Ultimate Post - The Llamas Have Been Sacked

I'm a bit late on this but I put it down to wearing out in the last mile. I was also having a great deal of trouble figuring out what to title my new personal blog. I've got it knocked now, and more on that later. I've really enjoyed my Composition II class, but then I've always enjoyed English classes that don't involve angry humorless nuns. That deserves a bit of explanation, so before I tell you more about wonderful this term was, lets talk about my worst English class ever.

It was my senior year of high school, and my English teacher was in fact, a former nun from Ireland. I didn't hate her or anything, but her class was not fun. This is how things started out - we were assigned a short essay on Beowulf. We were to say what we believed the message of the work was, the central theme. I was, as I am now, a bit of a smart ass. Much in the same way the ocean is a bit wet.

So I wrote my take, that Beowulf was a cautionary tale (much in the same vein as an After-School Special) about the dangers of alcohol abuse. I used direct quotes and paraphrases to support my position and I thought it was quite clever - funny, even. I realize that wasn't why the author wrote the piece, but that wasn't what she asked us to write about. My grade? A ZERO "F." It would've been better to have gotten a bit of extra sleep than to work on the assignment. I'll concede it was an unconventional take on the story, but it fulfilled the conditions of the assignment and I enjoyed writing it. Of all the papers I've done for school, that is the one I'm most proud of - though sadly I don't have a copy of it.

On with the positives now. The thing I enjoyed most in this class was the blog you're reading. If SPC offered a class on blogging (or perhaps online writing), I'd take it in a heartbeat even if it weren't part of my program. I received some very nice compliments from my instructor - both in class, and in the comments here (thank you, by the way) but I still feel I have a lot to learn.

I need to be better about planning ahead. I tend to work "on the metal" - I write a post, I do a little (very little) proof-reading and post. This was an area I got cited on in regards to my papers in class as well. I think I'm a somewhat competent editor . . .  with other people's work. I have a lot of difficulty spotting errors in my own; worse - I find it hard to work up enthusiasm for editing a piece. When I'm ready to write, there isn't anything that can stop me; when it is time to proof-read, I start thinking that it's been a long time since I've organized my blank CD collection by age, brand name and logo.

Follow through is a problem area for me. There were a lot of things that I wanted to do that I never got around to, for instance my piece on Star Trek. I will try to pick some of these up on my new blog. I think part of the problem here was that I had an insane schedule - three express classes, one that had a workload designed to crush your spirit and remove your will to live (Thanks LAN Concepts!)

I need to be more regular. Is it wrong that snickered as I typed that? What I mean is, I need a regular schedule for posting, and to stick with that. I need to be realistic about what I can do while I'm in school. I originally wanted to post here every day. In addition to that I was writing on 750words.com (which is still awesome - I completed the challenge for April, but I've decided to slack a bit this month), in addition to all the other nonsense that I usually pursue in a day. As much as I love writing, I think I may have pushed myself a little too hard.

As to the class itself, I really enjoyed everything I did. Particularly the research paper and the critical interpretation, though those are also the assignments where I had a few "off the hinges" moments. I really liked the fact that the instructor was unafraid to try new things. Seriously, she could teach the instructors of my more technical classes a few things about being innovative. Office hours on Skype was particularly great.

I enjoyed the poetry section more than I expected to, and I ended up showing the poetry slam pieces I selected to a few of my friends. Alas, I still have no sense of rhythm, so I don't think I'll be the next Poet Laureate. I think it might be fun to try sometime though.

As to what I'm doing now blog-wise now that the term is ended, I'm writing a blog for my Javascript class here, and a personal blog here. I decided to keep them separate because I understand that not everyone shares my fascination for Wonkery. I hope you enjoy them, and that you have a great summer!

The Penultimate Post - Games As Art

My post tomorrow is the last one on this blog, my Composition II class will be complete. I've had a great time here. Be sure to check back tomorrow evening and see what I'll be doing next. In the meantime, this games as art thing is something I've wanted to write about for a while.

Recently, Roger Ebert declared that video games "can never be art." Later in the article he retreats to saying it won't be in the current generation of gamers lifetimes that games will be considered art. These statements produced a good bit of "Argle bargle bargle ARE TOO ART!" in the gaming community - this isn't that kind of post. Ebert is an intelligent man, he's entitled to his opinion - I just think he's wrong.

Ebert's article was a response to this TED talk from Kellee Santiago, who says that games already are art. While I agree broadly with her, I find a lot to quibble with as well. I'm going to look at both opinions and give you my take on the subject - and it is worth exactly what you paid to read it.

Let's look at Ebert's arguments first - stripping away the excess verbiage, he has a very definite idea of what constitutes art:

- Usually the creation of a single artist.

- Games are primarily about the "win" condition - IE points scored, levels completed, etc.

- People naturally "know" what great art is.

- No game can be compared with the great art works in other fields.

To be fair, perhaps I've missed something but these seem to me to be the main points. Ebert also notes that what a given person (versus a culture) considers art varies.

A Man Alone . . .

This statement was made in the context that video games are evolving from a primitive state to more sophisticated art. The example being, early cave paintings versus the old masters. Ebert points out that even in collaborative work, there is usually a single artist that gets the ball rolling. He believes that video game development, typically being a group effort, disqualifies it.

