I put off watching I, Robot for a long time because it didn't strike me as being at all faithful to Isaac Asimov's classic stories. It seemed to me that instead of the carefully nuanced, thoughtful stories of robots making sense of their clear-cut programmed morality in a world full of gray areas, the movie was just going to be a high-octane, no holds barred us vs. the evil killer robots shoot-'em-up with bullets flying everywhere.
My mind was somewhat put at ease when I saw that the film begins with a statement of the three Laws of Robotics, which form the core of the morality programmed into robots in Asimov's vision. Look here in two weeks for my detailed critique of the film.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
A note about nitpicking Medium
We've gotten a number of comments, both publicly and privately, that psychics are not real and that that is a major nit for the show. But we can't count that as a nit because Allison DuBois being psychic is the fundamental premise of the show. If you can find an episode that flatly contradicts the basic premise of the show, that would be different. In fact, that would be nitpicker's gold.
When you watch a show, you have to accept its fundamental premise, at least while you're watching. Otherwise, why watch that show? So with Star Trek we accept that humans can (or will be able to) travel faster than light without suffering the relativistic side effects predicted by Einstein, with Knight Rider you accept that a car can drive itself and do all this other cool stuff, with Xena you accept... well, you get the idea.
For things that are not part of the basic premise of the show, it is fair game to nitpick them based on real life knowledge, provided that previous episodes have not established anything in the matter. That's why it's valid for Lisa to nitpick the cryptography in last week's Medium rerun based on her real-life knowledge of cryptography. Unless one of you can come up with something from a previous episode to render her nits moot.
When you watch a show, you have to accept its fundamental premise, at least while you're watching. Otherwise, why watch that show? So with Star Trek we accept that humans can (or will be able to) travel faster than light without suffering the relativistic side effects predicted by Einstein, with Knight Rider you accept that a car can drive itself and do all this other cool stuff, with Xena you accept... well, you get the idea.
For things that are not part of the basic premise of the show, it is fair game to nitpick them based on real life knowledge, provided that previous episodes have not established anything in the matter. That's why it's valid for Lisa to nitpick the cryptography in last week's Medium rerun based on her real-life knowledge of cryptography. Unless one of you can come up with something from a previous episode to render her nits moot.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Important warning about lottery in your local news!
Yesterday, your local news might have carried an important warning for those of you who play the Mega Millions: Because more states will join the Mega Millions madness, it is predicted that the jackpots will get smaller! Oh, my God! Has the President been alerted? What a cataclysmic event! Players will go from not winning $300 million to not winning $100 million! What a disaster! Heaven help us! Heaven help us all!
Monday, January 11, 2010
Don't know much 'bout cryptography
The show: Medium
The episode: "The Medium is the Message," first aired on CBS on October 16, 2009, and reran last week in a different time slot (there was a new episode on Friday).
What happened: Allison starts seeing strange symbols everywhere. Her visions and dreams lead her to the infamous Libra Slayer, a serial killer who long ago murdered young women and left coded messages disclosing his next victim, and who has just now resurfaced. The strange symbols are so pervasive for Allison that she even writes a note for one of her daughter's teachers using the symbols instead of the English alphabet. Davalos is predictably skeptical when Allison tells him the Libra has resurfaced, but must take her seriously when a new victim shows up with a coded message.
Scanlon in this episode is less skeptical of Allison, and when he finds a bookshelf filled with books on cryptography in the house of Neal (Fisher Stevens), the man Allison says is the Libra, he sounds convinced that they're on the right track. However, the clock is ticking as it takes the police hours to decode the Libra's messages and they know the Libra will strike again soon because they have a new message that needs decoding. Just in the nick of time, Allison digs up the weird note she wrote for her daughter and creates the key with which to decode the message and figure out the Libra's next victim.
