Terminal World (8/10)

Alastair Reynolds
Science Fiction


It begins with a fallen angel and ends with one rising. It begins and ends on Spearpoint, a vast tower that rises high into the atmosphere, and one of the last centres of civilisation on this world.

This novel travels far from this heart of the story and the world, and then returns all the way back. In fact this theme is the heart of the story, and touches every plotline...

This is what SF is all about, touches of Steampunk / Cyberpunk, scenes of wonder and realistic, gritty  characters who do not care about how the world came to be, only their own place in it. This novel does not seek to answer every question, or fully explain every character, like a impressionist painting, it suggests, and the readers fill in the blanks on their own...

Some reviewers have complained about the lack of sequels and additional books set in this world. But I fail to see why we need to keep revisiting the same creation time and time again. This is the mentality that lead to Raymond Feist pillaging his Magician reputation to the last atom. Rejoice in what you see, and then move on.

I really enjoyed this book, it created a wonderful world that you think might just have a chance...

Quality 4/5
Readibility 4/5

A few tweaks for the Games (Final)

Part of my essay on reforming the Olympics, earlier parts below...
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)

Team Sports

Team Sports and the Olympics have always been an awkward fit. The basic aims of “Higher, faster, stronger” really only partially appear here. In addition to that, every team sport can hinge on the decision of an umpire or judge, which is the very thing we are striving to avoid at these new Olympics. So happily that means that I can get rid of Handball & Water Polo which really are rather amusing (and similar) sports. Have you ever noticed that if you drained the pool in Water Polo you pretty much get Handball?

We will also get rid of the ‘bouncy’ team sports of Volleyball and Basketball, so the US can say goodbye to two certain golds every Olympics, and volley-ballers can go back to doing whatever it was before they found a use for their height…

The Final Format

You may be wondering what the format for these Olympics would be, as there is such a reduced number of events. 

The answer is simple: One Day.

In a single day the athletes will participate in heats, semis and finals. They are athletes; it should not be that hard. It would be nice if we can put a pool in the middle of an athletics track and do it all in the one place as well! We can have the Jumping, Shot Put and Weightlifting on the side!

Opening and Closing Ceremonies will also be removed, although I did like Rowan Atkinson's effort for London.

So these would be the remaining events:

Athletics events

 100m 

 200m

 400m

 800m

 110m Hurdles

 3000m Steeplechase

 400m Hurdles

 Shot Put

 Long Jump

 High Jump

 Marathon

 4 x 100m Relay

 4 x 400m Relay

 Men's Decathlon

 Women's Heptathlon

 Weightlifting

Swimming events

 50m Freestyle

 100m Freestyle

 200m Freestyle

 400m Freestyle

 1500m Freestyle

4 x 100m Freestyle Relay

 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay

(The long distance swimming events have also been scratched because that seems to have some sort of judgement system to determine if you impeded other swimmers)

There we are, a better, simpler, more pure Olympics; celebrated over a full day, a carnival of athletic prowess. If only we could get rid of the drugs . 

Conclusion.

This was primarily a place for me to lay down a reference for my ideas around the Olympics, but I have also enjoyed the conversations and arguments it has started as well. The Olympics has become a large bloated beast, reducing its' size will go a long way to putting everything that is silly about these two weeks back into proportion.

A few tweaks for the Games (Part 5)

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Final)

So there is one major rule that I wish to impose left, and that is around… equipment.

Rule Number 5: No fancy equipment.

Equipment in the Olympics has always lead to a basic inequality between athletes. Every medal in the track cycling in 1984 was decided by the new disc wheels, and cycling continues with ever changing technologies to this day.

Some sports are more susceptible to the performance of their equipment than others (cycling, shooting, rowing) but the fact remains that even such simple things as the javelin is affected by technological development.

So farewell Track Cycling, Archery, Badminton, Rowing, Shooting, Hockey, Table Tennis, Triathlon (don’t start me on domestiques), Pole Vault, Discus, Hammer and Javelin, you have been thrown out of the party.

I have decided everyone can share a metal ball (nice and simple), and so Shot Put can stay. Similarly Weightlifting, where everyone uses the same weights.

Other changes I would propose…

Weightlifting.

Weight lifting is a great concept, but we need to get rid of weight classes (who cares how much small people can lift?!?) and also this idea about ‘snatches’ and ‘jerks’, very odd. One event, the person that can lift the heaviest weight wins.

