The Wolf Leader

Democracy - the best choice statistically

2010-04-10T23:20:00.003-04:00

With the ever increasing rancor in the US Senate (over Healthcare, over appointments, etc.), it got me to thinking about the best forms of government - specifically that with all of its seeming inefficiency, democracy is the most statistically stable type of government out there. By statistically stable, I do not mean to suggest that monarchies or military dictatorships are inherently unstable, for we’ve seen many monarchies that last longer than the US democracy and there’ve been many long ruling military dictatorships. And out of many lessons of the US Civil War, one would certainly be that one has to work just as hard to preserve a democracy as one does a monarchy, either militarily or politically or both.

What I specifically mean is that as far as the type of leadership is concerned, democracies tend to lead to much more statistically even keeled leaders over time than do the monarchies or dictatorships. Certainly, there may be certain monarchs who are universally acknowledged as being great leaders who had done great works for their countries in a much shorter time span than would have been possible under a democracy – Elizabeth I of England, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great of Russia come to mind (none-withstanding the many negative things they might have done). While these “Greats” are the peaks as far as rulers, there are many leaders who are the “Horribles,” the deep valleys on the statistical chart – the leaders whose sheer ineptitude or malice seem mindboggling, to the point where one almost wishes for an inept rulers when faced with shear horror unleashed by the likes of 20th Century dictators (see Hitler, Stalin, and their imitators all over the world). As the saying goes, nothing is dangerous as power with impunity. One can never be sure with a monarchy how great the sons (or daughter, in some cases) will be and one can never be sure if the next successor in a dictatorship will be as enlightened as the former one made himself out to be.

Thus, when faced with these peaks and valleys of rulers, one has to appreciate that for all the seeming ineptitude of some our leaders in Washington, D.C., the statistical chart for a democracy is much flatter. Granted it doesn’t have the great peaks (due in part to the democratic system – e.g., US’s three branch government), but it doesn’t have the great deep valleys either. Some US presidents might have been very good leaders and some were very poor or stupid, but there really haven’t been any presidents who rose to the level of being called “The Great” and any presidents who truly rose to the level of being called “The Horrible” – despite what recent memory might push our still heated passions to say. And that’s because there was (and is) always other branches of the government to keep the presidents from either rising to the levels where one would truly be called “The Great” and the same is true for the other side of the spectrum (especially in the past 50 years, when it seems that one party always hold the presidency while the other holds the Congress with few years worth of exceptions). While we might not get the sense of security and rapid advances produced by a truly enlightened ruler, as many people in Bhutan felt for their monarchy, we will also, hopefully, never have to go through the horrors of a successor who is truly insane or truly a moron. That’s why in Bhutan, the ruler recently decided to step down in order to move his country toward a democracy. The monarch in Bhutan recognized that while the people of Bhutan were lucky enough to get two enlightened leaders in a row, with Bhutan’s people being some of the happiest in the world, the streak of great rulers might change with the next successor, no matter the current monarch’s best intentions or the fact that the new monarch would have been his son.

In a nutshell, the seeming mediocrity of democracy is in fact its strength. While we may curse or praise the current government, always remember that a flat rolling countryside is preferable to the Himalayas of monarchy. And as ever, I eagerly await your thoughts on the subject.

Striving too much?

2010-03-01T07:28:00.000-05:00

It does appear that directors who dream of making a particular movie are often the last persons who you'd want to make these movies. Case and point: the 2000s versions of Superman and King Kong. Both films were made by directors whose dream it was to make these movies. It was Peter Jackson's dream to make King Kong because he was such a fan of the 1933 version. While the original was a visual breakthrough at the time, the "brand new" version brought nothing new to the story, aside from CGI, which aside from King Kong himself wasn't even that good (case and point, the dinosaur stampede). Say what you will about the 1976 version, but at least that one added something original to the story that was relevant to the times - the search for oil with the plot revolving around an oil tycoon searching for a large oil deposit and when failing that, settling on King Kong instead. You might not have liked the 1976 version (it'll always hold a special place in my heart as the first movie I ever saw in theatres), but at least it wasn't trying to duplicate the original move for move. Peter Jackson's dream made him unable to add anything that was uniquely his to the movie. Without a unique addition, the movie should have been tilted "1933 King Kong with today's CGI - come take a look at what I can do on my computer." Not something that one sees more than once or that makes for a great movie. Same thing for the Superman update. The 1978 original was of course one of the greatest movies of all time, at least for superhero fans (with the sequel being even better).

