Robert Bagnall's Blog, page 21
March 16, 2017
Counting backwards (compatibility)
There's an exchange in Monty Python and the Holy Grail that I have heard credited as demonstrating cinema's greatest tacit understanding of history. Those lines are:
Large Man with Dead Body: Who's that then?The Dead Collector: I dunno, must be a king.Large Man with Dead Body: Why?The Dead Collector: He hasn't got shit all over him.
Why so hailed? Because it pithily grasps both that the faces of even the powerful wouldn't have been immediately recognisable - bizarre to us in a world where we celebrate the famous for simply being famous - but your station could be surmised by dress, number of attendants and, yes, the last time you washed.
(I'm also very fond of the similar theory that the richer you were the stronger your beer - you didn't drink the water in those days - with those with the greatest political power on the strongest brews. An examination of historical decision-making - declarations of war, marriages, etc. - in this context becomes enlightening...)
Why am I telling you this? Well, because I think we're still waiting for an equally canny exchange capturing the essence of the future.
The future's meant to be shiny. It's meant to be seamless. It's meant to be infinitely functional yet so intuitive that a toddler can use it. That's what the marketing tells me, and when has advertising ever lied?
But I'm really not sure that's where we're heading. And unless the uber-lords of Facebook, Apple and Microsoft et al engage in some sort of coding and hardware civil war, the winner forcing us to adopt their technology across every aspect of our lives (am I the first to coin the phrase 'digital slavery'?) I don't think we will ever get there.
There's a classic episode of Star Trek - The Devil in the Dark, apparently Shatner's favourite, and one that last week celebrated it's fiftieth birthday - where the Enterprise comes to the rescue of a mining colony whose nuclear reactor has been sabotaged. Unfortunately, the damaged part is obsolete, but Scotty rigs a temporary replacement from parts on board ship.
That even a temporary solution is possible, that spare parts knocking around The Enterprise fit with and talk to the colony's reactor, is possibly the most credibility-stretching aspect of an episode involving a rock-chewing polystyrene monster reminiscent of The Magic Roundabout's Dougal. Most of the kit in my house cannot talk to each other and it's pretty much all sourced from the same place, and here we're dealing with a multi-national team assisting a distant mining colony.
We're about to embark on the Internet of Things - did I mention my most recently published story is on exactly that? - and the Americans are still on Imperial units...
Let me give you a real world example. I have an ancient MacBook, which has all 27.82GB (I just checked) of music and podcasts; a 3rd generation iPod Nano, which is dying; two docking stations, each of which is compatible with the iPod (in theory), and a Moto G 2nd generation, which is also coughing up blood, metaphorically.
To replace both iPod and Moto G I've settled on a iPhone 4s. Yes, I'm going to invest in technology some 5 years old in a world in which anything over the age of two may as well live up a cave and scratch its arse whilst dreaming of fire. Because that's the most recent iPhone that can take the SIM from my Moto, and talk to my MacBook and docking station.
This is my conclusion. Essentially I - and by 'I' I mean we - have two options: either replace all your kit - and by 'all your kit' I mean everything that has a plug from the toaster upwards - in one go, or seek out a baseline of consistent redundancy. Old technology that at least fits with what you've got. Like old people in a home shouting at each other, at least they'll be shouting in a shared language within earshot of each other, assuming the batteries in their hearing aids are charged.
The Sunday supplements will paint us a picture of a joined-up digital life, whereas I foresee a world of being unable to get into your own home, the curtains inexplicably opening and closing as you watch from your drive in the drizzle.
Perhaps the only realistic illustration of how (in)compatible technology really is in practice was in the Cold War German drama Deutschland 83, where the East German spies stare at a floppy disk wondering how they are to extract the stolen NATO report when what they expected was a file of papers. Brilliant, and brilliantly prescient.
I await the day when a science fiction character holds a 16-pin plug in one hand and an 18-pin socket in the other with a look of defeat on their face. Only then will I feel it has any claim to be grittily realistic.
Perhaps HAL simply wasn't compatible with the pod bay doors?
Large Man with Dead Body: Who's that then?The Dead Collector: I dunno, must be a king.Large Man with Dead Body: Why?The Dead Collector: He hasn't got shit all over him.
