Spielberg delivers the T-Rex money shot in "Jurassic Park".

(Steven Spielberg, 1993)

November 26, 2009

by Joel Crary

For my money, no modern director is as consistently reliable as Steven Spielberg, who approaches a wide variety of genres with a seemingly tireless eagerness to make exemplars for each. The first three-quarters of “Jurassic Park” is superb adventure filmmaking of the highest order. One scene, in which a Tyrannosaurus Rex breaks free of its enclosure and attacks a group of tourists, remains among one of the most harrowing ever filmed. Before the 21st century Spielberg, who elected to go all George Lucas on a re-released “E.T.” that toned down its scarier material, his younger self had no qualms with putting children in harm’s way.

As a child, I loved him for it. Sixteen years after I saw the film in theatres, there is still a palpable sense of terror to the T-Rex scene as it nearly crushes the children under a sunroof before flipping the car and grinding it into the muddied road like a finished cigarette. In that scene and others in which dinosaurs are majestically portrayed as having returned to roam the earth after 65 million years, the boy in Spielberg is apparent, using all of the tools at his disposal to recreate the wonder he must have felt at a young age when flipping through illustrations in a grade school science textbook.

I had a first or second row seat for my first viewing of “Jurassic Park”. People crammed into theatres to see it , the result of a marketing campaign that spent a dollar for every year that dinosaurs had been extinct. It seemed less a film that a full-on cultural event, something completely unique in light of most of its competition in the summer of ‘93, which included “Super Mario Bros.” and “Last Action Hero”. Merchandise and ancillary products dominated store shelves. Toronto named their new basketball team after a dinosaur that no one had so much as heard of three years prior.

Most significantly, “Jurassic Park” was the film that changed the movie-making landscape with regard to CGI. Sequences such as the running of the gallimimus herd and the brachiosaurus encounter, animated by the effects creators at the still teenaged Industrial Light & Magic, opened up doors of possibility for animators still working within the limitations of stop motion on productions. After “Jurassic Park”, unreal creatures began to move more fluently, extending the possibilities of the corporeal onscreen.

The film’s strongest effects work, however, remains in the realm of animatronics, which have always trumped CGI. The T-Rex is actually there in the frame, screaming like something out of a nightmare as it tears an electric fence to pieces. The potency of “Jurassic Park’s” dinosaur scenes comes from the effort of the effects team to study the creatures’ behaviour and apply it to their movements. The filmmakers are aware that all most of us know about dinosaurs comes from what we have retained from lessons and theories learned in childhood – the T-Rex can’t see you if you don’t move; the brontosaurus eats leaves, not people – thereupon building our empathy for the hapless characters as they find themselves at the mercy of natural selection.

For the most part, Michael Crichton and David Koepp’s script is wisely fueled by the awe of their characters. These days, the movie starts to lose me around the time Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) has to restore electrical power to the park. Spielberg gets a little too energetic with his camera movements, which try in vain to pump life into the film after the T-Rex scene has shattered the nerves. There are plot holes and conveniences galore, such as the scene where Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) throws a stick at an electric fence to see if it’s still working, or the fact that 13-year-old Lex (Ariana Richards) knows how to navigate a UNIX interface to restore the compound’s locking mechanisms.

“Jurassic Park” was my introduction to the brilliance of Jeff Goldblum. Viewing Ian Malcolm in the post-Brundlefly context puts a whole new weird spin on his oddly delivered observations regarding chaos theory in the evolutionary process, but he’s wasted in the film’s second half, where he is positioned in fetishistic shots that linger on his bare chest and placement akin to some kind of fallen Greek deity. Samuel L. Jackson also plays an understated role as one of the park’s technicians with an Andy Capp smoke perpetually dangling from his lips, and in his portlier days, Wayne Knight tangles with an acid-spitting dilophosaurus and loses in mucky fashion.

The character I’ve come to enjoy most is Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck), who lived in Crichton’s book but dies in the film. In spite of his fatal error in hunting velociraptors, he’s the one guy out of the lot I’d trust to escape the island with, as he’s the only one who seems to acknowledge exactly what the dinosaurs are capable of. Had he survived, I believe he could have single-handedly prevented the next two installments in the “Jurassic Park” series, or at least brought some much needed good sense to “The Lost World”.

John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), the showman, cares little for the science behind his attraction. I like his bit of dialogue about the flea circus, pregnant as it is with the idea of trading in things we can’t see for things that are too big to imagine, overwhelming ourselves with our own power simply to see if it can be done. “Jurassic Park” is about ambition and a desire for capital triumphing over good ideas, told with an excitement for the scientific method and what becomes possible for the adult who never fully grows out of his childhood fantasies. Spielberg clearly never has.

For helping to hold the AGW opposition together through the long winter of AGW ascendancy.

This ClimateGates for you.

RIP now, buddy.

“Our previous story on global warming fraud reminded me of this Michael Crichton interview from a few years ago. It’s a 5-star appearance. Crichtdon graduated Harvard Medical School, was a published scientist, and was a fellow at the Jonas Salk Institute before becoming a Hollywood writer/producer, so it’s not really a fair fight. Al Gore and the entire accepted dogma of man-made global warming (AGW) is obliterated.” – The Daily Bail

Click here to see the interview and read comments

“Pirate Latitudes” reminds you more of “Eaters of the Dead” or “Timeline” (minus the time travel aspect) than Michael Crichton’s more famous books like Jurassic Park, Prey. And, like many historical novels starring pirates, it is a bit cheesy in pieces.

Port Royal, the lonesome British colony in the Caribbean seas, is surrounded by the Spanish waters. The undeclared (and unacknowledged) war on the Spanish empire is being carried out by the privateers, who find support from the colony’s influential citizens, including the governor. So, when the governor comes to know about a treasure nao possibly kept in the Spanish harbour of Matanceros, he brings the lucrative venture to Capt. Hunter.

Unfortunately, Matanceros is an impregnable island fortress led by a vicious Spanish commander, Cazalla. Hunter and his crew is well motivated to carry out the raid, many having personal grudges against Cazalla. But the waters of Caribbean are infested than more than just Spanish warships, and Hunter’s Cassandra faces natural and man-made obstacles on the journey. Not to mention, the new Secretary sent by His Majesty Charles II to Port Royal has a grudge of his own, against Hunter.

As I said, the novel has the true historical, piratical flavour to the narration. The story (like in Timeline or Eaters…) doesn’t shy away from the more gruesome (or lascivious) details of the life in the colonies in 17th century. Cazalla’s bloodthirsty nature is well portrayed as is the often lawless life in Port Royal. Cassandra is manned by such names as the Moor, Lazue, The Jew and Sanson the French assassin. Each one has his own interesting backstory, excluding the captain, Charles Hunter. Then again, you can spot the good guys and the bad guys right from the start, and none move away from their side of the fence.

While Hunter’s crew is filled with such experts, the Spanish don’t fare so well on their side. True to the maritime nature of the novel, <small spoiler> the actual raid <end spoiler> and the land battles are almost too easy to win, and too quick to finish. It is the sea battles and the voyage of Cassandra and El Trinidad which are the truly thrilling aspects of the action.

Don’t expect to read something like Jurassic Park or Timeline. But this will be very interesting for the fans of Michael Crichton, or the fans of pirates. After all, add pirates to anything, and it becomes good, right?

Quote of the Day:

You see, Mr. Hacklett, privateering is an honourable occupation. Pirates, on the other hand, are outlaws.

- Sir James Almont, Governor of Jamaica

  Subscribe to "Lazy Habits of Thinking"

Check out Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. Also, other historical fiction books.

Westworld is a 1973 science fiction / thriller film written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton and starring Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, and James Brolin. Set in a high tech amusement park, Peter Martin and John Blane play cowboys in a faux western world with lifelike robots, but when the park’s central computer malfunctions, the vacation turns from harmless fun to potentially fatal, and the friends must figure out how to escape with their lives.

Westworld was the last movie MGM produced before dissolving its releasing company, and was the first theatrical feature directed by Crichton. It was also the first feature film to use digital image processing to pixellate photography to simulate an android point of view. The film was nominated for Hugo, Nebula and Golden Scroll (aka Saturn) awards, and was followed by a sequel film, Futureworld, and a short-lived television series, Beyond Westworld.

Trivia:

• When the Gunslinger robot is splashed in the face with acid, Yul Brynner’s face was coated with an oil-based makeup mixed with ground Alka-Seltzer. A splash of water then produced the fizzing effect.
• The first use of computer digitized images as part of a feature film (not merely monitor graphics) was the Gunslinger’s point of view in Westworld. After the process was finally developed enough to produce satisfactory results, it took a mere eight hours to produce each ten seconds of Gunslinger’s pixellated POV.
• The robot that Yul Brynner portrays is an homage/spoof of his character Chris from The Magnificent Seven (1960) and wears the same costume.
• Michael Crichton became inspired to write this film after a trip to Disneyland, where he saw the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and was impressed by the animatronic characters.
• Director John Carpenter based the “indestructable” nature of his killer Michael Meyers in Halloween (1978) on Yul Brynner’s character in this film.
• Yul Brynner’s character is known as The Gunslinger. Interestingly, the word “gunslinger” was only created in the 1950s and has no connection.

Maud Newton

It was after discussing Margaret with my mother that I stopped trying to talk about my experiences. Instead, I became obsessed with the notion that I would, eventually, write them down.

Pre-teen novels were my frame of reference. I envisaged a story in the downbeat, questioning vein of “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret” or “My Darling, My Hamburger.” But unlike those books, mine would be true, and, because I could not see beyond the sphere of my own unhappiness, it would be called, “And You Think Your Family is Crazy.” I shudder to think of it now.

I guess it’s not surprising, in the Oprah era, that so many other people had the same idea. Nowadays bookstores are overrun with narratives that could be sold under exactly the title that so appealed to my adolescent self. It’s hard to dispute writer Ben Yagoda’s assertion that the memoir has become the “central form” of this cultural moment. Whether it has, as he also contends, supplanted fiction remains to be seen.

But I hope he’s wrong.

Mavis Gallant

Why do novelists write essays? Most publishers would rather have a novel. Bookshops don’t know where to put them. It’s a rare reader who seeks them out with any sense of urgency. Still, in recent months Jonathan Safran Foer, Margaret Drabble, Chinua Achebe and Michael Chabon, among others, have published essays, and so this month will I. And though I think I know why I wrote mine, I wonder why they wrote theirs, and whether we all mean the same thing by the word “essay”, and what an essay is, exactly, these days.

Reif Larson talks about writing and the unfinished work of Nabokov is discussed.

Javier Marias

Michael Crichton might have passed away a little over a year ago but the prolific producer of best sellers keep on publishing like the Energizer Bunny.

His latest work, Pirate Latitudes, is an adventure revolving around piracy in Jamaica in the 17th century. It’s scheduled for release November 24, 2009 but you can read an excerpt on the Wall Street Journal’s website. I’m not a Crichton fan but this one looks interesting and there’s a rumor that Steven Spielberg is working on a movie.

Of course, if you’re looking for a maritime adventure written by a real sailor who’s also an accomplished author, don’t forget my good friend Randy Peffer’s great civil war maritime thriller, Southern Seahawk or one of my favorite all time books, Log of the Dead Pirates Society.

I spy some great sea stories on your horizon.

Alf isn’t a great one for movies, but not just because there is a dearth of cinemas in Eketahuna. Rather, it’s because there are better things to do and the best place to do these better things is down at the club.

Because he’s only an occasional movie-goer, he may be accused of being ill-fitted to comment on the fuss over The Vintner’s Luck. But bugger it. He will comment anyway.

On the strength of his newspaper reading, fair to say, he won’t bother going to the movie, even though it’s directed by Niki Caro and people tell him she made Whale Rider which everybody except him went to see.

His urge to blog on the matter was triggered by news that –

Author Elizabeth Knox’s sister has waded into the row over the film adaptation of The Vintner’s Luck, saying the glossing over of a gay relationship was a case of “bad politics”.

Sara Knox, an academic and writer, said she had refused to see the film and shared her sister’s sense of “betrayal” over its treatment.

The Dom-Post goes on to bring this woman’s sexual inclinations into considerations.

Sara Knox, who is gay, said yesterday that she was upset at the decision to remove the relationship in the film.

“The reason I haven’t seen it is because I already feel like the film is a betrayal. I feel that personally, partly because I’m Elizabeth’s sister, but the book was gay romance.

“If you take that out … all of the conflict and drama is evacuated. It leaves nothing,” Dr Knox said. “It’s bad politics and I don’t like it.

“There isn’t enough fine literature written about great varieties of different kinds of love, that’s what [The Vintner's Luck] did. It could have been an opportunity for a film to add to the human experience of joy and love, but no.”

Alf is tempted to think it’s a bloody good thing the film-maker has glossed over a gay relationship.

It’s fair to suppose one of the aims is to make a buck or two from the venture, after all.

And let’s face it. If we did have a cinema in Eketahuna, films about poofters probably would draw a zero audience.

This is especially so if one of the poofters is an angel, which pushes matters into the domain of the preposterous.

But here’s the bit that puzzles this crusty old blogger .

Elizabeth Knox told The Dominion Post this week she had cried for days when she found her novel’s central relationship – a gay romance between French peasant winemaker, Sobran Jodeau, and an angel, Xas, – had been played down in the movie by Kiwi film-maker Niki Caro.

Question: did she not get paid for the film rights to her book?

More important, what did she expect would happen when she sold the film rights (which presumably she did, or otherwise the lawyers would have become involved already).?

Did none of her mates warn her that film-makers are renowned – if not notorious – for being cavalier with the books on which they base their screen-plays?

Alf remembers going to Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park . He found it bore no resemblance to the book (but it wasn’t a bad movie).

Mind you, the author of The Lost World – a bloke called Michael Crichton – wrote books which have sold over 150 million copies worldwide. Many have been adapted into films.

In 1994, Crichton became the only creative artist ever to have works simultaneously charting at #1 in television, film, and book sales (with ER, Jurassic Park, and Disclosure, respectively).

Betcha the only crying he ever did was all the way to the bank.

So maybe Elizabeth Knox is not getting rich. But she should get real.

A beautiful Sunday, and I am inside.   It does mean that I am reading though.  As promised I did finish the prequel to “Black Friday” by Alex Kava.  ”Exposed” is a lovely book about Ebola.  Relevant now, with all the H1N1 germs flying around.  Scary how easy it is to whip my overactive imagination into an absolute frenzy.  I enjoyed the book more than the first one I read.  Maybe because it has some relevance now.  Same cast of characters.  Well drawn and believable, though I question whether FBI profilers can pull profiles out of their hats like that.   It did make me want to go reread “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston.  I was telling my thirteen year old son about that book, scared me very badly.  I don’t consider myself a conspiracy nut, but I do find it incredibly plausible that our government is ever willing to cover things up, for the good of the country of course.  I guess that begs another question, how are authors able to be so far ahead of us readers?  Nelson DeMille’s seems to be frighteningly accurate about what is happening now a days.  (He is a big Phillip Roth fan I bet)  I always used to think that if I were to invest in the stock market, I just needed to find out what Michael Crichton was working on and invest in that. (Nanotechnology anyone?)  Steve Alten, made my jaw drop with “The Shell Game.”  I worry about his safety.  After that book I wonder if he always looks over his shoulder.  Currently reading the latest Stephen King.  surprisingly at 1000+ pages it is going quite quickly.  He says in the afterwords that is actually pared down from its original length.  Yikes!  Again, even though it’s a different cast of characters, I feel like some of them could be people I know, my neighbors, co-workers, family.  He does have a unique knack for “normal” everyday prose.  He writes like I think or speak.  I like that in a writer.  Makes me think that writing a book might not be so hard after all.  (I am joking.  Mr. King actually started this book in 1976, I guess that speaks for itself.)

