Lunch With George!

February 28, 2002 - Wildflower Bread Company

NEW! Lunch With George! Restaurant Reviews. We went to the same place we went on January 24th, and we ate the same thing. Just read that review!

Agenda

• Memento
• Coconuts
• Bobby Shaftoe
• Unix for Dummies
• Itsy Bitsy Gears
• Time Machine (for your radio)

SPOILERS AHEAD-- DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO RUIN THE MOVIE FOR YOURSELF!!

I took Leonard Shelby at his word-- I believed his account of his former life (i.e., that he was an insurance investigator, that he met a real person named Sammy, and that his wife was killed in the attack that left him with no ability to store new memories). George, on the other hand (along with Teri), believes Teddy...

Right after Leonard killed Jimmy (Natalie's boyfriend), thinking that he was his wife's killer, Teddy lost patience with Leonard's condition and attitude. He told Leonard that there is no Sammy-- that Leonard's wife was the one with diabetes, and that it was Leonard who killed her by injecting her with too much insulin. He also told Leonard that they had already tracked down the guy who attacked Leonard and his wife, and that Leonard had killed him, but forgot.

George believes that Leonard is really the only one with anterograde memory loss, and that he killed his own wife just as he seems to "remember" Sammy killing his wife. He also believes Teddy when he says that he was the cop who investigated the original attack, and has been helping Leonard find closure. George and Teri believe the likelihood that two people who knew each other could have such a rare condition is too small, and Leonard just made up Sammy to avoid dealing with the true circumstances of hisa wife's death.

I must admit that I don't know what the true story is, but I still prefer to believe Leonard's version of his past. the director certainly takes you down that path-- at the beginning of the film, Leonard is the only character with whom you can sympathize. You (just like Leonard himself) have no choice but to believe the messages he has left for himself on notes and his tatoos. But near the end of the film we actually learn that Leonard has deliberately lied to himself, knowing that he will believe it only a few minutes later (when he writes "Don't believe his lies" on Teddy's picture).

I guess I better watch it again!

Coconuts

I'm not sure how it came up, but Teri was telling us about coconuts, and how they actually come off the tree in a very different condition than most of us imagine. [Did I mention that my wife Teri was our special guest at lunch? It was a delightful change of pace! Of course once she left, George and I talked for another hour...] I know that I always conjure up an image of a brown, hairy spheroid-- like one might see in the grocery store or on Gilligan's Island. But in reality, that brown part is encased in a very thick, smooth, green outer shell. Teri was telling us that when she lived in Florida, she would buy fresh coconuts (still in the shell) and ship them to relatives by just writing their address on the outside and attaching the proper postage!

 

Bobby Shaftoe

So why am I bringing up Bobby again? Well, my daughter Hannah wanted to buy a book of piano music last weekend, and was trying to get me to pay for it. As I was looking through it, I noticed a song named "Bobby Shaftoe - a sea shanty". Hey! I wondered, "did Stephenson get the name from the song? Are there words to the song? Do they bear any relation to the Shaftoe character?" I decided to do some web research, and I found that it is an old English folk song. Abridged versions of the verse also appear in numerous nursery rhyme references. Here are the lyrics:

Bobby Shaftoe's gone to sea, Silver buckles at his knee; He'll come back and marry me, Bonny Bobby Shaftoe. Chorus: Bobby Shaftoe's bright and fair, Combing down his yellow hair, He's my ain for ever mair, Bonny Bobby Shaftoe.

Bobby Shaftoe's tall and slim, He's always dressed so neat and trim, The lassies they all keek at him, Bonny Bobby Shaftoe. Chorus: Bobby Shaftoe's gett'n a bairn, For to dandle on his airm, On his airm and on his knee, Bobby Shaftoe loves me. Chorus:

I found the parallels between the song and the book character very interesting! Our Bobby leaves his love (Glory) in the Phillipines to go across the sea and fight during WWII. All the while he waits for the opportunity to return to her and marry her. When he does find his way back to Glory, their future is doomed but he discovers he has a son (Douglas MacAurthur Shaftoe).

Too bad Neal Stephenson doesn't answer his e-mail! I'd like to ask him about this one.

Unix for Dummies

Itsy Bitsy Gears

In Science News, I spotted another article on miniaturized technology: microscopic gears and a chain! Scientists at Sandia National Labs in New Mexico sculpted thin layers of silicon into a chain that moves gears. The links and teeth are the size of biological cells. It's difficult to imagine just for what they might be used, and George felt it was a solution looking for a problem. Once scientist, Ed Vernon, suggested they might be used to operate shutters for tiny cameras... but with CCDs, why whould you need a tiny camera? Still, it was probably a real thrill to look through the microscope and see those little gears turning!

 

Radio Time Machine

What's that? Hmm... I can best describe it as a VCR for your car radio, but that doesn't match it exactly. In fact, once you conjure up in your mind how such a device might work and what features it would provide, you're bound to be disappointed by the real thing. Still, it is a clever synthesis of existing products into a useful device that so intrigued George he ordered one!

It contains three off-the-shelf devices: a small transistor radio, a digital voice recorder (the kind a student might take to class to tape a lecture), and a tiny FM radio transmitter. The only custom hardware provided by the RPR is a set of cable which connects them all together, plus a perfect-fit zippable pouch to carry them and keep them "integrated".

How does it work? Well, if there's a radio program which you like but is on at an inconvenient time (NPR's Science Friday, which is on from noon to 2:00pm, let's say), you can set the timer on the digital recorder to turn on at noon and turn off at 2:00pm. Then when you get in your car after work, you just tune your car radio to the frequency set on the little FM transmitter, hit "PLAY" on the voice recorder, and you are listening to Science Friday on your car radio!