Belated 40th birthday greetings to Rob, the Llamabutcher.

I like how his partner-in-crime, Steve, uses the Roman numbering to refer to this extra-large birthday.

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I am fully recovered from the illness reported here.

Thanks to the well-wishers kind enough to leave a comment or send me an email of support.

I'm not really back into the blogging rhythm yet, but I am tweaking the blogroll and preparing a new SF Babe poll, so check back soon.

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This week's aircraft cheesecake continues with the flying saucer theme introduced last week. The Grumman WF-2 ("Willy Fudd") (later redesignated the E1-B Tracer) was the US Navy's first carrier-borne early warning aircraft:

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File this under too much information, but what the heck...

I went to the emergency room last night with some abdominal cramps and bleeding (never have had symptoms like that before). Needless to say I was a bit freaked out.

Long story short, I have bacterial colitis, most likely from some tainted food. I've started antibiotics and am on a liquid diet for a couple of days, but should be completely better by Friday. This is, frankly, the ideal outcome, as it was easily spotted with early labwork and I did not need to undergo any more -- ahem -- invasive tests than necessary. Light blogging in the forecast for the next day or two.

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My regular readers will remember that one of the first SF Babe polls was based on the original Battlestar Galactica. Sheba won, as you can verify in the Gallery.

I still haven't seen the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica, but I can tell from the various trailers and onsite reviews that this newer, grittier Battlestar can be just as easy on the eyes as the original one.

Instead of cigar-chomping Dirk Benedict playing Starbuck, cigar-chomping Katee Sackhoff pilots her Viper against the dreaded Cylons:

And Starbuck's not the only one who got a sex change for the new series. Boomer (originally portrayed by Herb Jefferson Jr.) is now played by the beautiful Grace Park:

Cast your votes here [link disabled - ed.].

(You may also want to cast a vote in Annika's android poll. I don't know how long she'll keep it up on her front page, but it coordinates nicely with last week's SF Babe poll).

Results (Posted 1 March 2005):

Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff): 26% (15 of 58 votes)
Boomer (Grace Park): 74% (43 of 58 votes) WINNER!

Posted by: JohnL at 09:20 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Has to be Boomer this week. All this grittiness got me thinking - have you considered doing a Sci-Fi camp/comedy poll? Like, say, Ellen Barkin from Buckaroo Banzai and Geena Davis from Earth Girls Are Easy? There must be lots of other examples. I know the idea probably would enrage a true sci-fi fan but on the other hand, it might be fun.

Posted by: Robert the Llama Butcher at February 23, 2005 08:04 AM (XBUdh)

2 True SF fans don't say "Sci Fi." It's SF. But this whole schtick is about campiness and parodying the stereotypes of the genre. I think your idea is nigh-inspired, and I have filed it away for future use. (I agree about Boomer!)

Posted by: JohnL at February 23, 2005 03:53 PM (gplif)

3 I knew Annika's poll was a slam dunk before I checked the results - there was only one real choice for any red-blooded male SF geek

Posted by: COL at February 23, 2005 06:52 PM (CtlSL)

4 DAMN your antispam catcher. I can't write in the name of the character I want to nominate as a write in candidate. Her name starts with C, and ends in ally. She's cute, she bit a guys ear off, and took a gunshot wound to the gut. Tough stuff!

Posted by: Chad at February 23, 2005 10:29 PM (Z/Qu1)

5 OK, I finally figured out what it was barfing on. SPECI ALIST is not about the damn drug. Anyways, I'm trying to nominate Crewman Speci alist Cally as a write in "Mary Ann" vote. While the pics on the link page aren't great, I've seen much better out there...

Posted by: Chad at February 23, 2005 10:35 PM (Z/Qu1)

6 Hrrm. I've voted, but darned if I can be particularly happy about it. There needs to be a third party candidate. To steal a riff from Yoda, surely there must be another on this new Galactica.