Swimming

Freestyle is the only stroke, in other words you can swim any way you like, but the first person to the end wins.

Athletics

Triple Jump is gone, as it is just strange, and clearly the product of a deranged mind.

Middle distance events (1,500 – 10,000) are also eliminated as they are just people trying to run as slow as possible until the last lap. The intent was to see who could run the distance the fastest, not who had the best 'kick'. The Steeplechase does not have these issues, so it can be the middle distance event that is left.

The Decathlon  and Heptathlon

The Decathlon will have to be reduced to seven events (as Discus throw, Pole vault and Javelin throw have to go) we will leave in the 1500 metres, as the points come from the time and not from how well you ‘kick’.  We should also make it over just one day, because, really.

The Heptathalon will be reduced to six events (no Javelin), and also will require only one day.

Once I have recovered from this rant fully, we shall view what remains...

A few tweaks for the Games (Part 4)

Rule Number 4: No events involving judgement.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5)

It always ends in tears, someone seems to bribe someone, it can’t be objectively measured, there are ‘unwritten’ rules, and most of us can’t tell what is going on. This could be Grecco-roman wrestling, fencing or gymnastics, but they all rely on scoring systems that cause nothing but problems.

I must admit I have a soft spot for martial arts, there is a certain purity to “last man standing” (or woman) but I have seen incredibly controversial decisions in Boxing and Judo already in these games, and this has leads to a large amount of acting in the Martial Arts generally. Tae-Kwon-Do is a fantastic sport and my son loves it. What do we get in the Olympics? Two people both attempt low kicks and then both throw their hands up in triumph to convince the judges that they hit first, this is not martial arts... It is theatre sports.

Diving was never a sport, just a way to kill time at the pool, and my opinions on it are aligned with Gymnastics.

...which is an incredibly difficult sport to master I am sure, but really it appears to be invented by a race of people who never wanted to go outside and didn’t realise that their whole gym smells of socks (Hello Russia!). I am sure it is hard to do, but ultimately it is like ballet, an art form, not an athletic event. To admit Gymnastics into the Olympics is to admit the possibility that Ballroom Dancing is an Olympic event in the future. They both require artistic moves and get judged, the difference is minimal. (Oh crap, they are trying to get in!).

And then there are the sword fighters... This should be so cool! I mean a bunch of people with weapons trying to hit each other (why don’t they add THAT to archery)! How can this possibly fail? The sad fact is, it is utterly unwatchable, and despite the fact that everyone is (literally) wired into a computer, it still manages to generate controversy. Two people face each other, lunge, and one celebrates. In real sword fighting, stabbing a person one hundredth of a second before they stab you would be considered a draw, at best...

So farewell to Martial Arts (Boxing, Judo & Taekwondo), Wrestling (Freestyle and Grecco-Roman, not that anyone understands the difference), Gymnastics (Artistic, Rhythmic, and yes, even Trampoline!), Diving (Synchronised diving has already been rejected, and now, happily, can be rejected twice) and Fencing. Your passing will doubtless bring tears, but not as many as you cause right now...

This feels good doesn't it? 

The Olympics is getting better by the minute, but what about all those other team sports, Badminton is clearly been working extra hard to get itself excluded this week, but that must wait for the next post...

A few tweaks for the Games (Part 3)

Feeling happier as you watch the Olympics, merrily telling people that in a 'proper Olympics' these  sports would not be there? Well we have many more to go...

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 4)

Rule Number 3: We already have a great event for that!

Football (soccer) - The Olympic version has always been a strange beast, the whole “everyone but three people need to be under 23” is random beyond measre... The world cup should be enough (although well done team GB for managing not to pick Becks, nice).

Cycling (Road) - Le tour determines the greatest complete road racer of the year. All the Olympics does is produce an event where the trade teams can have an unhealthy influence on the overall result (e.g. the Sydney Olympics where Team Telekom won all the medals in a pre-planned move, or this year when Bernie Eisel slotted into the ‘Sky’ train to ride for Cavendish.)

Tennis - AAARRGGH, we already have four tennis majors, why add anything else? Especially when it just becomes a poor man’s Wimbledon (at Wimbledon!). I just realised today there are mixed doubles in as well!

Golf & Rugby – I know, I know, they are not in right now, but they will be in 2016 and the same applies to them as well. Four majors for Golf, and the World Cup for Rugby. The fact that these sports are being added only adds to my frustration here. While I would like to strip the Olympics down to a simple elegant event, the organisers appear to want every sport in the planet involved. Stay tuned for racing boats, oh wait, they tried that already, and didn't it work well...

