Sessions record they were selling on the road. One thing I appreciated was that they didn’t up the tempo of all their songs to make them sound peppier.

Now, for those of you in Bend, no need to remind me that they’re playing here on Tuesday. I know. I had bought the Portland tickets before they announced the swing through Bend. But a Saturday show was much more convenient anyway. But if you were wondering whether you should go to the Bend show, I highly recommend it. I think there are some tickets left.

I also finished catching up on Brian K. Vaughan’s (of Y: The Last Man) Ex Machina (pronounced Ex MAH-ki-nah), which is a fantastic book about a former superhero who is elected mayor of New York city after he stops the second plane from crashing into the second tower on 9/11. So I’m adding that to the ongoing series I’ll be reading.

Oh, and I picked up Ambulance Ltd.’s New English EP, which has a fantastic live recording of their cover of Pink Floyd’s “Fearless,” which they played the second time I saw them.

And if you’ve never heard of Death From Above 1979, you do needs check them out now. Other music of the moment: Morrissey, Tegan and Sara, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Subways, Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs and many others.

And I’m still reading Age of Spiritual Machines. Did you know that time is both speeding up and slowing down? Yeah, me neither.

There, you’re updated.