Monday, August 27, 2018

Dr. Stephen Hawking has some questions while aboard the Millennium Falcon 


Stephen Hawking demonstrating what gravity looks like when there isn't any. Image via Le Devoir

I'm sure we all remember Dr. Stephen Hawking's various appearances before a live audience or on programs such as the Simpsons, but do you remember his Star Wars cameo?



Hans Solo:
Welcome aboard Doc!

Stephen Hawking:
Thank you, Mr. Solo or should I call you Captain, or Han or…

Hans Solo:
This is the fastest ship in the galaxy you know, made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.

Stephen Hawking:
Oh? How fast was that?

Hans Solo:
Fast enough for you, old man!

Stephen Hawking:
But a parsec is a unit of distance, not time…

Hans Solo:
Exactly!

Stephen Hawking:
Well, that's confusing? Tell me, can you explain to me how gravity is achieved on this vessel?

Hans Solo:
Empire cruisers! Hang on, this might get rough!

Empire cruisers open fire on the Falcon, which sustains a direct hit.

Stephen Hawking:
But wait? If "blasters" (whatever they are), are striking this craft why aren't we pushed away from the point of impact? Come to think of it, why aren't the Empire's cruisers also pushed away in the opposite direction. That is to say the conservation of…

Hans Solo:
The shields can't take much more of this!

Stephen Hawking:
Yes - about the “shields”…

Hans Solo:
Punch it, Chewie!


Stephen Hawking:
Wait? Are we moving at the speed of light?

Hans Solo:
Hyperdrive, baby! We'll be home soon enough.

Stephen Hawking:
How is this possible? Look, back at the cantina, how were so many species able to breathe the same atmosphere? How can so many life-supporting planets be so close to each other? And planets of such different sizes that apparently have the same climate planet-wide not to mention they seem to have roughly the same gravity?

Hans Solo:
You ask a lotta questions, Doc!

Stephen Hawking:
How are there heavier-than-air craft that can defy gravity without wings or without the necessary thrust to create lift yet can enter and exit the atmosphere easily? And how, in a place without schools do so many people know how to build and maintain bi-pedal androids with significant artificial intelligence? Or why would shooting the keypad of a locked door open it? That would be like unlocking a front door by shooting the door bell.

Hans Solo:
Look, Doc, I don’t have time for this.

Stephen Hawking:
Does this entire galaxy run on suspension of disbelief?

Cue theme music, then use every conceivable screen wipe effect at once.

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Wednesday, August 08, 2018

Design is a Verb 


Amik, designed for the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, George Huel, Yvon Laroche, Pierre-Yves Pelletier and Guy St-Arnaud.

Seeing the documentary Design Canada opened a bit of an old wound for me. One where I remembered that time in frustration I acted like a bit of a jerk. The film highlights the quality of graphic design work, primarily in the "international" or "Swiss" style. It showcases roughly a decade of Canadian design from the early 60s to the late 70s. Primarily the time just before Expo 67 and the time just after the 76 Montreal Olympics. This was a tremendously optimistic era for Canadians and several important symbols for Canada and Canadians came to life. In 1960 the Canadian National railway were convinced of needing an entire brand identity system and not just a logo. From those efforts came Allan Fleming's classic CN logo. Only a few years later a committee was struck to determine a new original flag design for Canada based on the maple leaf. By some miracle, a committee of politicians and bureaucrats actually choose a great design, which was later carefully crafted and fine tuned by a small design team.

These two designs seemed to be the beginning of a genuine emergence of talented designers making great work in Canada. Well, to be fair, talented European men who had come to Canada and worked from Toronto and Montreal. In most respects, this wave of talented immigrants and the work they did is the story of Canada. We are nothing if not a community of communities. In fact, I would stop there when describing any kind of Canadian Character or … ugh, I hate this expression but here goes, "Canadian Identity". Therein lies the salt in my old wound.
“…did these symbols, in fact, design Canada?”
When I studied design, almost the entire staff consisted off immigrant Canadians from places such as the UK, the Netherlands and Poland. It was great and really eye-opening for a Newfoundlander to meet and learn from these fine fellows. Except, it grew very tiring to hear of the golden age of Canadian Design (and in particular of the federal agency Design Canada - never mentioned in the film of the same name) as having come and gone. Yup. It was over. Oh those halcyon days were so fine and never to be repeated. Rather than imbue their students with the confidence to create from their own world view, they instilled a cynicism that took a generation of young Canadian designers to shed. I also grew very tired of having the Canadian Identity explained to me by these guys. There certainly is a truism that "newcomers" have a unique view of their adopted land and that is immensely valuable. Yet the view they had was one of the two solitudes of Protestant Ontario vs Catholic Quebec or even more succinctly put, TO vs MTL. The view of the teaching staff - even the Canadian born ones - was so incredibly myopic, they had no idea of the insult they gave every time they extolled the Canadian virtues embodied in maple syrup and Muskoka chairs. So, as a young man I routinely struck back. One thing I said then, to a particularly disagreeable Anglo-Canadian was that I was tired of "having a bunch of old European guys lecture me on what the Canadian Identity was". That came out wrong - I may have even been more forcibly insulting and said "old foreigners" - which was shamefully more xenophobic than ever intended. If a 20-year-old woke bi-racial woman asked "Why should a bunch of old white European men tell me what my identity is?" it would go viral today. That certainly wasn't the case then and in truth, I wasn't offended by "foreigners", but by Ontarian and Quebecois identities being offered as some kind of ethnic simulacrum of "Canadian Identity". What I really meant was I was fed up with "mainlanders" telling a Newfoundlander that to be Canadian was to drink beer while eating maple soaked bacon sitting on a rock in Northern Ontario, listening to Neil Young. Or as Brent Butt put it, the all-Canadian story is that of a Moose who wants to play in the NHL but his father wants him to take over the canoe factory. People in places like Newfoundland, Quebec, the Yukon or New Brunswick never really have to ask "what is the Canadian Identity?" because they know that is a telling question fielded largely in by Southern Ontarian media concerns.


