The Plot
With Hachimaki off to Jupiter, his former crewmates (and current wife) are left to deal with the garbage in orbit around Earth on their own. Fee, the captain of the Toy Box, is feeling adrift. Some time spent with her family gives her a new perspective and she begins trying to prevent an environmental disaster threatened by a war between two factions on Earth. Meanwhile, the trip to Jupiter continues and the crew is aware of how momentous their journey is. Sort of.

My Thoughts
Ugh. These last two volumes are a real let down even compared with the averageness of the first three. At least 1-3 had a sort of cohesiveness — they were tied together by the thread of Hachimaki’s quest to join the Jupiter team and his journey to make it. But all that goes out the window for these last two volumes (which are clearly only one volume, padded out by extra materials to make two. For more profit? Who knows.)

Volume 4.1 takes place some time after the prior volume. Hachimaki and Tanabe were married and he has left on his mission to Jupiter. But we see none of this, because it all happened off camera. Instead, the whole of the manga portion of this volume is taken up by a nearly incoherent story starring Fee and to a lesser extent, Yuri and Tanabe. (Very much lesser.)

We start with Tanabe, who makes friends with a Tek Jansen looking dude who claims he’s an alien who’s been punished for his bad behavior by being made into a human. She tries to help him make some friends. And that… is the end of that story. I was pretty confused, because it seemed like it was leading somewhere, but then the whole thing was abruptly dropped. We see the guy again, briefly, but his alien nature (or lack thereof) receives no further discussion.

We move quickly on to the next issue. Apparently, the space around Earth is mined, and the garbage collectors are (naturally) not allowed to collect these mines and must leave them floating there. Now, all of these mines belong to different nation states down below, and are there just in case. Though this is poorly explained, one has to assume there’s some new sort of cold war and philosophy of mutually assured destruction which forms the political backdrop of how this situation developed.

We see some bickering between military types, one of whom is named Colonel Sanders and yes, looks exactly like Colonel Sanders. There’s even a fried chicken joke. I’m not sure if it’s the translation or the original writing that makes this section unclear. But apparently, even though there is a 100% probability that using the space mines will create a debris field that will pretty much cut Earth off from space, two countries (The US and some… very vaguely named Republic. China? A coalition of Arab states? Never explained) have decided to screw everyone and escalate tensions to the point where blowing stuff up seems like the only option.

Meanwhile, Fee is visiting her family, and her son, whose father apparently is incapable of training or disciplining him, has a bunch of unruly dogs living in their small apartment. The neighbors are unhappy. But even though she knows the dogs should be trained, Fee cannot stand up to the power of sad looking puppies and children and gives up on the whole business. Somehow this gives her an epiphany that children rail against that which ‘does not make sense’ rather than accepting it and so she goes off to try and stop the debris field from cutting off the world. This goes about as well as one might expect, and eventually they are all captured by the military. But there doesn’t seem to be any consequence for their actions — they aren’t deemed terrorists or thrown in prison or executed.

In fact, I never quite figured out what happened with this war at all. Did the dreaded Kessler Syndrome take place? Was Earth surrounded by an impenetrable debris field? I have no idea.

Hachimaki finally reappears in volume 4.2. The Jupiter mission is either being deliberately kept in the dark as to what’s going on back at Earth, or else they’re so wrapped up in themselves that they don’t care, because none of what’s going on seems to be a concern to them. The captain is too busy angsting about needing to write a memorable and pithy statement for when they arrive on planet. I admit that this is a legitimate concern, to know that your speech will be immediately part of history and to feel the pressure of making it good. But this worry consumes a very large portion of the final volume. And in the end, he doesn’t even write it at all, but forces the task upon Hachimaki who makes some trite speech about how love is the most powerful force in the universe.

The other plot thread which winds through these two volumes is that of the driving force behind the Jupiter mission. He’s been visiting memorials for those who died in an accident during the original testing of the spaceship’s propulsion system. But really, he feels no guilt or sadness, he just wants to improve his public image a bit so he can move on with his next big idea which is a mission to Saturn. We never do find out what his interest in Hachimaki actually was.

Since these few stories aren’t nearly enough to fill two pretty thick volumes of manga, there are large sections of each which are devoted to notes and world-building materials. These are interesting, and it’s nice to see how much thought was put in to the development of the setting. I just don’t feel like the setting was exploited to its full potential. The author really seemed to get distracted by a desperate desire to make some big statement about life, the universe and everything and forgot that the first and foremost point of writing fiction is to TELL A STORY. The story grew more and more secondary in these last two volumes and it contributed to their lack of cohesion and the jerkiness of the plot. Motivations were not properly attended to, and there was next to no resolution of anything.

