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.

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.

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 behaviors 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.

Reread at 45

I thought the plot of the book was too convenient, with people who have no connection to one another suddenly making plans that consider all of the others. Also, a great inconsistency between the declared training and ability of some people and their behavior. But maybe that was the point: they are all superhuman, but they are still human. They have extraordinary skill, but also make mistakes. In their greatest moments of despair or triumph, they falter. I don't know.

I am certain that in this book I hated the Fremen, all arrogant and rigid, with their laws and their world view that never changes, all the time heralded as some great examples of humanity. They were psychos! The entire empire was a cesspool of ignorant religious fanatics. While in my youth I considered that annoying, now I found it creepy, maybe right down terrifying, because I can see it happening around me so easily. I do remember that I expected a better end for Alia and that was my impression now, as well. They had prescience, the knowledge of all past generations and a clear solution to the problem, but they just decided it was too late or too complicated to do anything.

This time I got more of the pompous utterances in the book. It didn't seem so empty of meaning anymore. Yet it still is pretty dense and pretentious, with many thing left just unexplained, just happening for the sake of the plot.

I am looking forward to rereading God Emperor of Dune.

Dune Messiah is the second book of Frank Herbert's Dune saga. It is two and a half times smaller than the first book and it feels almost completely different. Paul has been emperor for some time, not much, but enough for his jihad to bring the death of tens of billions. The government of the universe is now his, a combination of religion and bureaucratic despotism that he foresaw, but could not have prevented. The house of Ix and the Bene Tleilaxu make their appearance. There are conspiracies against Muad'dib and his family from every corner and, if the first book was of his victory over his enemies, however painful, the second book is all about his defeat at the hands of the future. He walks the edge, loses almost everything, all in the name of a better future for human kind. All the characters are weaker, more human, some less human but still weak.

All in all, it is a nice book, well written and interesting, but it felt like a kind of bridge between Dune and the next two books, which have their focus on Paul Atreides' children. We are certainly looking forward to brilliant stories and great writing, but Dune Messiah seemed a little too melodramatic, less focused, with less work done on it. Compared to its predecessor, it seems a disappointment; compared to most other books, it is still great.

Reread at 45

  It is amazing to me how each decade these books are telling me something different. I still see the flaws, but they are subtly different, I still see the greatness of it, but also altered by time. Every time I read Dune it changes me, like the spice melange, makes me more introspective and extrospective. I look at things with more depth, I examine myself with more care. I love that feeling and I enjoy myself more.

  One thing remains the same, though: I immediately identify with the Bene Tleilaxu and the House of Ix while reading the book. They are the tinkerers of their time, but without the whole ideology and set in ways behind the Bene Gesserit or the Fremen. Are they evil? Who cares! Therein lies freedom.

Anyway, back to the book. Just like in the first one, there are some important events that happen out of sight and we only hear from them or are explained by the characters. In Dune, the killing of Chani's first child was almost an afterthought. In Dune Messiah we just have to accept that Jessica, the loyal mother of Paul, just decided it's OK to leave Arrakis and move to Caladan, accompanied by Gurney Halleck, no less, the man who hated the Harkonnens with his whole being. Some important characters are summarily executed off screen, too, once they've done their job. I guess that's how the world works at any time, but as a reader, I would have liked more meat on those bones.

My instinct above, where I said it was a bridge between Dune and Children of Dune, was right. Even Brian Herbert wrote about this in his introduction. Many people were let down when they read Messiah, and the general view was that once Paul has become a classic hero, readers were not entertained by his downfall. But I don't think it's that. I think it was the vagueness of the book, the pompous implications of words that did not explain anything. That's both good and bad. Let me explain.

At first read, you feel like you are part of some mystical universe where each moment, each gesture, each word has world shattering implications. Coming from the boring world we feel we live in, it's a revelation. You feel like with just a little more attention to detail, a little more thinking about it, you will also glimpse the path things take. At second read, you are used to the feeling and you kind of know you will not get to the hidden truths of the book, but you still hold hope that a better person could see them, so it's still somehow inspiring. At later reads, you just understand that Herbert intimated secrets that he himself never deemed necessary to invent. You see the inconsistencies, how characters that had complete control of their minds and bodies act like children, or how the universe is ruled absolutely by Paul, with no constitution or legal organisms that are not subservient to him, but then he must obey the Fremen law whenever the plot sees it fit.

For me, this remains a thing of hope. The Dune series is great, but it could have been improved upon. Some writer somewhere will manage to write something similar that would upstage it by the sheer personal effort to be attentive to details and to imagine a world greater than our own.

  Dune, a mega-classic of sci-fi books, written in 1965 by the ecology obsessed Frank Herbert, tells the story of a future world that is dependent on the substance known as spice, of a vast stellar empire led by an emperor and the noble houses and shaped by religion. Dune is the first in a series of six books, each one increasing the level of "epicness" of the story. There is no way I can do justice to the book in my review, it is that good and that complex. All I can say is that I've read it every ten years from the time I was 15, and every time I read it, I interpret it differently. This also shows how different we are at various ages.