I'll even admit that I sympathize with his opinion, that I want to share it. I dislike "organized" art, such as schools of painting or sculpture. But I feel his opinion is irrelevant at best. If you go back to early gaming, even where the final product was developed by a team (the early Build engine games, for example) - there was still a lead developer who had a vision for what the finished product would look like. We could say the same thing with a more modern game like Brutal Legend, which was started by Tim Schaffer's vision and added to by other artists. It really isn't any different in that respect from a tribal dance or a group of cave paintings.

I really don't think his statement here is in any way important. Even if video games development didn't have a lead, even if it was wholly a collaborative effort from #include to the end statement - it doesn't really say much about the finished product.

4 teh Win!11!


Some games have "win" conditions. Halo, Civilization 4, Zork, Pong, Atari Combat - all these games have win conditions. It doesn't necessarily follow that they are not art. Just being "different" from paintings, music, dance, motion pictures, etc is not enough - you have to specifically state why having a win condition disqualifies games as art.

Ebert recognizes that some games don't have a win condition:

Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.

This is wrong on a couple of levels. Most adventure games have neither points, nor hard and fast rules - they are primarily about the story that the designers want to tell, but they are not the same thing as a novel, audio book or visual presentation of a story. There is still a subtle win condition - completing the game, but it isn't the same as Space Invaders or Left4Dead. At the same time, I don't see how you can say that a game without a win condition isn't a game.

For instance, it is impossible to win World of Warcraft or Farmville. I'm only going to speak to the former here - I really don't understand what would possess someone to play Farmville. In the case of WoW, there isn't really a win condition set by the game - the player decides what constitutes winning. Due to the changing nature of games like these, even that is not a constant.

Some players just want to get their character to the level cap; others need every character they have on a server to reach that cap. Some don't want to level at all - they reach a certain arbitrary point (say, level 19) and decide to just do player versus player combat at that point. For other players it is having the very best gear available at any given point. The last is probably the most common goal, but as those goal posts are always in motion, there is no final end game until Blizzard stops developing the game. I'll provide a clearer example from my own experience.

I started a druid on the Khadgar server several years back named Devothumb, I still play him today. In the original WoW, leveling a druid was very difficult. This was because druids were a healing class, and by necessity didn't have a lot of damage dealing abilities. So to begin with, getting my druid to level 60, the level cap at that time was my goal. WoW had a storyline back then, but it often felt fragmented, often as not, I thought about my story of Devothumb the Druid and created ideas about what sort of person he was. Later, when I reached the cap, I started raiding.

Raids in WoW are really big dungeons that require a lot of people working together to complete. Back then it was 40 players, and you could try once a week. As I said, Druids were initially healers, but moreso the reason you brought them to raid was to help another healing character class - priests. I chafed under that requirement, I wanted to do something different and eventually reached that goal - I raided in Blackwing Lair as a Moonkin (damage dealing) druid after the 1.8 patch made it barely viable. After the Burning Crusade expansion was released the rules changed again, and so did my goals. Today, I'm back to healing when I have time which isn't as often as I'd prefer. My goal is simply to be a good healer and help people finish lower end content, five man dungeons. I'm pretty happy so far.

I Don't Know What Art Is, But I Know What I Like . . .


I take issue with the idea that people naturally know what great art is. Cezanne's early works were critically panned and physically attacked by some patrons. Few would argue that he was a great artist. I think it's telling that often as not we only award someone with the mantle of "great artist" after they are safely dead.

Both Santiago and Ebert talk about what is and isn't art. I hate to be vague, but when they say this I think they are using it as a stand in for "these are things I don't like." I don't think that's a valid way to approach the issue. By that rationale, Alas, Babylon a critically acclaimed novel isn't art. I don't care for it and think it was one of the worst novels I've every read.

Santiago specifically mentions The Simple Life as an example of where television went wrong, where it did something that wasn't art. I've never seen the show, but it doesn't look like something that would interest me. Frankly, most television and movies don't light my fire - but I won't write either medium off as "not art." I suspect there might even be good arguments for the show she mentioned as an artistic work. Who is right? It's a matter of personal preference.

Yeah, but It's Not Shakespeare . . .


Apples also are not oranges. But if nobody had compared gaming to television, movies, drama or novels, let me be the first. I think the game Sanitarium is as good as anything done by Hitchcock. I think one thing that hurt Santiago's argument here is that she focused on commercially successful independent developers. I think it's okay to show work that hasn't been rewarded by the market place, great art often isn't. That was certainly the case with Sanitarium, it was the only work produced by that development house, and it was a failure commercially. I think it is okay to show off the work of large studios and "AAA" games. They can be art too, even if they are successful in the market place.

But Do We Really Have To?


The argument that I have the most sympathy with in Ebert's essay is this. I'm not sure it is a good idea to have games considered as art. I think the art world and the Games-As-Art movement can often be so stodgy that they are a parody of themselves. At the end of the day, a game should be fun. If it fails in that, than I can say hopefully without contradiction that it might not be art.

