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End of Days
by Chris Chibnall

All that buildup, for nothing…

Synopsis

Due (presumably) to Owen’s opening of the rift last time, people from other times are being deposited all over the world. The loonies think it is the End of Times as prophesied in many of their various loony books. Jack, being from the future, knows this isn’t the end of the world. (And again we ask ourselves, “Without a Time Lord, is the past/future fixed?”)

Visions of dead people peoples start appearing to the Torchjwood team, telling them they must fully open the Rift to fix the problem. Bilis Manger from the previous episode provides Gwen with a vision of the future – Rhys will be murdered. She locks him up in Torchwood for his protection, but Bilis (who can materialize at will anywhere in time) arrives and murders him.

Inconsolable, she joins the others in opposing Jack and demanding the Rift be opened. Jack refuses, so Owen kills him.

They open the Rift and everything returns to normal – except one thing. Bilis reveals that he used them to open the Rift and release Aberdon, the Great Devourer who was imprisoned beneath the Rift. Aberdon, turns out to be a Godzilla-sized demon-looking creature whose very shadow drops everyone dead.

Jack (who has again recovered from being dead) reasons that (A) Aberdon devours life and (B) Jack is immortal therefore if he lets Aberdon kill him, Aberdon will be destroyed. And so that comes to pass, but Jack appears to be really, really dead this time.

Gwen waits for days by his corpse to no avail. She kisses him goodbye and he revives afterall.

Jack reveals to Gwen that no visions had come to tempt him to open the Rift, and the only thing that could have tempted him would have been “…the right kind of doctor.”

Moments later, Jack hears the familiar sound of an unseen TARDIS. With a huge smile on his face, Jack runs to the sound and leaves the Torchwood crew with a mystery: What happened to Jack?

Analysis

This episode rounds out the series with a final, last gasp of total illogic.

The devil (so to speak) in the guise of Manger, tempts each and every member of the Torchwood team into opening the rift all the way. In the last episode, he “engineered” Jack and Toshiko to be sent back in time and then made sure they only sent enough information to partially open the rift. The partially opened rifts resulted in the strange temporal crossovers that begin this episode. Couldn’t he have just arranged for them to open the rift fully at that time?

His argument is, if the rift is opened all the way, everything will return to normal, and, once his nefarious goal is achieved, everything does seem to go back – including Rhys being resurrected, even though his death really had nothing to do with the rift.

There’s a lot of tension between everyone else and Jack, who turns out to be right all along.

The notion that Aberdon would be killed by Jack being immortal is beyond stupid. Perhaps that sums up the whole episode.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood

I don’t think I’ve been ambiguous about my opinion of “alternative schools of medical thought” so my opinion on this should come as no surprise.

Now, I don’t deny that the possibility exists that some alternative treatments might prove efficacious, but all they have to do is be proved to work and they’d become mainstream medicine. (Don’t go on about the insidious pharmaceutical cartel that slaves tirelessly to prevent us access to effective but inexpensive and unpatentable treatments.)

Nonetheless, the problem with believing in these kinds of nonsense is that it causes peoples’ brains to rot. Take for example this following translation of a recent (completely serious) post on a Taiwanese website.

Lately, I don’t feel quiet right.
My period lasts unusually long.
Finally it was over; however, my left side got numb since yesterday.
I am worried that I might have a stroke.
My blood pressure and eating habits are normal, but I don’t know why I don’t feel well.
I kept wondering maybe it has something to do with the two rose bushes I planted in the front yard last September.
The rose buds were very ugly and kept eaten by bugs in the beginning.
However, the bushes have been blooming lately and the roses are very beautiful.
I think the rose bushes are interfering with my health.
Does anyone know something about it? Please help me.
If my condition gets worse, I might go to see a doctor.
I am so worried.

Well, if the experts on an online parents’ forum can’t help you with some sage gardening advice about your possible stroke, as a last resort, you might try seeing a doctor.

---

Translated by my wife. For those who read Chinese, the original is below:

最近身體很差
一下MC留不停
現在已經解決了
結果昨天又左半邊腳酸手麻
一直到今天左半邊都怪怪
很怕自己是中風的現象
但是我血壓正常飲食正常
也不知道是為什麼
一直懷疑是9月10月的在家門口種了兩株玫瑰花的原因
起初玫瑰花長的醜醜都會被蟲吃
但是最近花苞一直開
花朵也漂亮
所以在懷疑是不是因為種了玫瑰花
影響我的身體呢
有媽咪知道嗎
拜託幫幫忙嚕
我想再繼續麻下去得去檢查了
好擔心喔

OK, I may not have anything to say lately, so it must be time to cross-post someone else’s video about the iPhone…

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blog, iPhone, Video, YouTube

TUAW => iPhone Will Not Allow User Installable Applications:

Well, my earlier concerns are beginning to bite me already:

The impression I got from the information coming out of the keynote was that the device would feature a full install of Mac OS X, and would run any and all desktop-based applications, as indicated by Apple asserting that the device “Runs OS X.” You can imagine my surprise when while talking to the booth attendant I was informed that users will not actually be able to install any applications. This is a point of utter confusion with me. Why would Apple refer to the software running on the device as “OS X,” when in reality, it will be running the long rumored stripped-down version of the operating system.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blog, Mac, OSX, Software, Technology

I suppose no blog that even ever remotely deals with Apple issues can avoid mentioning the iPhone today.