  Anyway, I was saying that Frank Herbert was obsessed with ecology. I am saying this after having read all of his books a while ago and noticing the pattern. The Dune Wikipedia article claims that this book was the result of events that started Herbert's interest in ecology, while he was working for the Department of Agriculture, trying to stabilize sand dunes using plants. Herbert is also the author of brilliant books like the Pandora series or like Hellstrom's Hive which, for many reasons, I consider masterpieces as well. However most of his books and short novels feature some interest in ecological systems.

  The story is set twenty millennia into the future. As it was written in the sixties, it had to solve the problem of exponential technological advancement that was obvious even then. How can one write a book about the future, when the future moves so fast? Herbert solved it in a simple way: he imagined a world where humans rebelled against the use of intelligent machines, for religious reasons, thus removing computer advancements from the equation. Also, in order to solve the issue of ever evolving weaponry, he imagined a world where energy shields were cheap and small and could be used personally or on buildings or ships; these shields would stop any object or energy moving fast enough. This reduces battles to hand to hand combat, with knives and slow needles that can penetrate the shield. It's not like Herbert had all the answers: there are obvious technological devices that would have rendered this version of a shield useless, as well as clear reasons while perfect control over technology could not have been enforced. But the way he envisioned this future world, where everything important was the human being - as a thinking, feeling, believing creature - made it close to timeless.

Now, the plot is vast and the beauty of the book is in its minutiae, not in the overall story. This has been proven, I think, by the way people have received the 1984 David Lynch film adaptation versus the 2000 version. The first took "poetic license" to change the story and make it more script like, but preserved the feel of the book, with the interior dialogues, the epic scenes and careful attention to minor details. The 2000 adaptation was completely faithful to the book in the way of following it scene by scene, but the lack of attention to punctual details made it unappealing and bland. There is a project called Dune for 2014, maybe that will give us another point of reference. So I will not talk about the plot and let you discover it for yourself. Enough to say that it is a great book.

It is important for me to talk about the difference between my personal interpretation of the book at different ages. When I was 15 I thought it was a glorious story of personal achievement, where Paul Muad'dib and Leto II were becomes gods by the sheer power of their thoughts and feelings. At 25 I thought it was a deep analysis of human interaction, of how logic, emotions and belief clash to mold our beings. And now, at 36, I feel like the book is brilliant, but I can read between the lines, see how the structure of the story was created from various sources; a bit of the mythos has lost its power, but gained more respect. If at 15 I was identifying with Paul and at 25 I was dreaming to become Leto II, now it's easier to me to identify with the likes of Gurney Halleck or even Feyd Rautha Harkonnen. I am not saying that I like them more, I just feel I gained more insight into the other characters. I say it again: Dune is a book of details (without being boring with them).

I cannot end this review without mentioning the Dune video games. I spent many an hour playing the adventure game Dune and many a day playing Dune II, the real time strategy game that was to inspire all others in the future. The game was so primitive that the controls were not designed for ease. Each unit was controlled individually and had very little autonomy, the result being that one rarely had time to blink when many units were constructed. This prompted my father to take me to a mirror and show me my own eyes. They were red and irritated. "Oh", I said, "it's from the spice!".

Review at 45

In between Villeneuve movie adaptations of Dune, it was time for another reread and, amazingly, I got something else out of the book, again! This time I saw through many of the flaws of the book. Small flaws, to be sure, but some contradictory facts like when to unsheathe a crysknife or where the origin of a mind altering substance was and stuff like that.

I also understood why it is so difficult to make an adaptation of the book to movie form. First of all, because the people in the Dune universe are supposed to be superhuman. They remember much, think fast, feel deeply, move fast, after going through harsh training regimens and being subjected to exotic substance, strange rituals and being subject to strong religious and political forces. I can even say now that I think Herbert didn't write well enough to convey what he wanted, as his book is inconsistent in how it portrays the abilities that noble people use at every moment of their existence. Lynch tried to make it work, while all others glossed over it. On paper you are shocked by the way the characters take in the world, observe and analyze minutiae, only to then act with ruthless swiftness. On the screen, you just see normal people in a fantasy world that makes little sense.

The first part of the book is also more consistent that the second. From the moment Paul and Jessica meet the Fremen, everything is done quickly, based on rituals and knowledge that is somehow common to characters from completely different cultures and, when that fails, there are premonitions or instincts that tell them how to act in order to move the story exactly as the author wanted. And failing that, there are always coincidences that help. The Fremen themselves are described in wildly oscillating ways: they are the noble savages, but they also have a very old culture, but they are also violent simpletons that are blindly driven by ritual and implanted religion, but they also have technology, they are honorable, unless they kill stabbing you in the back or in a fit of rage. They are superb fighters, but they are not trained, so Paul can defeat them, but not the super trained Sardaukar. And so on and so on.

At the end, some particular important events are written as happening "off screen", like Herbert wanted to get it over with.

And I understand that, too. The complexity of the story and characters, the careful (superhuman?) effort that must have been necessary to make this work - while writing it on typewriter 70 years ago and also trying to get people from that time to accept it - must have been titanic. Did you know that Dune was the first best seller science fiction novel? Before this book was (repeatedly rejected and only then) published, science fiction was a niche for people to write for themselves and not others.

I am not sure if I will, but I am thinking already to continue to read the entire Dune series of books, not only the mandatory first six, but also those written by Herbert's son - the biography of his father and the collaborations with Kevin J. Anderson.

