KyleJelle.com

What do you get when you mix Cheech and Chong, Tron, and economics?

I simply cannot think of anything to say after that.

Office 2010: The Movie:

Wow.  That makes me want to process some words.

Are you tired of movies that have nothing going for them but big robots, bigger explosions and occasionally Megan Fox?  Have you had enough of swoopy starships that can escape from black holes, but never from plot holes?  John Scalzi says:

The answer to that is actually the solution, which is that if you want studios to make those sorts of movies, go out of your way to see them in the theater, rather than just waiting until they wash up on Starz or HBO. It’s not that humans are getting stupider, it’s that people interested in entertainment that doesn’t EXPLODE aren’t going into theaters. So, you know. Go.

So I went.  This afternoon I saw Moon.  Phenomenal movie.  Directed by Duncan Jones, and starring Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, the movie’s main, and very nearly only character, Moon hearkens back to the more realistic SF style exemplified by Kubrick and Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, except where Kubrick created a movie grand in sweep, and distant in its view of humans, Moon turns the formula upside down to focus on character, and shows us a man who gets to spend far too much time isolated on the far side of the Moon, getting to know himself.

And he is in quite a predicament, the nature of which will not be revealed here.  Rockwell gives a terrific performance.  He has a gift for simply being sympathetic, even when the characters he plays should be annoying – like Guy Fleegman, the whiny second string cast member from Galaxy Quest - or could be outright repulsive - like Zaphod Beeblebrox, quite possibly the most egotistical character in all of fiction, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  This time he’s just playing an ordinary guy with the worst job on or off Earth, stuck a situation that’s hellish enough before the accident that sets off the events of the movie.  Once Sam begins to understand the true nature of his situation, he goes through the emotional reactions you’d expect, but without the overwrought melodrama that so often characterizes these things in the movies.  This is helped along by a clever script by Nathan Parker that doesn’t waste time belaboring the obvious, and leaves things that can go without saying unsaid.

The only major character in the movie other than Sam is GERTY, the HAL-like robot that functions as Sam’s assistant and caretaker, voiced by Kevin Spacey.  Here again, the usual clichés are deftly avoided.  The company Sam and GERTY work for may be as soulless as Weyland-Yutani, but GERTY’s motivations are far more complex than than those of Ash, the Weyland-Yutani robot that served the crew of the Nostromo to the xenomorph in Alien, another of this movie’s antecedents.

Sigh.  I hate to bring this up - I know Jones must want to be known more for his own work than for his family - but there’s no getting around it.  The movie may be vastly different in detail, but the feel of it - simultaneously bleak and optimistic, lonely and isolated and enraptured - captures perfectly the emotional range of his father’s first big hit:

For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet earth is blue
And theres nothing I can do

Though Im past one hundred thousand miles
Im feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell me wife I love her very much she knows

Charles Stross has been writing a series of posts detailing his history as a codemonkey before he achieved his success as an SF writer.  It’s a fascinating read.  It’s not hard to see where Accelerando came from.  Stross had quite a checkered career, including quite possibly launching the world’s first denial-of-service attack, and inspiring the creation of the robots.txt file.  It’s only about 25,000 words, and well worth reading.

This one’s pretty good:

But I still prefer this one:

And with that, I think it’s time to declare this meme played out, once and for all.  It’s just not funny anymore unless it’s making fun of itself, and since that’s already been done, it’s time to let it go.  Auf wiedersehen, Herr Hitler.  May you roast in hell.

United Breaks Guitars:

Spread the word.

Well, this is good to know:

Drinking five cups of coffee a day could reverse memory problems seen in Alzheimer’s disease, US scientists say.

Even better:

The researchers say this is the same as is found in two cups of “specialty” coffees such as lattes or cappuccinos from coffee shops, 14 cups of tea, or 20 soft drinks.

Well, that’s one disease I shouldn’t have to worry about.

BBC NEWS | Health | Coffee ‘may reverse Alzheimer’s’

I never thought I’d see the day.  Gmail finally – finally – comes out of beta:

Beta no more: Google apps graduate to non-beta status - Ars Technica

This rocks: