Nostalgia and the Transformers

I was a big fan of The Transformers growing up. I remember it was a priority for me to get to a TV every afternoon back in 1984 to get my fix of the cartoon and later I would pore over the latest Transformers comics.

Non-fans may be surprised to know that the comic franchise continues today, published by IDW comics. Not bad for a 25 year old toy.

Today the live-action version of Transformers is reinvigorating the franchise; new toys, new fans, and reignition of nostalgia for old fans like me. Thanks to the new movie release apparently some of the license holders of the Transformers brand decided to release remastered cartoons of the first season of Transformers on DVD. My wife and son picked it up for me for Father's Day.

I knew there's going to be some inevitable nostalgia rot. I have fond memories of the stuff I liked...but as I grew up the cringing parts sort of disappeared. Now they're captured in detail on DVD for me to relive and wonder, "What the hell was I thinking?"

There were technical mistakes. Color mismatches. Characters that aren't supposed to be there right in the scene ("Where's Bumblebee?" He's standing three feet behind you. Suddenly he's driving up to the group. Whoops.) In the first episodes the Autobots fly. In the third episode, Optimus takes a rocket pack from Sideswipe to fly after escaping Decepticons. So...can you fly, or not?

There were obvious mistakes in science and logic. One episode had Decepticons getting energy by stealing it from some crystal from the Earth's core (Fire in the Sky). As they extracted it the Earth cooled...um...our planet surface isn't primarily heated from the heat in the core, I'm afraid. It would make it hard to stand outside. And how do you have a forty foot robot transform into a handgun?

There's the plain weird...in the first season of The Transformers, I think the easiest way to cripple an autobot in car or truck mode is to tip him over. Every time someone is blown down a hillside or onto their side, someone has to step in to put them back upright before they're asked if they can transform. I'm surprised they don't all transform into turtles.

There were philosophical errors. Optimus believes in sanctity of life and freedom. They made the dinobots, and on the first activation the three Dinobots go on a rampage and "destroy" equipment before being stopped. So naturally, believing in the inalienable rights of all beings, he orders them deactivated forever and stuck into a collapsed cavern. Naturally the Autobots get into trouble, Wheeljack enhances the intelligence of the Dinobots enough that they are sent out to save the day, and now that they're suddenly beneficial to them Optimus graciously allows them to join the Autobot ranks. That's a nice message to send kids...if you're useful, you can live. But we're the good guys.

Which segues into the error of stereotypical cliche's. There is no depth of character; the beings are either good or evil. It's pretty clear cut. The bad guy wants to rule the universe. Why? No one knows. The good guy is entirely consumed by just stopping the bad guy. What happens if the bad guy is stopped? No one knows. Cartoon Optimus would have no purpose if not for that one goal. They're robots...giant computers...yet apparently computers that can't aim since most of their shots miss wildly. If someone's shot, they're fixed within ten minutes if it's not vital to the storyline that the character is mortally wounded. They're apparently not very good with building weapons either since we lowly humans have weapons that will level a city, while these four-story mechanical beings with interstellar travel have weapons that make little pops and sparks and the guy hit grunts a little big before getting back up and declaring himself injured, but would be okay.

There's even the GI Joe cartoon cliche of specialization. Every Transformer has a weapon that does something special. Starscream has null-rays. Megatron's fusion cannon. Who is building these weapons, themselves? They're weapons specialists and manufacturers? Shouldn't they just have a generic gun that just blows the limbs off each other? GI Joe took it one step further...when the one guy on the whole force that specialized in cold-weather fighting has a cold or breaks a limb, apparently the Joes just have to sit back while COBRA executes their latest scheme in the arctic.

But I still loved it.

I think it comes from the cartoon being a platform on which to hitch dreams. The idea of giant robots from another planet that can shift and fold into everyday objects was just plain cool. What if we could transform? Or had friends that were giant robots that could take us places? Wouldn't it be handier than having Mom and Dad hauling us to the mall? Of course the reason for all the shortcomings becomes crystal clear when you realize that as far as the company behind Transformers was concerned, the cartoon and comics were vehicles to sales. Sales slump, they introduce new robots. When The Powers That Be wanted to push sales of a new line of revamped toys they released the 1986 animated movie where many of the key characters...including Optimus Prime...were killed off. Supposedly the execs behind the movie were bewildered at the ensuing backlash they received from fans (they had actual emotional ties to these characters? No way...) (see links here and here).

Transformers obviously struck a chord in many of us as the franchise made enough money that it is still around today. More importantly the initial wave of Transformers had an audience that was static; as we grew up, so did the series. Only not as cartoons. As comics. (Okay, once there was enough of a chasm that the audience of the original series were having their own series, there were inevitable "reimagines" of Transformers like Beast Wars and Transformers Animated...ugh...).

