Golden Geek Awards 2011

I have wanted to make an annual awards page for a number of years, highlighting fantasy, science fiction and other nerdy or geeky media. I should make a couple of things clear from the start:

1. There is no committee behind the decisions here, it is all my opinion. Feel free to disagree with my choices. In some cases, you are probably right. 
2. The awards for a given year are for things I first found in that year, not necessarily when they first appeared.
3. Hall of Fame entries are mostly things that I would enjoy gain this very minute if I had the chance and buddies to join me. However, certain things were so great and innovative for their time that they cannot be ignored. I have marked these as [dated]. We should give them their due, even if we don't want to spend a lot of time on them now. 
4. Some Hall of Fame entries have a [B+] designation. These are things I really liked, even if I probably shouldn't have. 
5. As a general comment, the Hall of Fame sections are preliminary. I am sure there are deserving entries I just haven't remembered yet. As the years roll by I'll fill these in, and also add more description of the entries. 

[New March 31 2012: Classical Geek Section]

Video Section

Big Screen

• 2011 Winner: X-Men First Class
• 2011 Winner totally B category: Immortals
• Hall of Fame: Blade Runner; Soylent Green [dated]; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; Highlander [B+]; Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan; Diva; Mirror Mask; Princess Bride; Unbreakable; X-Men I; Omega Man [dated]; Willow; Rocky Horror Picture Show

Small Screen

• 2011 Winner: Sherlock
• 2011 Honorable Mention: Misfits; Walking Dead; Game of Thrones; Doctor Who
• Hall of Fame: Doctor Who; Classic Doctor Who; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Babylon 5; Farscape; Star Trek (original series) [dated]; Xena [B+]; Highlander [B+]; Lexx [B+]

Shows they Cancelled

• Firefly; Babylon 5; Farscape; Strange Luck; Pushing Daisies; Wonderfalls; Freaks and Geeks

Anime and Cartoons

• 2011 Winner: Durarara. 
• 2011 Honorable Mention: Tiger and Bunny. 
• Hall of Fame: Baccano; Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood; Bleach; the Tick (animated); Naruto; Death Note; Cowboy Bebop; Cyber6; Princess Mononoke; Bacanno; Mushishi

Book Section

Novels

• 2011 Winner: Martin, A Song of Fire and Ice series
• Hall of Fame: Tolkien, Lord of the Rings [dated]; Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia [dated]; Clarke, The City and the Stars; Zelazny, The Lord of Light [B+]; Van Vogt, The World of Null-A [B+]; Moorcock, Dancers at the End of Time series; Moorcock, Elric series [B+]; Moorcock, Castle Brass series; Moorcock, Chronicles of Corum [B+]; Moorcock, Cornelius Chronicles; Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky; Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep; Tolkien, The Hobbit; William Gibson, Sprawl trilogy; Gaimon and Pratchett, Good Omens; Adams, A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series
• Hall of Fame Authors: Michael Moorcock; Vernor Vinge; William Gibson; Neil Gaimon 

Graphic Novels (Comics)

• 2011 Winner: Scott Pilgrim
• Hall of Fame: Sandman; Uncanny X-men (Claremont years); Excalibur (Claremont years); the Watchmen; Buddha; Megatokyo

Game Section

Computer Games 

• No Award 2011
• Hall of Fame: Classic Empire [dated]; Adventure [dated]; Rogue; Warlords II; Diablo I; the SIMS; Civilization  [dated]; Warcraft II [dated]; Starcraft I; Homeworld I

Multi-player Online Games 

• 2011 Winner: World of Warcraft
• Hall of Fame: A turn-based online classic empire-like game whose name I can't remember [dated]; Asheron's Call 

Roleplaying Games

• No Award 2011
• Hall of Fame: Dungeons and Dragons, 2nd Edition [dated]; Champions; GURPS

Board Games

• No Award 2011
• Hall of Fame: Risk; Diplomacy; Wagram; Panzergruppe Guderian; Kingmaker; Settlers of Catan; Barbarian Kings

Handheld Device (iPod) Games

• 2011 Winner: Fieldrunners
• 2011 Honorable Mention: Plants vs Zombies
• Hall of Fame: Orion; Lux DLX 2

