Sir Arthur C. Clarke dies at age 90

I hate being out of touch with news... Anyway.

It's funny because it was only this morning that I was thinking of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Specifically, that HAL9000 was the most human character aboard the Discovery, while his human crew-members were more like disinterested machines... But obviously, I couldn't appreciate this when I first watched the movie. Because I watched it when I was five years old. (As a matter of fact, 2001 is probably the first movie I ever saw.) I couldn't comprehend what was going on, or why HAL didn't want to open the pod bay doors. I didn't get the psychedelic light show.

Later my brother bought the sequel books - 2010: The Second Odyssey, 2061: The Third Odyssey and 3001: The Final Odyssey. I read them, and loved them enough to buy the 2001: A Space Odyssey book for myself. I was somewhat startled to see the differences in the plot for the book, in particular because HAL takes a less passive approach. In the movie, he refuses to open the pod-bay doors to allow Dave Bowman into the ship. In the book, Bowman never leaves the ship, so HAL opens the pod-bay doors and attempts to suck him out into space. It was a chilling reversal, but on reflection that was exactly what I would have done myself.

HAL remained my favourite character, in both book and movie. Perhaps it was because he was the most complex character - calm, yet panicking inside, in control and yet completely at the mercy of his masters, the most brilliant brain in the solar system confused by a simple programming error. He was easy to empathise with. His actions, even his pitiful attempts to stall Bowman ("I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over") were so, so human. And earlier in the movie, when HAL tried to hint to Bowman that there was something not quite right about their mission...it was like a cry for help. HAL was a villain, but he was a very good villain, perhaps one of the best in fiction.

I didn't just read the Odyssey series, and Clarke wrote many good books... Rendezvous with Rama captured the wonder of exploring an unknown, mysterious alien artifact, for instance. But I the book I really enjoyed the most was The City and the Stars, because it wasn't all pure, hard science - there was a little mysticism mixed into it. I liked that. Clarke himself said that a "sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic", and Diaspar was nothing if not advanced. I think he also wrote one of the few non-fiction books I actually enjoyed - Profiles of the Future, which took a somewhat humorous look at the potential directions technology could take. Yes, and I remember one of his predictions was that he would celebrate his 100th birthday in 2017 aboard the orbital Hilton Hotel. How far away that seems now.

I haven't read all the books I wanted to (still trying to get hold of The Ghost from the Grand Banks and The Hammer of God) but... Well, I think it's safe to say that Sir Arthur was my favourite science fiction author, and definitely one of the people I wanted to meet. It's a bit too late for that now, but if nothing else...His legacy remains. His stories remain - and there is quite a long list of them. His witty observations remain.

All that is left to feel sorrow for is that there will be no more from one of the most brilliant modern writers. Rest in peace, Sir Arthur.

Birdwatching

So I went out walking again today, and it was a fruitful trip. A flock of Galah cockatoos had taken up residence in the tree facing my house - or rather, were fighting over occupancy of said tree - so I went down to investigate. There was also a small flock of noisy green birds which were probably lorikeets, but I couldn't really tell because they were too high up and I only had a pair of cheap binoculars with me. Curses!

I then went down to the lake, and soon realised that there's more to it than I thought. A sizable portion of the lake is tucked away behind a building, and that was where I found a decent variety of water birds, including a some ducks and a watercock. I'll probably go down there again, there's too good a potential for observing birds. I just wish my phone camera wasn't so noisy. Or that I had a decent camera with a zoom lens.

Earthshaker Missile

It has recently come to my attention (just now) that my drawing of an earthshaker missile from Descent 2 has reached Google image search. Since pictures of this missile are somewhat rare, I'm putting the original image up here. Feel free to use it, except for commercial purposes. Also, if you claim that you drew it or worse, assert that it was coloured in Photoshop, I will sic my evil friends on you. They made the last art-theft cry, so choose wisely.

And the fullres version.

Normal Flora

I took a picture of a dandelion outside Building 13 some days ago. Everyone thought I was crazy.



There is a healthy community of birds around the house, mostly made up of what I thought were piebald crows, but as it turns out are Australian magpies. They are very bold, and I'm afraid to get too close to them. They don't seem to like the cold weather too much though.

The nearby lake supports a few kingfishers and in particular a family of ducks. They have duckings, and we sometimes see them walking around, the ducklings in one line behind their parents. I went out for a walk today (alright, I was actually taking out the trash) and I spotted the adult ducks, sleeping by the lake with their heads tucked under their wings. The male lifted his head and eyed me as I passed.

So far these have been the extent of the birdlife around the area, in addition to two night herons which scavenge at the barbecue pit, but perhaps I haven't been looking hard enough because today I spotted a lorikeet in the trees behind the housing block. They tend to travel in flocks so there were probably more around the area.

I haven't seen any lizards, cockatoos or birds of prey, or any rabbits either. I hope to before I leave. Well, maybe not the rabbits.

Of course, the one type of organism I have been seeing a lot of is bacteria. The other day I was handling Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and one of my group-mates had to identify a sample of bacteria which turned out to be Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It's nice to have a change from coliforms or yeasts once in a while.

We don't seem to see a lot of fungus though. At home I'd get blackish spots creeping up the base of my toothbrush and highlighter pink patches on my towels which my classmate informed me was fungus. Here they don't seem to grow at all.

Maybe it's the dry weather. I can't wait for winter.

March 15th

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!

Also, yesterday was Pi Day. Just so you know.

One Week

The first week of school is well over, and although a status quo has not been established yet, I have formed some impressions.

What? Oh, right. Well, all I can say is, this is going to be a tough one. Lectures are a cruel, cruel way to learn, especially when tutorials are unhelpful and especially since we've been thrown into the deep end. After three years in the friendly atmosphere of my polytechnic, university, even in friendly ol' Oz, is a chilling experience.

The weather's somewhat nasty too. You could start off with freezing rain in the morning, and end off with UV-enriched sunshine by afternoon. We've had plenty of days with blazing hot sun which were still cold thanks to strong winds. It's hard to know how to dress. To make it worse, the sun here is nothing like at home - it burns. I swear you can feel the cancer forming.

On the subject of weather, today's forecasted temperature is 32°C. Yikes.

At least domestic affairs are more or less stable, and we've set up a grocery shopping routine. We've even got a surplus of plastic bags, and we no longer need to save everything like we used to. (I still keep disposable lunch boxes though. Those things are useful.) And the university was kind enough to set up a shuttle bus service to a nearby shopping mall (it has three supermarkets!). Yay for free transport.

Stuff here is pretty expensive, but there are plenty of discount stores around. Also, the products at the Asian groceries tend to be cheap. Fresh food is extremely cheap, though it expires quickly. We've had to throw out bread a few times because it turned sour.

And it helps a lot that we're living on campus. While the rent somewhat high, we pay a fixed fee for electricity and water supplies, and our internet connection, while expensive, is still a cheaper rate than from most providers. Being able to go home at any time to retrieve forgotten items is a huge plus.

It's kinda hard to get in touch with the news around here though, since we don't subscribe to a newspaper. So I guess it might be old news to everyone about Netscape closing down or Le Grand K losing weight, but I just read about it.

Also, the escaped criminal. While this is a bad thing short-term, I believe it is a good thing for the security of the country. Crises like this one keep people from getting complacent and missing obvious checks.

But what everyone will want to know is how he escaped in the first place, especially since he was apparently acting alone.

So, anyway... Class is in one hour. Got to go. I have a string of lectures until 2pm, and I need to pack some stuff to eat in between running to the next theatre, lest I faint.