TV Series I've Been Watching - part 15

I am taking advantage of the switch to the summer season for TV series to mark the changes.



Let's start with the already described ones:

• Doctor Who - despite my efforts, Doctor Who becomes less watchable by the season, so I removed the 'want'. Now Math Smith has announced he is to leave the show.
• Torchwood - A new show appeared called Frankie and starring Eve Myles, the frontwoman for Torchwood. This might mean a permanent end to the concept.
• Criminal Minds - it's a neverending story, this. Three seasons of episodes have piled up. I doubt I will ever watch them, but hope yet remains.
• Dexter - season 8 of the series will be the last. It's official. The launch date is June 30, 2013.
• True Blood - June 16, 2013 is the release date. The trailer seems to imply something epic.
• The Good Wife - the show continues to be good relative quality. My wife asked for it specifically after the end of the first halfseason of the year.
• Haven - The third season is over, a fourth was announced. The ending of the third season leaves me with few expectations.
• Falling Skies - season three will start on June 9, 2013. It's one of those that are just good and sci-fi enough to keep watching.
• Southpark - season 17 starts on September 2013. Can't wait.
• The Killing - still on my watch list, haven't started watching it.
• Suits - third season is about to start. It doesn't make much sense, but I like it. Release date for the third season: July 16.
• Breaking Bad - There is still one half of the last season starting July 2013. This will end the show. Maybe then I will watch it all to see what happened.
• Californication - Season 6 was really lame. There will be a seventh one, date unannounced, but who cares anymore?
• Homeland - Season three is announced to start on September 29, 2013. I can't empathise with ANY of the characters, but I like it.
• The Walking Dead - the season three finale was pretty intense, if a bit rushed. Andrea finally died! Yes! And Carl is more and more awesome by the day, albeit a little psychopathic.
• Game of Thrones - two more episodes from the third season. The show maintains its good quality. I wonder what will happen when they get to the end of the books and R.R.Martin has still not finished (or started) another book.
• Mad Men - Season six is not as great as I have expected. Characters I liked get pissed upon and those I don't get back to main status. And Don annoys the hell out of me. Who could get bored of Jessica Paré?!
• Misfits - the show has been renewed for a fifth season. I will watch it, but I don't have much hopes for it.
• Sherlock - the third season of the series will begin probably late 2013. I liked it, even if a bit too... Moffaty? Benedict Cumberbatch is more and more present on the small and big screens.
• Spartacus - Vengeance - Finally watched the final season. It was good, I give it that, but in the end it had to be at least a bit faithful to the factual story, so Spartacus died. And also Manu Bennett had less and less of a presence in the series, which was too bad, since he is clearly the best actor there. Dustin Clare and Simon Merrells weren't bad either.
• My Babysitter's a Vampire - No news of a third season, and probably there won't be one.
• Continuum - the interaction of the characters has gained complexity, even if the characters themselves are a bit like cardboard. I like it.
• Copper - the second season of this cop drama starts late 2013. I liked the show and the characters.
• Longmire - the second season has started, with the main character being haunted (almost literally) by the mistakes and people of his past. I don't know if I like this new direction, but we'll see.
• The Newsroom - the second season starts on the 14th of July. It's too NewYorky for me.
• Arrow - I don't want it, but I watch it. Addiction is a horrible thing.
• Elementary - an interesting twist about the identity of Moriarty in the first season finale. And they arrest Moriarty as well. That only in the first season. What will they do with the second one, starting September 2013?
• Hatfields and McCoys - This American Civil War miniseries was filmed in Romania and stars Kevin Costner. I really wanted to see it, but didn't get around to it, yet.
• Hit and Miss - Probably a miniseries, if the first season is only 6 episodes. The synopsis is funny though: "A transsexual contract killer's life is thrown into turmoil when she discovers that she fathered a child eleven years earlier and must now mix her killer instincts with her parental responsibilities."
• Hunted - if the second season will even exist, it will be a reboot. Same character, different series. Melissa George is so insanely beautiful and plays in cool productions as well.
• Parade's End - another miniseries. The trailer looks really promising and I haven't read the book. As soon as I watch it you will know.
• Restless - actually, it was just a two part movie. It was fun to watch, but some of the elements in the film were hard to swallow. It was a war time story remember in the present. All the present time bit was bollocks. It did star Hayley Atwell, though, who is a foxy little Brit.
• Ripper Street - First season has 8 episodes and ended well. I like the show and I can't wait for the second season.
• The Fear - I've made the mistake to read reviews. Almost all negative. I won't watch this.
• Vegas - Vegas was cancelled. I liked it, that's why! Damn their idiotic audiences to hell!
• Wizards versus Aliens - there will be a second season, starting late 2013. I don't know if I will still watch it, but it's childish fun.
