Back of the Envelope

This was a really cool week in a number of webcomics.

Sluggy Freelance -- The evil magic sword's fully charged again and Torg is killing demons left and right, and looking very cool while doing it, with a little help from the magic-wielding Alt-Gwynn.

Day by Day -- Michael Moore and ACT, the Washington Post and the Academic Elite, are all getting an earful, but the most fun comes from Sam and Zed being Sam and Zed.

It's Walky! -- Daisy kills Beef. Jason kills Penny and finally confesses his love for Sal. It's about time!

College Roomies from Hell!!! -- Dave breaks free of Jay's headlock, lasers him, then saves his life before kicking him into submission while shouting "Blue is MINE!" And, yeah, Marsha has, um, wings. I don't know what's up with that either.

General Protection Fault -- Geek eye for the luddite guy! Okay, there's just a few too many "Queer Eye" parodies these days.

Schlock Mercenary -- Knocking over the petshop goes smoothly, with significant property damage but zero casualties. Schlock's bound to be disappointed.

I don't usually go to see movies by myself. In fact, just about the only time I'll go to a movie theater is when I'm going with a group, and in that case, I rarely give much input on what movie I want to see. However, inspired by the positive reviews from both Howard Taylor and Donald Sensing, I decided to go see Spiderman 2. It was a Saturday matinee, and it was certainly worth the mere $5 it cost.

I saw the first Spiderman when I was in Edmonton for an interview with Bioware (it occurs to me that this would be a pretty interesting blog post in itself--look for "How I almost became a computer game designer" later), where the entire company went to see the movie. It was a lot of fun watching it with a bunch of geeks who knew their comic books inside and out. My favorite part of the movie then, which remains my favorite part now when I watch it on DVD, was the very beginning, when Peter had first gained his new abilities and was just learning to use them. I highly doubted that the second movie could recapture that excitement.

It turns out I was wrong. I'm trying to avoid details--the fewer spoilers the better, but you can't write a review without some--but if you've seen the commercials, you already know that Peter Parker walks away from being Spiderman. The reasons why are manifold, and you can guess at most of them just from the first movie: always broke, unable to hold a regular job, hated by most of the city, never able to keep his commitments and thus always letting his friends down. MJ, the girl he loves and who loves him, has just about given up on their friendship altogether. His best friend, Harry Osbourne, can't forgive him for protecting Spiderman, who killed Harry's father. It surprised me how long it took to build up to Peter giving up on being Spiderman. The one detail that didn't make the commercials was how the stress in his life was affecting his abilities, which made his willingness to quit more believable. Once he quits, his abilities desert him completely, reducing his ability and thus temptation to be a hero. As you might expect, he has several opportunities to do so, and he doesn't go back to his Spiderman habits the first time he encounters someone who needs help. This makes his return all the more remarkable, and his comeback has the same sense of discovery as when he first gained his abilities. (Of course he comes back--don't tell me you consider that a spoiler.) This sort of thing is a cliche anyway (Do you have any idea how many computer game sequels use some variation of this to prevent the hero from being overpowered at the start of the new game?), and now that it's been done once it can't be believably used in a third movie, but it still worked well this time.

Aside from the sympathetic hero, Spiderman 2 also gives us a sympathetic villain. Sure, Osbourne from the first Spiderman was somewhat sympathetic, but you felt more pity than hope for him. He was ruthless even before he became the Green Goblin. Dr. Octavius was fundamentally decent before he became Doc Ock, and you find yourself hoping that he can find redemption.

The central story is not about Doc Ock, or Harry, or even MJ. It's about Peter, and whether he's willing to make the sacrifices needed to help others. Donald Sensing draws parallels with the US experience, but I'll just keep to the movie.

I won't tell you the ending, but you know the questions. Does Peter reconcile with Harry? Does Doc Ock find redemption? Can MJ and Peter be together, or at least remain friends? Who of his friends and enemies will discover his other identity? I will tell you that the answers are not all happy ones, but I did find the ending of this one more upbeat than the ending to the first, and more satisfying.