My wife is a big critic of the cartoons from the early years. She finds them shallow and silly with inane dialog that appeals to the most childish of the childish, and I can't say I don't entirely disagree while re-watching the series. But I also handed her a copy of the Transformers Spotlight comic centered on Cliffjumper; a little red transformer that was almost looked like a brother to Bumblebee on the series (the toys were just repaints of each other) and was voiced on the cartoon by Casey Kasem. In the comic, Cliffjumper was stranded on a planet when his ship "had trouble". He befriended a sister and brother left parentless, and he helped around their farm. Eventually some Decepticons appeared and he dispatches three of them before they call for reinforcements and take the native friends hostage; Cliffjumper gives himself up to spare his friends, but in a turn...let's just say that you don't cross Cliffjumper. My wife's height of compliment was to say that she thought it was okay...which for a story about a cartoon series robot, is saying quite a bit. There are nuances in the comic that show more development you'd never see in the cartoons, such as when the flesh-and-blood friends ask Cliffjumper if he hurt other people and he refused to answer...he was an assassin, and the television series would never even allow the phrase "I'm going to kill you" to be uttered. The line between pure good and pure evil is made murky in these stories and makes the story more real in the process.

There have been other comic storylines that flesh out actual characters of dimension; the Megatron Origins series depicts Megatron as becoming a defacto leader of the Decepticons after the Autobot government basically opresses segments of the people and Megatron was an energon miner who traveled down a road of rebellion; he accidentally kills someone during an uprising and escapes imprisonment to fight in the underground gladiatorial arena where his skills were admired and honed. After reading that one I could almost sympathize with Megatron and his desire to kill all the Autobots.

Now the entire franchise has been rebooted with the live-action movie. I wasn't a huge fan of the new movies at first; since then the background has gradually been augmented with more background information and backstory from comic prequels (Alliance and Defiance, as well as a Reign of Starscream from just after the first movie). I've come to enjoy the film franchise as it stands in its own right. I still miss seeing the Dinobots, though. In another way I'm glad not to see them in the film. I'm afraid of what they'd have done to them and I kind of liked the characters as they were in the comics.

A 16 Year Old That Never Ages??

Okay, this story is something I thought was a prank. But I've checked and rechecked the site and the date...it's not April 1st, and the site is on ABC's news site.

All I can say is that if it's true then this is one of the most intriguing medical cases I've ever heard. It's right up there with the story of Phineas Gage, the railroad worker that survived an accident that drove a rod through his skull and in the process became a pioneering study in the effects of brain injury on personality.

The story at ABC speaks of a girl named Brooke Greenberg. She recently turned 16 and is the size (and has the mental capacity) of a toddler. So far doctors know nothing about what is causing it; she's been diagnosed with no genetic disorders that can explain the condition.

All I can say is...wow. There are pictures of her on the website and she looks just like a little toddler. She could hold the key to how people age...a virtual fountain of youth. Although it looks like completely duplicating the process she's undergoing has a nasty side effect.

According the news story there's going to be a feature on Brooke on 20/20 this Friday (June 26th) at 10:00 PM Eastern. There's also a documentary airing on TLC August 9th at 9:00 PM.

Principles in Character and Reflection on One's Self

Dictionary.com defines a principle as "An accepted or professed rule of action or conduct", "Guiding sense of the requirements and obligations of right conduct," and "A personal or specific basis of conduct or management."

Character is defined as "The aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing," "Moral or ethical quality," and "Qualities of honesty, courage, or the like; integrity."

Part of introspection...basically observing yourself, your emotional and mental states...is to see if you can find who you truly are. There are many times in my life where I do this. We all change as time goes on, but you should find that you have certain principles that act as a foundation for who you are, the essence upon which you build your character.

When I stop to think about who I am, how I've changed...I wonder if other people do this as well. Not just because I wonder if I'm normal in doing this. Thanks to my Asperger self I've stopped hoping to fit any cookie-cutter definition of "normal". But I find that sometimes reminding yourself of who you really are is a wonderful way to help keep yourself in "check".

I don't think many people...or enough people...take the time to do this or realize the ramifications of what they do. My wife was in a situation where she attended a small rural church and had what she thought were many established friends there. She had been having a rocky marriage at the time. She and her ex were attending marriage counseling services recommended by the pastor which...as you can tell from the "ex" part...didn't turn out well for the marriage.

She ended up separating from him.

Not long after separating and filing for the divorce she met me. We started dating.

At the time she wanted to share her church experiences with me...I had misgivings (as you may be able to tell from previous posts). She insisted I try going because the people were friendly and welcoming, as is the Christian community.

