So should we all grow straight and tall

[austin_dern]

I got to a long presentation on the virtues of the new Maple 10. Maple is a nifty symbolic-mathematics package, meaning that you can have it do Calculus problems like int(x^2*sin(x)*cos(x), x = 0..Pi); and it'll return the integral, from 0 to π, of x² sin(x) cos(x) with respect to x, without agonizing work. In principle, a student who understood this could never get a homework question wrong in all freshman Calculus; in practice, as a TA, we spent all freshman year trying to get students to understand how to type in int(x^2*sin(x)*cos(x), x = 0..Pi);. The program does a lot of mathematics, everything from differential equations to simple graphics to abstract stuff like linear algebra. We swore by, and at, it throughout grad school using features from signal processing to group theory that the freshmen never dreamed existed and that we couldn't get to work right either.

Anyway, Maple 10 -- I missed out everything after 7 -- includes two interfaces, the demonstration claimed. The first was the classic interface, the one they ``always had'' ... which is actually true only back to Maple 7, when they introduced this multi-windows trapped-in-a-giant-frame thing, that the school had dropped on the TA's the first week of class years ago, so we were almost as baffled as the students were. (They also changed the symbol used for ``last calculation's results,'' making all sorts of stock notes instantly obsolete, again, the first week of class when we had to explain the most important parts of using Maple.) I almost quipped that they haven't always had that interface, when it struck me that for eight years, they have; they had it maybe longer than they had the older interface. The second new interface is this odd thing based on making things look more like a word processor document, with more commands called up by contextual menus instead of explicit commands that anyone reading the worksheet could generate, so I'm sure it's going to be an exciting new world of confusion.

The new Maple does have a mighty neat trick in its student packages -- working out the solution to a problem (calculus, algebra, linear algebra, differential equations, et cetera) and showing intermediate steps. That would be such a great tool for students, if it were possible to get freshmen taking Calculus to understand the program at all. At the tea break -- and before they introduced this feature -- I got cornered by one of the presenters who wanted to know what I thought about the new interface, and I tried to get my mild opinion (``it's rather useful, though the particular problems I have it doesn't do well'') to stretch out to the conversation length she wanted to have. (The tea break snacks, incidentally, included shrimp toast, something I love and about the only way I can stand to eat shrimp.)

Robert Wise, director of The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Sound of Music, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture -- my favorite of the Trek movies -- has died. Blast it. And it's only reading his obituary that I learned he was the editor for two of my other favorite films, Citizen Kane and The Devil and Daniel Webster. Forget Google; what we need is a service that tells me of stuff I didn't know, but would think was really cool to find out.

Trivia: Voyager transmitted at 23 Watts. Source: Far Travellers: The Exploring Machines, Oran W Nicks, NASA SP-480.

Currently Reading: Satellite E One, Jeffery Lloyd Castle.

Comments

[bluerain.livejournal.com]

I've never heard anyone say they preferred the first Trek movie before.

You just like that it features Voyager 6.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, you don't hang out in Trek fan circles enough. (That may not be a bad decision, unless you can take a lot of silliness with just a bemused attitude, and don't mind people who are still passionately upset by the Enterprise finale, or the movie Nemesis, and many of whom are still bearing grudges over Generations.) The Motion Picture has got almost reached the point of being what people say they like best so they fit in with the snobs. Still, my enjoyment comes about independent of my desire to fit in with the snobs, and someday or other I'll go into my list of reasons I like it so.

But yeah, Voyager 6 helps.

[bluerain.livejournal.com]

I like 4. This, presumably, makes me a complete non-Trekkie. I am rather proud of this.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Actually, most of the Mature Trek Fans rather like the movie (except for it aggravating the Reset Button problem where Kirk's Aging, Spock's Death, and the Enterprise's Destruction over the previous two movies promised that the Trek universe might develop and evolve, only to have those changes wiped out almost as fast as they were made). I'd say it's my second favorite.

