Costco eye clinic torture devices

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followup

I'm off to the eye doctor again in the morning. My eyes don't hurt anymore, and I'm no longer light-sensitive, but the eyeballs themselves remain red. No itch to speak of. I expect the appointment to go fairly smoothly; things seem to be improving, overall.


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I take it back

I made a remark, previously, about how trans-America bikers are a dime a dozen. While it may be factually true that the number of bikers far exceeds the number of trans-America walkers, this isn't to imply that biking across the country is easy. It takes time and effort, too, and can be dangerous, especially if you're disabled. Hats off, then, to this fallen biker, who was a lot tougher than I'll ever be.


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if I were Bill Adama

My endgame, were I Admiral William Adama, would be this:

Given Galactica's structural weakness and the fact that it won't survive more than a few jumps, I'd jump the battlestar so that it was sitting just about on top of the Cylon colony, exactly opposite the black hole. Then I'd arm all nukes. If possible, I'd send out Vipers or Raptors to try and damage the colony's FTL.

This move ought to get the Cylons' attention. I'd be sure that the Galactica's nukes were rigged with some sort of dead man's switch, such that if any of the Galactica's crew were to be killed, the ship would go out in a blaze of glory.

Assuming we're able to execute this much of the plan successfully, I'd open a channel and start the negotiation process for Hera. Anything less than Hera's transfer-- unharmed-- to Galactica, would mean the activation of all nukes.

Because I'd have positioned Galactica opposite the black hole, I'd simply be letting Newton's Laws of Motion take over. Detonating Galactica would mean pushing the colony irreversibly into the black hole's gravity well; with no FTL drive, the colony would have no means of escape, and the Cylon homeworld would be lost, along with the Final Five and all knowledge of resurrection technology.

And that, I think, is about the best endgame I could muster under the circumstances. It wouldn't ensure the death of all Cylons everywhere, nor would it seal humanity's fate: the humans who hadn't volunteered for the mission would still be alive, as would the many millions (or billions) of Cylons who would have exactly one lifetime-- however long a Cylon lifetime is-- to try to reinvent resurrection technology or figure out sexual reproduction.

BSG geeks: what would your endgame be? What would it be from Cavil's point of view?


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BSG and "Terminator: Salvation"

The most recent episode of BSG, "Daybreak, Part One," played out in the most frustrating way possible. Now, at the end, it's become obvious that the series creators have wanted to play things close to the vest, revealing everything (or at least a few major secrets) at the very end. I'm not sure this was the best strategy, firstly because this means the final episode will feel overstuffed instead of like a true dénouement; and secondly, because this strategy sacrifices most of the episodes that come before it: those episodes are reduced to stringing us along, feeding us ambiguity after ambiguity with no deeper purpose than to get us to the end. It's an unfortunate narrative choice, given the sheer number of questions that have been left unanswered up to now, but which could have been answered along the way. A quick review of those questions, off the top of my head:

1. What is the ontological status of Baltar's Head Six? (This Head Six seems to be the strongest argument that the series will come to some sort of theistic conclusion, as she has proven capable of acting as an invisible force in front of witnesses.)

2. What is the significance of Hera?

3. What is the significance of the funky music that activated the Final Five?

4. Which planet is truly the planet of humanity's origins?

5. Who or what is Baltar?

6. Who or what is Kara Thrace?

7. Which religion is correct-- Cylon monotheism or Colonial polytheism?

8. Are there really any humans in this drama at all?

9. Will humanity survive? (Granted, this question is rightly left to the final episode.)

10. Are the twelve Cylon models somehow related to the Colonials' twelve major gods and the twelve colonies? I suppose the larger question here is: what significance, if any, does the number 12 have?

11. What is the significance of the opera house?

12. Will we really see an eternal return?

About the only major plot points that occurred in "Daybreak, Part One" were these: (1) Sam Anders revealed the location of the Cylon homeworld, which is actually a "colony." That term sounds significant to me. The colony hovers close to a rock-crushing black hole that seems to have only one gravitationally friendly window. (2) Volunteers from the Galactica will attempt a rescue of Hera, which will involve jumping into the space right next to the colony, where all the Cylon guns are already pointed.

