ANIME: Korra

So I finished watching Korra (Avatar). Good series. Similar approach as the American anime we see in Justice League and Marvel cartoons shown to teens on Cartoon Network. They do a good job of not sexualizing the heroine, while her friend the inventor remains a babe during the full course of the story.

They even get mecha robots, and inventions, unlike in Star Trek, stay invented and impact the setting and plot. That always irritated me about Star Trek. A useful invention in one episode is forgotten in the next one. In Star Trek they're always recalibrating the big deflector parabolic dish into a weapon of some kind. Why not leave it that way? Meh. This is why Star Trek is BAD scifi. So is Star Wars, btw. Most of the plots of star wars are about planet destroying space guns. And moichindizing.

Korra isn't like that. Korra is a world with some quirks, with a small percentage of the population having super powers that are useful for building and destruction, and even industrial purposes. They've got scary portals that rip through to different dimensions with spirits inside, and the spirits come out, and live around the people, with their own peculiar motivations. The series is about Korra gaining awareness of the parts of life she wasn't born with. Its a proper coming of age story, and by the final episode she understands things enough to know what's right, what is worth fighting for, and the cost of losing.

Having recently read some Avatar-Buffy fanfics, one called Big Brother, where Xander becomes Aang's adopted older brother at the Air Temple, and gets frozen with him to help him through their adventures and keep him on a tighter leash than the kid normally does in the series. If you saw the third episode of the first series, Aang announces he wants to ride on various beasts as he travels. It is important to point out that he actually DOES all those things. Its the only plan he's got that worked.

Xander is the friendly version of Iroh, the only wise character in the original Avatar, and one worth watching because his approach to the civil war, to avoid the stupidity, was a great counter to Zuko, so passionate at attempting to regain his honor against a king so evil he burned his own son's face. Zuko has a great character arc, completely unlike Draco Malfoy, who was merely an opportunistic racist parasite. Rowling wasn't very skilled at writing villains. Avatar is better in every way, and so much more satisfying by its conclusion.

I wondered if having Xander around Korra would allow him to activate his superpower. In the fanfic, Xander becomes the obsession of Zuko's insane lightning shooting sister. In Korra, would he have stopped the mecha being built by distracting the Metal Empress from finishing her purple-maser weapon? Probably. Xander's superpower is being irresistable to monster-women. Kuvira is relentlessly ambitious as well as competent. Republic City wouldn't have gotten so damaged if Xander were giving her a creepy smile and a funny limp. Would Xander have been able to offer better advice to the love triangle of Korra, Asami, and Mako? Probably.

As for the ending, I totally understand the implied result of the series, of Korra and Asami becoming a couple, presumably lesbian. However, I am uncertain if that's the sort of thing that will last. At their young ages, early to mid 20s, it probably is convenient, but when the burn for babies comes, they'd drift far enough for husbands and families of their own. Even Toph's situation (ending up a single mom whose kids resent her) proves that the implications of the adventure (Sokka is NOT the father of her kids) don't last when things calm down again.

And finally, Korra ends the use of the setting because too much technology was invented to allow the charm of the contrasts between magic-bending and manmade tool-technology to work anymore. The first Avatar was mostly peasants, with the Fire Nation having metal steamships used for war, but little trade, everybody else limited to peasant living and the spaces between towns largely wild and untamed. The common high-tech was the wheel on a cart, and cities had stone monorails. That isn't so magnificent, and all required lots of benders to keep things going.

By Korra they'd figured out tools to manufacture things, and knew enough to have lots of airships and steam trains and good steel. They had cars and stoplights. Things were 1920's civilized. Anything more advanced than that and you'd lose the charm. So Korra ends the Avatar series, and it was a satisfying ending.