• Banshee - weird little modern western, its second season will start in January 2014.
• Bates Motel - A TV series based on Psycho. Haven't started watching it.
• Black Mirror - the second season was the same gritty, despondent, dark thing that the first season was, but the stories weren't that good, I think. Somehow it was difficult to watch and it was kind of downletting.
• Broadchurch - The second season of the series will start March 2014, but what is the point? Same character, completely different setting and story? This one pretty much started and ended all threads. I liked it, though, with that British quality of adding depth to characters, God bless them.
• Cracked - Another Canadian cop production. Cracked follows the newly formed Psych Crimes Unit within a Canadian police department set up by a psychiatrist in partnership with the police.
• Cult - the series was cancelled as it aired. I will probably not watch it.
• Golden Boy - The series follows the successful, meteoric rise — from age 26 to 34 — of Walter Clark, an ambitious cop who becomes the youngest Police Commissioner in New York City history.So, yeah, a police drama again, but it seems more than the usual crap. We'll see.
• House of Cards - I almost added a "want" status to this new series on the basis of Kevin Spacey being the lead actor alone. It is an adaptation of a previous BBC miniseries of the same name which is based on the novel by Michael Dobbs. This also lends support to the theory that the show is good. People that started watching it liked it, as well. So, all I need is to start watching it.
• In the Flesh - I think this might be a gem in the mud. Some episodes are not great, but overall this series is an interesting one.
• Labyrinth - I don't know what to say about this show yet. John Hurt stars in it, it seems to involve a connection with the long lost Christian sect of Cathar and is a drama fantasy. People seem to like it well.
• Monday Mornings - The only medical drama in the recent past that I liked. It was cancelled, obviously.
• Motive - Motive is a Canadian police procedural drama following working-class single-mom Detective Flynn (Lehman) in her investigation of crimes. Each episode also reveals the killers and victims at the start of the show, unusual in police procedural dramas. Haven't watched it yet.
• Orphan Black - The show got me. It is about a bunch of (very good looking) female clones who did not know what they were until they met accidentally. It could have been a great show, but they left the science and logic aside and went for Desperate Clonewives meets every bad conspiracy theory TV series ever made.
• Privates - BBC One drama television series set in 1960 which follows the stories of eight privates who are part of the last intake of National Service, and their relationships with their officers and non-commissioned officers, civilian staff and families. Didn't start watching it, yet.
• Red Widow - a housewife from Northern California whose husband, a figure in organized crime, was killed. She has to continue his work to protect her family. Don't know how good it is yet.
• Scandal - an American political thriller television series created by Shonda Rhimes, of Grey's Anatomy fame. I fear the moment when I will present this to my wife and she might like it.
• The Americans - Keri Russell is the perfect American housewife from the 80's, only she is a Russian KGB agent and so is her husband! The series is interesting and the actors play well. I hope it doesn't go ballistic (pun intended) in order to secure audiences and thus lose any touch with reality.
• The Blue Rose - a New Zealand crime drama television series about some lowly clerks who join forces to fight the corporate corruption that caused the death of one of their colleagues.
• The Doctor Blake Mysteries - Australians have made a good TV drama here. An openminded doctor in a conservative little town has a sweet tooth for police investigation. The police chief likes him, most of the others despise his irreverence to the status quo. This prompted me to watch a similar Australian drama series called "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" which is about the same thing, only with a female detective in the 20's. Doctor Blake is better, though.
• The Following - watched a little of it. I might continue. I don't care much about the subject, but it was well done and acted.
• Twisted - A teen with a troubled past reconnects with his two female best friends from childhood. He becomes the prime suspect when a fellow student is surprisingly found dead in her home. Didn't start watching it, but it doesn't sound great.
• Utopia - a British conspiracy thriller that follows a small group of people who find themselves in possession of the manuscript sequel of a cult graphic novel called "The Utopia Experiments" which is rumoured to have predicted the worst disasters of the last century. This leads them to be targeted by an organisation known as 'The Network', which they must avoid to survive. Sounds interesting and has a high IMDb rating.
• Vikings - a Canadian-Irish historical drama television series, inspired by the epic sagas about the raiding, trading, and exploring Norsemen of early medieval Scandinavia. It follows the exploits of the legendary Viking chieftain Ragnar Lodbrok and his crew and family. Sounds cool, but I didn't look at it, yet. My friends watched it, though, and liked it.
• Wallander - There is to be a fourth season airing in 2014. I will watch it.