Music Section

Albums

• 2011 Winner: NoMeansNo, The People's Choice (hits compilation)
• Hall of Fame: Beatles, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band;  Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour; Interpol, Our Love to Admire; Black Sabbath, Paranoid; The Cars, the Cars; Concrete Blond, Bloodletting; Concrete Blond, Walking in London; Cream, Disraeli Gears; Cream, Wheels of Fire; the Decemberists, the Hazards of Love; Decemberists, the Tain; Doors, LA Woman; Evanescence, the Open Door; Franz Ferdinand, Tonight; Hoodoo Gurus, Mars Needs Guitars; Hoodoo Gurus, Stoneage Romeos; Iron Butterfly, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida; Jean Michel Jarre, Oxygene; Jethro Tull, Aqualung; Kate Bush, the Dreaming; King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King; Led Zeppelin I, II, III and IV; Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti; Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon; Pink Floyd, Relics; Prince, Purple Rain; Queen, A Night at the Opera; Queen, A Kind of Magic; Rasputina, Cabin Fever!;  Rasputina, Frustration Plantation; Rasputina, Thanks for the Ether; Santana, Abraxas; Soundgarden, Superunknown; Styx, the Serpent is Rising [B+]; White Stripes, Icky Thump; Yes, Drama; Yes, Fragile; Yes, Magnification; Yes, Relayer; Yes, The Yes Album
• Hall of Fame Bands: Beatles; Led Zeppelin; Queen; Yes

Soundtracks

• No Award 2011
• Hall of Fame: Shrek; the Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Once More with Feeling (Buffy Musical); Cowboy Bebop OST; Homeworld I game OST; 

Classical Geek

Classical music can have a definite geek theme and/or evoke a mood appropriate for gaming or other geek pastimes. I stretch the term classical to include all orchestral pieces that you could not really put in the categories above. 

No award 2011

Hall of Fame:

• Wagner, Das Ring des Nibelungen: hours and hours of thick and rich opera, telling the tale of the Ring that gives domination over the world and the destruction of the Norse gods. The story shares some of the same roots as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The theme, Ride of the Valkyries, is one quite recognizable piece of this epic. 
• Tchaikovsky, 1812 Overture: the music follows Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 ending with cannon fire. In some performances, real cannons are used as the musical instrument for this part and you have to love that!
• Prokofiev, Lieutenant Kije Suite: very fun piece with an amusing background story. It is apparently a movie score from 1933 so perhaps it should be in the soundtrack section.
• Sibelius, Lemminkäinen Suite: music related to legends from the Kalevala which has stories from Finnish mythology (it is like a Beowulf for Finland). 
• Grieg, Peer Gynt Suite: featuring the piece, In the Hall of the Mountain King.
• Orff, Carmina Burana: the opening theme has been used in many totally B movies such as Excalibur (1981). 
• Bach, Tocata and Fugue in D Minor: you will recognize this organ piece when you hear it even if you don't know it by name. It has been featured in many different kinds of media. 
• Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade: music inspired by the Arabian Nights. I think Scheherazade's theme is quite beautiful. 
• Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathusra: You'll recognize the prelude as the opening piece of 2001, a Space Odyssey. 
• Holst, The Planets: The Mars theme from this suite is also quite recognizable. 
• Mussorgsky, St. John's Night on Bald Mountain: made popular by the Disney movie, Fantasia. 

Other Section 

Last week in Hawaii

I am in my last week here. While it is great to be in the sun in this beautiful place and the work has been interesting, I am getting homesick and will be happy to head home. I hope to have the chance to come back again and next time it would be great to have the family with me at least part of the time.

Last Saturday I went with Jean on a food tour, the hole in the wall tour. This was quite an enjoyable guided tour to some of the best local places that are off the main tourist trail. I had baked manapua, a Chinese-Hawaiian version of a steamed pork bun; coco puff pastry; hand made rice noodles; longan and rambutan fruit; 5 layers of heaven roast pork (heart attack on a stick, but what a way to go!); and finally malasadas, a kind of portuguese doughnut. The middle of the tour was in chinatown where we had a bunch of things served in succession in what our guides called a "food parade". That has a nice ring to it :) The guides also give helpful advice about what restaurants to go to and other tourist tips. The tour also takes you around the city and gives you a sense of where things are. I would recommend doing this the first day you come to Honolulu to get your bearings geographically as well as culinarily. Some of the places we visited are shown below.

Last Wednesday I took the day off (I really have been working here - honest!) and went to the Polynesian Cultural Centre on the north of the island. I couldn't get tickets for the weekend. It turns out that the centre is run by the Mormon church and is a non-profit outfit that supports students attending the local Brigam Young University. I don't really see the Mormon and Polynesian cultural connection but it seems to work. I had a tour package that took me around the island to get there, getting a chance to see some of the natural sights and also the Dole pineapple plantation (a tourist trap).

