Ollie Ottoman

Ray Kurzweil's books are scary. Not in a mystery horror movie kind of way, but in a “this is where humanity is headed whether you like it or not” kind of way. And while The Singularity is Near (his only other book I've read) was a rather in-depth look at our ability to use technology to advance our brain capacity and human life, How to Create a Mind is a little lighter. That isn't necessarily a bad thing; I said that the Singularity is Near was more in depth, but that was only because Kurzweil went more into the specifics of how technology can be used to benefit people, which didn't exactly lead to me understanding the process any better. It was still very confusing in a few places. 

How to Build a Mind is a little more basic. And although Kurzweil doesn't really get into the specifics of how to build a mind, he does discuss what we know so far about how the human brain functions and how it creates our personalities. So, really, it reads more like a text book – albeit a fun one. The most important underlying theme is that there is a system of pattern recognition built into our neocortex (the part of our brain that makes it look like a human brain) which is organized in a hierarchical fashion. So, while certain neurons fire when they recognize a certain part of the letter A, that firing neuron is then linked to another neuron which fires when all the other neurons that recognize all the parts of the letter A fire into it as well. That A neuron is then organized into a system that recognizes a word that has the letter A. The brain also plays with this system by lowering the threshold of a neuron to fire when it's expecting a certain letter or word and elevating the threshold when we haven't learned something yet. 

Kurzweil also touches on the different parts of the brain such as how it recognizes speech (and how we learn about it by developing voice recognition software), how our ability to learn and remember is limited by the amount of neuron connections we can make in our neocortex (and how that can be "solved" by allowing us to "access" knowledge we have previously stored on a "cloud"), and what makes a personality (is it what we know, what we've learned, what we recognize as human, or what we perceive as acting like a human). 

 All of these are very thought provoking questions, and if indeed one day we'll be able to use technology to improve ourselves by physically modifying or "roboticizing" ourselves, I will reference The Simpsons and simply say that "I, for one, welcome our future robot overlords."

Has Star Trek become so ubiquitous that it's simply embedded into our culture's DNA? Well, it has certainly had a very long life; there have been countless reboots and one would say there's a resurgence in interest for the series as the latest two movies have been highly successful blockbusters. So it seems like Star Trek is here to stay, but we here at Ground Control are going to take a step back and look at where it all began, with the entire original Star Trek series and the excellent reissues it earned. Let me come clean and say that I had never watched Star Trek before delving into this set. I didn't know what to expect because, let's be honest, there's a certain type of person that's associated with Star Trek. I was planning on watching approximately half of the episodes in order to get a good idea of the series. Instead, I was hooked from the beginning and watched the whole thing over the course of a couple months. The show was just that good. I'm curious as to how Star Trek looks to those who've never seen it, because even though it appears to be goofy costumes and blinking lights and laser beams shooting off, it's actually not about that at all. The show is about very serious social challenges such as racism, war, occupation, the cold war, military intervention, nationalism, the peace movement, evolution, invasion, sexism, slavery and very hard scientific and philosophical questions regarding what makes up a human identity, how do we define love, what are some of the greatest challenges we face as mortals, and what responsibilities do we have to one another as human beings. Star Trekwas written in the Sixties – where it wasn't so common for TV shows to deal with such issues – so setting the show in the future and on different planets allowed the show to ingeniously get away with presenting these social issues to the public. And although sometimes the episodes are not resolved in the most satisfying fashion, the concepts are still compelling enough to completely drive the episodes.  Also present in Star Trek is the great trio of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy, who encapsulate different perspectives when encountering the different scenarios of the episode. Almost like they each represent different parts of our personality. Mr. Spock sticks essentially to the facts and the logical approach, Dr. McCoy on the other hand is solely concerned with emotion, human feelings and the unique aspect of human life (which is why he is the doctor, one assumes), while Captain Kirk, as the leader, is simply concerned with what is fair, where his loyalties lie, and how to best execute a task. So, we see the events transpire from unique and often contrasting perspectives.  It's also a relief to see that, while the new Star Trek movies try to fabricate the relationship between Spock and Kirk (while the relationship with McCoy is almost completely absent), the original series lets the relationships between these characters actually breathe instead of forcing them on the audience, and it's easier for the audience to love and appreciate these characters. Perhaps because we're dealing with 70+ hours of character development versus the couple hours of the movies. Now, let's talk about how this box set is put together, because it's truly remarkable. These reissues wonderfully remaster and clean up the original footage of the show and at parts rerecorded music using the original sheet music and performers from the Sixties in order to provide a richer audio track. In addition, the special effects were "revamped" to bring them more up to date for a newer audience. But in a true completist fashion, there are options to watch the episodes in either "old" or "remastered" versions. This choice alone earns itself the price of admission, but there are also a slew of added bonus features and segments showcasing the birth of Star Trek, the creator, producers and writers who had such an impact on the show. The design which gave the show its look. A behind the scenes look for each season and the hijinks that went on, what collectors have horded over the years, and a look inside the conventions. Also included are interviews with the entire production team and cast, what their perspectives are on the characters, and where they are now. And in rare fashion, it seems like there is not an overload of content, but just a focus on the right stuff to keep everyone happy. In conclusion, this box set is masterfully put together, which is a relief considering the place Star Trek has taken in world culture. Like I said, I had never watched Star Trek before this occasion but, now that I have, I don't think I'll ever stop.