What has me wondering: Both times I've watched this episode, the scene of Scanlon and the bookshelf bothered me, and I wasn't sure why. Now that I've thought about it more, it was the scene of Allison creating the key to decode the message that should've bothered me. At first I was like, well, I have a bookshelf of Bibles and books about the Bible, but it doesn't make me a theologian. A bookshelf of books about cryptography doesn't make Neal a cryptologist. However, for his purposes as a serial killer, Neal doesn't want to create unbreakable codes. He wants to create codes that can be solved but only after he has committed the crime. I don't know much about cryptography, but I do know that there are encryption schemes that would be suitable for Neal's purpose. And I also know that a simple substitution cypher is not one of them!
See, in a substitution cypher, all you're doing is replacing each instance of a symbol with another. Take for example the message "I will kill Bill." Replace each letter with the next letter in the alphabet, make them all uppercase, remove spaces, and you get "JXJMMLJMMCJMM." Notice that the letter M occurs a lot in the coded message, because L occurred a lot in the plaintext. A short message like that might not be as susceptible to frequency analysis, especially if the author contrives it to have a higher than normal proportion of certain letters, but it's short enough that you can try every possibility until you hit the one that makes sense. That might take ten minutes by hand. A longer message in English will have a greater frequency of E than of L. (Try it with my previous blog post).
That means that a longer message, like the ones the Libra Slayer writes, should also be susceptible to frequency analysis if they are coded with simple substitution cyphers. The fact that Allison was able to create a key for the message proves that the Libra's message, at least his latest one, was in fact a substitution cypher. It's true that he used strange symbols instead of English letters. That can slow down computer entry. But here's what I would do: I would just sequentially assign letters to the symbols as I go over the message. Let's say the first symbol of the message looks like a half moon with a horizontal slash. All the half moons with slashes in the message are now As. Say the second symbol is a square divided into nine smaller squares. Guess what? All the squares with nine squares inside them just became Bs. And so on and so forth. That might take ten minutes, doing it slowly so as to be sure to do it correctly.
With that done, I can transcribe the message into English letters. It still looks like gibberish, but now I can feed that gibberish into a computer and have it do a frequency analysis, and if that fails (if the author was clever enough to avoid the letter E in the plaintext), I can just have the computer try all 25 possibilities and see if any of them make sense. Why does that take the police 10 hours to do? No wonder the police have a reputation for incompetence.
The episode: "The Medium is the Message," first aired on CBS on October 16, 2009, and reran last week in a different time slot (there was a new episode on Friday).
What happened: Allison starts seeing strange symbols everywhere. Her visions and dreams lead her to the infamous Libra Slayer, a serial killer who long ago murdered young women and left coded messages disclosing his next victim, and who has just now resurfaced. The strange symbols are so pervasive for Allison that she even writes a note for one of her daughter's teachers using the symbols instead of the English alphabet. Davalos is predictably skeptical when Allison tells him the Libra has resurfaced, but must take her seriously when a new victim shows up with a coded message.
Scanlon in this episode is less skeptical of Allison, and when he finds a bookshelf filled with books on cryptography in the house of Neal (Fisher Stevens), the man Allison says is the Libra, he sounds convinced that they're on the right track. However, the clock is ticking as it takes the police hours to decode the Libra's messages and they know the Libra will strike again soon because they have a new message that needs decoding. Just in the nick of time, Allison digs up the weird note she wrote for her daughter and creates the key with which to decode the message and figure out the Libra's next victim.
What has me wondering: Both times I've watched this episode, the scene of Scanlon and the bookshelf bothered me, and I wasn't sure why. Now that I've thought about it more, it was the scene of Allison creating the key to decode the message that should've bothered me. At first I was like, well, I have a bookshelf of Bibles and books about the Bible, but it doesn't make me a theologian. A bookshelf of books about cryptography doesn't make Neal a cryptologist. However, for his purposes as a serial killer, Neal doesn't want to create unbreakable codes. He wants to create codes that can be solved but only after he has committed the crime. I don't know much about cryptography, but I do know that there are encryption schemes that would be suitable for Neal's purpose. And I also know that a simple substitution cypher is not one of them!
