Alexx Kay

11:47 am: Diary
Saturday I had some sort of 24-hor bug, that left me achy, feverish, and canceling my plans to visit cvirtue :-(

Sunday, I was much improved, but still not up to a big trip. kestrell and I did make it out of the house for a walk. I decided to test-walk the route to learnedax and cat9's new apartment, having looked it up on Google Maps. A good thing, too, as the route I had scoped proved to have an inconveniently large railroad in the middle of it. Yes, it turns out that they live on the wrong side of the tracks, literally. (I have since gone back to google maps and used higher magnification, resulting in a route which seems plausible.) While out, we came across a truck-back farmer's market, but neither of us had any money. Will remember to be better equipped next time.

Capped off the night with a fun WoW outing, of which you can read more in the gnomish_mages LJ.

Today, Kes and I go to the dentist. Bleagh. This will no doubt result in even-more-bleagh follow-ups for filllings and such. Hopefully, at the end of this process, I can stop having toothaches.

Tags: diary

11:00 am: Review: _Altered Carbon_, by Richard K. Morgan
A riveting SF noir mystery

Takeshi Kovacs is an ex-special-ops-soldier, ex-con, hired by a rich man, Laurens Bancroft, to solve a crime. The crime? The alleged murder of Laurens Bancroft. His head was blown off a few weeks ago, but the current version was restored from backup. The police have ruled it a suicide, but Bancroft doesn't buy it, and wants Kovacs to find the real killer. But the deeper Kovacs digs, the more it seems like murder is just the tip of a very ugly iceberg...

Many critics disparage genre writing as hackwork, not realizing the skill required to craft a good story within the restraints of the genre in question. _Altered Carbon_ does a virtuoso job of being in three genres at once, and doing justice to all of them.

It's a Science Fiction novel. Set hundreds of years in the future, there has been some interstellar colonization (mostly STL; they have FTL, but only for information), there are AIs, and, last but not least, there are Stacks. Stacks are small recording devices implanted in everyone's brain shortly after birth that record the personality. This technology allows body-switching ("re-sleeving"), restoration from backup upon 'death', and lots of other interesting wrinkles. Much of the SF content of the book is a working out of the effects of this technology upon society.

It's also a noir thriller, dripping with Chandler and Hammett influence. The mean streets now have aircars flying above them, but it is still the case that a man must walk down them who is not, himself, mean. The rich are still corrupt, the cops untrustworthy, the hookers still have hearts of gold, though they all find new modes to express these qualities in this brave new world. And the tough, flawed detective weaves his way through the morass, trying to apply a black&white morality to a hopelessly gray world, and with a fanatical devotion to uncovering the truth.

At the same time, it is that most difficult of genres, the 'fair mystery'. If you pay close attention, all the clues are laid out, and you can solve the mystery ahead of the detective. This is an impressive trick all by itself, but when combined with a mystery that fundamentally depends on SF technology that must be explicitly explained to the reader. The mix of being subtle enough to not give away the game, while still laying all the necessary cards on the table, is a delicate one, and Morgan pulls it off impressively.

Another thing that impresses me about this story is the near-complete lack of 20th century cultural references. Kovacs has favorite actors of his own period that get referenced from time to time, but the only 'historical literature' he knows is by an important figure from the history of his home planet.

That literature does turn out to be pretty important. One chapter starts out with a lengthy political quote from it, about how important it is to make things "personal" when up against faceless power structures. This is a prelude to one of the more significantly violent scenes I have read in the last few years. But not gratuitous violence -- it's a very personal political statement. Violence and sex are both very much a part of this book; prudes should stay away.

There are apparently some sequels to this, and I will be seeking them out. For those who like their genres well-mixed, Highly Recommended.

Tags: books

04:24 pm: Truth is stranger than Satire dept.
Republicans vote against motherhood.