In Short
The author of Planetes started with a pretty cool idea (the sort of jobs and ‘common people’ who might end up in space if space-flight becomes routine). And then, as happens pretty frequently, he was unable to execute it to its full potential. So in the end we have a relatively short manga series that shows flashes of greatness but is mostly a muddle of lost plot threads, exposition and random character actions that seem to come from nowhere. I had heard pretty positive comments about Planetes before reading it, so I was disappointed to find it like this. Perhaps the anime is more coherent?

For a long while it was just an occasional habit — I’d stay up even after I knew I needed to go to sleep, wasting time in a manner completely unproductive. Not doing homework, not working on a project, not even reading a book or playing a video game.

Instead, I’d be randomly surfing the web, reading wikipedia articles or ever more obscure news magazines and newspapers, scouring them for something vaguely interesting. Or else, if I’d somehow put the computer aside, skimming through the book I was reading — not actually reading, mind, but flipping through and reading bits and scenes I hadn’t yet arrived at. Neither of these behaviors benefit me in any way, and yet sometimes I would find myself doing it. Worse, I knew I was doing it, but somehow couldn’t stop myself.

I’ve been doing it far more frequently of late, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. It may be related to school somehow; I should theoretically be finished with that by August, so if that’s the case perhaps the compulsion to waste time like this will dissipate at that point. Dorrie has been cooperating with me in this by having her sleep schedule pushed forward — 3am to noon means mummy can come downstairs and doze for a few more hours with her. But it also means mummy gets nothing done in the morning and often Dorrie’s lunch is late because we both oversleep. It also makes me even more cranky and short in the mornings than normal because that’s no longer just bonus sleep, it’s necessary sleep — I haven’t had nearly enough the night before.

So just to make this clear. We had.

GIANT INFLATABLE BEAVERS.

WILLIAM SHATNER.

And… you cut away for some random Jerry Seinfeld ‘reality’ show?

NBC, this is why your ratings suck.

When you have a HIGH KICK LINE OF MOUNTIES you leave them ON.

The Plot
In the not so distant future, humankind has made orbital space-flight relatively routine. Hakimachi, who dreams someday of the freedom of owning his own space ship, works as a space trash collector, clearing dangerous debris from orbit. But he knows that won’t ever earn him enough to fulfill his dream, and he has his sights set higher. His shipmates aren’t sure whether to encourage him or convince him he’s being a fool.

My Thoughts
Before I get started on talking about the content, I must mention a huge issue I had with these volumes, a problem I place squarely at the feet of Tokyopop, who organized the English edition. The DATES. Oh my god, the freaking inconsistent confusing dates. Pretty much every new story arc began with a date, and it’s clear from the text that the volumes proceed along strictly chronological terms except for one prequel side story at the end of volume three. Unfortunately, the date progression Tokyopop provides is as so: 2068 > 2074 > 2075 > 2070 > 2075 > 2075 > 2076 > 2075 > 2077 > 2056 (flashback) > 2077 > 2077 > 2050 (flashback).

That’s just sloppy, and I find it hard to believe that this is the fault of the original. Just a short online search turned up scans of the French edition which had no such issue. This sort of idiocy on behalf of the editorial team is simply unforgivable. It is obvious no one read this through before it went to press.

Now, the story itself is more interesting than I thought it would be upon first glance. The conceit is a good one: spaceflight has become relatively routine, another industry. And yet there are still the elite, the explorers, and the grunts who do the maintenance, the work that makes the rest possible.

The main character, Hachirota Hoshino, aka Hachimaki, dreams of owning his own spaceship and answering to no one. In the meantime he works as a debris collector on a ship with a crew of three (later four), and saves his salary.

He soon decides this isn’t the way to riches, and determines to join a new group set to head for Jupiter. In spite of his many issues both physical and mental, he is finally accepted to be part of this crew. In fact, the man in charge has become very determined to have Hachimaki on board, for reasons which remain unclear.

Outside this central plot we meet a few other secondary characters who receive more than a passing introduction. Fee and Yuri, Hachimaki’s crewmates from the beginning, are interesting enough, but I can’t think of anything in particular to say about either of them. The most annoying of the secondary characters is Tanabe, an androgynous looking girl whose behavior is irritating and whiny from start to end. Inexplicably, Hachimaki eventually falls for her and at the end of volume 3 they announce their intentions to marry.