The last few years have been great for (un)dead people. Vampires have taken over the screens, even werewolves, the ridiculous people that in their greatest moments turn into mangy canines, have had their fair share of screen time and now it's the turn of zombies to have their days. Not that zombies were not done to death, so to speak, the same idea reinvented and rehashed, but basically unchanged. It was only fair that zombies become "mainstream" by appearing in a TV series: The Walking Dead. And they were not even the modern, raging running rabid type of zombie, but the slow and mindless, yet highly infectious kind. But hey, it's about supernatural monsters, a step away from sci-fi, so it is cool, even if it reiterates the same tired story of people that love drama too much and can't help fight each other and getting in the way of the undead when their emotions run high (which must invariably do so, else the characters would he boringly successful in avoiding any danger).

You might think that I am criticising the new zombie uprising because I am the kind of movie critic asshole that thinks everything sucks unless done my way, but it is not so. I have solid evidence that the undead genre can be awesomely innovative and deep in meaning. I give you three examples, all of them European, not because I am some sort of continentalist, but because the American stuff just sucks ass! I've decided to pointedly single out these three TV series and discuss them outside my "TV series I've Been Watching" section, because they prove without a shred of a doubt that TV can be for smart people, they are just not that many of them and it's not feasible economically.

Here it goes:

• The Fades - this British series had dead people that could not go to Heaven turn on the living and becoming zombies, only smart, feeling ones, that just consider death is treating them badly and are lashing out. A brilliant take on the whole undead concept that went unexplored because the series got cancelled after a season. By far the best supernatural TV series of the decade, though!
• In the Flesh - new British show that features actual zombies, the kind that eat on people. Unlike their American counterparts, they place the action of the film after the rise, when the undead are being "treated" and returned to their families. PDS (Partially Deceased Syndrome) sufferers have to deal with the reactions of small town people used to shooting undead on sight and being proud of it. Typical British thing to take a zombie idea and turn it into a deep exploration of social issues.
• Les Revenants - last, but certainly not least, a French series about people coming back from the dead. They just come back, not remembering how they died and not knowing they did. People have different reactions to them and many have noticed the "Twin Peaks" feel of the series. Dark and psychologically violent, as only the French can make them, this is as far from La Horde as In the Flesh is from The Walking Dead. There was also a movie on which this series is based, which in English was translated as "They Came Back".

I highly recommend you watching these series. I don't care what the audiences were. In my view low audience to a movie or TV show can mean only two things: it was really bad, or it was really smart. I believe these three examples fall into the smart category.

So many new series and I haven't started watching them all and there are more still coming!



Let's start with the already described ones:

• Doctor Who - episode six of the seventh season has just appeared. I will probably watch it tonight.
• Torchwood - no news at all for the fifth season. The only new things about it (for me) is that a Torchood episode has 50 minutes on Starz and 60 on BBC One.
• Criminal Minds - episodes keep piling up, but it never came up as a priority.
• Dexter - season 8 of the series will be the last. It's official. The launch date is June 30, 2013.
• Fringe - Fringe has ended! Finally! The whole observer invasion thing was like a stupid rehash of German occupation movies.
• True Blood - June 16, 2013 is the release date. The trailer seems to imply something epic.
• The Good Wife - the show seems to be oscillating between working and not working, with all the unnecessary complications that add no value to the story. Like a hard drive that develops bad sectors I expect it to fail any time now, even if I still like the series.
• 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.
• Breaking Bad - I was saying in the last post that the fifth season has ended. It hasn't! There is still one half left starting July 2013. This will end the show. Maybe then I will watch it all to see what happened. Reading the episode synopsis might work as well.
• Californication - I have demoted Californication to neutral. It feels really tired. The LA back and forth talk doesn't do it for me and there doesn't seem to be any (relevant) action.
• Beavis&Butt-head - It seems the show was quietly axed. I haven't heard anything about it for a long time.
• Homeland - I've seen two seasons of Homeland and it's pretty cool. 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 - slow walking dead people don't really seem a threat anymore. Instead, psychopathic humans do! Oh, and Lennie James appeared as a recluse madman in the last episode, and the season three finale airs today.
• Game of Thrones - season three premiers tonight. There are many fans of the books and series in my friend circle and I like the show so far. I still feel that it doesn't capture the feel of the books, but then again, maybe it will develop its own.
• Mad Men - season six is to premier on April 7, 2013. I will keep watching it, because it is just great.
• 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? I really don't want to see more and more people acting like Doctor Who. One is enough.
• Spartacus - Vengeance - I had hopes for this season, but it seems it's just the same thing, with a slave rebellion thrown in. It will probably have a Braveheart ending.
• My Babysitter's a Vampire - No news of a third season, but the show has built a faithful (if childish) fan base. What, they don't sell stuff to children in Canada?
• Continuum - the second season starts on April 21, 2013. Sci-fi cop show? Have to watch it.:)
• Copper - the second season of this cop drama starts late 2013. I liked the show and the characters.
• Longmire - still now date for the second season, but I liked the characters and the setting. The script is well written, too.
• The Newsroom - my wife loves this. I will watch the second season, but I can't decide if I like it or not.
• Arrow - I still watch this, as a superhero show with beautiful actors.
• Beauty and the Beast - removed from my viewing list.
• Battlestar Galactica - Blood and Chrome - there will not be more. It was a series of webisodes that were part of a pilot that no one bought. I really liked it, though.
• Elementary - watching it, but it's not great.
• 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 - A new show I really know nothing about. Six episodes so far.
• Hunted - Cinemax still negotiating a second season without BBC support. Boo, BBC! Anyway, hopes are waning.
• 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.
• Primeval - New World - I really tried to like this show, but I didn't. I removed it from my viewing list.
• Restless - a miniseries. A young woman finds out that her mother worked as a spy for the British Secret Service during World War II and has been on the run ever since. The synopsis sounds interesting. Two episodes so far, that I have yet to watch.
• Ripper Street - It's a bit like doctor Watson working for Lestrade, but I like the characters and the setting.
• The Fear - A Brighton crime boss turns entrepreneur and then he goes crazy. Like mentally ill crazy. I haven't started watching this miniseries, but it might be interesting.
• Vegas - It seems that to keep audiences happy, unreasonable dramas and conspiracies must be presented. Again I feel cheated, as I really like the show but I already see how the mass production version of the script looms its ugly head.
• 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.