I am thinking I need to read something really eloquent and informative on sibling rivalry right about now.  Both children are in their respective rooms, and I need to go mediate somehow.  And then I will read more…

Sphere is probably one of my favorite audio books. I first listened to it when I was only 12 years old and going through somewhat of a Michael Crichton phase, even though up to that point I’d only experienced his books through abridged audio titles. I’d tried to read the actual books before, but my appreciation was tainted by the movie adaptations of Crichton’s books. When reading Jurassic Park I kept waiting for the velociraptior to jump out and gut somebody within the first 30 pages, or at least some indication that I was going to eventually see the nasty one sided dinosaur human face offs the movie was famous for. However Crichton fancied himself an educator more so than a thriller writer, with the books serving as mere platforms for him to advance his ideas. That’s why The Lost World begins with a chapter on the K-T Boundary that goes on for like 40 pages before the first chapter which is entitled the Lost World Hypothesis.

All of this scientific rambling is supposed to add credibility to the plot and make the books seem deeper than they really are, but if you strip away this dense layer that is found in all of Crichton’s work you’ll find that he uses the same plot over an over: a group of scientists, mathematicians, PhD’s etc go explore some new or unexplained phenomenon that has a chance to benefit society, but ultimately this force turns destructive and kills nearly every one of the main characters, leaving those who remain to take home the book’s message that man can’t control nature. The Crichton audio books are great because they get rid of al the jargon and theory and leave in the action sequences.

Sphere and Jurassic Park were produced by Random House in the 80’s and both feature a 30 second classical music intro with opera singers belting out a da ta da ta da ta da” melody in descending octaves. A xylophone and strings then join the party as the book’s title is being introduced. This intro, referred to as the AudioBooks Signature on the box, was composed by Scott Killian and is likely featured on all Random House titles from the decade. From what I can gather the tune faded out sometime in the mid 90’s, as it isn’t featured on the audio version of the sequel to Jurassic Park, The Lost World. Edward Asner uses a specific voice for each character in the book and does an especially good impression of the military man Captain Hal Barnes who is leading a group of mathematicians and scientists to explore a spaceship that has appeared on the ocean floor. Soon the team is trying to decode alien messages and fight a giant squid. The abridgment gives the listener just enough character development to where you aren’t surprised by later events, but they did leave out the death of one important character. Each squid encounter and other important turns in the story is augmented by creepy, synthesizer music that seems out of place at times and can also seem excessive if you listen to the book for long periods, but it quickly establish the book’s atmosphere and tone given its abridged length. The music along with Asner’s narration transforms a mediocre book into a 3 hour thrill ride. The audio book is no longer in print but is available for download at audible.com and is probably collecting dust at your local library. If you come across it check it out, but it’s far from an essential audio book.

A find, by gum! A friend with good taste recommended Lionel Davidson. Sight unseen, I bought Kolymsky Heights and found it quite satisfying. It’s as if someone had put John Le Carré, Lee Child, and Michael Crichton in a Cuisinart together. True, they didn’t get completely blended, and also true, the best things about each author didn’t quite make it into the recipe. But you know, a literate B+ thriller is definitely good enough for me.

It starts out with Le Carré — why, now that I think of it, in Oxford! What’s present: spycraft. What’s missing: that dark tidal pull of melancholy. We crank the story up very slowly with a great deal of circumstantial detail about the mysterious mail of an Oxford don. Eventually we shift into Lee Child territory, with the introduction of Dr. Johnny Porter, the sulky but brilliant Canadian Indian who has an astounding gift for languages. He gets recruited for a spying task and it turns out that like Child’s Reacher, Porter is up to pretty much any task, including buildng a four-wheel drive vehicle from scratch and casual bare-handed manslaughter. Davidson’s pace — as befits an Englishman born in 1922 — is less heart-pounding than Child’s. But that’s basically OK, we’re having fun with the spycraft.

The Michael Crichton section — and it is a discrete section — is the least interesting. Porter ends up infiltrating a secret Siberian scientific station (I swear there was no way to avoid that alliteration), where groundbreaking experiments have been hijacked for military purposes. My interest flagged. I don’t read Crichton for the science.

Then we’re back into what is effectively an extended chase scene across eastern Siberia at the winter solstice. Need I say that the weather is as much of an enemy as the bad guys?

It’s all very professional. I don’t feel obliged to read another one of Davidson’s books right away, but I’m delighted to know that they exist.

Most books I’m fine with checking out at the library. Then there are some books I must own. There is no real criteria, but I would imagine one would be the ability to find repeated enjoyment out of it. A book to occasionally show a close friend after a glass of wine. With that, I MUST have Poisoned Pens. I’ve alluded to it twice this week and after reading the review, I’m sure it needs to be with me. (The Telegraph reviews it with a book about literary hoaxes, which would interest me, too.)

As The Telegraph notes, Gary Dexter, the editor of Poisoned Pens keeps his examples at mutual authoricide.

The result is a particularly articulate catalogue of spite and spleen that becomes, when the focus shifts from the page to the person, a real bitch-fest. De Quincey goes for Wordsworth’s legs (‘not a well-made man’); DH Lawrence calls Jane Austen an old maid, and Charlotte Brontë, having written Jane Eyre, a pornographer. However, when Noël Coward says of Oscar Wilde, ‘what a tiresome, affected sod’, you can’t help thinking ‘takes one to know one’.