See, in a substitution cypher, all you're doing is replacing each instance of a symbol with another. Take for example the message "I will kill Bill." Replace each letter with the next letter in the alphabet, make them all uppercase, remove spaces, and you get "JXJMMLJMMCJMM." Notice that the letter M occurs a lot in the coded message, because L occurred a lot in the plaintext. A short message like that might not be as susceptible to frequency analysis, especially if the author contrives it to have a higher than normal proportion of certain letters, but it's short enough that you can try every possibility until you hit the one that makes sense. That might take ten minutes by hand. A longer message in English will have a greater frequency of E than of L. (Try it with my previous blog post).
That means that a longer message, like the ones the Libra Slayer writes, should also be susceptible to frequency analysis if they are coded with simple substitution cyphers. The fact that Allison was able to create a key for the message proves that the Libra's message, at least his latest one, was in fact a substitution cypher. It's true that he used strange symbols instead of English letters. That can slow down computer entry. But here's what I would do: I would just sequentially assign letters to the symbols as I go over the message. Let's say the first symbol of the message looks like a half moon with a horizontal slash. All the half moons with slashes in the message are now As. Say the second symbol is a square divided into nine smaller squares. Guess what? All the squares with nine squares inside them just became Bs. And so on and so forth. That might take ten minutes, doing it slowly so as to be sure to do it correctly.
With that done, I can transcribe the message into English letters. It still looks like gibberish, but now I can feed that gibberish into a computer and have it do a frequency analysis, and if that fails (if the author was clever enough to avoid the letter E in the plaintext), I can just have the computer try all 25 possibilities and see if any of them make sense. Why does that take the police 10 hours to do? No wonder the police have a reputation for incompetence.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Nicole needs a better lawyer
The show: Days of Our Lives
The episode: The one which aired yesterday, January 6, 2010, the latest in the baby-switching saga.
What happened: Nicole, sporting artificially black hair, is in trial, with a black lawyer as her defense attorney. Her lawyer begins to ask for leniency but the judge rudely cuts him off. Then, several witnesses talk about what an awful, dishonest woman Nicole is. The judge thanks the witnesses and comments that no one has said anything positive about Nicole. Then this guy bursts into court, and soon he's testifying that Nicole loved Sydney as if Sydney was her own flesh-and-blood baby, and that no sentence the judge could hand down could be worse than what Nicole is already feeling.
Why it makes no sense: Do the writers watch any legal dramas? There are still plenty to choose from these days, even as the crime scene investigation genre has caused a decrease in lawyer dramas. Apparently, the Days of Our Lives writers seem to think that in a trial, the witnesses just get on the stand and testify free-style, without any guidance from counsel for their side and without any cross-examination from opposing counsel, and that judges are in the habit of thanking witnesses for their testimony.
Worse still, Nicole's lawyer seems to be completely asleep at the wheel. Not only does he fail to cross-examine any of the witnesses for the prosecution, it doesn't occur to him to round up just one positive character witness for Nicole. He must be one of those overworked, underpaid public defenders. But why couldn't Nicole get a high-priced power lawyer? I can believe that E. J. wouldn't want to spring for such a lawyer (because it wouldn't occur to him that a guilty verdict would be more solid if there's no grounds for appeal on the basis of inadequate counsel), but why doesn't it occur to the judge that such a high-profile defendant needs a high-profile lawyer, and not some nincompoop throwing in the towel?
Of course I understand that the conventions of the soap opera are different than those of the legal drama. The one positive character witness barging into the courtroom at just the right moment is a plot device right at home in the soap opera. But by making the incompetent defense lawyer a black man, the writers or the producers have chosen the worst time to add diversity to the guest cast.
The episode: The one which aired yesterday, January 6, 2010, the latest in the baby-switching saga.