And now for novelties

• Banshee - for a show I almost decided I did not like, it seems crazy that I watched all episodes so far. The basic premise is that a recently released inmate assumes the identity of a cop in a small town, where he has to battle local thugs, Serbian mobsters and the town's crime lord. The characters are just fun enough to enjoy, even if the story is totally implausible.
• Bates Motel - A TV series based on Psycho. Haven't started watching the two episodes that aired so far.
• Black Mirror - the second season of Black Mirror is here! Didn't watch it, yet, but probably will. There are three one hour British sci-fi stories with a moral per season.
• Borealis - Weird pilot about a future where nations battle control over Arctic resources in a very covert way. The result, a frontier town Western set in the future, didn't convince anyone and therefore did not materialize into a series.
• Broadchurch - Another small town cop thing? At least it is British, with David Tennant playing the main character (and cannibalizing some other former Doctor Who actors. It seems to have good production values, as well.
• 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 centers on a journalist blogger and a production assistant, who investigate a series of mysterious disappearances that are linked to a popular television series named Cult. The bad guy is T-bag from Prison Break.
• Do No Harm - A horrible attempt at a TV series, it features a surgeon that secretly has a split personality. A Jekyll and Hyde thing? No. Just a bad show. I removed it from my viewing list.
• Girls - this is not a new show per se, but one I didn't watch until recently. It sounded like a smart Sex and the City, so I got around to check it out. It stars an incredibly ugly, stupid and self centred girl and three of her friends. One of them is really hot, but it couldn't save the show. Weird and ugly people that attempt to appear interesting. They are not.
• 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 - Another zombie TV series! And it's British! What's even funnier is that the main character is a rehabilitated zombie Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferer. I didn't yet got "the bug" for it, but it might become a "want". I have watched two episodes so far.
• 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 darma fantasy. People seem to like it well.
• Mayday - the story of a missing May Queen teenager in a small English country village and the dirty secrets this brings up from the depths of its inhabitants. It's a British miniseries, but the viewer response has not been positive.
• Metal Hurlant Chronicles - This is a low budget European sci-fi series based on the comic books with the same title. Only five episodes and probably there will not be a second season, but it was fun enough.
• Monday Mornings - In the last post I was saying that I was in the mood for a good medical drama. This is it so far. Not so much medical, as ethical, though. The story revolves around the weekly meetings of all the surgeons in a prestigious hospital to discuss medical incidents. I like the actors and so far it has been a pretty solid story. A bit too melodramatic, but for an American medical drama, it's good.
• Monsters vs. Aliens - this is a kiddie animation show based on the movie with the same name. After a mere 20 seconds of loud colourful characters smiling and talking maniacally, I stopped and deleted the file. Will not ever watch this.
• 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 first episode aired yesterday. It's a sci-fi drama, something to do with clones. I hope it will be good.
• 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.
• Rome - only two seasons in all, but it told a story from start to finish from the perspective of two friends, soldiers in the Roman legions. Great production values, great acting, loved the actors. At the end, even if it was a great show, I didn't feel like I was hooked and needed more, which is rare with TV series.
• 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.
• Seed - A comedy about a guy that donates sperm and finds himself cornered by the resulting offspring. Started badly, was clearly a cliché from the start.
• The Americans - Set during the Cold War period in the 1980s, The Americans is the story of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, two Soviet KGB officers posing as American citizens and a married couple. Another show waiting for my attention, but it stars Keri Russell, who I love, so I will probably watch it at some time.
• 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 Carrie Diaries - Wow! A TV shows based on King's horror story! Nope. It's the TV version of Sex and the City, with a teenage Carrie... the horror, the horror...
• The Doctor Blake Mysteries - an Australian television series. Doctor Lucien Blake returns home to Ballarat in 1959 to take over his deceased father's general medical practice after an absence of 30 years. Doctor Blake is a keeper of secrets and a solver of mysteries. No data on the quality of the show yet.
• The Following - a series about a psychopath obsessed with Poe's writings that creates a cult following of wannabe serial killers. Interesting premise and it stars Kevin Bacon, but it might fizzle.
• 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.
• Wallander - I liked this British adaptation of a Swedish police drama. It stars Kenneth Branagh and is still placed in Sweden, even if spoken in English. It is as much a classical police inspector centred series as one can be, straightforward three seasons of three episodes each. Now, I can't say it was great, but me and the wife watched all nine episodes in about a week.
• Star Wars - The Clone Wars (animated series) - I can't really give this a bad rating. If the show is made for children, then it's not really that awful: count Duqu and his Syth lords are being mischievous and evil, while Master Yoda and his Jedi are always kind and good. But that is what makes the show an awful experience for anyone over the age of 12. If you think about it, the movies were not that different from this, but they showed real intrigue, violence, tough choices, even grey characters like Darth Vader. While this show lasted for five seasons, there were only a few moments when they tried to show the evolution of Anakin Skywalker from a Jedi knight to a servant of the Syth, while the technology and thinking in this series was antiquated and childish. That made me stop after a season or so, I watched the last episode of the third season, didn't see an improvement and now it has been announced that the fifth season will be the last.