Overall, a very good movie, and worth seeing.

New Post: My post on "How I almost became a computer game designer" is now here.

As you may have noticed from from the image at the top of my sidebar, I've finally posted the first part of A Phoenix in Darkness. Due to a technical glitch, namely my staying up until 3 AM last night working on it, the link originally led to an older version of the story which I had used as a placeholder. The proper version is there now.

Here's how I'm describing the story:

For centuries, the Ordo Dominorum has protected humanity against threats beyond its comprehension, but the Order’s secretive ways and strange powers has earned the Domini only fear and hatred from those they seek to protect. Aulus and Nathan, two young Domini, believe that the Order’s success in hunting down and destroying magical threats has now made it possible to reform the Order and make it a part of the world. Will the murder of a fellow Dominus by a peasant woman be the impetus to begin this change… or proof that the Order has not been as successful as they believed?

A Phoenix in Darkness is part of the backstory for The War of the Elementals, taking place a few years after “A Stranger in the Library.” Both of these stories can be found here.

A Phoenix in Darkness will be published in five parts. While the first part is free, the four remaining parts will cost $1 each, payable through Amazon’s Honor System.

You may wonder why I'm trying to sell this story. While I'd love to make some cash, for obvious reasons, I'm not so naive as to believe I can support myself selling stories over the Internet. I figure I might reasonably expect to sell 10 copies of each part, which, after giving Amazon its cut, should be enough for dinner and a movie for myself and a date. Assuming my date pays her own way. I'll be ecstatic if I sell 100, but I'd need to sell a thousand to make this a serious career possibility. Which is what brings me to the why. I'm doing this to see if I can. I want to see whether I can make money this way. I don't expect to make a lot, but I'd like to see how much interest there is in what I write, and how seriously I should take my writing hobby. We'll see...

View from the Pew has a nice, long post on evangelicals and civic engagement, based on a position paper under consideration by the National Association of Evangelicals. He's quite happy with the document, and has some good thoughts on it.

Do you know of any blogs which are under-rated? LivingRoom is having a contest to highlight blogs which deserve more recognition. Go give your recommendation. (Being no stranger to self-promotion, I've already recommended myself as well as a few others.)

One thing I noticed is that some people have odd definitions of under-rated. One Hand Clapping, Captain's Quarters, and The Belmont Club are all very good blogs, but they receive from 100 to 300 times the traffic I do, so it's hard for me to call them underblogs.

Letters from Babylon has a couple of posts on faith and reason, while the Evangelical Outpost has an interesting post on philosophy and science. These are related but not identical topics, and I thought I'd say a little about how they connect.

First off, there is a tendency today to conflate reason and science, which is one of Joe Carter's main beefs in his article on philosophy and science. Science is quite effective when it comes to falsifiable theories, which can be tested by scientific experiments. There are quite a few realms of inquiry which do not benefit from such experiment, such as ethics. Those who conflate science and reason say that if it cannot be experimentally confirmed or falsified it is by nature irrational. It is no surprise that this leads to the quasi-postmodern worldview which seems to be dominate in the Western world. This view holds that if a premise has been scientifically vouched for, it's true, but if it cannot be, then it is for all practical purposes neither true nor false--the absolute truth of the premise is irrelevant. Since its truth cannot be tested, it has no effect on anything, and believe it or not as a matter of opinion but don't try to convince me either way. This is not a reasonable approach to life, and even the most scientifically-rigorous skeptic believes in a myriad of facts that cannot be scientifically tested, including the premises that underly scientific inquiry, simply because it is impossible to go through life any other way.