More to my taste is Hachimaki’s disreputable father Sirius Black Nanjirou Echizen Goro Hoshino. Goro is a famous and accomplished astronout who was part of the first team to go to Mars. He is semi-unwillingly tapped to head the Jupiter mission.

The plot itself and its vision of a not-so-distant future is strangely compelling. I found myself interested almost in spite of myself, because on its surface this isn’t the sort of story that I like to read. This considerable strength wars with the manga’s weaknesses: Tanabe, who I wanted to strangle, and Hachimaki’s continual hallucinations/philosophical fugues. The latter, often starring Evil!Hachimaki or a random talking cat, pull down what would otherwise be a fascinating tale of the future. They seem to be inserted because the author could not figure out how to otherwise include these maunderings on the nature of humans vs. outer space, and are a dreadful example of telling, not showing.

In Short
This science fiction story is at its strongest when actually attending to the plot and not digressing into a metaphysical mumbo jumbo of talking cats and phantoms. I enjoyed it more than I expected and look forward to seeing how the characters progress in the final two volumes.

After I graduated from school, I got a new account with an ISP in Minneapolis, where I moved that fall. For a while I still used one of my Wellesley addresses, but eventually it just got easier to keep everything in one place, and that became my primary address for the next 12 years.

It was easier to keep it than change it, even after we moved back to New England and we had to pay their overpriced shell account charge. But now they’re not going to offer shell accounts any longer, and so… change. It’s been surprisingly less painful than I expected it to be. I have a final group of people to email about it, but then I should be done.

My main concern is that I’m going to discover an account to which I don’t usually log in (and thus don’t recall the password) which still directs to that account. I fear it’s pretty much inevitable that it’s going to happen, no matter how much I wrack my brains to think of places where I’ve registered.

This time I’ve bought the domain for the address, so even if we have to change ISPs in the future, the address itself should remain live.

I hate it. Hate hate hate it.

Not the concept, exactly, but the implementation leaves much to be desired.

Here is the deal. We live in one of the most densely populated areas in the country. And yet it doesn’t matter: broadband here is just as much of a near monopoly as it is elsewhere. The choice is cable (Comcast), which has hidden quotas and throttles connections randomly if it doesn’t like your downloading patterns, or DSL, which is never as fast as advertised and is administered by a company of imbeciles that thought it could quadruple in size with no problem and is now on the verge of bankruptcy and is being investigated by three states. Fiber is available in other parts of town, but not ours. Satellite wi-fi is a joke.

So the lesser of two evils is the DSL (we really hate Comcast). But it’s spluttery and slow. Stream? Ha ha ha. And here’s where the problem comes in. On some sites, such as YouTube, I can start the video, pause it, and then let the buffer fill with the entire video, allowing me to watch it all without stutters and pauses every one second. On most sites, this does not happen; the amount allowed to be buffered is so miniscule that the video is thus rendered completely unwatchable.

Now, I can see the logic: they don’t want people caching the whole file and then saving it. Except, psst, video people? I don’t WANT your crappy lo-res flash files. I want to watch them and then move on. But you make that impossible for me! So I have to go and find a place where I can download it instead, often in HD archival quality.

So anyway, the latest kerfluffle in the publishing world is the showdown between Macmillan and Amazon.com. As a complete outsider, I understand it as this: Macmillan wants Amazon to charge more for certain e-books, and Amazon wants to keep the price capped at 9.99. Amazon took the unorthodox step of removing the ability to purchase Macmillan material from its site, though they have since supposedly backed down (this is debatable — reports are that some items are still not able to be bought)

I guess my first question is, how is this situation different from Apple’s original effort to force the music industry to cap the price of a song download at .99? I fail to see much of a difference. The music industry howled because, omg, if a song was popular enough, clearly they ought to be charging what the market could bear and no less. They wanted to find the exact balance between volume and price where they maximized profits. Apple thought .99 was a good price point and a psychological barrier, plus -they- wanted to maximize the profits from sales of the portable devices, made by them, tied to their download store.

Sounds pretty much the same to me!

The publishers are on crack if they don’t think this exact situation will happen again if Apple really tries to make an iWords store for book downloads.

I’ve heard a lot of perspectives on the amazon/macmillan showdown, from the side of authors, from the side of retailers, from the side of publishers. But what I haven’t really heard is the side of the consumer. Well, I am neither publisher nor retailer, nor am I an author at this point in my life. What I am is a consumer who has watched the price of books skyrocket over the past 20 years. The rise of the hardcover and the trade paperback have vaulted the price of books that used to be $2 and $3 to $8, $13, $25. I can hardly think of anything else besides college tuition and health insurance that has risen in price at such an astonishing rate.