The pastor of that church asked someone to relay to me that if we, my then-girlfriend and I, were to show up together at a service one or both of us would be asked to leave. We were not welcome to come to church functions together.

Many of her friends at the time drifted away, suddenly busy with other things and never bothering to even offer words of support during her divorce period. The couple that did bother offering to go out still continued going to the same church that excluded my wife's attendance.

She still places much of the blame on herself and the pastor only because the pastor had intimate knowledge of the issues in the marriage and still was biased in her ex-husband's favor while she didn't air her own dirty laundry of the things that were happening for the congregation's benefit. Her friends knew of many of the things that had been going on or at least had some idea, though.

I sort of filed it away under validation for what I saw as people claiming to be good Christians while in reality just using religion as a tool for justifying passing judgment on other people. I thought it contradictory to the whole What Would Jesus Do characterization, but hey, to each their own. I found the pastor to be contradictory to the ideal of what a good spiritual leader was supposed to be in several ways and was somewhat baffled by why these people continue to go listen to him.

So what does this say for the principles involved here?

As a friend, if you were in a social group that for one reason or another shunned your friend, do you privately tell your friend you support them while continuing to associate yourself with the group?

What does it say for your principles when you continue with a group whose figurehead acts in a manner that is contrary to the professed values of what the organization stands for?

Do you have a right to protest that you aren't like everyone else when you voluntarily continue to associate yourself with that group, that you can be friends with someone who is ostracized by this group while still being part of that group?

I related this story because it was a powerful illustration of the type of situation that had me questioning the power of doublethink and how people rationalize away the contradictions to their principles, assuming they have them. It's not the only time I've had something related to me as a story or experienced personally that had me thinking about how other people act and react to situations. I think it's difficult, for example, in this situation for some of the principle players (that's another definition of principle there...what a flexible word!) to fully come to grips with their behavior if they were to take time to sit and reflect inwardly on their feelings and reactions to the situation. Perhaps they were just too selfish to consider the effect their reaction had on my now-wife's emotional state or simply didn't consider this to be an issue.

In case you're wondering, today it's largely water under the bridge; it happened many years ago, and the ex-husband the pastor was courting to stay in his congregation quit going shortly after all the dust settled. We were banned from going so we obliged them in not returning to their weekly message of fellowship. I say largely under the bridge because clearly I still think about it once in awhile. I've simply come to terms with it to the point where I'm not obsessing about it nor do I really have feelings of anger at the collective reaction the congregation had. I can honestly say that it reached the point of "Acknowledge, and move on..."

Using Your Computer for a Good Cause

We're seeing a growing trend in "going green" today, especially when people changed from advertising it as "saving the environment" to "saving a few dollars". Can't blame people for that.

But there are some people...impatient people, or geeks like me, who usually have a computer on twenty four hours a day. While I leave mine going because I randomly use it at different points of the day as well as remotely access my files and have backup jobs running during the night, much of the time it just sort of sits there doing...well, not much.

But what if you turned those unused CPU cycles into something that could help other people?

It's not hard to do. Just mosey over to the BOINC project and download their client to your computer.

See, a lot of scientific work takes huge amounts of computing power. The problem is that these schools and foundations have limited funds for computers. That means that it takes longer to process the terabytes of information they've gathered for their research.

Here's where you come in. In many cases these jobs can be broken down into discrete quantities, kind of like packets of work. What BOINC does is let you sign up for what projects you'd like to volunteer to assist with (you can sign up for one or two or five...whatever you feel like assisting with) and download a few "packets" of work. Your computer then works on the jobs and periodically checks in with the project's servers to upload your results and download a new set of work items. While it may not seem like much, this sets up a HUGE virtual computer for researchers to tap into, greatly assisting in speeding up their research results and ultimately possibly helping many people...possibly even you.

What kind of projects can you assist with?

I'm working with the Rosetta@Home project. That project is working on protein folding...there's a full explanation on their page, but basically it's figuring out how different proteins fit together. This research is helping in finding therapies and drugs to cure HIV, Alzheimer's, and cancer, among other things.

There's a whole list of different things you can assist with on the BOINC page and you can sign up to help with many different one. You can configure how you'd like it to work and most of the time you probably won't notice your computer doing a heckuva lot...I have mine set to "pause" the BOINC jobs whenever the computer detects it is in use by me. I walk away and the system begins modeling proteins again.

It's a small contribution...but there's a slim chance that your contribution could end up curing a disease or at least furthering progress on finding a cure. There's plenty of people asking for your help out there. So why not turn your spare unusued computing power into something that might do some good for little effort?