(link from osewalrus)

Tags: politics

01:27 pm: "I've pre-rolled the ones out of it."
Darths & Droids is a pretty funny webcomic, which recasts the Star Wars movies in terms of role-playing games. Today's strip is most notable, however, for the commentary about dice superstition:

Pete, being the highly logical, calculating person he is, rejects all of that as superstitious nonsense. He instead applies the scientific approach. Over the years, he's collected somewhere around a thousand twenty-sided dice. Every so often, he gathers them all together. He sits down at a table and carefully and individually rolls each of the thousand dice, once. Of course, roughly a twentieth of them will roll a one. He takes those fifty-odd dice and rolls them a second time. After about an hour of concentrated dice rolling, he'll end up with around two or three dice that have rolled two ones in a row. He takes those primed dice and places them in special custom-made padded containers where they can't roll around, and carries them to all the games he plays.

Then, when in the most dire circumstances, where a roll of one would be absolutely disastrous, he pulls out the prepared dice. He now has in his hand a die that has rolled two ones in a row. Pete knows the odds of a d20 rolling three ones in a row is a puny one in 8,000. He has effectively pre-rolled the ones out of the die, and can make his crucial roll with confidence. Furthermore, being scientific about it means he knows that it doesn't matter who rolls the die for the third time, so he has no qualms about sharing his primed dice with other players, if that's what it takes to avoid disaster.

ETA: This reminded me of another story. I knew a fellow once who believed in operant conditioning for his dice. He'd roll a whole bunch of them at once, and the ones which rolled critical failures, he would smash with a hammer, "in full view of the others".

Tags: silliness

04:57 pm: Which-Shakespeare-Play-Are-You game
I can live with this result.
( Read more... )

Tags: bloggame

11:14 am: Review: _Template_, by Matthew Hughes
An exciting SF adventure with a philosophical bite.

The time is far in the future, with humanity spread over The Ten Thousand Worlds. We meet a young man, Conn Labro, in the middle of a sword fight, where he defeats three opponents at once without working up much of a sweat. It transpires that Conn is a master duelist, raised from near birth to excel at all forms of games and competitions. This initial display of both competence and calm immediately creates reader sympathy for Conn. This is good, because at the start of the book, Conn is rather naive and unlikable in many other respects. The culture of his planet is a negatively depicted Libertopia, and Conn believes the tenets of his home to be axiomatic.

But violence and mysteries ensue, which propel Conn offworld. There he discovers that there are many other ways of organizing societies:

Now Moat Wallader entered the conversation. "My sister and I are preparing a monograph that argues that every society is fundamentally organized around one or another of the cardinal sins."

Conn's was not the only puzzled face among the listeners. "I mean," said the Divorgian, "that every culture, whatever ideals it professes, is in practice built around one of the seven mortal iniquities identified in ancient times: pride, envy, and so on."

Clariq chimed in again. On Hauser, society was based on the sin of pride, she explained. Ren Farbuck and his adversary endured severe pain and a certain degree of fear -- after all, the hassenge is occasionally fatal, usually from blood loss or septicemia -- for no other reason than that all who knew them, including themselves, would have held them in disesteem if they had quailed.

"Mud on the name, earth on the grave," Farbuck aphorized. "How can it be a sin for a man to defend his honor?"

Conn ignored the comment. "But neither of them gained anything from the transaction," he said. "Nor lost."

The Hauserian shook his head and muttered something Conn did not hear because Clariq was saying, "They did not view the event as a transaction."

"Yet it must have been a transaction," Conn insisted. "All human interactions are."

"They are to those who are disposed to see them as such," the Divorgian woman said, "but not to those who wish to see them as something else."

"A thing is what it is," said Conn.

"No," said Clariq, "some things are what everyone says they are..."

Gradually, Conn learns first tolerance, and eventually appreciation for these other ways of living. By the end of the book, he has discovered the answer to his conundrums, both material and philosophical.

Hughes' writing style reminds me of Jack Vance or Cordwainer Smith. He is exceeding fond of multisyllabic utterances, and cares not whether they be archaic, repurposed, or completely original confabulations. This lends the text a faintly alien aura, at once space opera and ancient legend. Readers with small vocabularies, and who fear dictionaries, may want to give this one a pass, but lovers of language will likely enjoy it.