There is, however, a rather louder, more obnoxious, and unpleasant streak of Fans -- you know people like this -- who violently hate the film and pronounce it unspeakably awful. I suspect part of this is people in the stage where they can't stand Funny Stories because that might make people laugh at Trek and goodness knows it has to be treated as somberly as Good Friday services; the rest is people upset that normal non-Trekkie people really like the movie. (There's also a faction that insists the movie is horribly dated by being so tied to the 80s with stuff like the pro-environmental message that's so irrelevant these days since we fixed the environment but good.)

I, of course, blame the faction who insists that Trek Must Never Dare Do Anything That's Successfully Funny On Purpose for the Death of Trek.

[orv.livejournal.com]

It sounds like they're trying to make Maple's interface more like MathCAD's, maybe? MathCAD has always had a sort of scratch pad interface, where you could type in equations and text in more-or-less free form and the equations would calculate live, kind of like the bastard child of a word processor and a spreadsheet. It wasn't a bad interface for engineering calculations, which was the original target market.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

You may have something there -- I forgot about MathCad, since while I've seen it mentioned I've never seen the actual program. I see the advantage in writing stuff for students to read and learn from to have this sort of freeform material where equations -- and plots and other tools that can be experimented with -- are embedded in it.

Still, considering the amount of narrative I need to give my typical session of calculations I imagine I'll stick to the Classic Maple interface, to the extent I deal with Maple at all. Mathematica's the preferred program here, although it's a rather fussier and less tolerant program in some ways.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I don't think I would say the first Trek movie is my favorite (probably I would go with the safe and predictable choice, "Wrath of Khan"), but I like it a lot. I guess it's probably my second favorite.

It has an interesting feel to it. Somehow it comes across as more theatrical than any of the other films, and the notoriously slow pace seems like an asset rather than a liability. It gives it a dreamy, surreal feeling, as does the generally subdued lighting.

Its vaguely creepy atmosphere seems to belong to a different era of science-fiction filmmaking than the other Trek films. Although made in 1979, it seems like a throwback to the post-2001, pre-Star Wars age.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

For a long time I'd have said The Wrath of Khan or The Voyage Home was my favorite, but I've come to really appreciate the theatrical feel, and the big-picture and invade-your-dreams atmosphere it gives. What other Trek movie would even try giving a shot of the starship from so far away it's barely a moving dot on screen, actually going out and exploring the unknown? (Well, The Final Frontier would, and was at its best when it was trying.) It is in a vein with Forbidden Planet and 2001, not to mention with the original series, and I miss movies like that.

Plus, with my technical-fandom side ... this was really about the last time the technical details all got more or less straightened out from the Original Show, fit stuff from the beloved Franz Joseph manual in, and before they started getting screwed up by Modern Trek stuff. That's undoubtedly because all the experience thinking and rethinking stuff for the Phase II series was still burned into the heads of everyone involved.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I'd have to say I like 4 the best, given that I remember it the most clearly, enjoy the humourous edge. 1 was, as you put it, 70's sci-fi ambitious and to be praised for that; 2 also excellent for all the common given reasons.. and I enjoyed 6, 3, First Contact (8?). I can't recall 5, thought the 'planet-of-immortals one' was just an okay two-part episode given some onscreen fluff, and never saw the last one.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

To be honest, for all the whining the Trek movies get, they really don't get that bad. All right, Nemesis is a big stupid flop, but there's a lot to like about the whole set, and for the most part the worst problems are like with The Final Frontier or Generations where they wanted to say something big, but didn't know what to say. There are much worse sins for movie-makers than having more ambition than ability.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Nemesis is the one I haven't seen. There's enough Star Trek Movies made that one can't help but rank and compare them, so favorites get perhaps more glow than they deserve, and the lesser ones more scorn.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Nemesis is most worth seeing in a crowd that doesn't mind riffing on it (it offers no limit of easy targets) but even for all that there's some good scenes. And a bunch that remind you of other, better movies.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

The less agony, the better! ^v^

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm quite fond of minimizing agony where possible.