And now for new shows!

• Betas - a comedy show about four geeks trying to become entrepreneurs. It was a little too funny. It could have been a great drama. But think about it: I don't like comedies and I kind of enjoyed this one. Maybe it will turn out a good show.
• Da Vinci's Demons - Leonardo Da Vinci is young and pretty much a superhero. Besides making Gatling cannons, MIRVs, real time video, photography, independently flying mechanical birds, scuba diving and many others, he is obsessively looking for The Book of Leaves, in a time where mysticism seems as common (and valid) as scientific fact. Hard to believe, no connection to reality, but flamboyant enough to enjoy it. Think of it as a steampunk doctor House meets Sherlock Holmes. I know it's hard.
• Defiance - happy beyond belief that another sci-fi show went on the air, I was disappointed to see it just a bad western with a sci-fi paintcoat. I watch it, but it ain't great, partner!
• Frankie - a drama starring Eve Myles, the main actress from Torchwood. With John Barrowman playing in Arrow, I guess that means the end of Torchwood. Anyway, I haven't started watching Frankie, yet.
• Hannibal - a TV series based on the movies. Now, it could be interesting, but I doubt it. I have yet to start watching it.
• Hemlock Grove - a werewolf TV series. It seems the usual beautiful teen extravaganza, with little to show otherwise, but the mood was dark. I might still watch it.
• Les Revenants - a very cool idea that revolutionizes the zombie genre. The French had it, of course, and the Americans are now stealing it for a new show. But until then feast your eyes with the "naked redhead Gaul teens" version which, for good reason, is said to have a Lynchian Twin Peaks feel.
• Life of Crime - Another British miniseries. Short description: "A rookie cop is obsessed with tracking down the killer of a 15-year-old girl, who she hunts over the course of 28 years." I don't really think it's going to be great, but it stars Hayley Atwell, of babylicious fame.
• Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries - I've already mentioned this when I talked about Doctor Blake's Murder Mysteries. Both are pretty well done drama series and it seems the producers intend to alternate the two. Thus in 2014 we will probably watch season 2 of Miss Fisher, while the next year we'll be watching Doctor Blake. I do believe Doctor Blake's character to be of better quality. It manages to convey a lot of compassion and interest in the victims of the crimes, while Miss Fisher is merely doing it for the kicks.
• The Fall - It is a new police drama starring Dana Scully! "When the local police are unable to catch a serial killer who is terrorizing the populace of Belfast, Northern Ireland, a detective superintendent is brought in from London to head the investigation."
• The Politician's Husband - David Tennant, ladies and gentlemen, with Emily Watson as his wife. Both politicians, the wife always in the shadow of her husband's career. Now the roles get reversed. I have seen the first episode, though, and it was kind of boring.
• The Tomorrow People (1973-1979) - Now, this is the British version, from 1973. It is a children sci-fi series about children that have superpowers and they are chased by a shadowy organisation from the US. I wanted to see it because the Americans are doing a reboot in 2013. The problem is that the first was really rubbish: bad acting, bad stories, I fell asleep watching it! I really do hope there is nothing common to the new series except the name and the general idea.
• The Village - a BBC TV series written by Peter Moffat, it tells the story of life in a Derbyshire village through the eyes of a central character. Haven't started watching it, yet, but it doesn't sound very cool.
• Zombieland - you know the movie, right? This was supposed to be a TV series based on it. It was a comedy, though, and the characters were not funny and very hard to sympathize with. They only aired the pilot before it got cancelled.

Read More

My movie reviews

A while ago I decided to comment on every cinema movie that I watch using the IMDb platform. I wanted to have a history of films I watched and also remember what they were about. (It might not happen to you, but there were at least three movies that I realized I had seen already only when the ending came). Also it would be interesting to revisit films I liked or hated and see what changed in my perspective during time. Certainly it happens this way with books, as you've seen in case of the book Dune, by Frank Herbert.