It’s pretty cool, but… I want to see more about the applications available. Sure, “it’s OSX” but… cell phone carriers like to charge you for every little thing you put on your phone. If programs can be developed for this phone and placed on and used without incurring charges from Cingular, it’s going to be great. (Too expensive for me, but great.) If you have to pay for every little thing, it deserves to tank in the worst possible way.

Still, the notion that the device can switch off the expensive cell network and onto wifi networks when available makes this a product I might actually use.

The Apple TV was more interesting to me, it’s not much different than my prediction from November 2005, so I’m really looking forward to this product. Considering that a substantial portion of my video viewing is done from digital media rather than cable, a device that could send out my video to my HD TV would be a very welcome addition to my household.

I really wonder what happened to announcements about OSX 10.5, iLife 07 et al? I was rather looking forward to an OS upgrade.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blog, Mac, OSX

Depressed as I am about having to write yet another review of a crappy Torchwood episode, I’ve decided to just write a bit about the latest addition to our household: K9 Mk II

This story requires a bit of history.

A few years ago, probably in 2002, we bought a first-generation iRobot Roomba: K9 Mk I. For those not familiar with Roombas, they are robotic floor vacuums. We liked it and it seemed to work, but, all too soon, the side brush mechanism for cleaning along the walls broke. iRobot sent us a replacement part, but after re-assembly, K9 never worked again. He just sort of started, turned slightly to the left and stopped.

And so, K9 sat under a futon gathering dust in entirely a different fashion than was intended.

With the kids keeping the floor fairly dirty at all times and Irene claiming not to have enough time to vacuum the house regularly, I bought her a brand new Roomba for our anniversary and Christmas. (Yes, I know, it sounds like a gift only a husband in a sitcom would buy for an anniversary. Fortunately, Irene is from Taiwan, the Isle of Geek and this kind of gift actually works for her.) And so K9 Mk II came to our household.

The new one is nicer, as well it should be. They’ve had several years to improve it. This one can be scheduled to run at night and even locates and returns to its charging station when finished. It all works pretty much as advertised.

There’s one little problem though: Asian hair. My wife’s hair has the tensile strength of steel and every 2 or 3 cleaning cycles, I have to disassemble to brush assembly and literally cut the hair off of it with a knife.

After having performed this maintenance on the new Roomba, I dug out the old one and decided to clean it off and check the brush assemblies. Sure enough, they’d been improperly re-assembled. They’re much more difficult than the new one, but I took it all apart, cleaned everything up, put it all back together right, switched it on and… it didn’t work.

At that point, I figured there wasn’t much to loose, so I took it to a friend who likes to tinker with robotics. He discovered what appears to be a whole sub-culture of Roomba devotees. He ran it through all the diagnostics and everything appeared to be correct.

Still it refused to run.

Finally, he found a couple people online with the same exact problem. They didn’t know what was wrong, either. Then someone said they had the same problem and found out it was the battery, despite the fact that the display lights indicated it was OK. Since all Roomba batteries are alike, I popped the battery from the new one into the old one and… it worked!

Decision time: Spend nearly $50 on a new battery, or let a working Roomba waste? I went cheap and bought one from eBay, which actually had to be soldered into the battery pack.

Our laundry room is partially exposed to the outside. The room temperature swings with the outdoor temperature and dust gets in. We use it to store a lot of stuff we rarely use, so it is quite a mess. This weekend, I decided to clean it up to the point where I could loose K9 (I) on it. In places, the dust was thick like sawdust. There had been some floor rugs in the room, but they had begun to decompose from the summer heat. (I threw them out.)

After K9’s first pass, it didn’t look that much better. The dust compartment hardly had anything in it. Was it all for nothing? I checked the brushes and they were choked with carpet shag from the deteriorating rugs. I cleaned the brushes and sent him running again. This time, it collected more dust, but the room wasn’t clean yet. In fact, he had even distributed the dust all around the floor.

For the third and final pass, I put both K9s in the room and set them to cleaning. it was rather fun watching them bash into each other. (Somebody should really make a spectator sport of out of it.) When they’d finished, the room was clean.