The Cultural Centre itself was really worth the trip. It is a kind of theme park with a bunch of villages representing the culture on various island groups. These guys really got around at sea. The replica canoe below (built with traditional techniques - no metal parts) made a recent trip from Hawaii to Tahiti, some 4000 km or so, in 28 days without using any modern navigational equipment. The villages had staggered performances of about 20 minutes - all quite different but all enjoyable. I flagged in photography at this point. I began the day with mild stomach flu and was beginning to fade at this point.

The package included dinner, a luau or traditional Hawaiian meal. The meal was fine, what I could eat of it. People who had visited Hawaii had told me that they had tried Poi, a traditional dish of pulverized tarot root, but that is was not interesting. I figured I should try it but can now confirm what they were saying. It was described as "wallpaper paste without the flavour" by one of my table mates. The entertainment at the dinner was really the low point of the trip. A vegas-style host (who did have a good singing voice) "entertained" us with faux banter while attractive young adult and cute kid dancers did their thing to amuse the audience of mostly old, white people. It was very forced. After dinner there was a much better show in a large theatre, again featuring elements from the different Polynesian groups. Although I had the cheapest tour package I somehow ended up in the second row near centre - it was a great seat. Overall, definitely worth taking this trip for the day, although I would try one of the other dinner options to avoid the luau show I had.

I am touristed out at this stage. Some things I would do next trip are:

• Go to Alan Wong's restaurant for dinner. He is a well-known and well-regarded local restauranteur who is also a proponent of the local food movement here.
• Go to the swap-meet at the Aloha Stadium. I was thinking of going today but it is raining off and on and anyway I am feeling lazy.
• Hike in the Waimea Valley.
• Take a side trip to the Big Island to see the volcanos.
• Go snorkeling to see the coral and tropical fish. I am not a natural for this (don't swim well and sunburn very easily) but it looks really worthwhile.
• Do the tour of Pearl Harbour. I have been told it is interesting even for non-Americans.
• Visit some local farms and get to know a bit more about the local food movement. I think it would take some time to get into this scene. 
• Take one of the "booze cruises", catamaran cruises to see the sunset. 

Second Week in Hawaii

Near the end of the second week here I have made some progress on that question of water scavenging of contaminants in fuel cells. I have come up with a simple model that describes how much contaminant the water absorbs as you go down the fuel cell channel and the concentrations of the contaminant in the water and what is left in the air. You just need a few physical parameters for the solubility of the material in water that you may (or not) find in the experimental literature.

This past Sunday, my host, Jean, took me on a couple of local hikes. The first was a rainforest hike up the local Manoa valley to the Manoa Falls. The valley opens up nearer the ocean to the district the University is in. Lots of rainforest trees, orchids and other interesting plants. A thin layer of slippery mud coated everything, making it pretty hard going.

Not native to Hawaii but there were groves of bamboo in one area. Think of what you could build out of that if it were growing in your back yard. Also, there are many feral chickens on the island, I got a picture of one below. 

We then went on to a hike near Hawaii Kai to the East of Honolulu, near where Jean lives (after having a nice lunch and beer at a brew pub there). This time it was up the Mariner's Ridge trail. Even just a few kilometers away, the climate here was quite different from Manoa valley. It was much dryer, although you can't necessarily see that from the pictures below because it happened to be drizzling a bit on this hike. 

Wild chickens, bamboo, orchids, a nice beer and a panoramic view. Pretty nice combination of things for me!

What am I doing in Hawaii for all of February?

I am continuing my sabbatical year travel. On this trip, I am visiting the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (in Honolulu on the island of Oahu). Far view of the campus is shown below, and also some palm trees near the Institute building.

I am working with Jean St Pierre here, who I had worked with before for many years on a joint project on fuel cell modelling. He was working for Ballard Power Systems in Vancouver at that time. This was a "golden period" of my career when there was a larger group of us working on this project. We had funding from the government (through the MITACS NCE) and matching funds from Ballard for the research. Most of the money was used to pay the graduate students and post-doctoral fellows that made up the larger group. More importantly, we had a strong connection with the experimental scientists at Ballard, including Jean, who directed us to the interesting application questions and did the experiments both to fit parameters in the models we developed and to validate them afterwards. This was a very fun project. I enjoyed working on these problems in that group and I think we did some things that were quite useful to the industry.

