I had a dream last night that someone had figured out how to store data on quarters (like a disk) by magnetizing the metal in different ways. Everyone had these little quarter drives that you could use to read the data. And when you purchased something with a quarter, part of the space was used to store data about the transaction. So you could go back and track what exactly that quarter had been used to purchase. Which seems silly because what can you buy for a quarter besides gumballs and parking?
I had to go see the Philip K. Dick inspired Steven Spielberg spectacle on opening night. I really enjoyed it, especially the action scenes, even though it had a couple of standard Spielberg-over-the-top-emotional moments. (cry now, dammit, now!) He really brought to life a future that seems entirely possible, but I couldn't decide how he felt about it. It wasn't quite the dystopia of Blade Runner, though it had some dark elements. He seemed to be envisioning a future where corporate control and constant surveillance isn't so bad. In fact, he showed that it's kind of cute and funny to have the police dropping in at all hours sending robotic spiders after you. And even the lowest dregs of bad guys live in fashionable houses furnished by Ikea. The story is what saved the movie from its problems, though, and it brought up some real issues to think about.
It's definitely time to bump another Dick novel up to the top of my reading queue. This time: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. (If I can find it at the bookstore today.) Before the show we saw a teaser preview for the movie version of Solaris by Stanislaw Lem coming out in December.
It's definitely time to bump another Dick novel up to the top of my reading queue. This time: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. (If I can find it at the bookstore today.) Before the show we saw a teaser preview for the movie version of Solaris by Stanislaw Lem coming out in December.
Happy Summer Solstice!
Space Needle
Copper River Salmon at the market in Seattle
Pike Place Market, Seattle, WA
on the road again...
Eel River Cafe, Garberville, CA
meg on weblogs: "What's important is that we've embraced a medium free of the physical limitations of pages, intrusions of editors, and delays of tedious publishing systems. As with free speech itself, what we say isn't as important as the system that enables us to say it."
Erik Benson is doing some interesting things with the Weblog Bookwatch RSS feed (+ an Amazon SCRAPI, + Google's API). I like the related books feature.