Aside from that, little else occurred during the episode. We get some background on President Roslin, but we don't learn anything we couldn't have guessed: she lost her sisters and father even before the Cylon attack, but this simply puts her among the bereaved. We learn a bit about Baltar's loathing for his father, but this was already covered in the episode ("Dirty Hands") where Baltar and Tyrol talk about Baltar's childhood as an Arelonian farmer. Baltar confessed to Tyrol his wish to be a Caprican, and to change his accent to something that didn't reflect his low-class roots. (Of course, whether these memories are real, or whether we're looking at more Cylon memory-tweaking, is yet to be determined.) Perhaps the most touching moment was Laura Roslin's appearance on deck to volunteer for the suicide mission. The story has always done a good job of showing that she remains stout of heart despite being frail of body.

One interesting thing the episode does, though, is begin differently: not only do the opening credits lack the usual "preview" mashup segment, but the episode itself also begins more cosmically than normal, starting with what appears to be a god's-eye view of the galaxy before moving in to a 2001-esque shot of Caprica "before the Fall." Our first hint of the great deity? Or maybe our second: viewers will recall the way the final episode of the third season ended-- with a godlike camera leap from the fleet's position to a screeching halt at Earth's doorstep.

So at this point, we've gone through four seasons of BSG, which has been, in part, a long meditation on the questions "Who am I?" and "Who are we?" The question can be broken down into sub-questions, such as whether Cylons are really sentient and deserving of rights, which leads to the question of whether treating them as "frakkin' toasters" is a form of racism. These aren't new questions in sci-fi; they've been dealt with in other storylines, such as those found in "The Matrix" or in "Blade Runner."

Which brings me to "Terminator: Salvation," for which a truly amazing preview trailer has just come out (see Trailer 3 here; you need Quicktime to view it). The Terminator series has also dealt with the revolt of machines once they achieve sentience. It's enough to make you wonder whether the authors of such scenarios ultimately side with the machines, who by the authors' lights are sentient and therefore slaves in need of liberation. The Matrix series muddies this question by showing you machines that, with a ruthless sense of justice, enslave the humans who had enslaved them. BSG does something similar when it shows that the Cylons are, at least at first, mostly intent on eradicating the human race.

What worries me about the new "Terminator: Salvation" (hereinafter "TS" for short), though, is that a person who has just gone through four seasons of BSG is going to view TS as merely rehashing the same questions covered in BSG. You see, Trailer 3 of TS shows us an enfleshed Terminator that thinks it's human. Ever heard that scenario before? True: this is a departure from all the previous Terminator films, in which the good guys and bad guys were each clear about their respective roles. But it's not a departure from what's been happening on BSG since 2003, and it's a reminder of even older sci-fi scenarios that covered the same ground, such as Rachel's belief that she's human in 1982's "Blade Runner."

So my own anticipation of TS has little to do with whatever Big Questions it might (or might not) be trying to explore. Instead, I'm looking forward to a dizzying variety of killing machines that have been promised by the TS trailers: driverless motorbikes, house-crushing robots, sinister hovercraft, and yes, a Terminator that cries out in self-hatred when it looks down at its open torso and discovers it's not human.

I suppose one reason why we're constantly fascinated by the whole man/machine question is that the question arises and is sustained by multiple streams of thought. One stream questions whether there is, fundamentally, any difference between people and machines. Quite a few scientists openly contend that that's essentially what human beings are-- extremely complex, well-honed machines, operating according to purely natural laws of causation. By this reckoning, humans aren't perfect or perfectly efficient; they have no divine spark. They may be amazing in terms of processing power and creativity, but they remain machines.