Ebert wonders why it is important to "gamers" to have their medium declared art. I think there are a couple of reasons for this; recognition for the creative work that developers do is one of them. But the games as art movement is trumpeted louder by players than developers, so I think that is culturally speaking an afterthought. I think the reason that players want this is that we've been marginalized by the mainstream culture for a long time. The stereotype of a "gamer" is an overweight, socially maladroit male who lives in their parent's home longer than is socially acceptable. As with any stereotype sometimes it is true, but more often - especially today as game become more accepted culturally, it is not.

Additionally, it is a bulwark against the worst excesses of the mainstream media. Fox News reported that the game Mass Effect featured "full frontal nudity" and was "marketed to children." This was in no way true, this sterling bit of reporting was sourced as "I heard it from a friend." The same network claimed that Modern Warfare 2 is about "being a terrorist." Other mainstream outlets have treated the media with the same scorn and disregard. The majority of stories about video games (and all stories about video games with mature subject matter) are negative; absolutely without exception.

I think that because video games are a different medium, they are consumed differently than other forms. I think art is sometimes created (or is at least driven by) the player, not the developer. House of the Dead 2 & 3 for the Nintendo Wii, at least as it is played by my friends is a good example of this. It is a rail shooter - you move through a linear story, shooting zombies for score. The localization of this game is very poor resulting in a high quantity of "Engrish," and playing it is almost like an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Whereas a novel or a movie is mostly a one-to-one experience between the author and the consumer.

Fin


I think that both parties have it wrong. I feel that Roger Ebert does not have the necessary qualifications to determine whether video games are art. He is not, so far as I know, well versed in the medium.

In some ways though, Kellee Santiago's arguments make me even more uncomfortable. I agree with her that games are already art, but I'm less sure that you can point to game one (say, Braid) and say this is good art and point to game b (Grand Theft Auto) and say it isn't. At least not until well after the fact. The idea of using a study to promote a particular viewpoint on games as art feels to reminiscent of Socialist Realism or the Surrealist school that rejected Dali because his paintings sold.

I think we have to let these sleeping dogs lie, and after we are long cold in the ground, the people who come after us get to decide which games, novels, plays and movies are good art. I think creators should be free to make what they like, and while this will sometimes produce wonderful games, it will also occasionally produce something ugly or daft. We have to move forward being okay with that.

A Midsummer Night's Team Building Exercise (NSF56k)

It's been far too long since I've had the chance to post, and I wanted to fix that. There was a class discussion about our big, final project - A Midsummer Night's Dream, and our Professor was saying that she did not believe you could do it in a modern setting. I don't think this is true, I think there are a lot of ways you could do it in a modern setting. The one I mentioned in class was having it set in an office. If I were given the opportunity to stage it, this would be my cast:

Theseus - Executive Vice President of Operations - Miranda Richardson




This is a conscious role reversal. She plays the part of Theseus, and in this case Operations has just swallowed up several other departments including Finance. I'd want Miranda Richardson because of her role as Queen Elizabeth I in Blackadder II. In fact, I'd want Theseus to be played this way - as a brutal flighty despot. You really don't get to see her doing that in this clip, but trust me - if you've seen the series you know exactly what I mean. If you haven't seen the series you need to go watch it yesterday.

The reason I'm putting a woman in Theseus' part is that women tend to have a stronger role in an office environment. In this world, guys tend to be the minority. In my last position, for instance, I was one of three guys (two non-management) on the office staff. This was typical everywhere but at the one call center I worked at. I also like the idea of turning some of Shakespeare's ideas on their heads.

Hippolyta - Former Executive Vice President of Finance, Currently Senior Assistant VP of Operations - Sir Nigel Hawthorne (Yes, I'm well aware that he's dead and mores the pity)





Obviously Hippolyta would have to have more lines. In fact, I'd rather see a little more tension between Theseus and Hippolyta than was seen in the play. If really were putting this on, I might pick Steve Martin as a replacement for Sir Hawthorne. Sure, he's best known as a comedian, but he can do good dramatic work as well - go see The Spanish Prisoner and come talk to me.

In this case, Hawthorne's department has been swallowed up by Operations, and he has been demoted. One chief difference between Shakespeare's play and my adaption is that there would not be a romantic relationship. Instead we have two long term bitter rivals, who are now forced to work together. Obviously Richardson is the victor, but she didn't get to fire Hawthorne, so it wasn't a total victory. The CEO insisted that she keep Hawthorne on and make put him in the deputy's position. The two of them are currently trying to make the best of a bad situation. In terms of behavior, they tend to behave like an old married couple (I'm thinking specifically of my paternal grandparents) - they never have a kind word for each other, but will defend the other against outside threats. As in the case of the actual characters, there is respect, but it is buried under a mountain of sarcasm.

Egeus - Manager of the Special Services Group and heading The Very Big Project - John C. McGinley




Egeus is a character that caused a lot of head scratching in my class, I think my version would be a lot easier to understand. He's the worst boss you've ever had. The sort of boss you instinctively duck in his presence, because you know at any moment he'll start throwing things at you. The sort of boss that begins a one on one "discussion" by kicking your door down. If you don't have a door, he'll have Facilities install one just so he can kick it down.

In the original play, Egeus is a jerk to his daughter, but respectful to Theseus. I'd turn that on it's head. McGinley would play a character that is a full on, fire breathing asshole - unless Hermia (more on her later) is within earshot; when that happens he becomes the most reasonable human being on Earth. In this case, she is his protege and he thinks of her as a daughter, though that feeling isn't reciprocated.