I emptied the first Roomba’s dust catcher and it was about as full as the time before. I emptied the second and was shocked. It had nearly 5 times as much dust collected in it.

Clearly the enhancements over the years are not just in the extra features, the new unit does a much better job cleaning

I read an article the other day saying that Roomba is making inroads into homes, but people are still buying them as gifts for others rather than themselves. Apparently they feel it’s not really good enough to use, but novel enough to give away.

I’ll add my voice to the crowd and say that they really do work, and they’ve obviously gotten better with time. Who knows what’s in store for the future?

You can get more information on the Roomba at my Amazon shop.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Dr Who, Robot, Roomba, Technology

FOX 31 => Video of Space Debris

Amazing video of a meteor breaking up this morning.

Update 2007-01-05: This is a Russian rocket booster burning up on re-entry.

Technorati Tags: Astronomy, Blog, Science

Captain Jack Harkness
by Catherine Tregenna

Jack and Toshiko visit the 1940’s when everyone was happy and gay.

Synopsis
Jack and Toshiko go to abandoned music hall because of reports of 1940’s music. They are transported, apparently via the rift, to 1941 where they meet Capt. Jack Harkness.

It gets confusing at this point, so I shall refer to them from this point forward as TJ (Torchwood Jack) and RJ (RAF Jack).

TJ explains to Toshiko that he’s been in 1941 before and that he stole the identity of RJ who was killed in battle. RJ is due to die tomorrow.

For some poorly explained reason, Toshiko has calculations to open the Rift but half of it is at Torchwood, the other half in on the laptop she carried with her into 1941 and both halves require a piece of equipment to complete the Rift Machine that Torchwood doesn’t have in its possession. She hides the necessary calculations for the others to find in the Future.

They find most of the equation, except for a few numbers scratched out by the mysterious, time-traveling Bilis Manger.

Back in 1941, TJ is really saddened by the impending death of RJ. RJ brushes off the girl he’s been seeing for the last few weeks, but TJ convinces him to go after her because every night might be he last. He goes, but then returns because he’d rather spend the night with TJ, instead.

Owen also finds the missing piece to the Rift Machine and, with the incomplete equation, opens the rift, but not before Ianto shoots him.

RJ leads TJ out onto the dance floor as the rift opens, but before TJ can leaves, he gives RJ a last, long passionate kiss.

Analysis
Mostly a waste of screen time.

No wonder RJ died the next day. If, in 1941, an RAF Captain had been groping and kissing another man on the dance floor in front of his crew, other military and the local girls, they’d have killed him themselves. Perhaps things were more different in 1940’s UK than in the US, but I doubt it. Seriously, at this point, it’s pretty damned clear they’re really trying to force this gay thing down everyone’s throat. In this episode it reached an new plateau of epic absurdity.

This story has no other purpose than to bring about the TJ/RJ intimacy, therefore, it was a waste of time. It did setup a couple pieces for the finale, which was aired immediately afterwards.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood

Invasion of the Bane
by Russell T Davies & Gareth Roberts

I promise, I am not going to review every episode of the Sarah Jane Adventures. Nonetheless, I will at least go over my reactions to the premiere “teaser” episode which aired at New Year.

Overview
Sarah Jane Smith, former companion of the Doctor and owner of K9 (Marks III and IV) is now a loner, investigating alien visitors to Earth. Just as she investigates the Bane invasion (by way of soda pop) of Earth, she encounters her new teenage neighbor, Maria, who becomes embroiled in the mystery and “Luke” an artificial human boy who Sarah Jane later adopts.

Analysis
It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

We meet up with Sarah Jane after she’s met David Tennant’s Doctor. She’s lead an “ordinary” life since the Doctor left her on Earth, but her meeting with Doctor #10 reinvigorates her and she begins investigating aliens. She knows about the secret organizations who deal with aliens, but she feels there’s a better way, without the guns blazing, and so she sets about operating freelance in the alien contact field. (How little she apparently learned while traveling with the Doctor.)

The show is clearly aimed at a younger crowd, but, atypically, Maria doesn’t seem to be that annoying. Her incredibly annoying friend Kelsey is, though. Hopefully, she’s just in it for the pilot. Luke is a bit of a non-entity, but then he is only a few hours old.

K9 is, if you hadn’t heard, going to be in his own animated series, which (along with rights issues) presented a problem for the show which was easy to solve: They got rid of K9 by sending him to a black hole. Problem solved. To compensate, Sarah Jane has got an attic full of alien technology, including a vaguely Time Lord looking computer called “Mr. Smith” and a sonic screwdriver concealed in lipstick.

That does sound pretty bad, doesn’t it? Really, it wasn’t as bad as that.