A second stream of thought is occupied with the ethical question of what counts as real. If something isn't real to you, whatever "real" might mean, it's hard for you to care about it. Throughout the ages, warring factions have justified their wars by dehumanizing the other side, making them somehow less real and therefore easier to kill. BSG has tried to show how complicated this is by posing its version of the "zombie problem," since Cylons replicate humans down to the molecular level. If a Cylon is just a toaster, you can kill it and sleep well at night. If, however, it falls in love with you, you fall in love with it, and then you get it pregnant, what's your view of that same entity?

Humanity's creation of and dependence on technology represents an evolving relationship. Sci-fi is one of the ways in which we attempt to explore and anticipate how that evolution will progress. Perhaps because it's entertaining, or perhaps because it really does reflect our instincts, most sci-fi portrayals of that relationship seem overwhelmingly negative. Will BSG take the plunge and show us its version of that negativity? We've got a week to find out.


ADDENDUM: You might enjoy this essay at Conscious Entities about computers and minds.


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3.141592653...

3.141592653...

That's as far as I've ever memorized pi. Happy Pi Day.


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eyeball verdict

Well, folks, it turns out that I've got both an infection in my right and left eyes, and an abrasion on the surface of my right eye. We don't know the cause of the infection (or at least the doc didn't say), but the abrasion is the likely result of sleeping with the contacts in my eyes, and perhaps the pressure of my face on the pillow (I tend to sleep on my right side, and it's my right eye that's abraded).

I've got drops that I have to take every two hours, and an ointment that I have to goosh under my eyelids before sleeping. I'm to look for signs of improvement within 48 hours, and I've got a follow-up appointment on Tuesday.

So now you know as much as I do.


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the great Eye of Sauron

It appears that I'm suffering from some sort of eye infection or allergic reaction, which started yesterday (Friday) sometime while I was asleep. I woke up on the downstairs couch around 5PM after crashing about 7 hours; I had pulled a working all-nighter that had lasted from Thursday evening until about 6AM Friday morning. The Korean company had given me 11 articles to do, which is 3 times my normal load. By the time I was done, I was pooped, but was also too frazzled to sleep right away. I ended up staying up until 10AM before finally collapsing on the couch.

I fell asleep without removing my contacts. Having done this many times before, I'm hesitant to say that the contacts were a factor in my present predicament. However, I now wear disposables as opposed to the tougher daily-wear lenses that I used to sport, so that might have something to do with the way things are now. The symptoms include extreme redness in both eyes, but mostly the right; blinking is painful because it feels as though the eye and eyelid are scraping each other. Lots of tears and mucus, and a pronounced sensitivity to light, which is currently making it hard to type. I tried ice packs on my eyes yesterday to reduce the redness through vasoconstriction, but that seems not to have helped.

Got a clinic appointment at 4PM today. We'll know more later. Meanwhile, have a look:




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do it

I hope Japan does shoot down North Korea's missile. No one else seems to have the cojones to make the move. If you think my position is insane, I'm all for a discussion in the comments. This is a subject on which I've thought long and hard, and in the end, I can't see NK departing this earth in any way but the hard way. Better sooner than later, whatever the initial carnage.


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techno-telepathy through better clothing

A recent article notes that science continues to inch ever closer to true "mind-reading."

A machine to read the mind came a step closer on Thursday, when scientists at University College London released the results of an experiment in which brain scans revealed the location of people moving around a virtual reality environment.

Demis Hassabis, co-author of the study, said it was “a small step towards the idea of mind reading, because just by looking at neural activity we were able to say what someone was thinking”.

I foresee a convergence of this tech with nanotech. Imagine wearing a tee shirt composed of a reactive nanoweave that, because it's in contact with your skin, is sensitive to your neural activity. Imagine that this same shirt incorporates an advanced nanotech version of a cephalopod's ability to change color, such that high-definition images of one's thoughts can be reproduced on the shirt's surface.

Now imagine thousands or millions of people wearing such tee shirts on a busy street during a gorgeous summer's day.