I believe that people who take this approach are more irrational than those who do not, which helps to explain some of the bizarre worldviews among certain prominent scientists. Once you decide that there is only one way of knowing things, and that everything which does not fit into that investigative technique is beyond argumentation, you are a lot less open to debate. Either you adapt a "You go your way and I'll go mine" attitude, or, what seems to be more common, "I believe this because it is self-evident, and no fact or argument will have any impact on my beliefs. For you to believe differently means that either you are lying or stupid." There's also the attempt to frame all debates in terms of the one "proper way" of knowing things, but usually when scientists do that it's merely a variation on "It's self-evident and you're too stupid to see it." They often do this by stating their speculation and opinions on the subject as fact, and daring anyone to call the "expert" on it. (This, by the way, is my biggest pet peeve.)

This brings us to the posts at Letters from Babylon on whether faith and reason are compatible. Science, in itself, has very little to say about the existence of God. Almost every time someone applies science to examine some religious claim, the full extent of the scientific inquiry is to examine whether you really need a miracle to explain the event in question, or whether there's a naturalistic explanation. Since Christians are quite willing to accept that God often works through subtle, natural means, the only thing science can do in these cases is show whether there is a naturalistic explanation or not. The believer generally isn't affected one way or the other. The skeptic may be moved to re-examine his worldview due to the evidence pointing away from his, but more often he'll say "We don't know, but I'm sure we'll find out someday," or "And that proves that it never could have happened and is thus a lie."

Reason, on the other hand, has quite a bit to say about the existence of God. There are quite a few logical arguments for God's existence, some good, strong arguments, and others very weak. There are also arguments against the existence of God, mostly rather weak. (Admittedly, as a believer, my view is somewhat biased, but from what I've read, there really are very few good arguments against the existence of God.) Letters from Babylon discusses the insufficiency of reason to bring someone to saving faith, and I'm not going to argue the point. I will say, however, that there are many people for whom reason provided a push in the right direction. I don't think you can reach God by reasoning about him, but you can reach the point where you begin to seek him.

I work for two professors, who divide my funding evenly between them. On Tuesday, one of the professors told me he would not be able to support me past the next few months. Today, the other professor let me know that he would not be able to take over full funding of my position. What that boils down to is that I will be out of a job in a few months.

It's not entirely unexpected. There have been funding difficulties for a while now, and while Postdocs usually last for a couple of years, they have to end when the funding does. It's better to let me go than any of the Grad students, since it should be easier for me to find another job, and I'm more expensive to support anyway.

So while I'm disappointed, I'm not bitter. I am of course somewhat worried, but I'm not panicking yet (I tend not to panic until it's too late to do any good).

In any case, if you know of any positions that could use a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, let me know.

The Christian Carnival is up at Parableman. Be sure to see what other Christian bloggers are saying.

My post on being born again is included. Jeremy Pierce wonders when I'm going to get around to explaining what this has to do with the difference between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. I thought I had explained that, although a second look shows that I just breezed through it at the end of the second, extraordinarily long post--partly a result of my own exhaustion after having written it. I'll try to explain it in more detail later.

Today Torg and Dave, my favorite characters in their respective webcomics (Sluggy Freelance and College Roomies from Hell!!!), demonstrate once again why it is very dangerous to underestimate them. I'm sure I could draw some political analogies or talk about mythic archetypes or infer both good and bad theological lessons, but right now, it's just a lot of fun to watch. As usual, I recommend reading the comics from the beginning--the links are in the sidebar--but if you don't want to do that, the current storylines start here for Sluggy and here for CRFH. (The CRFH storyline is a lot longer, having started in August of last year.)

Update: I neglected to mention Jason from It's Walky!, who also proved quite dangerous today. Of course, Jason doesn't seem to be a wimp as much as Torg and Dave--except in comparison to all the superpowered freaks he works with. The storyline started here.