Egeus is part of the conflict in the original play, here too, but in the opposite direction. McGinley is a company man through and through, and highly protective of Hermia. He has two goals - both of which stand in opposition to her, though he doesn't know it in one case. He is trying to prevent her from being transferred to the night shift. The night shift is (as it is so often in the real world) career suicide. He wants her to move up the ladder with him, but she doesn't consider this a "career job" and just wants the extra money that the night shift provides, as well as to get away from McGinley who she finds a bit smothering and creepy. McGinley has no idea that the transfer originated with her. She is also part of the romantic plot, the Lysander character is a team leader at the company is a report to of one of McGinley's rivals (he considers almost everyone a rival) and he does everything he can to try to disuade her.

Hermia - Team Leader Customer Service Team One, Special Services - Felicia Day





She's well known from her role in The Guild and you should seriously watch that. It's a great show. But as Hermia, she'd have a very different role. Hermia in this play is kind of bitchy and self-centered, but in a passive-aggressive way that doesn't always get noticed by her colleagues. She doesn't see this company as her future career, and this causes conflict with her boss - though this conflict is indirect until late in the play (she tries to get quietly transferred to night shift, he thinks someone else is trying to move her and attempts to stop it.) She has an interoffice romance going with Lysander. My goal with this character is to give her less personality than Helena - again, the opposite of the original play.

Lysander - Team Leader Customer Service Team Two - ????

I honestly have no idea who I would cast in this role. I'm not going all "I don't judge guys," I just don't know in terms of drama who the current sex symbol is. Most of the ones I know are from older films. He'd essentially look like the young male lead in a soap opera, and like Helena be kind of a cardboard cut out sort of figure. Like Barbie and Ken come to life.

Lysander reports to one of Egeus' rivals - which is the first reason he hates him, the second is that he's involved with Hermia and Egeus doesn't think he's good enough. Oddly enough, the two are a lot alike and unlike Hermia, Lysander does see himself making a career at the company though Egeus is trying to sabotage it by attempting to have him transferred to the night shift instead of Hermia.

Demetrius & Helena - Team Leads Customer Service Three and Four

John Cusack and Christa Miller

I'm pretty sure you know who John Cusack is but I'm just going to link from here on out to preserve your precious bandwidth. They're a contrast with Hermia and Lysander, older, less focused on the future and more about getting through the day. Both would qualify as the sort of beaten down office workers that I've spent years seeing (and almost turned into myself.)

They're more "everyday people" than Hermia and Lysander.

Rude Mechanicals - Day Shift Customer Service Reps

Or maybe HR staff might make more sense. I really want to include the play within a play. It could either be done as a talent competition or, perhaps as a motivational video. I like the motivational video idea better. I'll admit I'm sourcing the tone of this adaption from Resume with Monsters by William Browning Spencer which you should immediately go read. One of the things I loved in the book were the motivational tracts included in the main characters paychecks that seemed to have the opposite effect.

In the role of Bottom? Jack Black.

I'm unsure who I'd want for the remaining cast members, obviously people who could play straight man against Jack Black.

Oberon, Titania and Puck - Night Shift Customer Service Managers and Customer Service Representative.

For Oberon and Titania, I'd like these two from The League of Gentlemen (WARNING video is probably not safe for work). One of the things I really didn't like about Midsummer is how they handled the fairy kingdom. Fairies were the original "other" - they sometimes looked a bit like us, but it was a parody of humanity. They were weird and obsessive when it came to their behaviors, and even when they looked attractive, they were "off" in a way you couldn't put your finger on. I want to go the troll route here and make the fairy king and queen ugly.

I'd point to Oberon's weirdness by parodying a supervisor I had once who was really in to meetings. Even when there really wasn't any information to convey. The night shift has no staff aside from Puck, who reports to Oberon. Despite this, the first time we see Oberon he is giving a meeting to an empty conference room. He's referring to power points, taking questions from the floor - the whole nine yards. When Puck interrupts him, he gets cross with him.

I think I'd like to make Titania an absurd teamwork fanatic - something like this.

Incidentally, Moss from the IT Crowd would be my choice for Puck.

I'm unsure how the conflict would work between Oberon and Titania off hand, obviously the lovers (err team leaders) get seconded to night shift and the comedy of errors begins when Puck gets ahold of them.

I'll admit, that this version makes a lot of changes from the original play, and you certainly could run the play as normal - I just like my take on it. What do you think?

Walking on the Moon

I only have a week to go before my critical analysis paper is due and I'm panicing a bit. I want to do a story from Sex and Violence in Zero G, but I'm not sure which one. I'm now leaning towards the first "Captain Future" story. First, let's take a look at the Near Space saga as a whole:

- Influenced by Robert A. Heinlein

The Near Space stories are a tribute to Heinlein's Future History stories. The first story in Near Space is "Walking on the Moon", a homage to Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold the Moon" an early tale in Future History. Like Future History, Near Space is told from precommercialized space travel in Walking in 2010 to "Mister Chicago" which is near the end of the timeline in 2093.

Heinlein is featured in the wall of photos at Diamond Back Jack's, with Jack Baker the proprietor of the bar at a science fiction convention when he was a kid.