It's the "art" virtue of Adventure Time that this Totally Math Poster Collection tries to exploit. Drawn by twenty different artists, some with very different styles. Some of my favorites are the highly divergent (buzzword!) pieces which reinvent the way we look at the characters while others that are still in the same style allow us to look at the Adventure Time show at a level of detail we haven't seen yet (like Olly Moss and Tony Millionaire). Nothing revolutionary, of course, but it's fun to look at. And isn't that what Adventure Time has been all along?

In The Sound Book, renowned acoustic scientist Trevor Cox – a soundophile – takes us on a journey around the world and visits several spaces which somehow alter the sounds we hear. Throughout the book, Cox discusses several phenomena and visits unusual spaces that affect the way we hear echoes, reverb, amplified whispers, and silence. In addition, he goes in search of whistling sand dunes and trademark sounds which define several locations (like the sound of Big Ben's bells tolling in London).
 
Though this is all well and good (and Cox expertly knows how to keep the science to a minimum when writing about sound), we are dealing with two problems here. One is that Cox has chosen to write a book to describe small nuances in noise. As such, it's hard to get excited over a sound or music phenomenon you have to read about. Especially when we're dealing with the issue of echoes or reverb or spaces that create a unique sound ("it creates a metallic sound" – huh?). As such, it would have been useful to include some sort of CD or mp3 download with this book to supplement the chapters. The other problem is that Cox doesn't really tell an exciting story behind these different phenomena. When Oliver Sacks told his stories about music (in his bookMusicophilia), he based them each around a mystery that a person experiences. Cox, on the other hand, jumps around from paragraph to paragraph describing different examples of a certain sound quality. Even when he tries to tie a story around a certain theme (are the sand hills he visited actually going to sing?), it's not really a gripping one. 

The one chapter which does stand out (maybe along with the chapter on whisper amplification) is his chapter on silence; how he explores what happens when we experience total silence, how silence is used in music and outer space, how anechoic chambers (silent rooms) work, and how he experienced John Cage's art piece 4'33" (his son is right, it sounds like a total waste of time). An interesting chapter, but maybe because it deals with a phenomenon which translates well to the act of reading: silence.