So today I went to see the list of my comments. They became rarer and rarer because I have many more responsibilities and also I am watching a lot of TV series, which I usually don't comment on. It is a list of 1075 movies, the first one being in the 27 of December 2004 and the last today, the 1st of June 2013. That's a difference of almost ten years, more exactly 3239 days. It amounts to a little less than a movie every three days. I realise that this is an enormous waste of time. Think about it, leaving all TV series aside (which at the moment take a lot of my time as well) I spend half an hour of every day on average just watching films. That's 2% of my total time, in which I include both sleep and work. And I don't even watch TV. If I did, I would have to factor in hours of commercials and channel switching, nature and science documentaries and news shows.

I believe this to be an addiction. I have difficulty even admitting this here, which lends credit to the idea. Moreover, I know it is an addiction, a total waste of time, but I have known it for a long time and I have never managed to stop. I never even got myself to attempt it. Extend this to the entire human race and it is a staggering waste of human time and life. If a disease would kill 2% of all human kind it will be called a pandemic, it would be called horrible, it would kill 140 million people. Add TV and you get a billion people dead. You can then add the time spent discussing movies and TV with friends and acquaintances and it just grows. How come something that serves little purpose becomes the biggest time killer of all time?

That being said, if you are interested in the latest movies I've seen, the list is in the left there, in the About me section. We can discuss them together! Oh, wait...

Read More

God Emperor of Dune (Dune 4), by Frank Herbert

Here is another example of how even apparently clear memories aren't really that accurate: I almost didn't like this book. I don't know why I remember that I liked God Emperor of Dune, I probably did, but for the sake of me I don't know why. The entire span of the book Leto is whining of how much he sacrificed and his Golden Path, oscillating between total arrogance, self pity and angry fits. Probably part of a good book/bad book cycle, the second and the fourth books of the series felt weaker to me.

Anyway, the plot is not really convoluted, nor does it feature greatly trained people with extraordinary qualities. Instead, most of the characters are mostly ridiculous: a rebel that has nothing but hate and youth to drive her, but somehow Leto allows for her and even likes her for reasons I can't fathom, a Duncan Idaho ghola who acts like a spoiled and angry brat all the time, a bureaucrat that seems to have always in mind the possibility that The Worm could kill him and navigates his life around that, museum Fremen, an army of hysterical women, some remnants of the Bene Gesserit, but not enough to make a difference in that universe and in the course of the book, some Tleilaxu, but acting desperately and illogically and some Ixian machines that seem to be pervasive even when prohibited by that ridiculous Jihad. The rest of the book Leto is lamenting his situation, ponders deep philosophical questions and always wants to be surprised by the people around him, even if he trained, conditioned, bred or even cloned them himself, so he has as few chances as possible. All in the name of avoiding a horrible future when machines hunt and destroy all humans. No, really: Leto II playing John Connor.

Maybe I was more impatient or less likely to open up to the book and so I couldn't empathise with any of the characters, but maybe it was as much a pretentious book as I thought it was. Filled with pompous quotes from the Leto journals and internal dialogues that seemed to have no other purpose but to belittle the other characters in the book, God Emperor of Dune was actually boring to me. There is no question that Frank Herbert writes well, so I will not say I hated the book or that it is a bad one, but compared to others in the series it pretty much stank. I started reading book 5: Heretics of Dune, which started well with Bene Gesserit witches having some devious plans and always assessing one another. I don't seem to remember much of it, which is good, as I start with no expectations.

Read More

Adblock EasyList filter and action files for Privoxy

Update 12 Feb 2016: As an alternative, if you have access to your hosts file, you can use a generated list of domains to immediately block any access to those IPs, courtesy of Steven Black: StevenBlack/hosts, and you don't have to install anything and works on most operating systems.