- Not A Randroid Stroke Book

Heinlein's characters were often two dimensional. Harriman in "The Man Who Sold the Moon" was typical, a coiled spring of "Can Do" and all the positives of big "C" Capitalism in action. While I think an argument could be made that this was the gold standard of science fiction pulp writing at the time, you can see that Ayn Rand used this style as a model for her characters.

Steele is clearly a Heinlein fan, but takes the opposite tack. The big space companies as a group are portrayed as being obnoxious, meddlesome, clueless and occasionally sinister. Skycorp (later ConSpace), the first space company is the most directly portrayed throughout the series. Whereas Harriman himself is a focus throughout Future History, McGuiness the CEO of Skycorp never gets any screen time and is only referred to in a few stories.

Our first view of Skycorp is in "Free Beer and The William Casey Society." This story shows Skycorp (and NASA) as stodgy by enforcing a "no booze" regimen in space.

Later, in "The Return of Weird Frank" (my favorite Diamond Back Jack story, for the record) when the author describes the boredom of working in space ("People often compared the wild nightlife on Skycan to that of Deadhorse, Alaska.") and when discussing The Sex Monster. "Skycan was a small, closed environment, and the company frowned on sexual congress in space ('insurance problems' was the catch-all phrase, as was for almost everything else which was fun.)"

In "Sugar's Blues" another corporation with operations in space is portrayed as sinister. The story compares the spacers who hang out at Diamond Back Jack's with company men "They were company men. Any company; pick one, they all look alike." Attired from JC Pennys, flat top haircuts and used car dealer mustaches - that is more or less how the author describes them. Versus the workers who are in jeans, Skycorp caps and cowboy shirts.

The company, Spectrum-Mellencamp a biological firm, frames Sugar ('because everything I do comes out sweet') Saltzman and his crew for drug use after they destroy a space station module containing the company's plans for the first street legal recreational drug. After Saltzman allows the narrator (a journalist on the space beat) to publish what happened, the company gets revenge by burning down Diamond Back Jack's.

In the novel Orbital Decay, we see Skycorp collude with the National Security Agency to place a satellite in orbit that will act as a tap on every line of communication in the world. It is tested on American citizens.

- A Paen to the Working Man

Steele's Near Space stories take blue collar workers and put them in the role that test pilots and astronauts filled in Wolfe's The Right Stuff. His characters are bawdy and weird where test pilots and the early astronauts are seen as the figurehead of America.

This contrast is particularly sharp in Orbital Decay and Clarke County Space. Decay has its protagonists many of the spacers mentioned in the Diamond Back Jack stories:

- "Virgin" Bruce Neiman, a former biker on the run from the law.

- Lisa Barnhart, a shuttle pilot.

It also adds

- Popeye Hooker, a depressed former shrimper, believes he is on the run from the law.

- Jack Hamilton, a botanist who is more than he seems, and the narrator of the story.

Their antagonist is Captain H. G. Wallace, the project supervisor of Skycan, Skycorp and the National Security Agency.

Captain Wallace is a deliberate twisting of a sci-fi trope. When Hamilton first meets Wallace, he recalls seeing him in interviews. He looks like someone who just walked out of The Right Stuff. Crew cut. Rugged build. Lots of talk about man's destiny in space.

Upon meeting him, he has crazy eyes, sallow, sunken features - he seems a shadow of his former self. Note Wallace's initials H. G. W. - it is a reference to Herbert George Wells, an early science fiction author, and the first author to write a fictional account of a trip to the Moon. Wallace could easily be compared to Captain Queeg from the Caine Mutiny, or General Ripper from Doctor Strangelove. It isn't simply that all three of these characters go insane, but the way they go insane - they live in a particular reality, informed by their prejudices and enforced by their role as commander.

Wallace believes that those who settle in outer space are the next step in mankind's evolution. They must be morally and physically superior to average men. This is similar to Wolfe's The Right Stuff, in that Wolfe suggests that test pilots and astronauts are a breed apart, that they possess a special quality that most men and women do not have. His crew are mostly blue collar workers, odd ones at that, who have been driven nuts by isolation and boredom. The clear difference between what should be and what is drives Wallace around the bend.

This is apparent in a number of places in the novel, and as the story winds up Wallace begins to isolate himself from the crew. He has a Queegesque moment at the end of the novel when he claims that the crew's demands to keep the offspring of two cats brought up for research purposes is the beginning of the mutiny.

In Clarke County Space, the conflict is between the New Ark - a sort of hippie commune and Clarke County Corporation, the company which built the Clarke County Space Station. There is also a conflict between a mafia hitman (the Golem) and the Sheriff of Clarke County that intertwines with the main plot - the struggle between the farmers (New Ark) and the tourism board (3C).