What would be flashing across people's chests and backs? Would we see words as well as images? How fleeting or lasting would any given image be? Would the images be layered, reflecting the simultaneous existence of both persistent, nagging thoughts and brief, random thoughts? Would we begin to see how those images varied according to people's personalities and levels of mental discipline? Would the thoughts of a soldier prove to have anything in common with those of a monk? Would there be commonalities and differences between the thoughts of the very intelligent and the very stupid? Between men and women? Young people and old people? Would cultural differences affect what images would appear, and how they appeared? Would people in a choir or on the same sports team project images that possessed some group-oriented theme?

And what if we found a feral child and made him wear such a tee shirt? How would the images be affected by such factors as religion, political leanings, sports preferences, hobbies, or sexuality? Would feelings be rendered in some way as images? What about smells and tastes and sounds that impinge on our consciousness? What about the memories of those sense impressions? What would the shirts show when a person was shopping or meditating or taking drugs or having sex (well, the shirt might be on the floor for that last activity)? How would the shirt depict metacognition? What would it show after the wearer had committed a crime like theft or murder? How different would the shirt's images be depending on whether one was talking or listening-- lying or telling the truth? What images would we see on someone who was being tortured, or mauled by a shark, or struck by a car?

And what might such a shirt show at the very moment of one's death?

Fascinating stuff. Feel free to speculate in the comments.


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what I need for my walk

A mobile phone battery than can be charged in just ten seconds? Hell, yeah!

Too bad it won't be ready for two or three years.


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don't fellate the pandas

Joshua opines on Charles Freeman's recent crash-and-burn.

Shortly before Freeman withdrew, the well-connected pro-appeasement graybeard Chris Nelson alleged that Freeman’s words were taken “out of context” and that it was “a lie ... no other word for it” to suggest that Freeman had defended the massacre. Well, then, let’s have some more context:

For myself, I side on this — if not on numerous other issues — with Gen. Douglas MacArthur. I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be. Such folk, whether they represent a veterans’ “Bonus Army” or a “student uprising” on behalf of “the goddess of democracy” should expect to be displaced with despatch from the ground they occupy. [The Weekly Standard]

It’s one thing to hug pandas, but it’s downright unnatural to fellate them.

Classic. All the current Neville Chamberlains in high places should take heed.


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many thanks

I seem, bizarrely, to have stopped thanking my readership for the different ways in which they have helped and continue to help me, even during this strange, sedentary period of the walk. The membership for my Facebook group "Kevin's Walk" has reached 20 members plus me, which is quite cool, and most of those members joined within the past week. My humble thanks to all of you. Here's hoping that you'll look through the post topics and leave advice (and, I hope, offers of help) in them. The walk truly does depend on your activism, but if my buddy Mike wins big on the lottery, he's promised to bankroll me, in which case you all can just drive by me and chuck beer cans at my head while I'm trudging along.


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from a reader

Reader and friend Mark T. offers this link to a Catholic priest practicing his own form of Vatican 2-style aggiornamento. Mark's comment:

Here's a man of the cloth I suspect you would like. He loves food, martial arts, and theology. No word on if he is a BSG fan.

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a "Lie to Me" question

The American version of a British TV show about a profiler-- the US version was titled "Cracker," like the British original-- fell flat in the ratings, so what makes us think that a show like "Lie to Me," which also purports to show us the power of psychology as a predictive and interpretive method, will do any better?

My suspicion is that "Lie to Me" is motivated by the school of thought that contends that interrogation techniques need only be minimally coercive, i.e., a person with needed information simply has to be detained and questioned, not tortured. A skillful interrogator, such as the character played by Tim Roth, needs nothing more than his own eyes to determine whether a subject is telling the truth. From there, the interrogator can shape the interview to reveal whatever his interlocutor is hiding. "Lie to Me" exists, then, as a response to the torture-happy "24."