Why so hailed? Because it pithily grasps both that the faces of even the powerful wouldn't have been immediately recognisable - bizarre to us in a world where we celebrate the famous for simply being famous - but your station could be surmised by dress, number of attendants and, yes, the last time you washed.
(I'm also very fond of the similar theory that the richer you were the stronger your beer - you didn't drink the water in those days - with those with the greatest political power on the strongest brews. An examination of historical decision-making - declarations of war, marriages, etc. - in this context becomes enlightening...)
Why am I telling you this? Well, because I think we're still waiting for an equally canny exchange capturing the essence of the future.
The future's meant to be shiny. It's meant to be seamless. It's meant to be infinitely functional yet so intuitive that a toddler can use it. That's what the marketing tells me, and when has advertising ever lied?
But I'm really not sure that's where we're heading. And unless the uber-lords of Facebook, Apple and Microsoft et al engage in some sort of coding and hardware civil war, the winner forcing us to adopt their technology across every aspect of our lives (am I the first to coin the phrase 'digital slavery'?) I don't think we will ever get there.
There's a classic episode of Star Trek - The Devil in the Dark, apparently Shatner's favourite, and one that last week celebrated it's fiftieth birthday - where the Enterprise comes to the rescue of a mining colony whose nuclear reactor has been sabotaged. Unfortunately, the damaged part is obsolete, but Scotty rigs a temporary replacement from parts on board ship.
That even a temporary solution is possible, that spare parts knocking around The Enterprise fit with and talk to the colony's reactor, is possibly the most credibility-stretching aspect of an episode involving a rock-chewing polystyrene monster reminiscent of The Magic Roundabout's Dougal. Most of the kit in my house cannot talk to each other and it's pretty much all sourced from the same place, and here we're dealing with a multi-national team assisting a distant mining colony.
We're about to embark on the Internet of Things - did I mention my most recently published story is on exactly that? - and the Americans are still on Imperial units...
Let me give you a real world example. I have an ancient MacBook, which has all 27.82GB (I just checked) of music and podcasts; a 3rd generation iPod Nano, which is dying; two docking stations, each of which is compatible with the iPod (in theory), and a Moto G 2nd generation, which is also coughing up blood, metaphorically.
To replace both iPod and Moto G I've settled on a iPhone 4s. Yes, I'm going to invest in technology some 5 years old in a world in which anything over the age of two may as well live up a cave and scratch its arse whilst dreaming of fire. Because that's the most recent iPhone that can take the SIM from my Moto, and talk to my MacBook and docking station.
This is my conclusion. Essentially I - and by 'I' I mean we - have two options: either replace all your kit - and by 'all your kit' I mean everything that has a plug from the toaster upwards - in one go, or seek out a baseline of consistent redundancy. Old technology that at least fits with what you've got. Like old people in a home shouting at each other, at least they'll be shouting in a shared language within earshot of each other, assuming the batteries in their hearing aids are charged.
The Sunday supplements will paint us a picture of a joined-up digital life, whereas I foresee a world of being unable to get into your own home, the curtains inexplicably opening and closing as you watch from your drive in the drizzle.
Perhaps the only realistic illustration of how (in)compatible technology really is in practice was in the Cold War German drama Deutschland 83, where the East German spies stare at a floppy disk wondering how they are to extract the stolen NATO report when what they expected was a file of papers. Brilliant, and brilliantly prescient.
I await the day when a science fiction character holds a 16-pin plug in one hand and an 18-pin socket in the other with a look of defeat on their face. Only then will I feel it has any claim to be grittily realistic.
Perhaps HAL simply wasn't compatible with the pod bay doors?
March 1, 2017
Go The Donald! Woo! Woo! Woo!
I don't think it's too outrageous to claim that, with a few notable exceptions such as the automatic writings of Andre Breton, that all pieces of writing, from shopping lists upwards, are first drafted in the mind.
These postings start off that way, despite appearances to the contrary, albeit as half-baked ideas congealing to some sort of substance then dashed off with an editorial eye barely open. I was going to open this post with something along the lines of: 'When it comes to AI people see the challenge as being whether a machine will ever pass the Turing Test but, for me, the real question is whether Donald Trump will ever pass one'.