This book (complete title: Wired for Love - How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship) is a layman's terms summarizing of research done in the area of romantic relationships. Stan Tatkin is not the greatest psychologist ever, but he does a good job in writing this reference book. He lists ten principles that would help people retain their relationship and improve on it. Simple things like making eye contact, hugging till the other relaxes in your arms and fighting smart - for the couple, not against your partner, can make huge impact with little effort. Tatkin suggests that we are all untrained in this relationship crap and so he goes towards making a sort of abridged manual in how to proceed.

Now that I've said all those nice things about him, Tatkin is clearly not God in all matters relationshippy. He admits that the reason why he started the research was the fact that he went through a divorce. That must be especially jarring for a psychologist. Wasn't he supposed to know about people? What happened? He then proceeds fast pace to categorize people and tell them which parts of the brain and which bits of education made them like that and what to do in order to get to the "good" category. I particularly disliked that he branded people into three categories, then was obviously biased towards only one. That doesn't mean he is wrong and certainly when going for simple straight results you just have to put caution aside and go all in. But that's just it: this book is not THE solution, it's just a solution, one that felt right to Stan Tatkin, and so you must take it with a grain of salt.

The basic ideas of the book start from brain structure. We have parts of the brain that are wired for war, what he calls primitives, like the amygdala, who is responsible for the fast reactions that keep us alive. When we get into fights, for example, the amygdala gets excited and furiously fires neurons that prepare your body for a physical conflict. At this time other parts of the brain are more suited to assess the situation and define danger and behavior, parts he calls ambassadors, like the hippocampus. If we are too focused on our basic emotions, we start arguing and hurting the other in order for us, the individual, to come up top in the battle and miss important cues on how our partner feels and what are the correct measures to make the couple get through the situation. Tatkin makes the simple case that as long as we go through episodes where we fight for us and against our partners, this hurts, obviously, the relationship. The thing we should strive towards is the "couple bubble" (I know, terrible name) where both parties can feel protected and safe together with the other significant.

The author splits people into three categories. There is the island, which in childhood was not engaged by their parents, not hugged enough, they did not feel protected. They come out as individualists valuing their personal space and sensible to any close or intimate contact. They believe that as long as two people are self reliant and have a good life, they can have a good relationship without actually needing each other, only enjoying the company. There is the anchor, someone who was loved and engaged during childhood, with lots of attention and careful interaction with caregivers. They are balanced in their emotions, easily empathize with others and form natural couple bubbles, are fond of affection and close personal contact. And there are the waves, who oscillate between the two, alternatively needing affection and intimacy, only to run away when they receive it, for fear of being rejected or abandoned. From all three categories, the anchor is "the way", while the others something our childhood regretfully forced us to be. Thankfully, treating our partner right and being treated right back can change our affiliation.

Needless to say, I don't wholly agree with the guy. The categories feel arbitrary and unidimensional. Of course that restricting your metric restricts your vision of the world, but at the same time one can take this book as an advocate for a specific system. It is the job of others to find and validate others. This is what worked for Tatkin and so he shares it with the reader.

Here are the ten guiding principles of the book. For details, read the book. It's pretty short.

1. Creating a couple bubble allows partners to keep each other safe and secure
2. Partners can make love and avoid war when their primitives are put to ease
3. Partners relate to one another primarily as anchors, islands or waves
4. Partners who are experts on one another know how to please and soothe each other
5. Partners with busy lives should create and use bedtime and morning rituals, as well as reunion rituals
6. Partners should serve as the primary go-to people for one another
7. Partners should prevent each other from being a third wheel when relating to outsiders
8. Partners who want to stay together must learn to fight well
9. Partners can rekindle their love at any time through eye contact
10. Partners can minimize each other's stress and optimize each other's health

Conclusion: A book that can open eyes. One must be careful not to close them in other directions or look only this way. As I said earlier, it seemed as a theory based on a single dimension, the need to feel safe, with little bleedthrough in other areas. Some of the things in the book are so easy to do that not trying them to see if they work would be a shame. Also, whenever something feels too obvious, try to remember when (and if) you actually rationalized this before. Sometimes obvious things need to be said.

I have attended the Adobe KickStart Innovation Workshop, which is the latest Adobe attempt to increase innovation in the corporation. You see, having a pyramidal structure where the top instructs the bottom, stifles initiative and sucks the life out of people was not working for them anymore. In all likelihood the move was sparked by Adobe not being in the list of top 100 most innovative companies and they took that to heart.

