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“Japan’s first robot buddy cop movie”

Posted on by Patrick

There’s a phrase that makes me perk right up and pay atten­tion. I found this on the Inter­net, thanks to Wil Wheaton, and it struck me that whether or not it’s true, the sto­ry is awesome.

And I quote:

Japan’s first robot bud­dy cop movie, a silent film released in 1919, was shown only once, to an assem­bly of wealthy land own­ers in Tokyo. When the film end­ed, the audi­ence demand for afford­able giant robots to work their fields and con­trol the peas­ants was so insis­tent, emper­or Hiro­hi­to had the only copy of the film impound­ed and destroyed to pre­vent the idea from cap­tur­ing the public’s imagination.

Found via Wil Wheaton’s tum­blr. Go ahead, click through. There’s a great pho­to and everything.

Synchronicity

Posted on by Patrick

Cur­rent­ly I’m read­ing Vac­u­um Flow­ers, by the inim­itable Michael Swan­wick, for about the eighth or ninth time.  In it, peo­ple’s per­son­al­i­ties can be tem­porar­i­ly altered by a type of pro­gram­ming called “wet­pro­gram­ming”, since you’re pro­gram­ming the wet­ware of the per­son, ie, the brain.  You don’t need spe­cial train­ing to be a den­tist, or a body­guard, or a couri­er.  You just need some­one with a wet­ware pro­gram­mer and the right set of wafers to imprint the skills you need on your persona.

In the nov­el, peo­ple’s faces are paint­ed to indi­cate what they’re cur­rent­ly pro­grammed as.  Sur­geons might wear an orange but­ter­fly, couri­ers a green tri­an­gle, pier­rots a har­le­quin mask.

Today I saw this pho­to on Flickr:

The Definition of Beauty

…and part of me thought, I won­der what that paint might indicate.

“Exit Interview” reviewed

Posted on by Patrick

A web­site called Dia­bol­i­cal Plots has tak­en it upon them­selves to review pret­ty much any­thing and every­thing that Dai­ly Sci­ence Fic­tion pub­lish­es.  In the last week or so, they got to the August 2011 sto­ries, which include my short sto­ry, “Exit Inter­view”.

In short: they liked it.

When I was asked to review “Exit Inter­view” by Patrick Johan­neson (debut 8/3 and reviewed by Anony­mous), I was pleased as I clear­ly remem­bered read­ing it the day it arrived in my inbox–always a good sign. I enjoyed it as much read­ing it a sec­ond time.
More »

They also point­ed out that no less a lumi­nary than Mike Resnick — Mike Resnick! — has sold a sto­ry to Dai­ly SF. That’s some esteemed com­pa­ny to be in, methinks. (For those not in the know — Mike Resnick has been nom­i­nat­ed for more Hugo Awards than any oth­er sci­ence fic­tion writer.  Includ­ing Grand­mas­ters like Asi­mov, Clarke, and Heinlein.)

So.  How’s your day been?

Star Trails

Posted on by Patrick

Star Trails

The trails are stut­tery because the clouds rolled in, off and on. But I’m quite enam­oured with the colours that I end­ed up with.  (And here I con­tem­plat­ed doing it up in black and white, to avoid the orange glow of the streetlights.)

Video:

Starbuck

Posted on by Patrick

If you have the chance, check out the movie Star­buck.  I just got home from show­ing it at the Evans The­atre, and I must say, I real­ly enjoyed it.  It’s fun­ny, it’s touch­ing, and it shows — yet again — that Cana­da can make great movies.

It’s the sto­ry of David, a forty-some­thing who I would describe as a lov­able los­er.  He’s drift­ing through life, work­ing at a butch­er shop, play­ing soc­cer, get­ting into debt.  He dis­cov­ers that, due to some shenani­gans at the sperm bank where he used to donate, he’s the father of 500+ chil­dren.  Over a hun­dred of those kids — now in their late teens/early twen­ties — have band­ed togeth­er in a class-action law­suit to find out the iden­ti­ty of their real father, known to them only as his sperm-bank code­name:  Starbuck.

What comes next?  You’ll have to check out the movie to find out. Trust me. It’s worth it.

Task list

Posted on by Patrick
  • Rent chain­saw
  • Chop up tree that fell in the back yard

On a relat­ed note: any­one want some maple fire­wood? I can’t say yet how dry it is…

Stray thoughts as I biked to 10th Street to visit G., and then home again

Posted on by Patrick

On the way there:

  • Man, that wind is cold. Cuts right through my jack­et. I’ll sure be glad on the way home, when it’s at my back.
  • Not a lot of traf­fic, even for a Tues­day evening about 8.
  • C’mon, turn green already.
  • Thanks for giv­ing me plen­ty of space.*
  • I’ll have to make sure I turn off my tail­light when I lock my bike up.
  • C’mon, turn green already.

On the way home:

  • Crap, I left the tail­light on. Oh well, it does­n’t draw a lot of battery.
  • Still not a pile of traffic.
  • I“ll be halfway home before G. gets to his truck.
  • How can the wind be in my face in both direc­tions?
  • Heh. “Plea­sure Chest”.
  • Oh right, wash­board**. This sucks even worse at night.

Lat­er:

  • Oh crap, I left my tail­light on again.

____

* Not sar­cas­tic; the truck in ques­tion went into the oth­er lane, giv­ing me lots of room, some­thing that does­n’t always hap­pen in this town.
** They’re repaving sev­er­al streets in my neigh­bour­hood. So far they’ve done the part where they tear up the old asphalt. The sur­face left behind is less fun to bike on than you’d think.