Last weekend movies...

Last weekend I took a long plane trip, so I ended up watching some movies. They were all remakes and follow ups. Nothing really great...

1. The Karate Kid, **
   A remake of the 1984's film: The Karate Kid. Which, by the way, is based on a short story called "現代 ゲーム" (Sometimes the Heart of a Turtle) written by Kenzaburo Oe, a Japanese winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature. His Nobel Lecture is quite interesting. Curiously, Professor Oe was a lecturer at Colegio de México, the top academic institution in Mexico. Anyway, coming back to the film. The good thing: Jackie Chan!
   


2. The A-Team, **
   A remake of the 1980's tv-series "The A-Team". Squash, Boom, Bang! I have no more to tell about this. Oh, sort of, the good thing: Liam Neeson.
   


3. Predators, *
   Last time I watched a movie about Predators, I went to sleep during the first sequence and woke up during the last sequence. I will tell no more than this: I watched this film because Adrien Brody was in the cast.
   

More haste, less speed

Daniel, my fellow Mexican and newest addition to the book of friends and acquaintances, uses to joke about my "autistic ways of doing things." I really enjoy his jokes about this topic because they remind me that I am not careful and slow by nature but by experience.

As acting in careless hurries has given me so much trouble in the past, I try my best to follow the rules whenever there are rules; in my personal life, I try to establish and follow routines; in my work life, I try to set paths -you will always find a "To Do" list somewhere on my desk or wall-. Why do I do this? Because, by birth, I tend to do or speak faster than I think.

In Spanish there's a saying, Lyx just brought it to my mind, "No des puntada sin hilo" (Do not stitch with a thread-less needle), which I believe is somewhat equivalent to the "More haste, less speed." Whenever one embarks with haste on any given action, desired results will not be delivered and, most probably, your actions will be in vain.

Today, I find myself in a situation that I could have avoided by following the rules as they are written. Tomorrow, I will find out about the path to follow in order to correct my haste. Anyway, knowledge is the reward of action; I have learned: "More haste, less speed."

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

As I needed to recharge batteries, I spent this weekend reading, another free and good short novel by Cory Doctorow, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom; released under the creative commons copyright license, you can download it for free.

The novel deals with a good many things from philosophy of the self to political manifestos. What really got me is reading about the once hot topic of science fiction: life eternal. It might be that I have not been reading science fiction lately and I have lost my bearings, but it seems that the 20's to 60's fascination with life eternal somehow got diluted in contemporaneous science fiction.

I also liked the way the author presents a political/economical/cultural scenario through the exploration of change at the personal level. In the future, there might be a thousand ways to help us cope with feelings, emotions, change and all those things that take us away from the narrow path of logic and rational actions, but what about living with the lack of them?

Anyway, I imagine that this work can be read in many different ways. I'm waiting to hear about your opinion.



Other books I've read

Overclocked by Cory Doctorow

Last week, I bought myself a small android pad; so far, I have used it to read free books. While almost all the jewels of classic literature belong to the public domain, look for example at Project Gutenberg, it is hard to find good and free modern literature. Enter Cory Doctorow.

Overclocked by Cory Doctorow is a collection of five short science-fiction stories published under the creative commons copyright license. In short, you can download, distribute and generate derivative works if you follow the rules. When I started reading, I got the feeling that I would like the book; all the stories carry the name of an already famous science fiction story. After the second page, I realized I have already read the book and, most probably, it is gathering dust in my bookshelf at my mother's house. Nevertheless, I read it again and revisited Doctorow's views on copyright, sentience, netiquette, utopias, dystopias, and, of course, apocalyptic futures.

If you have a few hours to spare, each story is just a few scores of pages, please go to the Overclocked download site and give them a try. You will not regret that well spent leisure time.



Other books I've read