That being said (in a mean spirited, ranty and spiteful way, of course) I really liked Mark Randall, the guy that introduced the concept. You see, he is a rather brilliant entrepreneur, almost hugely successful several times and certainly above most business people I know of, who uses the ideas of Lean startups to create companies that "change the world". He is also kind of funny, in that personally distant way that Americans often display, but still funny and smart. He is as far away from the classical corporate vision as he could be, as he advocated structures that self organize under the scrutiny, but lack of involvement of the management. In a sort of "If you build it, he will come" sort of way, he thinks that if you create a system that allows for everybody to win, then people will automatically use it, improve on it and make it work, without the need for suffocating oversight. And that is what the KickStart project entails.

There is a lot to say about this, including my ongoing efforts in it (the two day presentation was just the preparation for the actual work, which I must do for myself), but I will keep this to a minimum. It could be enough to say that I really liked the idea, even if I completely disliked the presentation video, with all the diversely ethnic people excited about the opportunity to rise from the dirt by the all enabling Adobe. In truth, I opened my big mouth again asked Mark why the video sucked so much and he said that it was made in a day with only the people that could come on short notice. So I guess the excited people were actually the excited ones.

Anyway, let me summarize the concept of KickStart. You go to this two day preparatory presentation with Mark Randal where he gives everybody a red box containing the blueprint for a business. He lists the six steps that one must take in order to get the blue box, which I guess is the symbol of success. One of the most important ideas that can be taken from this process is that you do not need to do any actual development of the idea in order to validate its success. You get the idea, you share it with people, ask for feedback of the people that would use and/or buy your product, improve the idea, prototype something fast, without anything in the background, and iterate through this until you have some sort of metric of success: is your idea good? Would people use it? Would they pay for it? After you have changed the idea to conform to the realities of business and the clients needs and after you have gained support behind the idea, only then you get to make the actual development. In other words: gather data as fast as you can on the interest people have in your idea before you actually get to work. It's based on science: gather data, make a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, iterate.

Now, what does KickStart mean in the context of the corporation? It means they give you 1000$ (on a card that is valid only for the duration of the workshop - one and a half months) that you can use to further your business (like buying a domain and hosting, advertising, research, etc) and they want you to do the work that validates the idea. The sixth step is convincing the Adobe executives that your idea is good and not only that, but in sync with Adobe's strategy and values. What strategy and values, you ask? I could not answer that, neither could Mark Randall. The example business plan that won the blue box in another workshop was some kind of online challenge based on photos that where connected by their GPS location. And even if this really aligns with the Photoshop+mobile+creativity Adobe thematic, he still got to change the idea until it became something more marketable. You also have to fight out of the blue concepts like "Adobe doesn't do hardware" or "Adobe doesn't do games". Who comes up with these? Executives. They don't have an anti-porn charter, but they assume it's common sense not to pitch your newest Creative Sexuality idea.

And here is the kicker (pun intended): if your idea does not pass, you have gained invaluable knowledge as an innovator and a possible entrepreneur. If your idea does pass, you gain more support to expand on it, under the corporation protective umbrella (insert Resident Evil jibe here). In fact, if you are hugely successful, the business belongs to Adobe, not to you. It only makes sense, since they supported you from the beginning. And if it works, who else to run it and earn the big bucks but you? so I don't see it as a big problem, but you have to be aware of it.

Last but not least is the question: Who the hell is Mark Randall? He is the guy that in the 90's could have revolutionized the video and photo industries with little gadgets that they did with heart and a lot of work. He and his best friend Paul worked their ass off for five years (and here I mean off! They lived in their offices, even if they had rented apartments to live in) until they reached from a garage shop the size of a company that was going to go public for 650 million $. I won't spoil the story that Mark himself tells during the initial presentation, but enough to say that the feeling and vibe of those days he is trying to kindle into others, to make them live the same wonder - if they chose to.

Meet my new puppy dog, Tyrion! The name is, of course, taken from A Song of Ice and Fire, where it is the name of a dwarf who is kind, intelligent and, when needed, ruthless. Of course, if it were a female puppy, she would have been named Arya.

The dog is a West Highland White Terrier, a breed that is known for a lot of sturdiness for their size, curiosity and intellect and also a strong personality which pushes them to claim leadership of the house, even over their owners. Even if the owners are assertive and consistent, only one of them is likely to be considered "leader of the pack", with the other a peer at max. He is supposed to be very stubborn.

That being said, Tyrion is a small lovable little puppy of only three months who so far liked every person that came into the house and was likewise liked in return. He seems to love us even if we do evil things to him like vaccinations or shouting at him when he poops all over the place. On the other hand, a Lannister always pays his debts, so you never know. In all fairness the vet warned us that he might need a few weeks to adjust to the house and learn to relieve himself in a single spot, but he is well on the way there. In only a week he learned to excrete on the Pampers like sheet we placed on the floor. More or less. Also, until we vaccinate him, he is not allowed outside, and that means he will stay indoors for at least another month.