It is a delight to read Martin Amis at his most destructive because his ability to pinpoint the negatives in an author’s work amounts to criticism of positive value: ‘While clearly an impregnable masterpiece, Don Quixote suffers one fairly serious flaw – that of outright unreadability.’ His annihilation of Michael Crichton’s The Lost World is a masterpiece in itself: ‘Animals … are what he is good at. People are what he is bad at. People, and prose … Out there, beyond the foliage, you see herds of clichés, roaming free.’ It is entirely in keeping with the spirit of his enterprise, and very wicked, for Dexter to end with Tibor Fischer’s wounded, scalding fan letter to Amis himself: ‘Shoot me if I ever produce anything like Yellow Dog.’ No doubt Mr Amis has his imaginary rifle at the ready.

Telling Tales by Melissa Katsoulis and Poisoned Pens by Gary Dexter: review – Telegraph

An ex-employee at an Oxfordshire-based firm is planning to take his former employer to a tribunal because he feels he was unfairly dismissed from his job because of his views on climate change, which a judge has ruled comes under the category of “religion, religious belief or philosophical belief”. (BBC report here)

Surprising, isn’t it? I’m not sure that many climate change campaigners would be entirely happy to have their views described as a religion. I’m not entirely convinced myself that it is a religious or philosophical belief, though I think there are several points of similarity.

Michael Crichton gave a speech a few years ago where he addressed the question of whether (some) environmentalism was religious in character:

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

There’s also the apocalypticism (using the word loosely!) of much climate change rhetoric. Jesus’ words in Luke 21 could, with slight modification, easily be used in an Al Gore video: ”there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven … There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken“

"The sky is falling!"

So there are a couple of similarities. Some environmentalism is obviously religious – I’m thinking of the James Lovelock Gaia-theory-esque stuff here. But I don’t think all of it necessarily is. Christians can obviously be involved in exercising responsible stewardship of the earth’s natural resources without thereby becoming syncretistic. But it does at least invite the question… how easy is it for Christians to be (unwittingly) syncretistic with the new religion of environmentalism when they make statements about climate change? Do we need to outline our theological position (God made the creation; humanity is to exercise stewardship; God is sovereign and is in control of whether and when and how the world will end… for a start) a bit more clearly so as to differentiate between Christian takes on climate change and ecology and competing religious positions?

In Michael Crichton’s sci-fi thriller, “The Swarm,” he described self-organizing nano-sized biological computers breaking out of a high-level security lab and taking over the world. Is this our future or is this pure fantasy?

The search for the ultimate medium upon which to create artificial intelligence appears to be biological. The building blocks of life on Earth all contain DNA. This complex molecule can be found in every living thing on the planet. What if DNA replaced silicon chips? In 2003, scientists in Israel built a computer running on DNA. It could perform 330 trillion operations per second, 100,000 times faster than silicon-based PCs. In addition the DNA computer contained no silicon or the metals and chemicals that make today’s computers quite toxic when recycled.

Using the building blocks of life for computing makes a lot of sense. After all life is really a bunch of biochemical nanocomputers that reside in the nuclei of cells. Our problem in creating biological computers based on DNA is quite simple. We need to be able to control how DNA is used. Right now we are struggling to turn that dream into a reality.

Why would a DNA-based computer be attractive? In previous discussions we talked about how today’s computer chips are approaching the limits of silicon as a medium. You can only pack so many transistors, resistors and capacitors on a silicon chip. A single DNA molecule residing in the nucleus of a cell is a biological powerhouse. A cubic centimeter of the stuff can store the equivalent of a trillion music CDs. A teaspoon has the capacity to equal 15,000 trillion computers. A pound can store more information than all the computers humans have ever built to this day. That’s incredible capability and that is one reason for making computers based on biology rather than silicon.

The other reason is related to energy. DNA computers don’t need a lot of energy to work. In fact they almost need nothing. Put a DNA computing molecule in the appropriate chemical soup and it feeds and supports itself expending less than one millionth of the energy required to run silicon chip technology.

So like the quantum computers we described previously, DNA-based computers are inherently green and far more compatible with our 21^st century vision of environmental sustainability.

We can identify immediate application for DNA computers. The fact that they can be very tiny, molecular in size, and that they operate in a self-sustaining way in liquid environments, makes them ideal tools for medicine and the bio-pharmaceutical industry. Imagine molecular-sized computers that can operate inside a living cell to sense problems and correct them. DNA computers can be integrated into our bodies on permanent patrol, sensing changes in blood chemistry, enhancing our defenses against cancer, heart disease and other life threatening conditions.

How does DNA work as a computer. Every DNA molecule contains four sequenced nucleotides that are represented by the letters A, T, C, and G.  A is for adenosine. T stands for thymine. C represents cytosine, and G is guanine. These Nucleotides are molecules that when joined together make up the structural units of DNA. Their order and sequence determines our genetic makeup.

In a DNA computer the sequencing of these nucleotides can mimic the control gates that we previously discussed. The sequencing can offer us a range of values that go beyond 0 and 1, very much like the kind of fuzzy logic that quantum computers are capable of using. A single strand of DNA could perform simultaneous calculations performed in parallel, solving problems in micro-seconds rather than the minutes and hours that today’s computing technology requires.

This massive parallel processing capability, performed by nano-sized computers, capable of operating without an electric cord attached, each performing specific tasks, each capable of communicating with others around them, sounds like the work of science fiction. But it is not.