Posted by: The Country Pundit at February 24, 2005 08:51 PM (n5OGF)

7 Boomer vs Starbuck is no contest. The real battle is Grace Park vs. Enterprise's Linda Park. I don't think they're related - Park is Korean for Smith or something.

Posted by: yobbo at March 14, 2005 11:35 AM (OMkp2)

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In some sort of antipodal professional-criticism synchronicity, I find myself critiquing lawyers while Alan Brain points to an article critical of software developers.

Interesting to me is the linked article's enthusiasm for developing a modular approach to coding. I look at contracts as business algorithms. And I have some modules or "subroutines" from other agreements ready to plug into current agreements. I sometimes need to tweak them for the needs of the immediate deal, but rarely do I need to develop an entire agreement from scratch to suit my client's needs. Lawyers learning from computer programmers. What will they think of next?

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Lynn at Reflections in d minor posts a funny joke at the expense of one of the better-known minimalists of the latter 20th century. This would be my version of the joke:

While repetitive, I actually enjoy Philip Glass.
While repetitive, I actually enjoy Philip Glass.
While repetitive, I actually enjoy Philip Glass.
While repetitive, I actually enjoy Philip Glass.
While repetitive, I enjoy Philip Glass' music. And it evolves.
While repetitive, I enjoy Philip Glass' music. And it evolves.
While repetitive, I enjoy Philip Glass' music. And it evolves.
While repetitive, I enjoy Philip Glass' music. And it evolves.
It's tonal, while repetitive, and it evolves, so I enjoy Philip Glass' music.
It's tonal, while repetitive, and it evolves, so I enjoy Philip Glass' music.
It's tonal, while repetitive, and it evolves, so I enjoy Philip Glass' music.
It's tonal, while repetitive, and it evolves, so I enjoy Philip Glass' music.

etc.

I first encountered Glass in his soundtrack to the visually stimulating Koyaanisqatsi. Glass is a polarizing figure, as I later discovered while a music student at UT Austin. I went to see him in concert (on solo piano). Before the concert, the theory-comp majors all slammed him as a gimmicky composer with no real talent (as though their atonal screeches were superior, somehow). Then, at the concert, were the rich and snobby non-musician hangers-on who pretended to have their moments of greatness, some even air-kissing (I'm serious!) when they met him. Gag.

When I met him briefly, he was friendly, warm, and quite unassuming. So I won't judge him too harshly as a person. As a composer, he made tonal music popular again, even if in the context of minimalism. One CD that I play about every three months to clear my mind is Passages (with Ravi Shankar). Hypnotic, lovely melodies that repeat, develop, intertwine, and resolve themselves. Music at its simple -- minimalist -- best.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:51 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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If you've ever tried to slog your way through a pre-printed contract, you've probably assumed that the stilted, archaic language is just the way that legal documents should be written. You wouldn't be alone. Most people seem to think that contracts, pleadings, wills, and all kinds of legal instruments need to sound like the King James Bible to be effective. THEY DON'T!

Moreover, after paying $300 an hour or more to document a straightforward business transaction, businesspeople have to wonder why they receive such incomprehensible work product for so much money. (At the same time, some of those clients are suspicious when they can actually understand what their lawyer has written; they wonder whether it's really legal).

Legal documents can be written in clear, precise English. When I encounter legaldegook -- writing that is good for nothing other than sounding "legal" -- I save it both for amusement and to use as an exercise in improving my own writing. Fixing someone else's mistakes is a good way to learn to recognize and fix my own.

That's where tonight's post comes from. I pulled this example from a contract I reviewed just today. I didn't rewrite it for the deal at hand, because it's just a no-cost product evaluation agreement. But because of its high concentration of pretentious legalisms in one short paragraph, I thought it would be a good editing challenge for the blog. I've italicized all of the objectionable parts of this section:

At the end of the Evaluation Period, Customer shall promptly return the Products to [Seller] at CustomerÂ’s sole expense. In the event that ten (10) calendar days following the end of the Evaluation Period Customer has not returned the Products or issued a valid Purchase Order to [Seller] therefore, this Agreement shall be considered CustomerÂ’s Purchase Order and [Seller] shall invoice Customer, and Customer shall be obligated to pay [Seller], for such Products at the then current list price pursuant to [SellerÂ’s] standard terms and conditions of sale as set forth on the invoice issued by [Seller] to Customer and/or on its website.