I really have no intention of seeing this movie. I haven't gotten around to seeing the movies I might actually enjoy, much less one that'll just leave me angry and frustrated (my standard response when I want to argue about something but don't have anyone to argue with). But I did read Christopher Hitchens' review, which everybody is recommending. An excerpt:

It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point. Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.) Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all—the latter was Moore's view as late as 2002—or we sent too few. If we were going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is really recommending. And these are simply observations on what is "in" the film. If we turn to the facts that are deliberately left out, we discover that there is an emerging Afghan army, that the country is now a joint NATO responsibility and thus under the protection of the broadest military alliance in history, that it has a new constitution and is preparing against hellish odds to hold a general election, and that at least a million and a half of its former refugees have opted to return. I don't think a pipeline is being constructed yet, not that Afghanistan couldn't do with a pipeline. But a highway from Kabul to Kandahar—an insurance against warlordism and a condition of nation-building—is nearing completion with infinite labor and risk. We also discover that the parties of the Afghan secular left—like the parties of the Iraqi secular left—are strongly in favor of the regime change. But this is not the sort of irony in which Moore chooses to deal.

I agree, this review is worth reading.

Old Post: I first mentioned the early turnover of Iraqi sovereignty below.

Robert Alt has a good article on the early turnover at National Review. Robert Alt has more to say on how the US has been slowly turning more and more power over to the Iraqis for the last couple of months:

In the days and weeks leading up to the transition, many in the United States criticized the June 30 transition date as too soon — while some, such as Sen. John Kerry, were critical of the decision to set a firm deadline for the transfer of power at all. Even so, the transition began much earlier than anyone anticipated. On March 28, 2004, the Ministry of Health became the first of Iraq's 26 ministries to shift to Iraqi control, thus beginning the transition process that was completed last week, when the last of the ministries came under Iraqi authority. Today's ceremony was in many ways just that — ceremonial — representing a change in authority that had effectively already occurred.

Despite some claims to the contrary, the autonomy enjoyed by the agencies is substantive rather than merely symbolic. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Electricity, and the Ministry of Communication will retain only a small handful of Coalition consultants, who will have no operational authority, but will simply provide technical assistance as requested by the respective Iraqi ministers. Other ministries, like the Ministry of Education — whose 300,000 employees make it the largest of the 26 — will have no Coalition consultants at all.

All in all, a good day for Iraq.

Parablemania has apparently changed its name to Parableman. I'm not quite sure when that happened--I wouldn't have noticed without the e-mail sent out about the Christian Carnival. Parableman is a long time nickname for Jeremy Pierce, and an inspiration for his blog's name, at least according to a post that I can no longer find, so it's not too surprising he'd return to the original name, but I still can't find any post announcing the change. Parablemania or Parableman, it's still a good blog. Check it out.

Now this is good news. Demonstrating once again Bush's love for surprises, the CPA has turned over authority to the Iraqis early. Most bloggers shouldn't be too surprised by this. People like Captain Ed had noticed that the CPA had already turned quite a bit of authority to the Iraqis, but it's nice to see the official turnover done ahead of schedule. It won't stop the violence, of course. Those prisoners currently in the hands of the terrorists are still unlikely to survive. It does do a lot to take the wind out of their sails, and ruins any plans they might have had to target the turnover itself.

Anyway, it now looks as though the new Iraq and I share the same birthday.

New Post: More above.

The day I was born. Not to make a big deal of it or anything, but I'm thirty today. I think I have to consider myself a grown-up now.

Once again a rather slow week, with few posts. Of course, if you exchange quantity of posts for quantity of words, due to two very lengthy posts, it's not too bad.

Honesty and the sitcom mentality -- I discuss how most sitcoms get their humor from the lies their characters tell, and wonder whether this is a new development.

C2 Review -- Coke has a new half-calorie drink, and I give my thoughts on it.

Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism: Born Again I -- I return to my discussion of the differences between fundamentalism and evangelicalism in a discussion on what it means to be born again.

I'm a brownshirt? -- It may not be original, but I join in the fun in mocking Al Gore.

Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism: Born Again II -- The second and even longer post on being born again, and how one becomes so.