However, concurrent with those thoughts knocking around my mind like a dead goldfish spiralling down the pan, I was going through the SM without the BD that is the process of applying for ESTAs for entry to the US of A in the summer - my previous post noted that I will be a temporary Cascadian this August. And what I had been assured was a pretty automatic process (I'd ticked the boxes to say that I was importing neither genocide nor plague) didn't seem to be for me. Indeed, I'm still waiting a couple of days on.
Join the dots, people. I think cause and effect is obvious. Here in the UK Theresa May can only read your emails; in the States The Donald can read your thoughts.
And, it's not great a leap from there to posit that it's a two way street. If he can read your thoughts he can also put ideas in your head. I see no other way to explain the election result.
So now I'm silently chanting Go The Donald! Go The Donald!
Can we have our ESTAs?
Go The Donald!
Pretty please?
These postings start off that way, despite appearances to the contrary, albeit as half-baked ideas congealing to some sort of substance then dashed off with an editorial eye barely open. I was going to open this post with something along the lines of: 'When it comes to AI people see the challenge as being whether a machine will ever pass the Turing Test but, for me, the real question is whether Donald Trump will ever pass one'.
However, concurrent with those thoughts knocking around my mind like a dead goldfish spiralling down the pan, I was going through the SM without the BD that is the process of applying for ESTAs for entry to the US of A in the summer - my previous post noted that I will be a temporary Cascadian this August. And what I had been assured was a pretty automatic process (I'd ticked the boxes to say that I was importing neither genocide nor plague) didn't seem to be for me. Indeed, I'm still waiting a couple of days on.
Join the dots, people. I think cause and effect is obvious. Here in the UK Theresa May can only read your emails; in the States The Donald can read your thoughts.
And, it's not great a leap from there to posit that it's a two way street. If he can read your thoughts he can also put ideas in your head. I see no other way to explain the election result.
So now I'm silently chanting Go The Donald! Go The Donald!
Can we have our ESTAs?
Go The Donald!
Pretty please?
February 15, 2017
Perfect ten
...on the BBC science fiction quiz. Which is, unfortunately, out of fifteen.
In other news, The Overcast want to podcast my story 'The Trouble with Vacations', even though I'm not a Cascadian - although, if all goes to plan, I will be watching this summer's eclipse somewhere in the vicinity of Mt Hood. Which is nice.
In other news, The Overcast want to podcast my story 'The Trouble with Vacations', even though I'm not a Cascadian - although, if all goes to plan, I will be watching this summer's eclipse somewhere in the vicinity of Mt Hood. Which is nice.
February 12, 2017
They have been at a great feast of languages, and stol’n the scraps
Here's a story idea. You can have it.
Not for free, of course. I want a 'from an original idea' credit, a sack of cash, and a seat next to Mila Kunis at the premiere of the movie adaptation. I think those are all reasonable demands.
Okay, here goes. Shakespeare was a time traveller.
I'm not referring to the fact that Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day, but eleven days apart, Spain having adopted the Gregorian calendar, which England regarded as Papist nonsense. That's diary mismanagement, not time travel.
No, stay with me on this one. I've always been a sucker for things like the Marlovian Theory, all that stuff about the 'second best bed' in Shakespeare's will, and so forth. Not to mention the William Shakespeare of Stratford being referred to at the time as a merchant, not a playwright, together with a plethora of other inexplicables. But my favourite (supposed) Fortean fact about Shakespeare is that it appears he died with no books amongst his possessions.
Think about it*. No books. This from one of the literary giants of the last millennia, one who wrote history plays and plays based on existing myths and legends, which would have taken a modicum of research. But, no, he had no books or manuscripts.
Even my father-in-law has books, and his reading habits don't extend much beyond The Daily Mail, road signs and restaurant menus.
But not William Shakespeare, the Bard.
And then the answer came to me. He's a time traveller. He doesn't need printed paper, because he has Wikipedia and an e-reader. Because that's the way the world is going, isn't it? Books, bookshelves, bookshops - all replaced by Amazon and Kindle. Records, CDs, cassette tapes, DVDs, VHS and Betamax, laserdisc - everything is digital and on demand. The HiFi has merged with your phone. How soon before TV and computer merge, first with each other, and then with some contact lens arrangement that puts us at the match, at the firefight, at the orgy? How soon after that before we learn to bypass the retina and eardrum and beam those ones and zeroes straight into the appropriate bits of your cortex? Mankind's wet(ware) dream.