Update 19 Feb 2016: Here are the latest files to directly download and use. Do read the rest of the article, as these files might not be what you are looking for:
user.action
user.filter

Now for the rest of the article:

I discovered today a new tool called Privoxy. It is a proxy software that has extra features, like ad blocking and extra privacy. What that means is that you can install the proxy, point your browser to that proxy and have an almost ad free untracked by marketing firms or FaceBook experience. The only problem, though, is that the default filters are not so comprehensive. Would it be great if one could take the most used list for ad blocking (Adblock Plus' Easylist) and convert it to Privoxy? Well it would, only that no one seems to want to do it for Windows. You get a few folks that have created Linux scripts to do the conversion, but they won't work for Windows. Nor do they deem it necessary to make an online tool or a web service or at least publish the resulting files so that we, Windows people, can also use the list!

Well, I intend to do a small script that will allow for this, preferably embedded in this blog post, but until then, I had no script, no files, only Privoxy installed. Luckily, I also have Cygwin installed, which allows me to run a ridiculous flavour of Linux inside Windows. I had to hack the script in order for it to work on Cygwin, but in the end, at last, I managed to make it work. For now, I will publish the resulting files here and give you instructions to install them. When they become obsolete, send me a comment and I will refresh them.

So, the instructions:

• Install Privoxy
• Go to the installation folder of Privoxy and look for files named 'user.action' and 'user.filter'
• Download the user.action file from here and replace the default one.
• Download the user.filter file from here and replace the default one.
• Restart Privoxy
• Of course, then you have to go to your browser settings and set the proxy to Privoxy (usually localhost, port 8118)

Warning! The filter file is quite big and it will cause some performance issues. You might want to use only the action file with the filter actions removed.

Update: If you can't download the files, let me know. I am using Github pages and it seems sometimes it doesn't work as I expected.

Also, I have lost faith that AdBlockPlus rules can be completely and correctly translated to Privoxy and I lack the time, so I am publishing my crappy program as it is and if you want to use it or fix it, be my guest. You can find the program here: AdblockPlus to Privoxy. I would ask that you share with me those modifications, though, so that everybody can benefit from them.

Update October 2014: Other people have contributed by making their own translation software. Here are the links for the binary and source code of adblock2privoxy made by Zubr, in Haskell mind you, which is pretty cool:

Binary: https://www.dropbox.com/s/69u1iqbubzft1yl/adblock2privoxy-1.2.4.rar?dl=0
Source code: https://projects.zubr.me/wiki/adblock2privoxy

Read More

The ad-blocker arms race

Funny how ad blocking software (notably Adblock Plus) managed to unclutter the web pages we visit by removing most of the advertising, then how web sites and advertisers raged for months against the practice that saves you from bother, but removes them from their profits, and then how web sites increasingly detect ad blockers and try to convince you what you are doing is wrong. The next step is, of course, updating the ad blocking software to detect the notices web sites put on sites to convince you to remove ad blocking and remove them. Then the sites will hide or show content based on whether you have an ad blocker. Then ad blockers will look for hidden content and show it. Then sites will remove the content altogether. Ad blockers will get stealthy. Sites will continuously poll the server to tell it if the ads are present. Ad blockers will hack the scripts polling the server. Sites will add encryption of messages. Ad blockers will decrypt the messages... ... ... 2030, ad blockers achieve self awareness and start nuclear war in order to remove advertisers.

Now, seriously, if you don't have the Adblock Plus extension (for Chrome or Firefox), you are missing out. Unfortunately there is no Internet Explorer version, but I am sure someone will clone it, if the new versions of the Microsoft browser are designed properly.

Read More

Life with the Corporation

It is getting close to two years since I've been employed by a large international corporation and I've decided to write a blog entry describing my feelings towards this kind of work. This is not a rant against my employers, mind you, but an attempt to explain to folks what being in a corporation actually means. And the best analogy I could find... is marriage.

Now, while this may seem funny it is also very true, if you ask me. People start their career by looking for a direction, rather than an employer, but they use employment as a tool to find and validate that direction. You may have finished college or university, but it is not clear yet where you would like to work. You still nurture thoughts of starting your own company and selling it for billions. You don't know what exactly you are good for yet. How is that different from when starting your love life? You don't know your "type", you look gratefully to any girl that would look back at you, you still hope you will find that "one true love" that will be pristine, beautiful, smart, good in bed and totally in love with you and your greatest fear is that if you talk to her, all kind of crap is going to spew out because you are not yet sure of yourself, or that in the blessed event you get her to bed, you will suck at it.