What happened: Nicole, sporting artificially black hair, is in trial, with a black lawyer as her defense attorney. Her lawyer begins to ask for leniency but the judge rudely cuts him off. Then, several witnesses talk about what an awful, dishonest woman Nicole is. The judge thanks the witnesses and comments that no one has said anything positive about Nicole. Then this guy bursts into court, and soon he's testifying that Nicole loved Sydney as if Sydney was her own flesh-and-blood baby, and that no sentence the judge could hand down could be worse than what Nicole is already feeling.
Why it makes no sense: Do the writers watch any legal dramas? There are still plenty to choose from these days, even as the crime scene investigation genre has caused a decrease in lawyer dramas. Apparently, the Days of Our Lives writers seem to think that in a trial, the witnesses just get on the stand and testify free-style, without any guidance from counsel for their side and without any cross-examination from opposing counsel, and that judges are in the habit of thanking witnesses for their testimony.
Worse still, Nicole's lawyer seems to be completely asleep at the wheel. Not only does he fail to cross-examine any of the witnesses for the prosecution, it doesn't occur to him to round up just one positive character witness for Nicole. He must be one of those overworked, underpaid public defenders. But why couldn't Nicole get a high-priced power lawyer? I can believe that E. J. wouldn't want to spring for such a lawyer (because it wouldn't occur to him that a guilty verdict would be more solid if there's no grounds for appeal on the basis of inadequate counsel), but why doesn't it occur to the judge that such a high-profile defendant needs a high-profile lawyer, and not some nincompoop throwing in the towel?
Of course I understand that the conventions of the soap opera are different than those of the legal drama. The one positive character witness barging into the courtroom at just the right moment is a plot device right at home in the soap opera. But by making the incompetent defense lawyer a black man, the writers or the producers have chosen the worst time to add diversity to the guest cast.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
I get called a man a lot
Tonight CBS pre-empted New Adventures of Old Christine and Gary Unmarried for a special showing of I Get That a Lot, a one-note show in which celebrities impersonate common folks like dry cleaner attendants and parking valets, while trying to deny they're the celebrity they really are.
There is hardly anything to nitpick in such a predictable show, but I just had to say something about Rachael Ray being called a "culinary maestro." It's one thing to make English words gender-neutral, such as calling Halle Berry an actor rather than an actress (I'm all for that), but it still sounds a little jarring to use in a gender-neutral manner a loanword from a very gendered language such as Italian. I know Spanish and Italian are different, and that having studied Spanish in high school does not qualify me as an expert in Italian. But I do know that in Italian, just like in Spanish, most nouns ending in O are masculine. So to me it sounds a little insulting to use such a noun for a woman.
There is hardly anything to nitpick in such a predictable show, but I just had to say something about Rachael Ray being called a "culinary maestro." It's one thing to make English words gender-neutral, such as calling Halle Berry an actor rather than an actress (I'm all for that), but it still sounds a little jarring to use in a gender-neutral manner a loanword from a very gendered language such as Italian. I know Spanish and Italian are different, and that having studied Spanish in high school does not qualify me as an expert in Italian. But I do know that in Italian, just like in Spanish, most nouns ending in O are masculine. So to me it sounds a little insulting to use such a noun for a woman.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Groups of 24 hours of our lives
In today's episode of Days of Our Lives, Sammy and E. J. get a ransom note for their baby, Sydney, dated January 5, 2010. The ransom note also has geographical coordinates: 39 point something North, I don't remember what West.
So this shows that time on Days of Our Lives flows in parallel with real life time. But you wouldn't know it from most episodes, in which almost every scene ends with a character staring blankly at the character who just asked her/him a question, and many scenes begin with a confirmation that the plot thread has not really moved forward since its previous appearance in the syuzhet.
So this shows that time on Days of Our Lives flows in parallel with real life time. But you wouldn't know it from most episodes, in which almost every scene ends with a character staring blankly at the character who just asked her/him a question, and many scenes begin with a confirmation that the plot thread has not really moved forward since its previous appearance in the syuzhet.
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