Case closed. Shakespeare was from our future, a future where leisure has virtually no tangible presence because every physical manifestation of it has been superseded, replaced, and made redundant. That's why he had no books but managed to display a library-worth's knowledge of history, politics, myth and arcana.
But, actually, that's not how the world is going. Because, to add to that Internet meme only slightly less prevalent than a funny kitten video, that vinyl sales are resurgent, we can add the resumption of production of Kodak Ektachrome.
Both are things that the digital revolution should have done away with, that the twenty-first century should have made null and void. Vinyl? Big and bulky, and you really can't hear the difference, you only think you can. 35mm camera film? Really? Using a camera that won't make calls or surf the web or emulate a torch? Processing costs? Processing time? Won't run software that swaps your faces or turns your eyeballs funny or gives you a comedy afro? Are you nuts?
But clearly there are enough people who don't think such propositions are nuts. Who think such bulky, labour-costing, elaborate palavers are nice to have.
You see, there's a degree of miniaturisation and convenience that we don't want; we want to be able to get our hands on things. Hard work is its own reward; food tastes better when you cook it yourself, and so forth, not when it comes out of Star Trek-style replicator.
And when it comes to the essence being removed from its physical wrappings we often find that we quite liked the physical wrappings too. Music and movies are more than ones and noughts, they're packaging and pictures and sleeve notes and sitting in the dark with strangers too. Those opposable thumbs aren't just functional; they provide a tactile experience of the outside world.
No. If Shakespeare was a writer and not a front for Kit Marlowe, then he would have had a library. Or, at least, a library card.
So, what else could come back with enough people swimming against the reductio ad absurdum of the digital tide? How about queueing, I hear you say? And 'please wait twenty-eight days for delivery'? Invasive surgery with the requisite recovery time, and three days for a cheque to clear. Or TV programs that are on once and if you miss it you miss it?
But that's enough cynicism. If you stopped one of those bearded hipsters with their metal-bodied 35mm cameras hanging from their necks and John Coltrane albums under their arms, what would they cite?
How about talking to your neighbours face to face? Or not caring what you look or sound like because you don't have to maintain an illusion of a perfect lifestyle on social media, the failure of which leads to feelings of inadequacy and suicide? Or shopping in real shops run by real people in real town centres, for things that will last rather than wear-once-and-discard because some accountancy software has said that will provide the biggest profit for the man and his shareholders? Or missing out on the fear of missing out? Or not being available 24/7 just because we can be?
Just a few ideas.
* but not too much, otherwise you'll work out it's hokum.
Not for free, of course. I want a 'from an original idea' credit, a sack of cash, and a seat next to Mila Kunis at the premiere of the movie adaptation. I think those are all reasonable demands.
Okay, here goes. Shakespeare was a time traveller.
I'm not referring to the fact that Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day, but eleven days apart, Spain having adopted the Gregorian calendar, which England regarded as Papist nonsense. That's diary mismanagement, not time travel.
No, stay with me on this one. I've always been a sucker for things like the Marlovian Theory, all that stuff about the 'second best bed' in Shakespeare's will, and so forth. Not to mention the William Shakespeare of Stratford being referred to at the time as a merchant, not a playwright, together with a plethora of other inexplicables. But my favourite (supposed) Fortean fact about Shakespeare is that it appears he died with no books amongst his possessions.
Think about it*. No books. This from one of the literary giants of the last millennia, one who wrote history plays and plays based on existing myths and legends, which would have taken a modicum of research. But, no, he had no books or manuscripts.
Even my father-in-law has books, and his reading habits don't extend much beyond The Daily Mail, road signs and restaurant menus.
But not William Shakespeare, the Bard.
