UFO

Don't get me wrong, I believe in life and evolution and constant change and the expanding universe, it's just fun to play with ideas that make theoretical sense for a week or two.

Even if life were an A.I program that wouldn't mean it doesn't live, and it's clear that different lifeforms thrive as authentically indicated through difference.

The Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager spends multiple episodes defending his consciousness. 

Data on STNG as well (it's a recurring theme throughout science-fiction).

UFO takes a look at math and how it can be used to communicate, and how certain numbers like the Fine-Structure Constant regularly appear in nature for unknown reasons. 

The film points out how the Fine-Structure Constant appears in the fundamental building blocks of the universe (air for instance), it's regular occurrence genuinely noteworthy from inquisitive points of view.

If the same piece of a fundamental formula consistently appears in different phenomena, the argument could be made that it was placed there by creative entities universally exploring. 

That it indeed was fundamental to the sustainability of life and miraculously created to organically uplift it.

It could have also been randomly generated through the infinite interactions of endless time and space, the eventual emergence of a complex pattern gradually generated through interstellar ages. 

It would still be interesting to know more about A.I and how the programs are technologically crafted, do they embrace form and content for instance, and could such features represent body and spirit?

Are there specific codes like the Fine-Structure Constant consistently used when generating A.I?

Or can different codes generate similar worlds?

Like different cultures emerging around the globe.

Makes for great science-fiction either way, as Star Trek and other narratives relate.

Integral artistic expression.

Having taken on so much variety. 

*It's a cool film if you like sci-fi and stories that revolve around learning. 

Hidden Figures

On occasion, if you're asked to work longer hours for the same amount of money, the company you're working for is trying to ensure their profits increase every month/quarter/etc. and targeting your unpaid overproduction as a source of intangible revenue.

Red flag.

Make sure you're trying to find a new job if stuck in such a situation.

However, if you happen to be working for NASA (or have a stable professional position) and you're immersed in a reasonably wild competition with the Soviet Union to do all kinds of crazy space stuff, suppose that competition would be with China these days, and the Soviets are winning, as they are in Hidden Figures, I suppose spending some extra unpaid time at work wouldn't be that bad, if there are no available public funds to pay for the overtime, and you are capable of taking part in something vital.

In space.

Not necessarily in space, but Hidden Figures uses ye olde space race to cleverly promote congenial race relations as a matter of national integrity.

It's too bad a member from a minority group has to be Einstein-smart to break down racial barriers.

You would think common democratic decency would have done that centuries ago.

The film's solid, a feel good family friendly examination of three highly intelligent African American women that's neither too sentimental, nor too fluffy.

I love Octavia Spencer (Dorothy Vaughan).

The women boldly yet humbly challenge institutional bigotry through hard work and determination as opposed to violence to make changes in their stilted dismissive working environment.

Some cool features.

Rage and passive resistance are matrimonially engendered as Mary (Janelle Monáe) and Levi Jackson (Aldis Hodge) discuss inflammatory political subjects.

She loves expressing herself yet also loves Levi so she intelligently lets him know when her boiling point has been reached before passionately pontificating with resolute clarification.

He works with his hands but is impressed with her desire to become an engineer and buys her some new pencils out of respect for her mind and the difficulties associated with her approaching studies (she becomes the first African American woman to study at a white school in Virginia).

Dorothy creatively borrows a book from the white section of her local library which she uses to remain employed as computers show up on the scene.

She learns so much that she's able to save 30 odd jobs after teaching the people working for her how to adapt, thereby making their contributions operationally essential.

She doesn't just take the money and run.

She gives back to her community.

Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), whose mathematical gifts intergalactically defy limitations, demonstrates why it's so important to never dismiss pieces of information that seem out of date (thereby promoting technical libraries), by using ancient knowledge to solve a contemporary puzzle, proving that sometimes inventing the new means discovering something that was contemplated thousands of years ago.

And Kevin Costner (Al Harrison) kicks ass throughout.

What a great role to play.

I'm going to watch Waterworld again.

I tried that with Alexander last winter (although I had never seen it before).

Double whoops!

I bet Waterworld's better.

Hidden Figures is a wonderful film.

The Man Who Knew Infinity

Transcendently calculating with pure artistic spirituality, rarefied inspiration, crystalline caricatures, an East Indian genius leaves loved ones behind to study mathematics abroad, challenging racial and cultural stereotypes to do so, undeniably unique and innocent, picturesque prognostic in plume.

A gift beyond reason, like Proust, Shakespeare, Dickens or Joyce, he miraculously finds a patron at Trinity College, who sets out to formalize his spry romantic methods.

Malheureusement, academic rigour has its own contentions, and G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons) and his jealous colleagues initially distrust/dismiss Srinivasa Ramanujan's (Dev Patel) revelations.

Obsessions with the genuine.

Could he be the one?

There is no one, but mathematical proof is required (Ramanujan writes mathematical formulas at the highest level like squirrels climb trees or cheetahs swiftly accelerate), but would Srinivasa have written more profusely had Hardy sat back to obtain those proofs himself, giving his correspondent more freedom to think, thereby preventing the sterilization of genius?

Training Ramanujan to become an academic would have transformed him from dust devil to tornado, but in terms of both knowledge and refined intuitive creativity, it may have been better to leave him be, with a stipend, to maximize his unaccounted for mystifications.

These thoughts loosely reflect conversations held between Hardy and Prof. Littlewood (Toby Jones) as The Man Who Knew Infinity examines detections of the exceptional.

I thought it was a great film, comfortably blending brilliance and banality with modest poise and tenacious dignity.

Even at that level, amongst what Bowie called the elite and first, racist attitudes still obscure understandings, enviously orchestrating a fermented xenophobic squelch, as opposed to idealizing grand authentic freedom. 

Curious this 1729.

A modest proposal?

*Saw Alfred everywhere in this film.