ANIME: Legend of Korra Season 1

So I have finally gotten around to seeing Legend of Korra (Avatar) and I'm most of the way through season one. I have to say the city is interesting, largely consistent with the sort of injustice we saw in the previous Earth Kingdom cities. It is interesting to see that the Benders (a sort of element controlling wizard martial artist) ruling close to a million people, with skyscrapers, cars, and airships and trains (mass transit) and an organized police force and justice system don't understand how the non-benders feel terrorized and abused by the superpowered benders. The core arc is that the new Avatar is good at three of the four kinds of bending, has no spiritual connection, which is significant in this setting, and there's a serious imbalance in this world because it is modernizing but losing track of its roots, namely that spirits aren't myths in this place, but actual beings that show up and wreak havoc when they are unhappy. They can also be killed, which is a major problem too.

Worse, there's a rebel leader who picked up the trick that Avatar Aang used to end the threat of mad Fire King Ozai, who killed his wife, burned half his son's face off, and was planning to kill pretty much everybody and rule what was left of the world. Avatar Aang takes away his bending power, reducing him to a human. The villain in the new series has the same ability, and it is interesting that the adorable bouncy girl from the first series has spawned her martial art system of pressure points that stop benders from using their power is now going to the rebels. And there's other mad kings making things worse, right up till the abused normal humans have become convinced that war is their only chance. And unfortunately, the mad kings made that true. The little bit of industrial heaven, of progress, where people mostly got along despite goons threatening people with their power... well its fallen apart.

The art in the show is still flat, like the first series, but it remains nice looking and the buildings are really interesting and gothic, with a Hong Kong flavor to them. The cars are sort of pagoda carriages with engines, what you'd get if the automobile had been invented in China rather than Germany, Britain, Italy, USA, and France.

The city gets points for being modern, and for making use of their common talents, but it also reminds the viewer that the biggest problem our species faces is tolerance of Evil. We let evil beings hurt us, and turning the other cheek is the coward's answer. Then we put those same beings in charge, so they can hurt more of us at a time. This is a major flaw in our species, and it is important to see that it explains so MUCH of what is wrong with Asia in particular, and how its depicted in this show remaining as a problem despite a hundred years of prosperity and peace. It is sad how this just doesn't matter. And I applaud the honesty of the creators who included this. It's people who deny natural human cruelty that create and elect the monsters that hurt us in the first place. As long as we allow evil to persist in the open, we deserve what we get. That seems to be the primary theme of the first season, and is a great way to teach us that the spiritual connection, the driving morality and connection with the Earth/Nature (in this setting), is crucial to sanity and humanity.

F1 Russia: cold track, cold tires, several wrecks

The F1 grand prix in Sochi Russia was this morning. The track temp was cold, so even the sticky tires offered poor grip and there was a fair number of wrecks associated with this. Eventually, someone is going to figure out if Mercedes is cheating. Their cars corner faster than other cars do, and they are much faster on the straights as well. How are they getting so much more horsepower than the other teams? Even teams running Mercedes engines don't hold a candle to the Mercedes team. Its very suspicious.

Rather than be ingenius, the current hybrid cars used in F1 just plain suck. They aren't reliable. They're too quiet. They suffer from all sorts of reliability problems and its not fun to watch a race where the leader pulls over because his computer went wonky or the brakes failed because his battery overheated. That's not safe either. Nearly kills someone every few races when they hit the brakes at the end of the straight after using the battery, now hot, and the rear brakes, which are electric motors and supposed to pump power back into the battery don't engage, which overloads the front brakes and you get tire smoke and the car goes into the barriers at 150 mph. Not cool.

Why don't they bring back the V12? I'm okay with them fuelling at pit stops. Yes, they'd take longer than 2.8 seconds, but that plus wider rear wing, keep the moving flap for passing purposes, that would be the kind of race worth spectating. Also, cheaper tickets so people could afford to go. Fill the stands. The obsession with billions of dollars only makes Bernie Ecclestone rich, and while the drivers get tens of millions a year, they are the ones risking their lives. I just don't buy that you need batteries to pass in an F1 car. The flap in the wing drops the drag enough for that, and there's these things called turbochargers which gives a serious boost to power when they spin up. Having a button for that would be useful for passing. And they're hundreds of pounds lighter than batteries. So yeah, this is a very fixable problem. It means dumping the annoying hybrids as a bad deal, and getting back to loud and powerful engines, but loud and powerful are what the fans want, and drivers can get back to driving instead of fiddling with computers on their steering wheel.