The 2006 Superman Returns, however, was once again a stinker. It was Bryan Singer's dream to make Superman. He left the X-Men franchise to make it. End result: His film wasn't very good. First, while it may be argued that box office results don't mean a lot, they do show that a not that good of a X-Men 3 easily made more money than Singer's Superman - a movie that one may say meant more to more people than another X-Men sequel. People grew up with 1978 original Superman and one would think that a new Superman film would bring all those fans back repeatedly. While there may have been repeat business, it wasn't a lot. As with Jackson and King Kong, Singer was trying too hard to pay tribute to the original film by making it about stunning visuals and Superman flying around and lifting things and blowing on things and shooting his laser/heat beams. Sorry, nothing new. Add to that a boring script and plot and even the best Christopher Reeve look-alike isn't going to do it for the audience. Yes, Lex Luther is a bad guy, but do we really need to see him again doing the exact same thing - land grabbing. Yes, at least Singer substituted nuclear weapons for crystals and switched up the seacoast (from the West coast to the East coast), but the plan is basically identical with Luther again being swarted by his assistant as much as by Superman himself. And don't even get me started on the Superman's kid. So, all in all, we got better CGI, but given all of Superman's rouge's gallery, we should have had a much better movie. My point is that directors who say that it is their life-long dream to make something should not be allowed within a mile of whatever film they name. Yes, it may be cruel, especially after Lord of the Rings and X-Men success (Jackson and Singer, respectively), but it's better this way than the audience sitting through torture.

Shepard Fairey: Plagiarism Or Art?

2010-02-15T15:56:00.000-05:00

Shepard Fairey: Plagiarism Or Art?

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund | About the Fund

2010-01-18T21:28:00.000-05:00

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund About the Fund

Has anyone heard of an Air-drop?

2010-01-15T18:34:00.001-05:00

Has anyone heard of an Air-drop?

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Race and Film

2010-01-11T23:10:00.000-05:00

Does watching a movie that one likes makes one less likely to see issues with race? Case in point, while watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the racism jumped out at me. On the other hand, while watching Avatar, I completely missed what people are pointing out as racism. Is that true for others? Is doing or watching something you like makes you blind to other points of view? Perhaps.

Tower of Babel anyone?

2010-01-04T23:44:00.000-05:00

Is it me or does the new world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, look a lot like the Tower of Babel? Heck, it's even in the right region of the world. Let the conspiracy theories begin, re 2012 and all that nonesense.

Avatar = New TV/DVD/Hardware

2010-01-03T21:01:00.000-05:00

As many people out there, I loved the Avatar. But upon coming home and gazing at my newly bought TV, I had to sign with exasperation. Now, as increasingly greater number of movies will come out in 3D, to view them anywhere near approaching the quality seen in theatres, you'll have to again buy brand new equipment. It just seems that BlueRay won over HD DVD in the past year or so, and now we'll have to see whether Sony will step up and make 3D integration. Any thoughts?

Shoot Low and Act Surpirsed

2010-01-01T02:19:00.000-05:00

Note the following NASA article: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/31dec_uncertainfuture.htm?list912666. Specifically, the sentence that notes "The rovers began missions intended to last for just three months but which have instead gone on for six Earth years, or 3.2 Mars years." Why do they do that? It seems every mission that has ever been sent into space, from the Hubble to Voyager, has been intended to last some ridiculously short amount of time (not to mention ISS or Skylab or Mir). And, it's like a suprise that they make these things last for decades longer. Wow, we thought we sent up something crappy into space, but wow, it is really still working. Must have been designed by engineers or something. Not marketers. Hubble, launched in 1990, was supposed to have a life of something like 5 years, but 20 years later, it's still going. Yes, there have been multiple service trips, but it appears that, after the initial mirror repair, most of the service calls were just to update equipment and swap out some insulation. They make it sound originally like after some seemingly random time period (how they arrived at that specific time frame is never explained), there will be some catastrophic power failure and the piece of tech will just die. And it never happens. So, what I'm wondering is whether the ridiculously short time frames are just to cover their behinds (in case something goes wrong, they can always say, well, it was supposed to happen 20 years ago), or whether these are valid surprises as far as machines inexplicably working years past their alleged expiration dates in the dead of space.

Be ready to be here for quite some time

2009-12-23T14:55:00.000-05:00

Note the following article dealing with space travel. The key point I take away from the article is that we are never getting out of our solar system. No technology works to give rapid travel and without rapid travel, humans would have to go into space for hundreds if not thousands of years in an outdated spaceships with no hope of ever getting new equipment. That's the biggest downside to conventional travel to far away places, in my opinion - no way to get the latest technology to the travelers. Imagine if the Apollo program was actually to go to some far away planet. They would still be in the middle of nowhere while look how the technology progressed in the last 40 years. They would have to basically make do with technology that now is beat by any run of the mill graphic calculator. Same applies to any ship leaving now. Advances are so rapid, and space travel is so slow that even if someone decided to dedicate their entire lives to it, they would basically be stuck techonologically unless they themselves develop something new (which given the limitations of being in a ship with limited resources is virtually impossible). Any thoughts?