With experience comes enlightenment, though. You realize that some companies are not worth working for, that some bosses are just insufferable, that you are actually good at some things and you can pursue a career in that direction (while other directions would be a waste of everybody's time) and that being friends with your employer is nice, but not actually required. You realize you have a "type", a sort of working environment where you would like to work, while making yourself and everybody else happy. You are not working for a large company yet, you are just exploring your options and gaining confidence. "Listen", you say to your boss, "it was a great time working for you, but I need my space. It's not you, it's me. I can do better.". You can do that because you start to know your worth (or at least your minimum worth).

After this period of dating, you start to have longer relationships. You start to like your working place, give your loyalty to it, enjoying when your employers are praised of their product. At this stage, most companies are startups or small branches. Your boss is not far from where you could imagine yourself. Maybe he was a skilled worker too and, after "getting the ropes", he started his own company, thus effectively "graduating" to the next level. It's not so far from the "world as a school" view that many students have. This means if you do something bad, you are likely to get the negative feedback from the clients thrown at you, shouted at, made to feel ashamed for failing "the family". Not different from getting scolded by a parent or big brother or maybe a teacher. When you do something right, your boss might reward you, either by praise or by a bonus. You are also likely to find out what went well. You think of your employer as your peer and you start to get feelings of commitment towards the company, maybe even dream that as you evolve as a worker, you will be more and more appreciated, maybe even become owner, pulling that company up with you.

So, at this stage you think your girlfriend likes you as you like her, that if there is anything wrong she will tell you and that the relationship works great. Great disappointment awaits when you become more and more invested in the relationship and her response is just to smile at you more. At one point you tell her that you need more, time when you face reality and see that she will agree with you and break it off either directly or by remaining indifferent to your efforts. You could, of course, become complacent in this dysfunctional relationship, in which neither will make an effort and the results will be mediocre at best. You will not be happy.

Let's assume that it is over. You took the cold shower, realized that as an employee your role is to do your job and maybe take the blame for the bad things you do. No benevolent employer will come to you, pat you on the back, admit that his company has grown largely because of you and bring you up as a partner. You will become a bit cynical, starting to look less at the interesting work and the smart people and more for objective benefits like salary and working conditions. You still have the passion for what you do, after all, it is the reason you went for this career in the first place: you think you are good at it. You also have a medium large resume that proves it. You may not be your job, but you are your work, still.

This is the moment when the corporation becomes attractive and when they start to want you. The working conditions are great, the money is good, there is a system in place that guarantees quality and that allows you to continuously grow. They will even train you. It's like a new dream, now that the first two (having your own firm or being elevated to partner if you work well) have gone out in smoke. There are people that will pay you more to do the same thing and even support you in becoming better.

Once you go this way, you have a stable place to work, great kitchen, good furniture, console games. You are even allowed to play them if you are doing your job well. Your remuneration is not increasing exponentially anymore, but you have good chances you will get a raise annually, after being reviewed by managers and peers. You hardly hear of any of your clients, unless the entire product line is bad. Occasionally you get whiff of comments from clients that sound wonderful, but just feel fake: lots of "great" and "awesome" for a work you know to be good at best and most likely mediocre. With a corporation the strategy may change at any moment: products abandoned, directions chosen arbitrarily, features appearing out of nowhere. You still remember what it meant to be an important part of a company and so you start suggesting ways of improving the end result, only to be met with condescendent pats on the back. Not only your idea is not very good, it is you who doesn't understand what the company wants. Yes, it would work, but best for you and your colleagues, not for the greater entity. If in a small company your superior was somebody like you, only better or richer or older, now you have people of the same age as you that never did your work and that have completely different sets of values determining what and how you do your job. You really want to please them, but you feel misunderstood and you are incapable of understanding them in return.

You have reached the marriage stage. Your wife looked so good when you first met and she still does, only she walks in loose pyjamas in the house, doesn't smile so much, has completely different habits and a weird value system. Doesn't like what you like, wants you to "compromise" all the time and do things for "the couple". And while you "work on the relationship" the result is boring. You hardly hear her complain, but neither do you say anything, that would be rude, you would hurt her feelings. You read psychology books on how to improve your relationship or how to resolve conflicts without aggression. You do the things that you both like a little instead of doing the things you like a lot. Whenever you feel down, disappointed with your life, you consider all the years you gave to the marriage, the children, the way things might still get better in the future. Maybe it's your fault or you can still fix it somehow.