Avatar (the only one that matters)

Avatar the last airbender, the only avatar that really matters (not blue!) other than the one in Snow Crash, was a wonderful TV show, created by American TV network Nickelodeon for kids, but found itself popular with adults and teens because the writing for the show was so good and regular TV was so bad. It generated buzz online and I eventually watched it, and was genuinely impressed.

Legend of Korra wasn't nearly as popular though it has its good points too, though I won't know till I watch it myself. Since Korra isn't available on streaming, I had to buy it, much like Invader Zim, but it will give me something to ponder during the interregnum between anime seasons.

Particularly since this Fall isn't showing much potential. Wagnaria is over, unless they can give us a season about the hero's creepy mom, which is unlikely to be more than an OVA.

Non Non Biyori season two wasn't as adorable as season one, though it was interesting seeing the teacher was a teenager only a few years ago, so is probably not triangle mouth's mother as I'd suspected.

Triangle Mouth (Renge) of Non Non Biyori

Adorable determination makes me want to get married and have kids. Pity that the local women are either married or crazy or leaving town. So no hope there. I need better choices to invest in a family. I've reached an age where I'm looking at the stacked teachers in these shows, since they are drawn all chesty and have hilarious personalities, usually disaster zones. Often drunks, but hilarious.

There were some comedy aspects to Avatar which fans really liked. They enjoyed Sokka, the un-powered brother who keeps up with the superpowered sibling.

There's Toph, a blind 12 year old girl who is a Master of earth bending.

Turns out I married her. Pity the laughs don't last when it comes time to clean the bathroom or pick up her clothes off the floor or pay the rent. Humor isn't enough to save a marriage. Still, fans loved her, and she gets some great lines in the series. And a crowning moment of awesome. She's also a character in Korra, as an old lady. I am looking forward to seeing that.

Avatar is one of those cartoons which is better than it had any right to be, and you keep trying to switch it to Japanese to see if its different then you remember it was always in English, and isn't an anime after all. It's just that good.

Tahoe In Fall

It is fall, and in Lake Tahoe, now that the Summer Tourists have gone home and the snow hasn't fallen yet so there are no skiers this means one thing: road repair. All the nasty repairs are finally happening, repaving in particular. Went in the fast car to drive around Lake Tahoe yesterday and got stuck in Road Repair hell. Half the roads around the lake are stop and go traffic, some with long delays and waits. I did not take pictures of them. It wasn't interesting enough to care about. But I did get to see the salmon run in Taylor creek. It wasn't much. That was pretty much over by the time we got there. Salmon runs are like that.

 Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe.

 Red Salmon Spawning. There's about 30 in this picture, but they're very camouflaged.

A couple more salmon. They're only about 14 inches long. Normally, Salmon only live in places where they can reach the ocean, and go out to sea for 3 years before swimming up river to where they were born and spawn, then die. Lake Tahoe drains down into Pyramid Lake, which is a trace of Lake Lahontan. These salmon are here due to an accident in 1944 involving fish hatchery spill. In more recent decades, there are 12 pound golfish (carp) living in the lake, big enough to eat.

This is why people come to Tahoe in the Fall. This is a wider view of the area of Taylor Creek, and the mountain north of it. This is the West Shore of Lake Tahoe. Btw, I found several easy places to launch small sailboats near Homewood, and parking too. I will probably come back there when I have a boat of my own. I am still mulling the advantages of a combined rowing and sailing boat compared to a light sailboat like a Classic Moth or a heavier but cheaper Sunfish or Laser. The lake was very flat early in the day but wind picked up by the afternoon and while most of the sailboats have been pulled out of the water (we passed many on the shore), it would have been a good day for it.