Same Subject, Different Reception

2009-12-21T20:28:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder what makes a movie popular? Most times, if not always, it's not scientific accuracy but spectacular effects and/or big name actors. Two prime examples: Deep Impact/Armagedon and Volcano/Dante's Peak. Both pairs of films came out within a few months of each other. Both Armagedon and Volcano did much better financially in the theatres than Deep Impact (which to be fair, had a bigger opening) and Dante's Peak, even though the later ones where much more scientifically accurate - Dante's Peak so much so that it drew praise from volcanologists. Deep Impact was also praised by astronomers. Surprisingly, both Armagedon and Volcano was not a hit with the critics, but the general public loved the amazing effects (at least at that point they were) and one can say bigger stars in Armagedon and Volcano. Now, over time, both of the underdogs drew grudging respect and even when they were in theatres, many people preferred them over the more popular pair. Nevertheless, we have those pesky box office results. Money talks, or so they say. And although I cannot think of another similar situation where two movies so alike in subject matter coming out within months of each other, if Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is any indication, fans still prefer larger than life experiences when going to the movie theatre, and saving more scientific movies, hopefully, for their Netflix or DVRs. Any thoughts?

Space, the Final Frontier

2009-12-21T12:39:00.000-05:00

I found this graphic fascinating: http://dvice.com/archives/2009/12/humbling-video.php

It's a shame that we can't see anything in real time and are stuck seeing things as they were in the past. Any thoughts as to ways to overcome this problem? I personally do not see any. Even if we send out billions of tiny satellites all over the universe, they would only be able to send radio waves back that also travel at the speed of light and by the time they arrive in most places, we may not even exist anymore to receive either the radio waves or the satellites if they return.

It's interesting how it even takes the sunlight 8 minutes to reach us. For all we know, our sun may have blown up and we wouldn't know it for 8 minutes. Ah, bliss.

Why the Olympics should say YES to PEOPLE like Oscar Pistorius

2008-08-08T00:05:00.000-04:00

A recent article was posted at Dvice.com. See http://dvice.com/archives/2008/08/shift_why_the_o.php#more

I disagree with the article and posted this at the bottom of the article:

Until the steroid issues at the Olympics are truly resolved, the concern over
double amputees competing is a bit premature at best and prejudiced at worst.
The same issues have arisen with the new swim suits for swimmers that give, one
could say, an unfair technological advantage to people with the money to buy
them as opposed to diving with just speedos. And there is a difference between human power prosthetics and self-powered prosthetics that artificially recreate muscles. That's a pretty simple line. Artificial recreation of muscles allows one to make a stronger and faster prosthetic that will easily beat a human. A self-powered
prosthetic that does not artificially recreate the muscles in the foot can
hardly provide an advantage.

Agree or disagree, all constructive comments welcome.

Robots' Recognition of Beauty and Creation of Art

2008-07-12T13:06:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

For the inaugural post, I thought I'd start out with something that has been both brought up in the Will Smith movie I, Robot (and, of course, Asimov's works, but in various places) and the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In I, Robot, there is the following exchange:

Detective Del Spooner: You are a clever imitation of life... Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot take a blank canvas and turn it into a masterpiece?
Sonny: Can you?

The implication being, of course, that Will Smith character could not himself do all of the thing he was claiming that Sonny could not do. Regardless of the somewhat faulty implication, as Spooner likely meant (or should have likely meant) that robots do not have capability to do these things, the question remains: Will robots likely have the ability to write a symphony that rises above a simple "smooth jazz" category and create a truly beautiful art piece? Could the robots then appreciate it as we do?

In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, there this quote spoken by Sarah in one of the ending montages:

"We all have weak moments. Moments where we lose faith. But it's our flaws, our weaknesses that make us human. Science now performs miracles like the gods of old. Creating life from blood cells or bacteria or a spark of metal. But they're perfect creatures and in that way they couldn't be less human. There are things machines will never do. They cannot possess faith. They cannot commune with God. They cannot appreciate beauty. They cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won't have to destroy us, they'll be us."

Again, same questions arise. Of course, Asimov's works have several examples of Robots who accomplish these things. One of my favorites is Dors from the Foundation series. But there too, you have to wonder if she ever truly loved Seldon or was it really just her duty to protect him that made it seem like she loved him. Protectiveness is certainly one aspect of love.

So, any constructive thoughts are welcome.