Today’s researchers are creating gene-based computer programs that can be inserted into living cells to replicate. These genetic robots can generate engineered sequences of genetic material controlling the chemicals that our cells use to pass on genetic instructions as they replicate. Genetic robots could act like a permanent team of doctors always on call in your body, correcting problems as they occur.

Other scientists are attempting to marry biology and silicon, uniting living organisms with silicon chips. This research focuses on nerve cell-chip interactions. The potential represented by this fusion of the living with silicon is the creation of human-robot interfaces. Implant a silicon chip integrated with our nervous system and we can operate technology remotely with minimal training or just by thoughts. Recently a British researcher, Professor Kevin Warwick, demonstrated how this cybernetic symbiosis works in a four month experiment. He attached an implanted a computer chip to the main nerve in his arm and operated a robot on wheels remotely.

Ultimately we have the capability in this century to engineer a living organism. SAIC is a Fortune 500 company that is creating neural networks from living nerve cell tissue, a brain in a jar. It is not too much of a stretch to imagine creating a fully-integrated living biological computer which functions independently of its creators and replicates on its own.

There are very good reasons to pursue this line of research. The benefits include:

1. Biological computers are energy efficient. Ultimately they can draw on energy resources from the chemistry that surrounds them.
2. Biological computers have little negative environmental impact.
3. Biological computers can be engineered in labs using genetic materials that are plentiful and self assembling.
4. Biological computers have the capability to process information and solve problems at speeds no silicon-based computer can match.
5. Biological computers provide infinite variability in form factor. They can be as small as a few molecules so that they can be inserted into a living being or they can be engineered to be a living being.
6. Biological computers can self improve. They can do this the same way the mechanisms of evolution have impacted all life on Earth.

There are drawbacks to biological computing. One of them is that biological computers by their very nature are as prone to error as our own brains. As we described previously in research being done on neuromorphic chips, fuzzy logic, trial and error, exploring different solutions and finding shortcuts is the way our brain works. That is the way biological computers solve problems. So biology-based computing subjects its users to higher error rates than current silicon chip technology. Are we prepared as a society to accept computers that learn from their mistakes? What if the mistakes these computers make lead to loss of life?

The development of biological computing in this century will raise other fundamental questions related to the definition of life, the ethics of creating artificial intelligence that is self replicating, and ultimately the issue of what rights we as humans are prepared to provide any artificial intelligence that we create.

I stayed up too late last night finishing a book. Both Mrs. Poolman and I read for pleasure, she more than I. Mrs. P can knock of a standard paperback book in a single off day.

The book I was reading, The Time Traveler’s Wife, was not my typical fare. I tend to lean more towards action fiction and historical non-fiction. I enjoy authors like John Sandford, James Patterson, W.E.B. Griffin, Tom Clancy, Vince Flynn, John Grisham and Patricia Cornwell. I also have a spot in my heart for Andrew Greely. On the non-fiction side, I consume history, especially military history. And if it flies and shoots, I’m all over it.

All of that is just a way of setting up that I really enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Wife. I have always been intrigued with the fictional treatments of time travel, starting with HG Wells’ The Time Machine and working on up through Michael Crichton’s Timeline (another really outstanding time-travel book, by the way). Before reading it,  I suspected The Time Traveler’s Wife was a literary version of a “chick flick.” You know what I mean – a movie that deals mostly with relationships and emotions and one of the endearing characters dies at the end, usually of a long lingering illness. (See Steel Magnolias, Terms of Endearment, Fried Green Tomatoes, and others.) While The Time Traveler’s Wife does have many of those characteristics (I won’t spoil it by being more specific.) those are balanced out by the fact that it is still an interesting, well written story that moves along.

The story is about Henry and Clare. Henry has a genetic abnormality that causes him to involuntarily travel in time. One moment he is here, and the next, he is stark naked in another place and time. The author, Audrey Niffengger, avoids the cliché of many time-travel authors by not inserting her  character into any historical settings. This is not a story in which the protagonist performs any great or historical acts. Henry’s time travels are much more personal.

Very early on, Henry and Clare meet. Clare is a stranger to Henry, but Clare has known Henry all her life. An older Henry was repeatedly transported back in time to Clare’s childhood. So when they meet, Henry is Clare’s long-time visitor and friend, while Henry has yet to meet Clare in his “real life.” The book develops their relationship, more or less following the chronological pace of Henry’s “real life.” There are lots of adventures and a couple of mysteries.

All told, it was a good book and I’m really glad I read it. It is definitely worth the effort. We didn’t see the movie when it was at the theaters. I’m looking forward to it’s release on DVD in a few months.

Yves Saint Laurent Richest Dead Guy

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091028/ap_en_ot/us_forbes_richest_dead_celebs

I must say, one of the best thing about being a librarian is getting or order books that I want to read.  I just did a book order for next month and I’m pretty excited.  There are a ton of things I’m going to snap up when they come in the door.  Some being:

• Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
• Under the Dome by Stephen King
• Breathless by Dean Koontz
• I, Alex Cross by James Patterson
• Ford County by John Grisham

so, now you know what my review list for November looks like!

My second favorite thing about working at the library…Getting the new books first!

Forbes has released its annual list of the top-earning dead celebrities. To make the list, a dead celebrity must have earned at least $6 million in the past year. Missing from this year’s list is Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Steve McQueen. At number one: a fashion designer.

