A speculative mind

And now for something completely different. I am a cartographer by trade. That means I make maps. Specifically I make maps for a county assessor’s office. For states that have property taxes, maps are required so that appraisers can accurately gauge the size and location and special requirements for each property. They need to know these things so they can fairly value the property. These maps are made with care from deeds, surveys, and subdivision plats, but the maps do not constitute a legal representation of the property for anything other than taxation. Despite warnings to that effect on each map, everyone uses them for every purpose under the sun. Realtors, banks, title companies, insurance companies, and others, use these maps in ways they were not necessarily intended. But the Assessor map is so conveniently available and there really is no practical alternative. I was hired as the Automated Mapping Cartographer (a rather redundant title). My job was to take all th...

This is the final installment of my list of favorite science fiction films: Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan . Some of you will be saying: Wait a minute. What about all that stuff he said against sequels? A fair point, but I would argue that even though it has a “2” in the title, this is not a proper sequel. Is it a sequel of Star Trek: The Motion Picture? I don’t think so. Star Trek: the Motion Picture was a cinematic retelling of the TV show as were all the films that followed. The first film did such a poor job with story and character that it almost doesn’t qualify as Star Trek at all. I don’t think Robert Wise, the director really got it. By contrast Nicholas Meyer, the director of the second film, did get it. The characters were recognizable. The story arc was nicely constructed and led to a satisfying and nail-biting finale. And yes the story was more important than the special effects (not that the special effects were bad).   New characters like the Marcus’s and Mr. Sa...

This is the third installment of my list of favorite Science fiction films. Again, these are in no particular order. Alien . Is it horror, or is it science fiction. Of course it is both. The first time I saw Alien it scared the willies out of me. Just so you know, I am not generally a fan of scary movies. I usually don’t watch them unless they are of the campy low budget variety that are so bad they are good. Something attracted me to go and see that film even though I knew it would be scary. It must have been the trailer. Although the marketing made it absolutely clear that this was going to be scary. But something about it caught my interest. The trailer looked so good.   I went to the theater to watch it, and it was quite a ride. The cast was excellent from Tom Skerritt and Yaphet Kotto, and Ian Holm, to a new actress I had never heard of before with the unlikely name of Sigourney Weaver. I was quite taken with Weaver’s portrayal of Ellen Ripley, second in command of...