Parks Canada,c. 1970 Roderick Huggins.

This attitude was distilled in a line from the documentary, "…did Canadians design these symbols or did these symbols, in fact, design Canada?" Okay, dear designer, climb down from thine lofty perch for a moment. Was the period from Expo to the Olympics a golden one? Undoubtably. Were these designers working at the highest level, creating some of the best graphic design anywhere in the world? Yes. Did those symbols create our identity as a nation? Not so fast, friend. I would agree that era, particularly after WWII, Canada was an optimistic, progressive, forward looking, history-unshackling place of nation builders with growing self-confidence. That socio-economic moment combined with a generation of designers who, as another designer in the film states, were essentially "Swissed" or worked in a very disciplined "International Style" led to that moment. To me, the fact that the CBC accepted a great modern icon or that the government commissioned and chose a really great icon for introducing the metric system was a reflection of a country that was forward looking and bold. The design activity of the time reflected our confidence and our imagined place in the world which in general is what we can say of most media, visual art, or literature created during any historical period. Compared to recent updates of the Ontario Trillium icon, the CBC logo or even the Parks Canada icon, which reflect a contemporary fad of "re-branding" and creating symbols designed to avoid offence, the graphic design of the 60s and 70s was bolder, more adventurous and more disciplined. When we see contemporary designs that look like they fell off of a clip art truck that reflects a lack of desire to pay someone the time to come up with something better or that the decision makers of those corporations lack the knowledge or resolve to make better decisions. If we are in some kind of current design doldrums (and who says we are) it may be more due to the abundance of branding firms doing so much work simply to justify their existence. Whatever the case, can we just stop calling what happens in Toronto and Montreal, our "Canadian Identity" because it never was, never should be and never will be.

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Monday, August 06, 2018

Seen in… July 


Leave No Trace. Image via The Movie DB

It's strange that despite it being a very hot month, I only saw two films in air conditioned theatres. I guess it was cooler in my basement watching movies on the laptop than riding through thick sticky air to get to an air conditioned theatre.

Dirty Money Season 1

If you are the kind of person who thinks liberal democracy (small "L" - liberal) is under attack by conservative tactics (small "C" - conservative) that undermine public institutions in order to abolish and eventually privatize them, then this documentary series will only make you feel worse about the world. If, on the other hand you are the kind of person who feels that political correctness and a political elite are fracturing our economy, culture and national boundaries then this documentary series will also make you feel worse about the world. It has something for everyone. The common thread in the series of six documentaries is that people who are committing fraud for their own ends don't see anything fraudulent about the fraud they are committing. The series begins with the scandal of Volkswagen's cheating emissions tests and proves without a doubt how this was done to get around government regulations while deceiving consumers to win market share. Job done. Some execs were charged, some fines were paid and in the end it was discovered that every major auto maker practices the exact same deception, oh and VW has gone on to become the world's largest car manufacturer. Each documentary is on a different subject but on a similar theme. Deception. Whether it's a payday loan company hiding profits in shell corporations, an international bank laundering narcos profits, or the fact that Donald Trump has somehow walked away unscathed from more corruption and fraudulent money and real estate deals than you can count while still managing to become president of the United States of America. There is some comic relief in the story of the theft of millions of dollars of maple syrup from a Quebec Maple Syrup Cartel but in the end the thieves look almost as bad as the people they stole from. Despite the outcome of any of these stories, knowledge is power and knowing that ethical investigative journalism still exists is very powerful.



Star Trek: Discovery. Image via The Movie DB

Star Trek: Discovery Season 1

This Star Trek series is still set in the future but it is the original series’ past so just forget the original series and enjoy this one. Part of being set before the original show means the war with the Klingons is fresh and the show begins with how the whole thing started. There’s not enough space here to discuss the whole season but know that it centres on Michael Burnham, a human female raised by Vulcans (notably as Spock’s adopted sister) and her struggle to find her role in Star Fleet. Another pivotal plot point is the unique technology of the space ship “Discovery” which is some kind of organic quantum propulsion engine that allows the vessel to be anywhere else in the universe instantly. This tech inevitably leads to parallel universe complications and time travel which, of course led some critics to cry out, “For shame, lazy writers, for shame.” yet I say, “give it a break”, it’s a good bit of fun. The only thing I really didn’t like in the show was all of the actors speaking the Klingon language as… slowly. And. Clearly. As. Possible. It drove me nuts and slowed the rhythm of every scene to a crawl. On the bright side, one fun episode included a throw back to a character who showed up in the original series, Harry Mud, which should've gladdened the hearts of all the original Trekkies out there (but I don't think it did because people can be stupid).

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