Imagine you're a stock broker, and you're about to buy some stock. You punch into your computer that you want to buy one hundred shares of stock X for, say, $30. The second you press the buy button, the price of the stock goes up and you're unable to buy your shares for that price. In other words, it's as if the market knows what you're interested in and what you're about to buy before you do it. Strange, right?  Brad Katsuyama certainly thought so, but Brad isn't your average stock broker. He's Canadian for one, and he has strange morals in the sense that he has some. Brad is also more concerned with fairness than with making money. So what does he do? He assembles a team to figure out why this is happening. What he finds is that high frequency trading is to blame.  It works like this. When you place an order for, say, one hundred shares of stock X, the purchase is split into smaller orders. Let's say five twenty-share orders. These orders go to different stock exchanges (yeah, I didn't know there were different stock exchanges either). The thing is that one of these stock exchanges is physically held in a computer that is physically closer to Brad Katsuyama's company than the other stock exchanges. As such, the additional microseconds that it takes Brad's order to reach the other stock exchanges is the time-frame he has for a high frequency trader to step in and screw him over. While Brad's other eighty shares are looking for a seller in other stock exchanges, high frequency traders see from Brad's first twenty shares that he bought at his local stock exchange that he's interested in stock X. There's no way they're going to let him buy the rest of his shares at $30, right? So in the time that it takes the rest of Brad's order to reach the other stock exchanges, high frequency traders become aware of what Brad is interested in, buy stock X, and drive the price of stock X up (even a fraction of a penny) because, you guessed it, they get a kickback from the exchange. The great thing? This is totally legal.  Why would high frequency trading which serves no purpose than to be an intermediary between a seller and a buyer be necessary? Nobody knows, but they think that having someone bridge a gap between seller and buyer is important for the market. But look at the transaction I just described. See how the high frequency trader served no purpose except to drive up the price and make itself a little bit of money to justify its existence? It's that what Brad Katsuyama finds out and it's that which pisses him off. This is the story of Flash Boys: what is Brad Katsuyama going to do about this gross injustice in trading. Why can't we have a stock market that doesn't allow for high frequency trading? Well? How about starting your own stock market? Brad Katsuyama and his team want to do just that. What follows in Flash Boys is a highly convoluted story that involves many colorful players, and many complicated and even more colorful stock market tricks. Just like his previous effort Moneyball, Michael Lewis is the kind of writer that puts his reader at ease. He knows how to tell his story, how to introduce his characters, how to set them apart from the gross sausage fest that makes up Flash Boys, and yes, though some of the concepts that he's talking about go way in over this reader's head (like the specific details of Katsuyama's stock market IEX, and the exact way in which the banks' "dark pools" are cheating their customers), by God, at least he's trying. For some reason, it doesn't matter, because what you can pick up is absolutely fascinating, like the story (summarized above) that gets the ball rolling in Flash Boys and their primitively ingenious solution (make a software that slows all the orders down so that all the orders arrive at all the stock markets at the same time). In all, Flash Boys is as entertaining, as it is frustrating and fun to read all at the same time. And although Michael Lewis hasn't quite reached the status of being one of those few writers like Noam Chomsky or Richard Dawkins that perfectly elevates our understanding of the world around us, he's pretty damn close.

The Anarchist uprising in Barcelona is the holy grail for anarchists. They love talking about it and just how well they were able to manage things for those couple months until just about everyone else brought holy hell upon them. What Chris Ealham tries to do here is take us through life and the events in Barcelona all the way through the anarchist revolution. In fact, only 30 pages of this 200 page book is dedicated to the anarchist uprising, and everything else is the chaos that led up to it. And chaos is a good word here, because as you can imagine, life in Barcelona was relatively complex from 1898-1937. Apparently well researched (there are about 130 references 20 pages into the book), Ealman shows that the attempt to make Barcelona such a cultural and industrial Mecca led to a large influx of workers which the city was not prepared to handle (economically or in its infrastructural). With so little to go around, the poor were left to fend for themselves and organize things at a local level and through solidarity with others in a similar position. And so, politically, Barcelona became a very leftist city, which is one of the reasons labor/union/socialist/Marxist/anarchist ideas because so prevalent. Also, the largest union in Barcelona (the CNT) and to some extent the leading anarchist organization (the FAI) and their role in respect to the political and economic life of Barcelonans are also frequently addressed in this book. However, my problem with this book (aside from the horrible design of tiny font AND crowded pages, which makes this book difficult to read) is that it covers a lot in a very haphazard way. Ealham has made a very academic study in this book (which also makes Anarchism and the City read more like a long thesis than a book for the layman) and introduces a lot of verbiage (and insists on using the original Catalan spelling, which is distracting), and instead of sticking with events in a certain (even smaller) time period, he constantly runs back and forth between different points in history and different organizations' perspective which creates a very confusing read. I kept forgetting whose perspective in what time period we were dealing with. In addition to that, Ealham focuses entirely on events on Barcelona and does not address what outside forces influenced decision making or affected events. As such, the reader gets no perspective on what is driving events outside of Barcelona. Events in Barcelona from 1898-1937, as one would expect, were very chaotic, and add to that Ealham's non-linear approach to telling the story and you end up with an even more chaotic book.  Anarchism and the City obviously needs to be reread over and over again to be truly appreciated, but honestly, there has to be a more effective way to tell a story, isn't there?