The story wasn’t too complicated, nifty looking CGI aliens come to Earth, take over 98% of the population using soda and slick advertising and are defeated in a typical Russell T Davies deus ex machina fashion with a convenient intergalactic cell phone. Nothing new to see here.

While I’m not crazy about the inclusion of kids, I do appreciate what they did for the character of Sarah Jane. At the end of School Reunion, it seemed that Sarah Jane’s life had really been ruined by the Doctor. She seemed sad and rather unfortunate. Of course, the goal was to give something for Rose to think about but it left Sarah Jane in a darker place than perhaps seemed fitting for such a beloved companion.

At the beginning of this story, she is still the same person, but she’s given herself a new sense of purpose. The adoption of Luke and friendship with Maria brings her to a place in life where she’s obtained some of the things she thought she’d forever lost her chance for.

If the Sarah Jane Adventures are remembered for nothing else, at least we won’t think of the aging Sarah Jane as a little old lady living along with 30 cats. That can’t be a bad thing.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Doctor Who, Dr Who, Review

The Runaway Bride
by Russell T Davies

The Doctor gets a new “temporary” companion in time for Christmas.

Synopsis
The Doctor has just said “goodbye” to Rose Tyler, trapped in another dimension. He turns from the console only to see a bride, standing, rather impossibly, in the TARDIS. She proves to be more than abrasive enough that the Doctor decides to put her back in her place and time, but, typically, the TARDIS doesn’t land on target. (At least it lands on the right day.)

The Bride, Donna, catches a cab while the Doctor is trying to get money. The Doctor see the Santa robots from last year’s Christmas special and realizes Donna is still in danger. The cab driver is also a robot and is abducting Donna. The Doctor uses the TARDIS to chase her down the highway and rescue her.

Next, he gets her to her wedding (which everyone has rather callously decided to have the party without her), just in time for the Santas to attack again. Once again, the Doctor saves the day. Somehow Donna has been infused with an incredibly ancient (and supposedly non-existent) type of energy, which is what allowed her to arrive in the TARDIS and allows the Santas to track her.

Donna works for a company that is affiliated with Torchwood. His investigations lead him to a secret (abandoned) Torchwood base under the Thames Barrier. Inside, they discover a hole to the core of the Earth, and a giant Spider Queen, last of a voracious race of archnids who had terrorized the universe billions of years ago. They were all but wiped out by the Time Lords.

Donna’s fiance proves to be a conspirator with the Spider Queen and soon shows his true colors. Donna must be dropped into the pit where a ship full of eggs was placed just as the Earth started to form. The energy in Donna will revive them and send them swarming across the universe to eat everything.

The Doctor saves the day again by draining the Thames into the hole to the core of the earth, killing the baby spiders. The military rolls the tanks in and destroys the Spider Queen and her spacecraft which has been zapping London.

The Doctor offers the heartbroken Donna the opportunity to be his next companion, but she refuses and off the Doctor goes.

Analysis
The initial reviews that came about The Runaway Bride were not good, and I was set to be disappointed. Fortunately, they were completely wrong. This has to be one of Russell T. Davies’ best scripts for Doctor Who.

Without the Doctor/Rose lovey relationship, the Doctor is at his most traditional. The story is basically an action story without being bogged down with too much emotional rubbish, although it does deal a bit with the Doctor’s feelings about loosing Rose.

From a technical standpoint, as with an RTD script, it doesn’t pay to think about the “science” too much. It’s hard to imagine the technology of the spider ship being so powerful that it could withstand billions of years as the grain of sand that made the pearl of the Earth. The pressure alone would have to destroy it, but if not, how come the Queen’s ship was so easily destroyed by a conventional tank?

Then we have the question of draining the Thames. Wouldn’t it just fill in from the oceans? The whole in the basement of Torchwood wouldn’t be big enough to drain the Thames faster than it could fill. (In case you’re wondering, I estimate the hole must have held approximately 44,800 cubic kilometers of water, which is just a drop in the bucket to the Earth’s 1.3 billion cubic kilometers of water.)

Having not to long go seen Inferno, I can’t help wondering why this Earth core drilling project didn’t destroy the world, nor why at least isn’t there an up-welling of magma? Still, Doctor Who has rarely been a series too concerned with continuity.

Overall it was an enjoyable romp (more so than last year’s), but the entire Who fandom must have breathed a sigh of relief when Donna turned the Doctor’s offer down. Donna was annoying and stupid throughout the entire episode. I’ve never been a fan of the Catherine Tate show, because I don’t find it very funny, but now I realize perhaps I don’t like it because I find Catherine Tate annoying.

As last year, previews were shown for the upcoming season. It looks good, but then previews are always designed to make it look best.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Doctor Who, Dr Who, Review