In a scene deleted from the final cut of "Pulp Fiction," Uma Thurman's character, Mia Wallace, asks John Travolta's character, Vincent Vega, whether he's an "Elvis man" or a "Beatles man," asserting that you can learn a lot about a person's character from that answer. I suspect the same could be said when examining people's political leanings: "Are you a '24' man or a 'Lie to Me' man?"

Interesting note: Wikipedia says this about the British version of "Cracker":

Cracker's conception was also in some ways a reaction against the police procedural approach of fellow Granada crime serial Prime Suspect, placing more emphasis on emotional and psychological truth than on correct police procedure. In an interview with the NME, McGovern dismissed Prime Suspect, noting that "Good TV writing has narrative simplicity and emotional complexity," and characterising the series as "A narratively complex story going up its own arse." Gub Neal, who produced the first season of Cracker, is quoted as saying, "That we had adopted the right approach was confirmed for me when Jacky Malton, the senior woman police officer who advised on Prime Suspect, said that although the way things happened in Cracker was sometimes highly improbable, the relationships between the police were in many ways much more credible than they had been in Prime Suspect."

So I might not be reaching to think that "Lie to Me" is in some ways a response to "24." Both shows are, by the way, on Fox.


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swamped

Tons of work to do. What's painful is that, thanks to the deteriorating won-dollar relationship, I'm earning peanuts now.


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BSG heads-up

BSG fans should note that there are four hours of BSG left.

1. "Daybreak, Part 1" is an hour long.

2. "The Last Frakkin' Special," a show that brings everyone up to speed on the major issues in BSG, is also an hour long.

3. "Daybreak, Part 2" is, as rumored, 2 hours long.

Check your local cable guide for details.


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...and we're back

I'm back in northern Virginia after a brief stint at the Villainschloss, where the babysitting went quite well. The kiddies were well-behaved, and as far as I can tell, no diseases were transmitted in either direction (them to me, or me to them). Much of the time was spent in front of the big-screen TV, watching "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith." The four-year-old, a Star Wars fan, knew exactly when to cover his eyes (kissing scenes, lightsaber amputations, Anakin's lava-induced makeover). The eleven-year-old, my lovely goddaughter, is now old enough to think that kissing might not be so icky after all, her protestations about Anakin and Padmé notwithstanding. The eight-year-old was tickled by the fact that her big sis is in love with Edward Cullen, the vampiric protagonist of the Twilight series of children's books.

Much fun was had by all, and I was treated to two excellent restaurant meals for my efforts.


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alone with three sick kiddies

Peace reigns at the Maximum Leader's house. Three sick children are upstairs. Two are watching a Wallace and Gromit video; one is reading whatever it is that 11-year-old girls read. Of the three kids, two are old enough to be missing school. I remember such days from my own youth.

I'm in the bedroom directly below the bedroom currently being shared by two of the children; the faint sounds of a claymation adventure are seeping through the floor. All is otherwise quiet.

They say the sage accomplishes everything by doing nothing. We'll see how long that holds true.

I look at my forearms. No purple blotches. The kids might be sick, but their leprosy hasn't spread to me yet. When it does, after my fingers fall off, I might be reduced to knuckling or tonguing the keyboard. Won't that be nice.

Should violence break out, I'll do my best to type out a final message here.


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"tea party" protests

"Tea parties," essentially protests that target the stimulus and bailout packages, are becoming an increasingly widespread phenomenon these days. I think the whole thing is premature-- the president hasn't even had his first 100 days yet-- but hey, more power to the protesters, if that's their thing. I'm not much of a joiner, so I've never seen the utility of gathering en masse and shouting oversimplified sound bites, but freedom of assembly is something we cherish in this country, and even I can't discount the role of protest in consciousness-raising.

It wasn't long ago that certain smug conservatives, referring to anti-Bush protesters, claimed that "conservatives don't engage in useless protests" and "protesters tend to be ugly losers with nothing better to do" (this was aimed primarily at liberal women). It warms my heart to see that many conservatives have either seen the light and embraced protesting as something anyone can do, or have never bought into that rhetoric. Good for them.


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