What does this tell me? Like the health industry, the publishing industry has a model of service that is broken. Their situation isn’t exactly the same as the music industry, though, so I’m not sure the solution can be the same either. In the music industry, most people don’t actually want a whole album. They want the two or three songs that they like and nothing more. Portable music is also a much more flexible format than a physical cd — so in many ways, the downloading consumer is getting a much better product than someone who spends the cash and buys the entire album on cd. (Not including DRM which negates the value of the download completely).

For publishing, this doesn’t work, since no one just wants three chapters out of twenty. You need the whole book or nothing. On the other hand, a physical book is, so far, more flexible than the same book on an ereader. You can write on it. You can share it with a friend. You can resell it. You can donate it to a charity. Taken care of, a book may last for 100 years or more.

You can do none of that with any of the current ebook models. This makes them far less valuable and their price should be lowered accordingly. The accessible lifetime of any current ebook is, by my best estimate, perhaps 5-10 years. And it could be much much shorter. Add onto this that to make an ebook, the distribution cost is pretty much nil. No shipping, no printing, no extra copies that have to be pulped later on. As a consumer, I’m not willing to pay more than $5 for a book in such a limited, crippled format. Which is one reason why I haven’t bought a Kindle and why I have no intention of buying any ereaders until this has been sorted.

This article by the BBC is as good an analysis as I’ve seen so far to explain why the hell Americans behave in the dumbass fashion that we do.

I think they’re wrong in tracing it back to the 60s, however. It goes further back than that. There’s always been a deep suspicion in this country of intellectuals, that they’re secretly making fun or putting themselves above others. You are supposed to become rich and successful due to your hard work or your charming personality or your innate talent rather than your intellectual gifts. What do you need all that book learnin for? There’s a large segment of American society that is deeply deeply suspicious and resentful of anyone who dares think for themselves, or questions ‘facts’ that are presented with no proof or rationality.

True Story: When the H1N1 vaccine came out, there was some debate as to whether or not people should get it. There are some legitimate reasons to decide not to (egg allergy, bad reaction to previous flu shot, compromised immune system), but there were also a lot of absolutely ludicrous statements floating around. In the course of a discussion, someone actually said in all sincerity that the vaccine caused death in 1% of people who got it. The lack of critical thinking skills evidenced by this statement is astonishing. I don’t disbelieve that propaganda of that sort was out there — I just can’t believe that people believed it! But then, people see numbers and their brains shut off. 1%, they think, that’s a pretty low number, maybe it’s true. Except, of course, 1% of even just 1,000,000 (and by that point about 20,000,000 doses had shipped) is 10,000. Even the American media could not fail to notice 10,000 randomly dead people.

I didn’t really listen to it, but I got the highlights.

It all sounded very nice, but I honestly no longer have any confidence that our completely dysfunctional government has the ability to implement anything at all. There was a brief period last year when it seemed like the Democrats might have grown some balls, when they finally realized that people were angry and they had momentum. But as usual, they squandered it all with their usual spineless jackassery. The Republicans, on the other hand, were they to come to power are perfectly capable of passing most of their agenda — except their agenda is ruinous for the average American.

So it seems we’ve gotten to the point where it’s impossible to expect improvement; the best we can hope for is that the Democrats retain power so things aren’t made worse.

And that is really depressing.

Someone said to me earlier that they agreed change needed to occur but that they didn’t think the government was the answer. Fine. Then what is?

Businesses in the US behave as if their employees should grovel and simper that they’ve deigned to employ them at all, let alone grant them a reasonable salary, civilized working hours or any kind of benefits. Change will not come from there: they have no incentive.

Individuals in the US have no power of negotiation; there are so many people equally qualified for jobs, not to mention the fact that their health care is probably tied to their job, that they cannot make any demands without risking personal disaster. Change will not come from there: they have no possibility of success.

Labor unions, which wrought much change in the middle of the last century, have been gutted and their power is low. Change will not come from there: people have been on their own for so long they no longer imagine it could be different.

So I can only assume that the people who think government isn’t the answer are operating on the underpants gnome theory of improvement. Step 1: Imagine a better situation. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Fixed!!

This kind of pie in the sky crap has even less chance of working than trusting the government.

… that the chars in When Harry Met Sally are supposed to be the same age as me.

…

…

I don’t really feel grown-up enough for that to be true.