And then the answer came to me. He's a time traveller. He doesn't need printed paper, because he has Wikipedia and an e-reader. Because that's the way the world is going, isn't it? Books, bookshelves, bookshops - all replaced by Amazon and Kindle. Records, CDs, cassette tapes, DVDs, VHS and Betamax, laserdisc - everything is digital and on demand. The HiFi has merged with your phone. How soon before TV and computer merge, first with each other, and then with some contact lens arrangement that puts us at the match, at the firefight, at the orgy? How soon after that before we learn to bypass the retina and eardrum and beam those ones and zeroes straight into the appropriate bits of your cortex? Mankind's wet(ware) dream.
Case closed. Shakespeare was from our future, a future where leisure has virtually no tangible presence because every physical manifestation of it has been superseded, replaced, and made redundant. That's why he had no books but managed to display a library-worth's knowledge of history, politics, myth and arcana.
But, actually, that's not how the world is going. Because, to add to that Internet meme only slightly less prevalent than a funny kitten video, that vinyl sales are resurgent, we can add the resumption of production of Kodak Ektachrome.
Both are things that the digital revolution should have done away with, that the twenty-first century should have made null and void. Vinyl? Big and bulky, and you really can't hear the difference, you only think you can. 35mm camera film? Really? Using a camera that won't make calls or surf the web or emulate a torch? Processing costs? Processing time? Won't run software that swaps your faces or turns your eyeballs funny or gives you a comedy afro? Are you nuts?
But clearly there are enough people who don't think such propositions are nuts. Who think such bulky, labour-costing, elaborate palavers are nice to have.
You see, there's a degree of miniaturisation and convenience that we don't want; we want to be able to get our hands on things. Hard work is its own reward; food tastes better when you cook it yourself, and so forth, not when it comes out of Star Trek-style replicator.
And when it comes to the essence being removed from its physical wrappings we often find that we quite liked the physical wrappings too. Music and movies are more than ones and noughts, they're packaging and pictures and sleeve notes and sitting in the dark with strangers too. Those opposable thumbs aren't just functional; they provide a tactile experience of the outside world.
No. If Shakespeare was a writer and not a front for Kit Marlowe, then he would have had a library. Or, at least, a library card.
So, what else could come back with enough people swimming against the reductio ad absurdum of the digital tide? How about queueing, I hear you say? And 'please wait twenty-eight days for delivery'? Invasive surgery with the requisite recovery time, and three days for a cheque to clear. Or TV programs that are on once and if you miss it you miss it?
But that's enough cynicism. If you stopped one of those bearded hipsters with their metal-bodied 35mm cameras hanging from their necks and John Coltrane albums under their arms, what would they cite?
How about talking to your neighbours face to face? Or not caring what you look or sound like because you don't have to maintain an illusion of a perfect lifestyle on social media, the failure of which leads to feelings of inadequacy and suicide? Or shopping in real shops run by real people in real town centres, for things that will last rather than wear-once-and-discard because some accountancy software has said that will provide the biggest profit for the man and his shareholders? Or missing out on the fear of missing out? Or not being available 24/7 just because we can be?
Just a few ideas.
* but not too much, otherwise you'll work out it's hokum.
February 4, 2017
Product Recall
I see my story 'Product Recall' is now live at Flash Fiction Online. Which is nice. Why not go there, read, and even get a subscription like those nice people suggest...
January 19, 2017
Fetch me my periwig
The BBC recently reported that coffee shops are shouldering traditional pubs aside as, amongst other reasons, they become informal centres for doing business, and a younger generation eschews alcohol.
Am I the only one to get a sense of history repeating itself, of what goes around comes around? Hasn't the 'bitter Mohammedan gruel' done its best to push aside ale before? Perhaps somebody would care to trade some stocks and shares over a tall silver pot of chocolate? Have the tea clippers arrived in the East India Dock, anyone?
I, for one, intend to cash in on the boom when my ten gross of powdered wigs arrive from China, to be placed on eBay at vastly inflated sums. Laugh now, but every hipster will have one by 2019.
Am I the only one to get a sense of history repeating itself, of what goes around comes around? Hasn't the 'bitter Mohammedan gruel' done its best to push aside ale before? Perhaps somebody would care to trade some stocks and shares over a tall silver pot of chocolate? Have the tea clippers arrived in the East India Dock, anyone?
I, for one, intend to cash in on the boom when my ten gross of powdered wigs arrive from China, to be placed on eBay at vastly inflated sums. Laugh now, but every hipster will have one by 2019.