Classic Moth. Imagine this on Lake Tahoe for a couple hours. 

After seeing the pitiful showing of the salmon run, we drove through South Lake Tahoe, and around the Eastern Shore, searching for a burger joint. I eventually pulled into a place in Kings Beach (North Shore) and we decided they were both expensive and crappy so left instead of ordering. We ended up getting a small sandwich in Truckee and I drove us home. It was 66'F in Tahoe, 82'F in Truckee (no water to cool it down), heavily overcast as we crossed Donner Pass and 73'F up there, but warmed back up to 81'F back in Nevada City and home. As this is Octoberfest weekend I plan to buy a sixer of good beer to share with Dad tonight, and see if I can buy more of that good Chardonnay from Raviva for him. If they still have some. He really liked it. Dad was nice enough to let me drive his fun car. Doing nice things for him is something good I can return the favor.

MOVIE: The Martian (3D)

Went and saw The Martian 3D with my Dad on Sunday. Wow. Best scifi movie yet made. Better than 2001. Better than Gravity. Has plot, characters behaving rationally in fairly extreme circumstances, humor, and fantastic special effects which help the plot. The 3D is great, helping provide a futuristic scifi film rather than "hey I've got 3D look at this!" kind like they used in the 1970's.

Go see it. See it in 3D. It is worth it. Best movie I've seen in several years.

In The Post Oil World, We'll All Be Cyclists

Bicycles. Mountain bikes, specifically, are the future of the post-oil world.

Yes, we have oil left, expensive oil that will poison people to extract through Frakking methods. The Saudis dumped oil to drop the price and bankrupt the American frakking wildcatters. They buy up the companies, and the drilling leases with them, and when they stop the dumping, the Arabs end up owning our oil (for maximum irony), and control how much is pumped out, and the money goes to them, not us. And gets sold to the Chinese, not us. So kiss off your paved roads and get read to pedal on gravel. Get ready for knobby tires and dust and mud.

City streets of the future

Its hilarious to even consider a future with electric cars. There isn't enough lithium for any but the very rich to own them, and probably a lot of the lithium will be seized for military and emergency services use, not you and me. Even electric bicycles are unlikely. Biofuel powered scooters and motorcycles are more likely, but eventually even that won't be available, so you end up pedaling. Few parents want to imagine a future where their kids grow up to pedal a bicycle to work, if they have a job, because the communists won back when they were voting stupidly for greed and selfishness, in the narcissist's age (now).

Someday we'll be pedaling to the market. Someday we'll pedal everywhere. Even on vacation. Road trips will come with panniers, and various stops at good restaurants along our journey, like they do in the UK. We won't have much choice. It is pedal or walk.

The whining from the commuter cyclists who put themselves in the path of distracted drivers and are SHOCKED to be run over, rather than ride down the side street, all quiet and peaceful, and instead demand that OTHER people should be responsible for their own hubris. Yes, cyclists have human rights, but the only cure for stupid is death, and most commuter cyclists are Darwin Awards. They could be writing to the highway department requesting a bike path along the frontage road. That is safe. Have them build bridges and such to insure they connect properly through the various passes. You can't legally cross the Sierras on I-80 by bicycle, after all. There's no continuation roads in the critical places. Only a few miles, actually, but they ought to be built for the future. A road that's off away from the big trucks and speed demons. That's why I-40, which is a frontage over the Sierras through Old Donner Pass, covers MOST of the distance. Other parts were paved over and renamed as 80. Just finish the frontage. Make it legal for slow motor scooters too. With a 35 mph limit. That's sensible and slow enough. Of course, there's a number of roads from Blue Canyon west that need to be connected up, possibly following Bear River canyon. That's a region north and below I-80 which is insufficiently paved. It could use some housing developments too. Its interesting enough, since that's the origin of the US EPA, thanks to the damage of hydraulic mining there. The land is scarred. It could be turned into a park.