1. Yves Saint Laurent: $350 million
2. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein: $235 million combined
3. Michael Jackson: $90 million
4. Elvis Presley: $55 million
5. JRR Tolkien: $50 million
6. Charles Schulz: $35 million
7. John Lennon: $15 million
8. Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel): $15 million
9. Albert Einstein: $10 million
10. Michael Crichton: $9 million
11. Jimi Hendrix: $8 million
12. Aaron Spelling: $8 million
13. Andy Warhol: $6 million

Jurassic Park (1993)
★★★★ / ★★★★

“Jurassic Park” was one of my favorite movies when I was about seven years old and it still remains a guilty pleasure of mine. (And I’m guessing my love for this film will be passed on to my kids.) Based on the novel by Michael Crichton and directed by the great Steven Spielberg, this film made me experience every emotion that there was to experience in (smart) summer blockbusters and creature-feature movies: heart-pounding thrills, suspense embedded in silences, funny one-liners, and astute script supported by storytelling that inspires true wonder.

John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) wanted to open a new theme park that was full of dinosaurs and everything else from that specific time period. But in order for the park to get a green light to open, he must get the approval of outside parties: a mathematician who loves to talk about the chaos theory (Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm) and two dinosaur experts who are opposites but undoubtedly share great chemistry (Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant and Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler). Other characters included Hammond’s grandchildren (Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards), a greedy computer expert who made a deal with another research group to smuggle DNA outside of Jurassic Park (Wayne Knight), another computer expert who likes structure and discipline (Samuel L. Jackson), a dinosaur hunter (Bob Peck), and a lawyer who values money over safety (Martin Ferrero). Although none of the characters were fully explored, I did not think that was too big of a problem because each of them contributed something to the picture, such as being dinosaur bait for our entertainment. And who really wants character development when one can look at how ferocious and fatal dinosaurs can be?

I admired this picture’s ability to balance. With its two-hour running time, I noticed that the first half served to explain how the scientists were able to replicate (with slight but crucial modifications) extinct creatures and the second half focused on the many brutal ways of getting hunted. As a Biological Sciences major, I liked the fact that it offered an explanation that made sense with regards to how the scientists acquired the dinosaurs’ DNA. Moreover, I also liked that it mentioned that acquiring the DNA would not be sufficient. That is, there were missing gaps in the DNA that had to be solved in order to commence the process of DNA replication and eventually cloning entire organisms. As for the chase sequences, I found that once it started it never lets go until the final three minutes. There were definitely a plethora of highlights in the second half but I’m only going to mention some. The kitchen scene that haunted me when I was younger was even more thrilling than I thought. When I was seven, I remember being able to identify with those kids because I thought that if I were in their situation, I wouldn’t want to get eaten by those hungry velociraptors either. Not that I’m older, I still could identify with them but on a different level: I didn’t want them to get hurt because they are smart, funny and energetic kids. Another highlight was the first appearance of the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex and how the water vibrated as it moved closer to the characters. I’ve seen the impact of vibration reference in a plethora of films that came after “Jurassic Park” so I think it’s safe to say that that scene is pretty much embedded in the collective media unconscious. And it rightly deserves to be because of Spielberg’s great execution by building suspense and eventually delivering the thrills.

The special and visual effects must be given applause. I’ve seen a number of movies surrounding 1993 and nothing even comes close to this film’s magic. Back in 1993, it must have been that much more impressive. Nowadays, if one was to watch this movie, one would find out that some effects were noticably computerized. Given that, while the two sequels greatly improved on the effects, neither comes close to the original’s sense of wonder and tension. For me, it goes to show that a movie can have the best special and visual effects in the world but if there’s not enough story and heart, it’s essentially weak as a whole. Last but certainly not least, I liked that it managed to tackle ethical questions of building such a park. I was glad that the whole “playing God” issue/religion was acknowledged but it eventually focused on defying nature without thinking of the consequences first. Goldblum’s character provided much of the ethical questions and I was always interested with what he had to say. And really, his questions are still relevant today because of all the technological advancements our generation are acquiring.

“Jurassic Park” is truly one of the best summer blockbuster popcorn flick ever made. By the time the credits started rolling, despite the death and terror that happened in the park, I still wished we had one just like it in real life so I could visit. If I were to describe this movie in the fewest words possible it would be “A Landmark.”

Porque esta película de Michael Crichton de 1978, tercera vez que se ponía tras la cámara para adaptar nuevamente una novela propia, pese a las enormes expectativas, termina siendo nada más (y nada menos) que eso: un mero divertimento de época repleto de imperfecciones y cabos sueltos, pero que entretiene y a ratos interesa.

Crichton es, sin duda, todo un personaje: novelista de éxito, director de cine de cierto renombre y también creador y director ocasional de celebrados proyectos de televisión, tres facetas que incluso en algún momento concreto llegaron a coincidir en el tiempo y que lo sitúan como fenómeno creativo difícilmente igualable. Entre sus obras literarias, cinematográficas o televisivas, por lo general, pero no siempre, de calidad media-baja, encontramos, a título de ejemplo, La amenaza de Andrómeda (con película del mismo nombre), El gran robo del tren (novela en la que se basa ésta), Devoradores de cadáveres (llevada al cine como El guerrero número 13), Congo (con película del mismo nombre), Esfera (ídem), Parque Jurásico (ídem de ídem), El mundo perdido (otra más), Acoso, Twister, Sol naciente, la serie Urgencias… o esa joya de la ciencia ficción titulada Almas de metal. Pero, aun con notables diferencias de calidad, sus derroches de imaginación, su volumen de producción y los distintos ámbitos de la misma lo colocan en el olimpo de autores prolíficos justo a la derecha de Stephen King.