And before you think I am in that "Ya gotta see the baby!" mood, let me tell you I am not. I am quite attached to the affectionate little fur ball, and he to me, but that's the extent of it. This is an informative post, just so you know why instead of blogging cool stuff, I put out puppy pictures.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I've started a chess learning program with a professional, so I can increase my understanding of the game. I was tired of watching Dennis Monokroussos' videos and understanding little of them. Why was he able to breeze through openings and only start explaining from move 20 or so? Why are the chess masters that I watch on videos able to say "this cannot be taken because of..." followed by a four move scheme that makes obvious the mistake, but that I couldn't see it?

And so I got this Romanian dude, Catalin Carmaciu, as an instructor. He may be a bit off putting at first, as it seems he is willing to teach you for free and show you everything he knows, give you any material you ask for and even take time to analyse your games, with any sort of payment as your choice. So, if you don't like open generous guys who are also very smart, I don't recommend him. Otherwise, he is great! His chess site is in Romanian. Anyway, he looked at the deplorable state of my chess understanding and said "What do you want to do? Win games or learn to be better?" I said I wanted both, of course, as any decent Neo who would swallow both pills. Of course, it is not easy. You might want to ask about the difference between the two. Isn't it obvious that if you play the game better you will also win more games? What kind of choice is that? And the answer is that for winning games you acquire a repertoire of openings and defences which you learn and exercise repeatedly, while for playing better you read and exercise tactics and strategy books.

My first reaction was disappointment. Here there was this brilliant chess player telling me I had to mechanically learn a series of openings, while I wanted to understand the concept of chess as a whole. But I was wrong to feel that way. You see, since then we've decided on four openings: two defences for standard White openings (e4 and d4) and two replies to defences by Black to my opening with e4 (e5 and c5). While at first it seems you learn some moves in a mechanical way and your only advantage is previous knowledge of a situation that you set up, the reality of it is that you choose the setup and for each you have a long term plan! In the middle game and end game you have a clear vision of what you want, where the attack goes, where to hinder the enemy's movements and what are the triggers for each. It would have been easy to say "for any possible game, you must make a strategic plan before you play", but unless you know what you are doing, that plan would suck. So, while playing these apparently memorized openings, I've developed a practice and an understanding of strategic planning in chess. I have also found answers to other, less common, openings. For example White might move Nf3, but that prohibits me playing e5, so I go with the d5 plan which was originally designed to stop White's d4. And behold, White then plays d4, transposing into a standard d4 opening.

Wait a minute, you jump, but you said the other "learning branch" was the one where you learned tactics and strategy! It is true: strategic thinking is exercised in both situations, only the first is somehow more adult: you learn by doing. Oh, I do have some tactics books that I am looking through and some general strategy books that are supposed to be awesome, but until I find the time and disposition to focus on them and read carefully and understand what is written there, I have the option of playing chess and learning as I go.

Another thing about getting a chess instructor is that he isn't doing much. There is no magical method that he can wield that improves your chess. Instead he instructs you on what is good to do and you must do it. The effort is yours. The bonus comes from his filtering the chess materials so you get the ones that actually help you. The rest is up to you. After a week of playing, he may look at your chess games and quickly tell you where you went wrong, but they have to be your games.

One thing that my instructor is adamant about is not to use chess engines to analyse your games. That's right! He is telling a computer programmer to not use computer programs for chess. I know, a bit off putting, but he finally convinced me completely when he said that after a (simulated) rating of 2000 ELO, the computers don't move anything like a human. As a 2500 player himself, he cannot prepare for chess championships or games with other players by playing with a computer. His method of analysis is personal: take your game, think of what you thought when you made the moves, see what went wrong with your plans, see what better moves you could have done. It makes sense, after all, to not use computer programs to analyse your strategic plans, since they don't have any.

So, in order to summarize, my solution for learning to play better chess is to find the opening repertoire that you want to use for most chess games. You don't do that in order to trap the other into little known situations, as I did for a while, but in order to set up a game where you are aware of the strategic plans that you and your opponent are prone to use. In the end the order of the moves might be different, the situation may change one way or another, but as long as you follow the plan, you should be OK.

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (lit: We Still Don't Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day) has only 11 episodes and the last episode finishes up the story completely, so it wasn't something larger that just got cancelled. Better known as "Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day", it is the story of very close childhood friends that pass through a deep trauma when one of them dies in an accident. A few years later, they all have drifted apart and each of them blames him or herself for the way things ended up. And here comes the ghost of the dead girl Menma, showing itself to only one of the group and asking him to fulfil her final wish so she can get to Heaven. The five friends get together to fulfil that wish, even if no one, including Menma, remember what it was.

At times it got annoyingly emotional with everybody crying and cringing and getting angry and stuff like that, but overall it was a nice anime, exploring the deep feelings of childhood that we don't really get over. So overall I liked it and, being short enough, I can easily recommend it to everybody, even if at times it feels like a soap opera. Perhaps making it a movie or a small series would have made it better.

This 6 episode long anime can by all rights be considered a single movie segmented into 6 small stories. The story is not extraordinary and the animation not great, but the quiet way it is told makes it nostalgic and generates a lot of kind feelings. What's it about? There are these two (highschool, of course) guys in a not far away future where robots and androids are common place. Some of them are advanced enough to obey complex commands and to look human and they all follow the Three Rules of Robotics, as coined by Asimov. One of the guys notices in the logs of his house android that it goes out from the house, occasionally, to places where it hasn't been instructed to go. The two friends follow the logs and find a weird bar where androids and humans must obey a single rule: all customers are to treat each other the same and not discriminate against robots. This makes the two understand the complex feelings that robots can have and discover their own difficulty in relating to said robots under the weight of society expectations. There is even an "Ethics Committee" that hates robots and wants to limit the interactions between man and machine, but just before they make any move the show ends.