So take the ruin, put in some basic roads climbing up the canyon, hopefully paved, and sweep them every month by truck, so people can bike it, and be tourists across these mountains. If it lets slow scooters and bicycles, those will work fine. And have it stop at a couple of eateries along the way, though passing through Colfax and the rest of I-40 as it crosses Donner Pass has plenty of places to stop or stay the night. Campgrounds too. They have those every few miles through the pass. And in the future they will be quiet.

Why am I so sure the roads are going away? Asphalt is tar. Tar is oil. Oil is money. You don't pave the roads with money, when only 1% of the population are rich enough to own electric cars.

I suspect that towns will probably pave their own streets, minimally, and at great expense, probably with concrete for the most part. We have more natural gas, which is how you make concrete, and can't export it like oil. But outside of town? It will look like this.

October Rains and Research

Happy October 1st. It rained last night. Light rain, but it was rain. Enough to be absorbed into the ground but not enough to run down the hill and refill the lakes and rivers. That will come later, with more rain.

I am liking my research projects. It is an interesting way to pass the time. I have gotten better at it, and I am pretty comfortable with finding stuff out, and even citing my references thanks to that computer class which taught me how with MS Word. That's very handy.

I got to research RVs and fuel efficient cars last summer, and learned that RVs and tow vehicles are really expensive and really inefficient, around 8 MPG, enough so that its a primary limitation and complaint by RVers. At the same time, I was taking weekly trips through the mountain roads on fresh tires with Dad, and being able to whip through the canyons at speed, with the top open/down? Nice. No diesel sputter or irritation with a sports car. I still can't sleep in a motel room, but there's no guarantee I could in an RV either. I used to sleep poorly in a tent, when I was younger and it wasn't instant backache, and given the choice I'd rather be in a bungalow with no close neighbors so there's no chainsaws at midnight or headers-off racing and wrecking like where I grew up, but we can't have everything, can we? In any case, having researched these things I can draw conclusions from the information without terrible expenses or storage fees. And I now know I can rent an RV to see if its for me, someday. Right after I verify that tenting is impossible at my age.

My latest investigation has been into sailboats, as that is an outdoor activity I can do locally. An excuse to go somewhere and do something. Yes, a used kayak is way cheaper. Even a new one is cheap. They make them out of plastic now. And you can store that under the house, for free. A $200 roofrack would let me carry it around, and it would work in any lake, but is paddling fun? From what I remember of my canoeing merit badge? Nope. Sailing, which I also got a merit badge in, however was great fun. Pull the rope, steer, and lean. And the boat goes. It was great fun. That's why I'm investigating it. I also remember than when it leans at 30 degrees it is faster and more fun than when it is riding flat, but when it turns over you get wet with stinking lake water that takes days to wash off properly. So, how to find a boat that leans 33 degrees but no further? So its fun, but still mechanically stable and not going to fall over the rest of the way?

One of the problems with the Laser was that when it leans, the sail dips in the water, drags, and tips the boat over to capsize. Also, the rail edges of the hull drag as well. And the hull is full of foam, which is heavy, oddly enough. More modern boats just have flotation chambers instead. This weighs nothing, and reduces the boat weight by around 50 pounds. Which begs the question: has anybody ever opened up a Laser, removed the foam, put in regular braces, and sealed it up again? Maybe with a removable port, since mountain lakes would make it bulge or crinkle with the pressure difference. It would change the balance on the boat, and probably would suggest running the smaller sail than the Standard one, and maybe even swap to a carbon fiber mast instead of the standard hollow aluminum one, which sinks. The Laser can drop its mast when it capsizes, btw. They eventually added a line to prevent that.

Another idea I had was clever. What about a carefully engineered spring on two of the connections  on the mainsail such that when a certain value is exceeded the line moves, loosening the tension on the sail so it spills air in gusts. Has anyone ever done that? I have never heard of it.

Well, the rain has stopped again. Maybe I can finish my walk this time.