There is a specific new project that Jean brought me out here to work on - doing some modelling work on the scavenging effect of liquid water on contaminants in fuel cells. Maybe I should say something about what I mean by "modelling". This is the process by which physical processes are described (approximately) by mathematical equations. These equations usually can't be solved exactly but are approximated using numerical methods on a computer. The mathematics of this approximation step is my original research area, called Numerical Analysis. If this whole process is done well enough, you can get insight into an engineering problem using the computer simulations. An example is the aeronautical industry that uses simulation tools to design new aircraft. There are approximations involved, so the simulations won't necessarily predict how a device will actually behave. However, the simulations are easy, quick, cheap (I mean, inexpensive), and safe. Thus, any insight you can get into an engineering design process using simulations of mathematical models can save a lot of time and money.

So this new project involves modelling the scavenging effect of liquid water on contaminants. The literature I have read concerns this process not in fuel cells but in the atmosphere. The papers I have looked at consider rain drops falling through air with contaminants (Sulphur di-oxide for example). Now, the drops don't just pick up SO2 under them as they fall through the air. Rather, they absorb SO2 and cause a concentration gradient in the air around the droplet that draws in more SO2 from the surrounding volume. Thus, a stream of drops mapping out a fairly small volume as they fall can deplete a much larger volume of air of SO2. This scavenging effect has some chemical engineering uses. In the atmosphere, while it seems great that droplets can clean up the air, the SO2 the drops pick up can be converted chemically into sulphuric acid, leading to the phenomenon of acid rain. So, I am looking at the scavenging effect of liquid water, which is usually present in the kind of fuel cells I have worked on (Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells), on contaminants that can be found in the inlet gases to these cells. Many of the mechanisms are the same as the atmospheric case, but the length and time scales are different and this may change what the dominant or rate-limiting effects are.

I also hope to finally write up as a journal article an old fuel cell project with Jean and Keith Promislow that we began many years ago. This article is long overdue.

These will be fun projects but I am a Canadian in Hawaii in February! I have never been here before and have some tourist activities planned for weekends. This first weekend I took the bus to the Farmer's Market at Kapiolani Community College, right across from Diamond Head. OK, this may not seem like a top priority tourist thing to do, but I like exploring local food.

On Sunday, Jean and his wife, Andrea, took me hiking up on Diamond Head, the crater of an extinct volcano. There is a trail up to the rim from which there are fantastic views of Waikiki and the ocean. 

From there we went on to the Foster Botanical Garden, with some great plants and trees, some of whom had small friends.

Hobby: Scrap Wood Carpentry

I am serious about mathematical research and teaching and have won some (minor) awards in the field. However, I equally enjoy the many hobbies that I have at which I have no particular skill. Maybe I would be brilliant at them if I just spent the time :-) One that has resurfaced recently is Scrap Wood Carpentry. If you live long enough or scavenge around your neighborhood for things that people throw away (in North America anyway), you can amass a collection of scrap wood (lumber). Houses are knocked down with perfectly good lumber (or well, lumber with some little life left in it) discarded. You can pick that stuff up and build something good from it!

For me, it all started in our last rental (which my father and step-mother refer to as "that hole"). Our children spent their years 7-10 and 5-8 there. There was a strange and often drunken handyman employed by the landlady who had left an immense pile of scrap wood at the place. Actually the landlady was a good experience: not falsely friendly but matter of fact and professional. The one advantage of "the hole" was that we had sole access to the back yard, which was somewhat low ground and swampy. There was a blackberry patch in the back yard from which I learned the valuable lesson that humans and blackberries cannot co-exist. Anyway, from the pile of crap wood I determined to build a playhouse (fort) and a treehouse in the backyard for the kids. I have pictures of these archived somewhere but will need to get home and scan them in to be able to post them. The fort became known as "the Swamp Hut" and saw little use since it was so spider infested. The tree house, just a platform but above the swamp and not so prone to collect spiders, saw more action. There was so much scrap wood that I also build some outdoor tables and also a spice rack, shown in the foreground below. This is vintage 1993, built entirely of scrap and at no cost to us.

This brings us to modern times. In the background above is shown a second spice rack I built recently out of scrap wood here at our new home on East Fourth Ave (new as of 8 years ago). There were some improvements, namely the Dado joints for the shelves. This was also done at no cost - well, there was the $150 for the router and bits. I guess this is the price of progress. 

Late in 2011 I also built some heavy shelving of scrap wood for the garage, pictured below. This was made of 2x4's and boards from the fort I made for the kids at this place (of purchased wood - gasp - but not enclosed so few spider problems). Note the close-up of the joints - butt and lap joints, some of the poorest joints you can use I learned later (d'oh). Still, because of the materials I used, these shelves will last forever and could support an elephant. What I do use them for - is to store my scrap wood collection, of course!

Coming up next: What am I doing in Hawaii? or the Golden Geek Awards 2011.