Where Hughes departs significantly from Vance and Smith (in my opinion) is in the clarity of the *plot*. While linguistic and philosophical games are part of the author's intent, he never loses track of the storytelling. Exciting events happen, mysteries are set up and eventually explained. Pacing alternates well between calm and suspense. He kept me wanting to know 'what happens next', and never disappointed on that front. Indeed, I missed my train stop multiple times due to involvement in this book, something that has not happened in years (though my recent sleep-deprivation probably gets partial 'credit' for that). It even has a satisfactory ending, something that many modern authors fail at.

Recommended.

Addendum for the game designers in the audience. Hughes briefly sketches a game which sounds quite interesting, and might be worth trying to implement.

"Paduay is not a contest," he said. "The game is about cooperatively opening and closing spaces, theoretically without conclusion. It is unusual in that each player's goal is to prevent the other from being unable to continue."

"And he played this every week?"

"Our current match has been going on continually for almost two years. ...

...the miniature pieces, the grids of straight and curving lines that could intersect each other in a variety of different spatial dimensions, depending on which of several modes the players invoked.

Tags: books

08:12 pm: GTA4: Initial Thoughts
What with one thing and another, I haven't gotten as much time with this yet as I'd like; maybe 20 hours, out of what will probably eventually go to 3 digits. But I've got some initial impressions to put down.

( The Good )

( The Bad )

( The Ugly )

But hey, I complain because I love. This is a great achievement in gaming, warts and all, and I will no doubt keep at it for months. Hell, I haven't even begun to touch the multiplayer yet!

Tags: game design

10:12 am: BioShock movie?!
It looks like a non-sucky film based on BioShock may actually happen.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117985365.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/2008/05/gore-verbinski.html
http://www.pr-inside.com/bioshock-heads-to-hollywood-r580835.htm

Tags: bioshock, movies

10:54 pm: Remake Weekend
Last weekend, kestrell and I caught a couple of recent remakes on DVD, "I am Legend" and "King Kong". Comments (and spoilers) follow.

( I am Legend )

( King Kong )

Tags: movies

11:01 am: Happy May Day!
Here, have a silly video by JoCo and Spiffworld :-) (NSFW in most workplaces)

Tags: silliness

12:18 pm: Doctor Who thoughts
A recent(-ish) Doctor Who episode sparked some interesting thoughts. Setup: The Doctor and his Companion end up just before a major historical disaster on Earth. The Companion wants the Doctor to avert the disaster, or at least rescue as many people as possible. After all, meddling and saving people is most of what he does. The Doctor refuses, on two grounds:
1) There exist "fixed points" in history, which "must not" be changed.
2) As a Time Lord, he "just knows" when he's at such a point.

These principles have some unexplored story possibilities. For one thing, what makes a "fixed point"? Is it a completely natural process, like gravity or evolution? How fixed are they?

For another, the Doctor could end up in a similar situation on an alien world, for once, and the story could be about him trying to do what he can within the constraints of the "fixed events". Ted Chiang's recent Nebula-winning novella, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" shows one way of handling such a story. AFAIK, the show has never played with this idea.

Of course, in the course of the rest of the episode, they end up undercutting the notion, since it turns out that the Doctor *must* intervene to *cause* this particular disaster (in order to avert a worse one). And he didn't "just know" *that*, which suggests that he was just being an arrogant, lying prick earlier. Sigh. I wish there was a show out there that actually catered to my desire for plot logic.

Tags: tv

02:57 pm: Some quotes
I just got around to going through my "I should add this to my quote file" pile for the last ~18 months or so, and thought I'd share the new material here. After all, a lot of it came via LJ in the first place, even discounting the vast preponderance of james_nicoll material :-)

( Read more... )

Tags: quotes

11:18 am: "OMFG!!! BioShock IRL!!!
My work and my Friends list intersect in strange ways sometimes. patrissimo's recent press release gets compared to BioShock :-) Thanks to Patri himself for the link.