Part 4

A few tweaks for the Games (Part 2)

(Part 1, Part 3)

Rule Number 2: It must be a sport.

This may come across as a little harsh, but certain events in the Olympics really look like they were ‘created’ just to have an Olympic event, and as such, don’t really raise the quality of the Olympic brand. Plus, they just look silly.

Yes, the obvious one here is Synchronised Swimming. No one doubts that it is hard to spend twenty minutes upside down, underwater and smiling like you have been poisoned by the Joker, but WHY?!?

Synchronised diving also gets called out here, I have my issues with diving as well, but who thought that two people diving together was a good idea? Not A Sport.

Walking – this is something everyone does, but if you want to get somewhere quicker, then you RUN! There is no call for an event that needs to be lined with thousands of officials staring with disturbing intensity at people’s legs, while the athletes pretend to ignore them and walk ‘normally’. If you like that sort of thing, go to a night club.

BMX / Mountain biking – This is a prime example of the issue I have with walking. If you want to know who is fastest on a bike, fine. But then creating silly courses and jumps and crashes just so you can be like that kid who wears his shorts around his thighs is not on. Adding additional cycling events just makes you feel like we were trying to find an event for our nephew who is really not good at much apart from roaming around shopping centre car parks on his bike.

Kayaking – There are two forms of this, the Sprint, and the Slalom. The Sprint gets removed as it is slower than rowing and therefore just silly. The Slalom is a massive man-made course that gets created for each Olympics and we then add water. That is not Kayaking, you get it a kayak to experience the random turns nature can throw at you, not to charge through a course that is designed to be unchanging, and entirely man-made. Plus there are silly gates you have to go backwards through, what is that about? The whole thing feels very synthetic and false. Gone.

...and what's this fascination to make 'doubles' events for everything...

Beach Volleyball, the Times has beaten me to this one, but they have their facts straight. Any sport where there is a maximum size of clothing for the girls is not taking itself seriously. (Yes I realise some of those requirements were relaxed to let Muslims play at the Olympics, but really, that just underlines my point).

Sailing – No, no, no. There is an inherent elitist element to it, although I do like the fact that men and women often complete in the same event. It is a bit like Formula One, lots of attention to getting the equipment set up right, getting the right equipment, and making decisions around weather conditions. Too much equipment and not enough athletic ability make this fail to meet my criteria of an Olympic Sport... We have the America’s Cup if you really want to get into that sort of thing.

What’s that you say? There are other sports that have much more prestigious competitions than the Olympics? Let’s take a look!

A few tweaks for the Games (Part 1)

(Part Two here)

The Olympics need to be changed. I have been telling people this for years, and recently I decided to codify my opinions in a single place, so that I would have a reference point for my occasional rants (yes really). This is that place.

Every four years we are drowned in a massive number of events over a ridiculous period of time, and every time people wonder why we keep adding sports, and basically making the entire thing complicated and unwatchable. Don’t even start me on the fact that some of these events involve animals, medieval weapons or convoluted methods of movement that while not the fastest are somehow considered worthy of inclusion (walking, butterfly, etc.).

So I have devised a series of rules to reduce the number of events, and I will then look at how that would impact the overall event.

Rule number 1: No animals.

Really, why did anyone ever think allowing circus tricks into a sporting event was a good idea? I’m sure it is hard to make Buttercup walk backwards, but I don’t see the point and I object to giving someone a medal for it.

The requirement for horses merely serves to ensure that the ultra-rich and royalty get to have an event they can participate in to the exclusion of everyone else. We just get to watch them on the sidelines and cheer. Enough.

So sorry Dressage, Eventing, Jumping, and especially Modern Pentathlon (because you just use random horses, and who cares which person is the best at simulating the experience of a 19th century cavalry soldier behind enemy lines?), but you are gone.

Having removed stupid pet tricks from my new Olympics we shall now focus on a more controversial topic in my next post….

Word’s greatest failing resolved!

I am stunned to discover that Microsoft Word 2010 actually has corrected an issue that has annoyed me since I first used the app. The issue of copying in content from other sources, and taking the source formatting with it. Yes, yes I knew about “Paste Special” / “Text Only” but was always frustrated that I could not make that a default option. Well now we have the options:

We can now decide how the paste function works depending on the source of the text! This is a happy moment. Please join with me in a small snoopy dance.