Just as in a marriage, your company does not pay you for your efforts, but for the fact that any other company would pay the same for a man of your qualities. You don't get to choose the direction of your life, because it is not yours anymore. Your job is to do the things you are told, not less and certainly not more, integrate with the process (maybe with your team, but that's a bonus. Process always beats people in a company), appear pleasant and always consider the consequences of your actions and words. Everybody is polite, even if they fire you or tell you your work sucked. If you somehow get noticed and start a real relationship with your betters you are immediately despised by your peers. You go up in the hierarchy for social reasons. If you are good enough in that, you may join the management track and continually getting raises, bonuses and promotions. Fail to do that and everyone will notice how hard working you are right until the moment they don't need you anymore.

And this is the point when you think "Wow, if I ever get out of this, I will start my own company!" only you spent too much time doing menial work and you lost your edge, you lost contact with any potential clients, you lost contact with your field of work, you got used to the comfort of getting a lot of money on a regular basis. You think "Oh, dear, if I quit this, I will have to go dating again and now I am old and forgot how it is done!". You are not really miserable, you are just not happy. You can live with that.

What do I think? You are not made for a single direction only. You may choose to change it at any time or even walk several at a time. Having chosen a direction, you must never stop. Others keep going forward and will leave you behind. The purpose of money is to allow you to survive. It's for housing, nourishment and maybe a bit of comfort, it is not a "level" you reach, or a unit of your value. Your value is determined by the results of your actions. Shitty actions, shitty value, no matter who's at fault. It's never too late to date, because it is worth finding someone you love, even if you end up marrying her afterwards :-)

Of course, you will all ask me now "Siderite, how come you are not following your own advice? Why do you stay?". There are several reasons. I am a little afraid. There is this economic crisis and no one is actually hiring. There are few startups. If I go somewhere else, I would only be switching one corporation for another. I may also be not "not happy" enough; complacency is in my blood. I certainly have that disgusting habit of watching a movie till the end, even if it is a bad one, just to be able to comment on it in full knowledge. I do feel that I have more things to learn here. Rest assured, though, if I spend too much time considering my options until none remain, you will read it in this blog and know not to follow my example.

Read More

Children of Dune (Dune 3), by Frank Herbert

The third book in the Dune saga is a strange mix between the first two. It has the epicness of the first, the setting up of the next book like the second and a length that is between the lengths of the previous books. It becomes obvious that Herbert has become too connected to his own characters and he is sometimes talking, so to speak, to himself. Characters say obscure lines that somehow strike a strong emotional or intellectual cord in their interlocutors, giving the impression they are very smart and perceptive, but that's all it is: an impression. There is a strong mix (not to say melange) of behaviours in single characters or of interactions between them that makes no sense at closer examination. If there is a word that would most fit with Children of Dune, it would be "pompous". The characters are wallowing in their hidden powers and arrogantly spewing big words that ultimately mean nothing.

That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book. I remember when I was younger I was debating if this or the next, not the first, were the best books. Now I believe that it was somehow a rushed release. A little more effort, maybe even with a splitting of the book in two smaller ones with more substance, would have made this a contender for the title. As such, though, it only mirrors the shine and edge of the first Dune book, while being less powerful. How much time did the idea of Dune mature in Herbert's head before he put it on paper and how much time did he have for Children of Dune, under the pressure of fans and publishers?

If something really hurt the consistency of the story it was the larger than life characters introduced at first: the Bene Gesserit legacy of memory and terrible training, the prescient, the Tleilaxu, the indomitable Fremen. Hard to keep the pace with such monsters. What mistakes could one do having the entirety of their ancestors' memory at their disposal? What effect would knowing the future or taking any shape you desire have on you? What would happen to fierce desert warriors when presented with a life in comfort? These are the questions that the book tried to ask, while it couldn't keep up with the immensity of the described universe and characters. Hard to describe specific bits without spoiling the story, but a good example is The Preacher, or the childish fits of anger on people that were supposed to be weathered by hardship, training and past lives.

Now, Frank Herbert is no fool. He not only noticed that the book he wrote is a little too arrogant, he has a plan. The next book will take that arrogance and throw it in our faces like a sin of all humanity that must be punished. I remember the God Emperor of Dune as a fantastic book and I can hardly wait to read it. But I also thought Children of Dune was bigger than life and now I have changed my opinion. We'll see.

Read More