11:44 am: Review: _Little Brother_, by Cory Doctorow
I got my hands on an ARC of this, and was pretty blown away. I stayed up several hours past my bedtime to finish it in one session, something I rarely do these days.

The story follows a fairly classic pattern. Young man is terribly wronged by a group of Bad Guys. Through courage and cleverness, he gets revenge upon his foes (and gets the girl). There are twists along the way, and the ending isn't exactly what I expected, but I found it quite satisfying.

The setting is the very near future. Various political and tech-culture references put it somewhere in the 2010-2011 range. There are a few pieces of not-yet-created tech that Cory needs to make his story work, but they are things which could quite plausibly exist by then. The story is highly focused on social uses of technology, and features a lot of stuff that does already exist, but might not be familiar to its target audience.

Oh, did I fail to mention? This is a Young Adult Novel. It's a tricky form for most adults to pull off, but Cory is more than up to the challenge. He has stayed quite in touch with his inner rebellious/idealistic teenager, and it shows.

The plot starts out with the protagonist, Marcus Yallow, and a few friends of his cutting out from school to have an adventure (looking for the latest clue in an ARG). Unfortunately, this puts thim a bit too close to a 9/11 scale terrorist attack. You might well think that the Bad Guys mentioned above would be the terrorists. Nuh-uh. While the terrorist attack itself is brutal and devastating, its direct effects stay off-screen for the entire book. The real Baddies here are the Department of Homeland Security, who pick up our heroes in the immediate aftermath and hold them as suspected terrorists. Fighting terrorists looks like cake, compared to fighting an entire hostile branch of the United States government. The detention and interrogation scenes were more disturbing than anything I have read in ages; not because they were over-the-top, but because they were all too plausible,.

Marcus fights back using social networks, cryptography, RFID hacks, and other technological tricks. The book contains instructions on how to do these things, and pointers to where to find more information. In fact, one of the things about this book that some might find off-putting is the large number of pages devoted to Introductions and Afterwords. But I think these are a vital part of the book as a whole.

This book is not just an adventure novel. It is a political act, and possibly the most subversive piece of Art I have ever seen. It's clearly designed to take impressionable young minds and radicalize them. And not just make them politically aware, but technologically empowered. In one of the Afterwords, Cory talks about some of the books that influenced him in writing _Little Brother_, and says of one book (Daniel Pinkwater's marvelous _Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy From Mars_, which I am currently reading to kestrell) "This book changed my life." It's clear to me that Cory wants to hear people say that about _LB_ in years to come. And he doesn't just want to change their lives, he wants to help them change their world. The meaty adventure story doesn't just demonstrate how to fight back, it demonstrates *why* fighting back is important by showing how this sort of thing can happen here, and can happen to a kid just like you. The front-and-back matter connect this message explicitly to the real world by saying, "This story may be fiction, but it's not much of an exaggeration from reality."

I read this book for free. Cory will be, as usual for him, releasing it into the wild with a Creative Commons license. But I'm going to be buying at least one hardcover copy to gift to a nearby library. This book needs to be spread as far as possible. It will be officially released in a few days. Go buy it. If you know any teenagers, give them a copy.

Tags: books, politics

12:54 pm: Torchwood finale
So I finally caught up with the rest of the second season. Losing patience with this series, fast. Plot Logic and Science were never in the building to begin with. But I'm beginning to get tired of the never-ending angst and depressing story lines. Spoilers below.( Read more... )

Tags: tv

01:18 pm: Potlatch Postmortem
That was ok. Fewer people came than I had hoped, but the ones who did were cool, and many good conversations and book recommendations were had. I made sure that some of my very favorite books found new homes, where I hope they will be loved.

People took away about 40-50 books, which was about 10% of what I had laid out. I foresee many trips to used book stores and libraries over the summer to get rid of the remainder. Of course, people are welcome to come and look at the piles in the interim, but I'm not going to spread them out on the living room floor again :-)

Tags: diary, parties

11:46 am: War of the Sexes: Tribal Play?
A while back, cvirtue mentioned that her twins had suddenly started doing the "boys are icky!" "No, *girls* are icky!" thing, and wondered how it had gotten started. It occurred to me that there might be an EvBio answer. In discussion on her LJ, it was claimed that this is just a stage that almost all children go through.