This story is an homage to the Heinlein novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. In both stories we have a revolutionary struggle. In Mistress, the average Lunar citizen is a prisoner - either criminal or political. New Ark party members can be readily compared to them, Clarke County was written during the Reagan years when being referred to as a "hippy" was an insult and the political left was on the wane. In both novels, the colonists use weapons of mass destruction as a deterrent force - in Mistress the colonists actually use the weapons. In the case of Mistress, this weapons takes the form of large chunks of the regolith hurled from the lunar surface by catapult at the Earth - these catapults were formerly used to send raw materials to Earth orbit for processing. In Clarke County, the weapon is an illegal 100 megaton nuke that was secretly placed in Earth orbit. In both revolutions help is given from an unexpected quarter. In the case of Mistress it is given by the Moon's central computer which has been sentient for some time, though this is not known by society at large. In Clarke County also has a secret artificially intelligent computer who styles itself "Blind Boy Grunt" after Bob Dylan, because he wishes he was Dylan. Of the two, Blind Boy Grunt has a more developed personality and a very hackish sense of humor. Both end with the founding of the first off world nation, in Heinlein's work it is just the Moon, in Steele's it is an alliance between Clarke County, Descartes Station on the Moon and Arisia Station on Mars called the Pax Ad Astra. The actual formation of the Pax is not shown in the novels, but Steele shows us a seen from the later independence struggle in The War Memorial. The War Memorial is a stark contrast with the scenes of combat in Mistress. Death is swift, horrifying and impersonal in The War Memorial. The memorial referenced in the title is a person whose combat space suit malfunctions after a nearby artillery strike renders his suit immobile. He watches as the invading force he is a part of is slaughtered by the Pax Militia's long range guns, helpless to save his comrades or himself. He dies in his suit, which except for a piece of piping in the CPU housing of the suit (shrapnel from the artillery strike), is completely untouched by the ravages of war. When a Pax Militia patrol finds him, they leave him untouched except for a small circle of stones at his feet to remember the fallen.

Heinlein was a product of World War II, combat in Moon and all his novels is idealized as a righteous struggle. Action sequences are always a matter of good versus evil. Steele is a product of the baby boom, and Vietnam - the first televised war. In "The War Memorial," the conflict of Pax versus Earth is not shown in this way, but through the eyes of the protagonist - full of fear and the knowledge that death can strike at any moment before his suit malfunctions; afterwards is the knowledge that he will die, and very soon.

The main character of Clarke County, Jenny Schorr (later Jenny Pell) bears examination. While she is one of several protagonists, Schorr is the one who changes the most, and moves the plot forward. She cuckolds her husband with Sheriff Bigthorn whom she is in love with. Her husband Neil Schorr, is both distant and unfaithful to her - both with his female admirers and the New Ark Party itself. She pushes forward the idea of independence for Clarke County when she sees that there can be no compromise with the Clarke County Corporation and that her husband is content to fruitlessly debate with them. She declares her independence from him and 3C. While Heinlein is noted as one of the few pulp era authors who had strong female characters in the leading role, they often resembled his male characters - coiled springs of can do and resourcefulness, often unemotional or critical of emotion. They were essentially his male characters with a sex change. Schorr is convincing as a female character. While she has moments where she is confident, she is also uncertain, emotional and even self-criticizing. I am not saying these are feminine attributes, they are human attributes. Jenny Pell is more believable as a person than Heinlein's protagonists.

- The Palace Coup

This isn't directly covered in a story, but is treated as history after a certain point, we see it discussed in "Zwarte Piet's Tale." Pell's Pax Ad Astra falls to a palace coup. Pell's party attempts to rule by consensus, which is nigh impossible considering the distances involved between Clarke County, the Moon and Mars. Her former husband Neil Schorr and a number of conservative elements within the Pax form a Monarchist party, supporting a constitutional monarchy. There is a coup. Mars and the Jovian moons declare their independence from the new Pax. The constitutional part is a sham, after Queen Macedonia is crowned, the government of Pax shows an active disregard for the rights and happiness of its citizens.

This is seen in "Zwarte Piet's Tale," the Pax tells would-be defectors to Mars that the Martian government will shoot down any Pax lander in their air space.

In "Kronos," neither the crew of the Intrepid nor the Royal Rapid Response Militia sent to Titan are trusted with the particulars of their mission. The crew is felt to be untrusted because they are "superiors" (humans bred with adaptions for space travel) and many superiors sided with the Jovians when they declared independence. The Royal Militia is deemed untrustworthy because it is made up of common citizens, drafted into national service.

Later in the Captain Future saga, Pax Naval Intelligence blackmails the protagonists into a kidnap attempt on Jenny Pell. They want to bring her back to the Pax to face treason charges and to interrogate her for information regarding the Earth facility on Mercury - the only colony owned by an Earth company in the inner Solar System. This also appears to be an attempt at revenge by Neil Schorr, her former husband who is now Prime Minister of the Pax Ad Astra.

If the original Pax represented the political left, the new Pax represents the American right. While they are more efficient at accomplishing their objectives due to the authoritarian structure of the government, they are also seen to be petty, corrupt and indifferent to the needs of the citizenry. Their primary goal is the perpetuation of the monarchy and the extension of its power by any means necessary.

This part of the Near Space saga is more in agreement with Heinlein's work. Heinlein was also anti-authoritarian, though the views presented in his novels come closer to small "l" libertarianism than the traditional left. Both author's used their series to decry prejudice. This can be seen in Heinlein's work in Stranger in a Strange Land; in Steele's work it can be seen in both The Pink Triangle and in the Captain Future saga. In particular, Steele highlights that it is okay to be different, and even to be uneasy at the differences in others, but that you are ultimately responsible for your actions.