Imbuida todavía por los ecos que del famoso asalto al tren de Glasgow quedaban en la prensa inglesa (que durante mucho tiempo siguió las peripeciasla de los ladrones fugados por medio mundo y daba cumplida noticia de sus avatares), la historia nos traslada a la Inglaterra de 1855, en plena guerra de Crimea (aquel absurdo conflicto que enfrentó a Inglaterra, Francia y otros países con la Rusia de los zares), cuando un ladrón y aventurero que se oculta tras la identidad de un supuesto lord (Sean Connery) se propone robar el tren que transporta los lingotes de oro que salen de Londres hacia la costa para ser enviados a Rusia y pagar a las tropas. Ayudado por una joven, amante y cómplice (una erotizada Lesley-Ann Down), y por un cerrajero experto (siempre eficiente Donald Sutherland), diseña un complejo plan para sustraer y copiar las cuatro llaves que abren la caja fuerte del tren y poder asaltar éste en marcha.

Con una ambientación más que estimable y una factura formal solamente correcta (porque Crichton nunca ha sido un cineasta y no podemos exigirle virtuosismos que no le corresponden, aunque se apunte una buena escena de acción en las peripecias de los ladrones por el techo del tren), la película deliberadamente mantiene un tono ligero que la conduce entre el entretenimiento más o menos resultón y el vodevil cómico. Así, diversos gags coinciden con diálogos pretendidamente ingeniosos, algunos de ellos abusando quizá demasiado del doble sentido sexual, y salpican las distintas escenas de acción y las evoluciones de los personajes para conseguir las cuatro llaves que les abren la caja fuerte del tren. El problema de la película, el mayor de ellos, es que este humor y esta ironía supuestamente inteligentes son demasiado planos, tontos, y no permiten más que el esbozo de una mueca lejanamente parecida a una sonrisa. A las, para una comedia, demasiado escasas risas no las acompaña un mayor derroche de acción. Estas escenas están contadas y el poder del guión se concentra en el presunto ingenio del atraco y en el establecimiento, construcción y ejecución de un plan imposible de realizar. La cuestión es que probablemente Crichton ha diseñado un asalto tan imposible que la película no tiene otro desarrollo que burlarse de sí misma: el robo resulta tan improbable y los mecanismos para conseguirlo han sido construidos de manera tan complicada y enrevesada que, obviamente, la única solución es manipularlo todo de manera que el guión se vuelva inverosímilmente vulgar y facilón, que se traicione a sí mismo saltándose sus propios impedimentos con el humor como búsqueda de la dispensa por parte del espectador.

El atraco, que comienza casi como un reto aristocrático entre gente bien al estilo La vuelta al mundo en 80 días, va convirtiéndose en una carrera de obstáculos en la que Crichton dedica demasiado tiempo a los detalles técnicos del asunto y se olvida de contarnos algo sobre los personajes: no sabemos nada de ellos, ni de dónde vienen, ni dónde van, ni quiénes son, más allá de cuatro pinceladas supuestamente graciosas que no van a ningún lado. Por si esto fuera poco, de los ciento once minutos de película se invierten no pocos en contarnos la historia consistente en la elaboración y ejecución de un larguísimo plan que, a raíz de un giro final (la policía descubre demasiado pronto todo el asunto gracias a una casualidad tan fácil de prever que es increíble en un plan tan complejo se les pasara por alto), resulta innecesaria, siendo sustituida en apenas unos minutos por una alternativa de la que no se nos cuenta nada ni se nos muestra cómo se planifica o ensaya. Por último, al final la clave de un robo tan magistral, tan complicado, tan único que jamás nadie ha hecho nada igual, la ofrece algo tan vulgar como un soborno, lo cual convierte el asalto, de un atraco imposible que nadie había intentado antes, en la vulgar compra de voluntad de uno de los guardias que se ha dedicado a reventar los intentos de asalto anteriores, con lo que tanto ingenio, tanto plan, y tanta inteligencia para diseñar un golpe maestro terminan reducidas a la mera cuestión del pago a un guardia para que mire para otro lado y consiga hacer factible lo que sería imposible con un policía que no se dejara comprar. Todo ello convierte a la película en un mero entretenimiento, con un buen reparto muy desaprovechado, con una imaginación que equivoca el vehículo de su fantasía y los medios con los que provocar emoción, y cuya trama hay que dejar pasar sin hacerse ninguna pregunta, ya que cualquier cuestión del tipo “por qué ocurre esto” o “cómo es posible que” provocan que la narración haga aguas por todas partes.

En resumidas cuentas, una película que merece ser vista únicamente como curiosidad, dejándose llevar, sin detenerse en los pormenores de una historia imperfecta, con acción insuficiente, humor vacío y ramplón, y un guión repleto de trampas a sí mismo, de un golpe imposible que resulta ser, después de todo, el más fácil, protagonizada por un Sean Connery que luchaba por todos los medios para desencasillarse de un personaje, el de James Bond, al que todo el público tenía demasiado asociado. Visto el resultado, no es extraño que volviera a él.