I've long thought that tribalism was pretty firmly hard-wired into primate minds. It's a fairly complex and subtle set of behaviors and attitudes. So how do animals learn complex skills like this?

One way is through instinctive play. Young cats will 'fight' in a way which doesn't do serious harm to either party, but does teach skills that will be useful in real-world combats to come. I think that "the gender war" may serve a similar purpose with regards to tribalism. Tribalism requires identifying an "other". Someone of the opposite gender obviously qualifies, and is easily identified. Boys don't *really* want to "kill all the girls", but *pretending* they do is useful practice for later tribal conflicts (and bonding within the tribe).

Mind you, I'm not sure that tribalism, as currently evolved, is the best survival strategy in our current environment. I'm not sure it *isn't*, but there seem to be large wins available by at least greatly expanding the size of one's "tribe" (see "nationalism", "patriotism", "politics", etc.).

Tags: cognitive development, evbio

04:09 pm: Book Potlatch Party April 19th!
What: A party to celebrate books, and to give away hundreds of them! (Also, as a sub-theme, to celebrate Shakespeare's Birthday.)

Where: Melville Keep.

When: Saturday, April 19th, starting at 1:00 P.M., lasting until the last housemate standing kicks people out.

* We will provide cheap plastic shopping bags to put books in. If you want more sturdy containers, bring them.
* Consider finding a car or ride for this party. While we are T-accessible, I hope to load you down with lots of books before you leave :-)
* First-come, first-serve.

Q: Why are you giving away so many books?
A: Partially a vaguely Buddhist sense that fewer possessions = more happiness. But mostly, a realization that I am happy to read books on my Palm, and that I can reclaim a lot of shelf-space by going digital.

Q: What a great idea! Can I bring my own books to give away?
A: Yes, but with the following condition: If no one else takes them, you *must* take them back with you. A major purpose of this party is to reduce the number of books I have to get rid of in other fashions, so I don't want to have to deal with yours as well. This means that you will have to keep them well clear of the piles I am putting out, and keep track of them.

Q: What sort of books are you giving away?
A: About 80% are Fiction (mostly SF/Fantasy) which I have found ebook replacements for. About 10% are books that I decided I just don't need any more even if I can't replace them. And about 10% are culls from kestrell's library. So, as opposed to most 'free book' piles, the vast majority of these books are actually ones that I consider to be worth having!

Q: How do I know which are "the good ones"?
A: Ask. And not just me; I want this party to have wide-ranging bibliophilic discussions :-)

Q: Hey, did you know that this book over here is really valuable?
A: Maybe. But I'm happy to give it to a friend.

Q: Does that mean I can take it and sell it on ebay?
A: I would really rather you didn't. If no one else takes it by the end of the evening, and if you gave me a cut of the take, I would not object.

Q: Should I bring food or anything?
A: If you like, though that follows the same rule as bringing books: if it doesn't get eaten, you get to take it back home with you. (In a communal house of this size, fridge space is always at a premium.) Some munchies will be provided. If lots of people bring food, it becomes a pot-luck; if they don't, we'll probably order pizza when we get hungry.

Q: Should I RSVP?
A: Appreciated, but not required.

Tags: books, parties

12:14 pm: Seeking recommendations for electrical contracting
Melville Keep is in desperate need of a complete wiring makeover, before air-conditioner season starts. Anyone have any recommendations for Dorchester-area electrical contractors, especially ones with relevant experience in renovating old Victorians?

11:22 am: Funny BioShock video
Here is a Youtube video of an Australian fellow's non-gamer girlfriend playing BioShock, with audio of her reactions. Lots of swearing, but also lots of funny talking to the game characters, and apologizing for shooting them.

Tags: bioshock, silliness