Okay, game off - I know this is talky, but I wanted to get some of this out there so I could figure out how I want to approach this. I'm still not one hundred percent sure of which Near Space tale I'd like to do, or even if I'll be allowed to do it. There really isn't anything in the literature text that excites me. Ursula K. Guinn? Yuck.

Loot Runs

I was thinking of computer role-playing games in terms of my future paper while I was playing Fallout 3 the other day. The progression curve seems backwards to me. When I talk about "progression" here, I mean it in the sense of the difficulty curve, but that affects story progression too.

Most CRPGs start the players out as level one schlubs. Rats and wild boars are a major cause of death among level one characters. As they defeat these rather modest enemies and advance the story they gain in levels; they get new equipment that adds to their stats. By end game they are a walking engine of destruction, almost invincible save for the end boss or falling asleep at the keyboard. Measuring progression by level is part of the problem.

CRPGs are the descendants of tabletop RPGs and those trace their roots back to Dungeons and Dragons. Early D&D had its own roots in tabletop wargaming. D&D used level based progression, and thus CRPGs use it today. But there are some serious mathematical issues that can come from this scheme. I recall two games of Robotech back when I used to play tabletop games regularly. One gamemaster followed the developer's advice of parcelling out experience points, which are used to determine the player's level, very sparingly. In his game it took six months to a year of regular weekly play to hit the next level. The other gamemaster handed them out like candy on Halloween. His players quickly passed the level that the designers recommended for character retirement (the player character becomes a non-player character used to introduce adventures by the GM) and on to the level cap. Characters in Robotech really weren't designed to be played at that level. A single five player party would take on whole alien armadas - by themselves. This is roughly the equivalent of five soldiers winning World War II. My Fallout 3 game on the PS3 has reached this point. There really aren't any enemies that are a threat to me anymore, and that kills a story dead.

I think there might be a better way of handling progression in computer games. Imagine if we turned this equation upside down. The player begins as a major hero - at the "level cap," they are well skilled and equipped - we can skip killing 1,000 boars for experience. The game designer uses this period of nigh invulnerability to teach the player how the game works. Over time though, the player gets progressively weaker. His stats and skills don't go down, but his equipment starts to wear out, in a modern game ammunition might become scarce. This reverse progression means that enemies don't have to scale upwards as dramatically as they have to using a more conventional progression scheme. Players have to make choices about when they want to use their equipment - they're less likely to pull out the +12 Sword of Awesome or the Man Portable Nuke Cannon against the diseased rat if they know it might not be available against a more threatening monster. I think this system allows more freedom for the writer - players out leveling content is less of a concern.

Goodbye, Research Paper. Hello Critical Analysis

My research paper is done, I have no regrets.

The class has moved on to critical analysis now. We started out looking at poetry, and how you should read it. Now, we have the option of doing a paper on either a short story or a poem.

As poetry is for the most part not my thing (my sense of rhythm is 404), I'm looking at short stories. Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House" is my current front runner, but I'm tearing through my library and the web. I've also considered doing it on the Zen story "Trading Dialogue for Lodging" which is a favorite of mine. I think the guy who wrote that should be resurrected and given a staff position on Saturday Night Live.

My Top Five - Bad Films

Sure, top five lists are cliché, consider this an homage to one of my favorite movies of all time, High Fidelity.


Number 5 - Plan 9 from Outer Space

Featuring the writing of Ed Wood, and starring Bela Lugosi (and Mr. Wood's chiropractor playing Lugosi after he died during the filming), Vampira and the massive bulk of Tor Johnson. This film was acclaimed the worst movie of all time by the book The Golden Turkey Awards. Tim Burton, made a film about the making of the movie with a star-studded cast. 

My favorite "actor" in the film is The Amazing Criswell, a talk show psychic who didn't shy away from making precise predictions. In 1968 he predicted the end of the world would occur on August 18, 1999 when all the oxygen would be sucked from the Earth by a black rainbow. Obviously this is absolutely true and all this business about 2012 is a lot of hog wash. You can also listen to May West sing about Criswell here. And you probably should. More Criswell from the intro to Plan 9:

The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club!

Number four: The Omega Man - A Remake of The Last Man on Earth

This is a remake of the vastly superior Vincent Price classic, it's pure 70s and pure pain. Essentially a zombie movie, but the zombies aren't slow or mindless - they're an active, cunning opponent. Something that can't be said of Charleton Heston, the movie's lead.

Number Three: Space Hunter, Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

Sadly, I can't find a trailer for this one. You might be able to find quite a bit more than the trailer elsewhere. Hint. Hint. I remember seeing it as a kid, it has to be one of the worst movies of all time and features a young Molly Ringwald as the plucky sidekick. In this 3-D film Peter Strauss plays Wolff the space adventurer who must rescue a trio of shipwrecked super models from the clutches of Overdog.

Overdog, played by Michael Ironside is probably one of the most perplexing and disturbing villains ever played on screen.

Number three: Strays

As tempting as it would be to list the Vin Diesel movie, this isn't it. I'm bending the rules - this one is made-for-tv, but it still counts.

I originally saw this on Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater, and it has to be one of the silliest horror movie plots ever conceived. Written by former Hardy Boy Shaun Cassidy, this movie is the standard American family buys a dream house but there's something wrong. In this case the trouble is a pack of feral house cats. I wish I was kidding. One of the most unintentionally funny movies you'll ever see.

