23. May 2009 by admin.

Last Sunday, I went with my son to see the new Star Trek movie.  Visually, the movie is a masterpiece, although some of the special effects seem a little overwrought for my taste.  But there was something missing, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

My son thought the movie was wonderful: “There seems to be more action, more fun.  The older Star Trek was tied up in procedures, and the Prime Directive and such.”

Aha!  That was what gave Star Trek its satisfying snap, and what was missing in this incarnation.  Starfleet, we imagine, had its origins in earthbound military forces, and the earlier versions were bound to military traditions of respect and discipline.  The current version, striving to be more like Star Wars, cuts loose from the tradition: the leadership is a bunch of old fogies, and rules are for sissies.

While the current movie establishes a basis for a new generation of Kirk and Spock adventures,  they’ll probably follow the same pattern.  The older movies presented serving on a starship as something to aspire to; now anyone can do it if they can bend enough rules.

Rather the same thing happened with James Bond: the previous incarnations of the character, through Pierce Brosnan, presented a man who lived and worked by his wits.  The Daniel Craig Bond, in contrast, is an Energizer Bunny who dances through machine-gun fire, but doesn’t seem to have much to say.

No, I can’t go home again, except perhaps on DVD.

Posted in Movies | No Comments »

19. May 2009 by admin.

I woke up this morning in a foul mood, not sick, but not wanting to do anything.  The last few weeks have been frenetically busy, and this week is not so much a lull as a pause before the mayhem continues next week.

“Do you have any meetings today,” my wife asked me.

“No.”

“Why don’t you ride your bike to work?”

When the weather is nice, and I’m working in the office on Sundays, I like to bike to work, but not usually on a weekday.  But today was a gorgeously clear day, a little cool for late May: why not?

I left the house a little late, and missed the peak of the rush hour.  The traffic was there, but nothing too terrible.  In my previous trips I tried a number of schemes to avoid Houston Street, a horribly busy place with lots of trucks.  But the schemes usually involve an awkward left turn, which didn’t work in the heavier weekday traffic.  It turned out the Houston Street wasn’t so bad after all.

And, just like that, the funk was busted.  The endorphins were flowing, and all was well.  I had expected a calm day, but it didn’t happen that way.  Not to worry: the problems of the day were just targets to get blasted, nothing to get upset over.

So many thanks for the suggestion, Ducky.

Posted in Life Goes On | No Comments »

10. May 2009 by admin.

I have been terribly busy the last few weeks, and haven’t had much time to write.  But while I’ve been out, I note that a number of… entities… have signed on as subscribers to this site.  The names and e-mails addresses seem strange: not strange enough to have been obviously generated by a computer, but not like people’s actual names.

I have to believe that it’s a new form of spam, although I can’t understand to what end: if someone writes a comment, I have to approve it before it appears on the site.  And so far, I haven’t received any comments.

In any case, I’ve deleted all of the subscribers that have signed on so far.  If you meant to be a subscriber, I’m sorry; you’ll have to go back and subscribe again.  But for those who would subscribe in the future: after you subscribe, you have one week to submit a cogent comment on one of the postings.  If I don’t see a comment (I don’t necessarily have to agree with it!), I’ll assume that you’re some kind of bot, and will delete your subscription.

*          *          *

Last week, the state legislature passed a plan to help the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.  The plan will raise about $1.5 billion through a new payroll tax and  a surcharge on taxi rides.  As a result, the Draconian service cuts that were contemplated a few weeks ago will not come to pass, although there will be some cuts and a modest fare increase.

I should be relieved: while the fare increase is not a big deal for me, the service cuts are a problem, and part of my income as an engineering consultant is derived from the MTA’s capital spending.  But I don’t like it.

One again, the state has papered over the problem with taxing and spending, rather than addressing the real problems.  Why does operating the MTA cost what it does?  Can it work more efficiently?  Given that the operation of the MTA is vital to the economic health of the region and the state, why didn’t the state face the problem squarely in the first place, instead of coming up with half-measures later?  State spending increased by $11 billion this year: what did they spend it on?  And what happens next year, expecially if the economy is still sagging?

But the answers to those questions require thought….

Posted in New York State, Dysfunctional Government, Blogging | No Comments »