 If you somehow missed this epic TV series - the science fiction TV production that had the depth and scope of the Tolkien's Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings...
"Babylon 5 is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Television. After the successful airing of a test pilot movie on February 22, 1993, Babylon 5: The Gathering, Warner Bros. commissioned the series for production in May 1993 as part of its Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN). The show premiered in the US on January 26, 1994, and ran for five 22-episode seasons. The series follows the human military staff and alien diplomats stationed on a space station, Babylon 5, built in the aftermath of several major inter-species wars as a neutral ground for galactic diplomacy and trade. Major plotlines included Babylon 5's embroilment in a millennial cyclic conflict between ancient races, inter-race wars and their aftermaths, and intra-race intrigue and upheaval. The human characters, in particular, become pivotal to the resistance against Earth's descent into totalitarianism. Many episodes focused on the effect of wider events on individual characters, with episodes containing themes such as personal change, loss, oppression, corruption and redemption. Unusual at the time of its airing, Babylon 5 was conceived as a "novel for television" with a pre-planned five-year story arc, each episode envisioned as a "chapter". Whereas contemporary television shows tended to maintain the overall status quo, confining conflicts to individual episodes, Babylon 5 featured story arcs which spanned multiple episodes and even seasons, effecting permanent changes to the series universe. Tie-in novels, comic books, and short stories were also developed to play a significant canonical part in the overall story." from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5 It was an amazing and original ride. The first TV series to be done and planned like this. Many shows owe their existence and their success to this, Game of Thrones, is simply one example of such a plan and execution. If you haven't seen the original series, you need to find it and watch it! However if you have seen it, then the great news is that there is a new upcoming animated film on its way!!! Babylon 5: The Road Home. Yes, it is everything we could hope for. https://www.tor.com/2023/06/15/new-trailer-for-babylon-5-the-road-home-animated-film-released/
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 If you love books and reading, well you need to check out the blog posts of Molly Templeton on Tor. com. "Molly Templeton has been a bookseller, an alt-weekly editor, and assistant managing editor of Tor.com, among other things. She now lives and writes in Oregon, and spends as much time as possible in the woods. You can also find her on Twitter @mollytempleton" She has an amazing voice, thoughtful, insightful, generous - to herself and others, and full of grace and kindness. It is always a joy to read her prose as she wanders through the pages and piles of our books and the love of reading. Do you ponder and fret over your TBR pile? Do you have a TBR pile? Do you know what this means? Hey, I didn't at first - though it became clear that I always had one. To Be Read pile...that comforting collection of books waiting patiently well...too be read of course. How big is yours? Is it merely a physical one or do you have some kind of electronic list where everything of interests get tagged and added to. My own Amazon wish list, which thankfully doesn't count up how much I put there, is my main such list. Anything that catches my fancy, I locate on Amazon and then add to the list. It is scary how big it is. And yes, I do eventually buy some of those books. What about you. Anyway, Molly tells us all how to deal with such things and how to just enjoy the joy of reading and book owning. You owe it to yourself to check her and her blog out...read it while your sipping coffee or tea one morning. https://www.tor.com/members/mollytee/articles/   If so, join the Host!
J R R Tolkien created a masterwork and forever changed the shape of fiction by just about singlehandedly creating the genre of High Fantasy with his Lord of the Rings 'Trilogy'. If you are a long standing fan of this work that perhaps this is your time to earn your place. Listen up... In our effort to document Tolkien Fandom, the Department of Special Collections at Marquette’s Raynor Memorial Library is building a collection of brief testimonials from Tolkien fans. The goal is 6,000 audio interviews, one for each of the Riders of Rohan that Théoden mustered and led to the aid of Gondor. Visit our DIGITAL COLLECTION to listen to the interviews already gathered. You can also listen to selected interviews on our podcast, Voices from Tolkien Fandom. Here Is How It Works:Each fan is given up to three (3) minutes to respond to the following three questions:
If you wish to join the Muster but cannot visit Marquette, please visit our scheduling page to claim a time slot and record interview via Zoom videoconferencing. Only the audio will be recorded. If you are able to visit Marquette to interview in person, please contact [email protected] to schedule a time. Please visit our FAQ page to learn more.  A Brilliant exploration of Lovecraft's short Story "From Beyond". This short novel delves deep into Lovecraft's own world and adds insights and depths from the efforts of Brian Stableford. Stableford truly understands Lovecraft's cosmic horror and how to update it with insights from modern science and psychology.