There's no denying that, when it comes to Brian Lee O'Malley's Lost at Sea, things work in reverse. O' Malley will be linked to Scott Pilgrim for the rest of his life (as he should be – it's a wonderful book) and it's probably what made people notice him since he doesn't exactly have an Alan Moore type of output in comics. It's really only Hopeless Savages (which he drew) and this here Lost at Sea that are easily available works of his. So, it only makes sense: Scott Pilgrim fans will gravitate to Lost at Sea next. 

Having created the lush world of Scott Pilgrim, what can one expect from Lost at Sea?

 Well, it's a remarkably sweet story, if nothing else. Lost at Sea is the tale of a high school girl Raleigh and her road trip with friends one summer on her way back to Canada. Aside from the fact that she's an awkward girl and incredibly self-conscious, something seems off about Raleigh though. How did she randomly run into these friends in California? What was she doing there in the first place? Slowly piecing things together, we see Raleigh's story, how she lost her best friend growing up, and how (as one can guess), her trip to the U.S. involved a boy. 

 It's unclear how Lost At Sea was intended to function; if Raleigh is some vessel for his own experience, if he's writing Raleigh's story retrospectively, or if he's choosing a young girl's voice to tell this somewhat murky tale. One thing is for sure, Raleigh feels lost, and this boy she talks about has helped her find an identity and a soul. We never really find out how or why this is the case, however. So Lost at Sea is more of a snapshot of a very specific period of growing up. Something all of us can relate to. That and all the cats. Boy are there cats in this book. In any case, Raleigh could possibly have been O' Malley's most complex character. Or maybe he's just that good at telling a kid's story. 

As with the Scott Pilgrim books, Lost At Sea gets a deluxe "color" hardcover treatment which makes the book seem more than ever like a diary. Including a slightly colored version (a simple color theme) and some extra shorts of the kids in this story. It's nice edition, but it doesn't really help us understand this story any better.


Volume 4 of the Scott Pilgrim comics truly is a special one. Yes, because Brian Lee O'Malley again spends much of the book fleshing out these characters for us, yes because there is more fighting per page than any Scott Pilgrim book yet, and yes because Wallace spends most of the comic in his underwear, but mostly because this volume of the series is stretched out through that one special Summer we can all relate to. You know the one. That Magical Summer (with a capital M) where you seemed closer that ever with your friends. Where you truly connect with the old ones and new ones are added and all seems right in the world. Yes, Scott's relationship with Ramona truly spans a long period, and this story is the most divergent from the movie yet. 
Not that things are that magical for Scot from the get-go, but there are truly significant breakthroughs for Scott in Volume 4. In the midst of all this Scott is dealing with housing issues, income issues, his relationship with Lisa Miller is expanded upon, the fight with Roxy (in all its Ninja Gaiden glory) is imminent and catching Scott at a low point in his self esteem, along with some other truly confusing shit, like discovering certain questionable content in Ramona's subspace. In short, more issues than Vogue (thank you, thank you), and Scott's only recourse is to grow up or perish. 

As added magic, this volume maintains the same level of quality we've come to expect from O' Malley, hilarious dialogue and fascinating fight scenes, as if it was even possible, the bar is raised even more.

 Extra content in this volume are some lost Scott Pilgrim stories that ended up on comic book day, original artwork, alternative scenes (again all polished and colored) and tons and tons of sketches (even some alternate bathing suits for the girls).

At this point, I shouldn't have to tell you. The series is as amazing as ever.

Obvious Child is the cool, independent, comedy of the Summer about Millennials which takes place in Brooklyn that's going to be cool to like, right? So I can see why people are going to like it. And that brings me a little bit of peace. Because, I can also see why people like Adam Sandler and Tyler Perry movies.