Note the redundancy of words like "promptly" (there's a 10 day time limit!), "sole" ("Customer's expense" doesn't express or imply anyone else's expense does it?), and "calendar" days (the contract doesn't use "business" days elsewhere, so there's no need to distinguish, and the word "day" without modification commonly means "calendar day") .

Also note the multiple archaisms and pretensions of legal writing: "shall" instead of "will" or "must," "in the event that" instead of "if," "therefore" (which, if it is to be used at all, should be spelled "therefor" -- meaning "for that" -- a Germanic artifact in the English language), and "pursuant to" instead of "under."

Note also the lazy "and/or," which can almost always be replaced with "or." Here, the "and/or" actually tries to gloss over an ambiguity that the drafter didn't want to deal with (but would have been forced to, had he or she used only "and" or only "or"). What if both the invoice and the website contain different terms of sale? Which set of terms governs?

Addressing these issues, here's what I would do to clarify and invigorate the above:

At the end of the Evaluation Period, Customer will return the Products to Seller at Customer's expense. If Customer does not return the Products or issue a purchase order for them to Seller within 10 days after the end of the Evaluation Period, Seller may invoice Customer against this Agreement at Seller's then-current list prices for the Products. Customer must pay Seller the amount due under the invoice within [x] days after receiving it. Unless contrary or supplemental terms are printed on the invoice, Seller's standard terms and conditions found at [Seller's web address] will govern the sale of the Products to Customer.

OK, it's not Hemingway, but surely my version is both easier to read and legally clearer than the original, isn't it?

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This week's airplane comes courtesy of Alan Brain's Yamato Sashimi article, which introduced me to the "Flying Flapjack" for the first time. Without further ado, the Chance Vought V-173/XF5U "Flying Flapjack:"

More info here, too.

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More here, here, and here.

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Today Jen Lars posted her interview of Brad Torgerson, proprietor of the blog Pool of Thought.

Brad also maintains this very neat Star Trek site, based upon the 1980s Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator RPG. Cool and very geeky stuff.

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According to Space.com, a pair of scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center believe they have found strong evidence that life may exist today in Martian caves.

Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke have submitted their paper for publication in Science, and the paper is currently under peer review.

Their evidence is a circumstantial case based upon methane signatures and comparisons to similar caves and methane signatures on Earth, where microbes account for the methane.

I am of mixed feelings on this. I think discovering life elsewhere would be fantastic, but I am worried that Martian life will lead to a quarantine of the planet, thus foreclosing settlement by humans for the foreseeable future.

Guess I'll have to back out of that Valles Marineris condo development deal now...

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....And sneezed full in her face.

Poor Joe. I really feel for him, and I hope his plotline has a happy ending. Trite, I know.

Confused? Good! That means my link might get Lileks yet another reader. Lord only knows he doesn't need the linkage, but you should really be reading each day's installment of Joe Ohio. Start here, if you haven't read any yet. (Also be sure to check Lileks' quasi-blog, The Bleat).

Here's the setup: James Lileks obtained a huge stash of old matchbooks, and he is composing a fictional account about the life of the man who gathered them. Just call him Joe Ohio.

The gimmick? Lileks sets himself a timer for 30 minutes each day and chooses the matchbook at random. This takes the stories in some unexpected and interesting directions. It is well worth your 5 minutes a day to appreciate this unique form of entertainment enabled almost entirely by the Internet.

Enjoy!

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Alan Brain started with a search for an odd-looking airplane (something with which I can completely identify), and ended up finding a sliced-up model of the Japanese battleship Yamato.

This led to an interesting comment that it will be some time before we develop artificial intelligences that would be able to retrace the steps in Alan's thought process.

Go read the whole thing.