Eve no Jikan was an interesting concept, something that reminded me of some of the quieter episodes from Ghost in the Machine or Denou Coil, which says a lot considering that GiTS is my favourite anime ever. However, the sixth episode felt like one of the others and then it suddenly says the story is finished, so its production must have ended prematurely. Maybe with a little more backing, it could have become a cult anime, as well.

Finally, it is all over! The Dark One is defeated and all the character stories have come to an end. Funny enough, having Brandon Sanderson write the last two books made me want to read more. You may have noticed that in the title I give no credit to Robert Jordan; I know it's his story and that he left a lot of notes on how the book would continue before he died, but Sanderson has made it a lot better and it feels a waste to end it just when it got good.

The last book of the Wheel of Time saga, A Memory of Light, continues where Towers of Midnight left off, pits everyone against everyone and ends all threads. The battle of the end is epic and, except some slight miscalculations, is pretty much consistent with the other books. No Nynaeve braid pulling or needless spanking or otherwise humiliating women in this one, instead a lot of characters blooming from the dried up husks that they were becoming in the last Jordan books. As before, I loved Mat's character, but also Perrin is now a lot more involved, intrigues abound, people die (even important ones) and the ending is... let us say intriguing. One may still hope some offshoots of the story. There were some unexplained or otherwise inconclusive bits. For example there is a scene where Mat sends a lot of villagers to die protecting a river, then, when it matters most, the same villagers return through a gateway. I have no idea what that was about. Also there was a little bit of a story with some soldiers that had all their metal turned to something squishy. It just went and gone without much continuation. Then some ideas of the battle seem brilliant at the end of it, but not used during it, making the entire "Mat's strategical genius" idea a bit flimsy. Also, Demandred almost kicked his ass (and a lot of others as well) before he got killed. If there is something that felt a bit off, it was the women. Robert Jordan was obsessed with the women and he often wrote the story from their point of view. Sanderson is clearly a man's man :) Women had pretty small roles and little introspection.

Bottom line: a fourteen book saga is a lot to read. As much it pains me that it is over, it makes me even more glad that it is over. Sometime you just have to learn to let it go. The quality of the writing is very good and I dare say that this is probably the best book of them all, which makes it a fitting finale. It is also very long, the third in length from the entire series, at approximately 360000 words. If you have read The Wheel of Time so far, there is absolutely no reason to not read the last book. If you haven't started to read the series, you might want to think it over if you want to spend so much time doing it, but I don't think you will regret it. And lastly, if you have started to read it and then abandoned it for whatever reason, the last two books are a level higher than the rest of them and should provide motivation to carry on.

Oh, and you if you wonder if I am going to read the prequel and the companion books: no, I won't! If you do, though, please make the effort to comment on one of the Wheel of Time posts. Thank you!

Macross Frontier is a 2008 anime series of 25 episodes set in the Macross universe, itself 25 years old at the time. Humanity is expanding in the galaxy using huge self contained colony fleets that are defended by the ubiquitous Mecha humanoid robots. Their enemies, a strange race of space bugs that seem to have no mind of their own, but whose method of communication or reason for doing anything is a mystery. Enter Alto, a beautiful guy - and when I say beautiful I mean it, as he is cute as a girl and many times in the series people address him as one, to his chagrin - that wants to be a pilot. He accidentally joins up with an elite piloting force and there the story seems to become interesting: space battles, interesting aliens, amazing tech, even political machinations. But wait! In Japan there has to be more. And there is! Alto is 17 years old, that means he is also in high school. Two of his pilot buddies are his colleagues. Then there is this galactic idol pop star singer that is very beautiful and somehow falls for Alto and subsequently becomes a student in the same class! And there is another girl who also wants to be a singer and she becomes one rivalling the first, only to fall for Alto and... join the same high school class! And all the time they need to act on their feelings, without actually expressing them in an articulate way, and trying to protect one thing or the other. And if you thought the two singers are just a filler device, not at all connected to the main story, you are wrong. The singing of one of them seems to affect the alien bugs!

To quote a friend, WTF is wrong with the Japanese? Why would you mix space battles with j-pop and high school? Why hasn't there appeared a service that strips the annoying 2 minute singing at the beginning and then at the end of every episode and lets you watch everything start to end? It would be perfect if it would also remove in separate streams the fighting plus the sci-fi from the ridiculous fascination with high school puppy love!

To conclude, it wasn't great by any means, and the insistence of showing every space battle in the context of a pop song was really annoying. The story was OK, although I could spoil it for you in about 5 minutes. The animation was standard, I didn't think there were any issues with it. If you love the kind of "oh, oh, poor me, I am in a love triangle and can't get out" story, this is the one for you. The sci-fi was, really, taking the backseat in this one. I have to admit, though, that the highschool theme was not exaggerated much, nor was it absurd to the point of annoyance like in Elfen Lied, for example.