Thank god for this album, folks. Thank GOD!  I think I've said this before, but the Hold Steady are one of those bands that suffers from Monty Python syndrome in the sense that their music is good, but the most annoying people in the world will not shut the fuck about it. Have you met a Hold Steady fan? If you're not sure, then you haven't. The real Hold Steady fans are annoying as hell. As such, it's hard to really enjoy a band that others have elevated to such a god-like stature ("The Hold Steady ruined music for me, because nothing else compares to them" is an actual quote, guys).  The thing about the Hold Steady is that they're a good band. They really are. It's just that, just like any band with a long career, they have good songs and band, and – GASP! – they have goodalbums and bad ones. For a good Hold Steady album, Separation Sunday is as good an album as any. For a bad album, look at Heaven is Whenever. The album which preceded Heaven is Whatever, Stay Positive, might have birthed them a logo (a + sign modified to also look like an infinity symbol), but it is really just okay. So in that sense, the Hold Steady hadn't put out a good album in six years but, now, Teeth Dreams has come along and is really good – much to everyone's relief. It's hard to say what exactly makes Teeth Dreams stand out so much. The overproduced polish which plagued their previous effort is still present (like singer Craig Ferguson's overdubbed vocals). Maybe it's the band writing harder songs again (instead of the ballad-esque Heaven is Whenever) which is what marks the improvement here but, whatever the case, the songs onTeeth Dreams just rock and, quite honestly, I haven't heard a Hold Steady album which keeps picking up steam like this one does. From the single "Spinners" straight through the ballad "Ambassadors" and the awesome back to back wonders of "Big City" and "Wait a While" (isn't that riff a perfect rip off of “Hornets! Hornets!” ?) one has to admit this might be the most consistently good Hold Steady album. And for a band that has been around for so long, it's always easy to jadedly point to the old material when someone asks you where they should start if they want to get into The Hold Steady. Fuck that, man, you can start right here! The vinyl edition is very, very cool. Gatefold, double 180 grams, black vinyl (which is what you want in this case, because apparently the colored version got screwed up at the pressing plant), with printed sleeves, a download coupon (assuming yours works – mine didn't), and a bonus track (and a good one at that!). Keeping it classy, guys!

Can we go ahead and agree that St. Vincent has made it? They've made it. Not Annie Clark in particular, but just her band St. Vincent. Within the context of how St. Vincent exists (weird artsy noisy electronic indie rock), it seems like Clark has reached a status absolutely unimaginable. All  of it reaching its zenith a couple weeks ago when she played SNL. Now, SNL might not mean much to you (and it shouldn't), but it means a fair bit to the music industry (Interest parties can find some proof here ).   Certain bands play SNL. For the most part, they tend to be run of the mill, faux-edgy, mega-popular, and about-to-break or at the peak of their popularity (read: long ago irrelevant) fare. If you playSNL, you have all engines primed to propel you into stardom. If you're already a star, then playingSNL means enough cool people are not buying your music and the hope is to reinvigorate the public's interest. Real music fans should use a band's SNL appearance as a sign that their music stopped mattering, as they become merely a vessel for the industry to buy itself a couple more gasps of breath. So, St. Vincent is playing in this environment, which also happens to be the money-grabbing balls-out highly-rated season finale of SNL. I watched her performance and soaked it all in. How she did is irrelevant (her stage show was ridiculous, but the music more than makes up for it). What was important was that it was happening. The first good band playing SNLin years. Good music challenges an audience, and they were most certainly challenged [See here for proof ].   All the more prevalent because Clark is offering up her latest baby to the masses, and it's quite the handsome fellow. This self-titled album is supposed to be Clark's party record; which unfortunately means it's supposed to be recorded poorly, but be filled with hooks as well. It comes through on all fronts, that's for sure. Though hardly an album full of pounding beats or any urgency, it makes those moments with guts stand out even more (such as the songs "Huey Newton" and "Bring Me Your Loves"). The fact that this is a concept album (and it's more a pretentious "Robot Party" album than anything else) shouldn't really deter anyone, because Clark's writing is still as strong as ever, and she's got more riffs than you can swing a cat at. Probably one of the best albums out this year.   The vinyl edition is interesting in its own rights: it's one of those single LP gatefolds, pressed on 180 grams, a download coupon, and insert with lyrics. The gatefold opens up to show the scary Clark (Get it? She's a lifeless robot. Get it?!) standing amidst rocks holding Chicago's giant bean. I know, right? Even more ridiculous? I have a feeling I'll be recommending this album to people more than any other.