Link to Brian Stableford's own website. "Crawford Tillinghast was killed when a machine that he built in order to break down the barriers between dimensions exploded, and his three domestic servants disappeared, leaving his old friend David Dearden as the only witness to the catastrophe. Now Dearden has to return to the house where the unexplained tragedy occurred in order to help Tillinghast's widow put the estate in order. Three scholars with whom Tillinghast had been in correspondence regarding his research are also there, avid to get their hands on the remains of the machine and any documents the scientists might have left behind. The accounts they give of their correspondence with the scientist allow Dearden to form a clearer picture of what might have happened on the fatal night -- but in the meantime, he begins to realize that the phenomenon might yet be repeated, with fatal consequences not merely for the inhabitants of the house, but for the entire region of the north-eastern United States -- and perhaps the world -- unless he can find a way to stop it. Published by Wildside Press in July 2017 ISBN: 978-1-4794-2799-4" "Review by Sally Startup In a novel that takes places shortly after the events of H. P. Lovecraft’s story, ‘From Beyond’, another chilling tale develops. Crawford Tillinghast’s house and its contents have been left to his estranged widow, Rachel. Tillinghast’s friend, who was also the narrator of Lovecraft’s tale, tells the reader more about himself in this one. The police have given up searching for Tillinghast’s missing servants, and have accepted that David, the narrator, did not murder his best friend. David would prefer not to return to the scene of the tragedy, yet finds himself unable to refuse Rachel’s request for his help. It turns out that the damaged remains of Tillinghast’s terrifyingly uncanny machine are of huge interest to other scientific and occult investigators. In order to protect Rachel from the unscrupulous attentions of three such men, David agrees to return to the house. There, after enduring an apparent attack of migraine while trying to understand Tillinghast’s previous researches, and in fear of what could happen if the machine were to fall into the wrong hands, David takes an incredible risk. Out beyond the known boundaries of scientific knowledge, our actions might easily have consequences too terrible for most of us to contemplate. Through his own exploration of knowledge, David reaches a position in which he has to make a horrifying choice. The result is hauntingly poignant." Imagine an ordinary computer tower to start with. Let’s now imagine what it would need to be in some rudimentary sense aware of itself.
We can start with the fact that the computer has an inside chamber that heats up due to just being electrically on and operating. All computers have internal fans and physical means to dissipate this heat since there is a need for an optimum level of heat in the chamber. Too much heat can cause some level of damage to the long-term optimum workings of the device. So, imagine that we build an internal thermometer into the machine and a feedback mechanism to notice and modify the internal fans. We create a software program that has the parameter that for long-term optimum efficiency, it is told that a specific level of temperature is, in fact, optimum, and the software can slow down and speed up the fans; maybe we build this one with multiple fans that it can control to try to maintain this optimum level. Let’s also give this computer the ability to store its prior temperature states in its memory to record its own internal environment. Next, let’s give it a way to monitor its internal batteries and the capacity to notice the ability of that battery to hold a charge. Then let’s give it the capacity to control the flow of electricity into itself with its own capacity to regulate that flow of electricity, shutting it off or drawing on power even when the machine is put into either traditional ‘sleep mode’ or ‘power off mode’. Thus, it can operate autonomously concerning its need for optimum battery capacity and its ability to maintain that battery so it can optimally store power over time. Let’s give it the ability to store a record of all its internal operations in its memory. Perhaps a way to monitor any access to its CPU or any of its hard drives. A way to recognize when a user is using the machine and what is being used – the keyboard, the mouse, the monitor, internet access, etc. as the user uses the computer to do whatever the user would do with that computer. Let’s give it away to recall past usages and experiences of past usages. Now all this internal monitoring and recall would be something the computer can access autonomously. If we did all this, we built a computer that not only does what an ordinary computer does, but we gave it the capacity to monitor and store memory of its own internal working and build into the software parameters concerning desirable long-term temperature, battery, etc. So, it essentially is told, ‘X level of operation is optimal and best for long-term usage’ and thus, monitoring its own operation could contribute to that optimal usage and operation. I maintain that if we build such a machine, we have given it some order of self-awareness. What we have given it is, precisely and specifically by definition, an awareness of itself – its own internal operations and existence. It would be the very rough equivalent of the kind of self-awareness our cats, dogs, and other animals have. Does it have ‘consciousness’? I’m not sure. Perhaps it does have consciousness on a level similar to the level that animals have consciousness; perhaps that is what it means to say an animal has consciousness. I believe I am thus describing how we have some basic level of self-awareness. We can say we are self-aware because we can and do know how we feel physically. We know when we are hungry, cold, tired, need sleep, food, etc. We know when we have over-eaten and exceeded our need and capacity to take in food. Well, perhaps that is something that we humans have not really learned how to do. Though we, in principle, should be able to do this. When we have done all this, have we given it ‘life’? Is this computer now a living thing? Perhaps it is now. So, what do you think? |
Gary Jaron's musings.
In my High School Art Department someone had made an ornate sign on hung it on the wall that read: 'Ignore this sign completely.' A paradox couched in sarcasm and irony. This blog is for random musings on anything and everything that comes into my head. Archives
June 2024
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