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This week's poll features the lovely ladies who have portrayed some of SciFi's most seductively deadly robots:

Trish Helfer portrays the Cylon bombshell Number 6 in the new Battlestar Galactica miniseries and series (pic found here):

Kristanna Loken played the lethal Terminator model T-X in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines:

Finally, Jeri Ryan portrayed the recovering Borg 7 of 9 in Star Trek - Voyager:

Vote often and check the Gallery for previous winners.

Update: The Country Pundit and Maximum Leader know of what they speak. Rob the Llamabutcher, on the other hand, got some silicone in his eyes and is not a reliable witness.

Results (Posted 22 February 2005):

Trish Helfer (Number 6) 54% (51 of 95 votes) -- WINNER
Kristanna Loken (Terminator T-X) 13% (12 of 95 votes)
Jeri Ryan (7 of 9) 34% (32 of 95 votes)

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Not much to report. My wife is wonderfully low-maintenance in that she does not demand or expect jewelry. I usually get her some nice dark chocolates, but this year she foreswore sweets for Lent. I had to get creative, so I planned, purchased, and prepared the following for dinner:

Salad -- baby spinach, romaine lettuce, tomato, red onion, and red bell pepper tossed with light Italian vinaigrette dressing.

Entree -- 2 sirloin steaks, grilled (with salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary) garnished with a grilled, peeled, and heartily-sliced red bell pepper and accompanying garlic/rosemary mashed potatoes.

Dessert -- fresh strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries served in frozen dessert bowls with a dash of cream.

Wine -- "Twenty Bench" Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley.

There was a lot of red in the meal's presentation, appropriate for the day. We got the kids in bed early enough to enjoy the meal and each other's company in peace. Yay!

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I have long loved the lethal, lovely lines of the F-16 Fighting Falcon:

Fellow Munuvian Random pointed me to this great page about the Israeli F-16I, manufactured here in the DFW Metroplex. It has many more outstanding images of this beautiful fighter.

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For those of you who would like to vote for SF-based beefcake rather than (or in addition to) cheesecake, Sadie has the opportunity for you.

I don't know if she plans to make it a regular feature or not, but go check out her poll. She's got some cool candidates in the running.

I don't size guys up by their looks, but can recognize what I would call "charisma" -- some indefinable projection of confidence and competence. Using those criteria, the Terminator character Reese, portrayed by Michael Biehn, would get my vote. My wife, on the other hand, is casting her vote for Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix.

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Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy points out that great jazz organist Jimmy Smith passed away this week at the age of 79.

I've excerpted part of his New York Times obituary in the extended entry.
more...

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Two days ago, Congresscritter James Oberstar introduced /bss/d109query.html|">a bill to "enhance" the safety of the infant commercial space flight industry. Here's a sampling of his verbal diarrhea (via SpaceRef):

"We can and should protect the safety of passengers on space flights in this new and emerging industry, without placing unreasonable limitations on industry development. I urge my colleagues to join me in working to pass this important legislation."

(emphasis mine)

It's clear from the context of Oberstar's comments that he's not merely concerned with range safety (i.e., innocent bystanders). No. He wants to use the blunt instrument of federal regulation to "protect" the safety of early passengers on commercial spaceflights.

Yeah, right. We all know what a good job the government does at protecting passengers in spaceships. (Cheap shot, I know. But I'm not sorry). I'm not sorry, because there is one trait of government that I simply cannot abide, regardless of party affiliation: nannyism. Manny, in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, put this unsavory aspect of government, as a reflection on human nature, most eloquently:

Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws -- always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" -- not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.

In a nascent industry like this, which is just an exotic form of "extreme tourism," participants should be allowed to make up their own minds about risk tolerance. Asshats like Oberstar either (a) want to strangle the private space business in the cradle (look for donations from entrenched contractors like Boeing/LockMart) or (b) are stupid enough to think there is such a thing as safety regulations for experimental spacecraft that do not impose unreasonable limitations on commercial space flight startups. Either way, he should be turned out of office.

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