Number two: The Beast

Another made for TV classics, hawked endlessly by the Sci-Fi channel along with its desperately unnecessary sequel. A giant squid terrorizes a small fishing community in the Pacific Northwest. I'm sick of the squid.

And the number one bad film is . . . the envelope please . . . .

Zardoz

This movie was the impetus for this post. A friend of mine mentioned that she has seen this, and quoted the famous line:

Which isn't the sort of thing you normally hear when you're doing your shopping. But I was wrong, I could've sworn that Burt Reynolds was the lead in this movie. It seems like the sort of movie Burt Reynolds should star in. I guess I'd prefer to remember Sean Connery as 007.

Down to business, in this film Sean Connery plays an "exterminator" in the post apocalyptic future. Sworn to the god Zardoz (that'd be the giant floating head that carries on about wangs), a man who kills the underclass known as "brutals." In a way it is Teenage Cave Man meets the 1970s. In time, he discovers the shocking (read: not-all-that-shocking) truth about his civilization and his god.

Catching Up

Or at least catching my breath. I want to review my progress thus far, and talk about some things that have been on my mind lately.

This has been a pretty hectic term, that was kind of my intention going into it. I've had a pretty laid back schedule for the past two or three years in terms of work and school, I wanted to see if I could handle it. I've done pretty well, but I think I'm ready for a break next term. I'm going to take a class on javascript, and I really want to focus my attention on it.

I've learned the value of back ups the hard way this term. Overall, I responded well to my iMac (the machine I do most of my school work on) dying, I'm thankful I have this Macbook available as well. Most of the things I've been working on are located in Google Docs or in SPC's Angel system, so I didn't really lose anything. I wish I hadn't freaked out so much about it though - I lost a lot of time to that, and well, it really wasn't very productive. The video card was still just as fried, ya know? On the upside, I'll be getting it back in the next couple of days.

In terms of this class, I feel bad. Because I spent so much of the first part of the term being so slammed, I don't think I produced good work. What I turned in was often rushed, and in the case of my outline, incomplete. Whether I like outlining or not (and I don't) isn't the issue. I've got a couple of student's that I'm helping, and I don't think they got my best efforts either, though I'm sure they'll do fine in any case. It's mostly a matter of confidence.

This blog has been really enjoyable, I had intended to start blogging this year one way or another, and getting a measure of extra credit is just icing on the cake. I think I need to take more time in proofing and editing the articles I post here. I need to watch my temper, I'm far too easily outraged and am likely to go launch a rant when I'm in that state. Being passionate about something is okay, but I suspect people have a limited tolerance for ranting.

I'm looking forward to going back to school on Monday. See you there.

Seven Hundred and Fifty Words

I've been wanting to talk about this for a while, but events have overtaken me.  750words.com is a great tool for Composition students or anyone interested in writing. The premise is based on a technique popularized by The Artists' Way by Julia Cameron. While I'm not thrilled with the flash on her homepage (can flash rendered pages just die already? they are not big, nor are they clever), the exercise is sound enough. Write 750 words, about three pages every morning. The original appears to call for long hand writing, I'll take the web version, thanks. Writing long hand for any extended period is a very painful exercise for me (as I've recently had to rediscover), and frankly I end up focusing more on trying to make my print legible than anything else.  The website tracks your writing, and scores you based on how much you write (up to 750 words - it does provide an average total number of words as well), and whether you allow yourself to be distracted. The idea is to simply free write in one continuous session. You can sign into the service via your Google account (my preference), Facebook connect, or through a Yahoo account.

It also provides a wide variety of stats. How fast you completed your words versus the site average, how many distractions, how fast you typed. It also analyzes your word choices in a variety of ways. You can sign up for a "challenge" each month, and you can assign a reward for completing the challenge as well as a penalty for failure. I like the idea of the challenge, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with rewards or penalties. I feel I'm more apt to learn when I'm just allowed to play with no consequences. Luckily, the challenge section is totally optional. I think the creator of this web app's personal page is just as interesting as the application itself, check it out.

The writing environment itself is very sparse and minimalist. It is very much as it should be. You do get options on a separate page for setting font and point size, but the default was just fine for me. I'm playing around with going to arial 12 for tomorrow and I'll see how that works out. So far, I'm having a really good time with the site and I expect it's going to help my productivity as a writer.

The toughest part of any writing project is getting started. The temptation is always to check one more source, to do another outline (if you're into that sort of thing, it's not my cup of meat really . . .), or otherwise procrastinate in delivering the paper. I think continual, deliberate practice takes the intimidation factor out of writing. I always imagine it as that moment when you're standing at the edge of a diving board, but have not yet started your jump. That moment is intimidating, it is an obstacle - it is all too easy at that moment to turn around and walk down the ladder. Maybe do a few laps, or have a soda. But if you practice overcoming that moment without fail everyday, it will cease to be a problem. I'm particularly fond of this way of doing free writing as it feels like a game, and that in itself is sufficient motivation to keep me going. I'm placed at 715th and climbing!

Really Simple Syndication, Google Reader and Students

Despite the fact that I'm roughing it tonight, I'm just going to soldier on. We need to talk about Really Simple Syndication or RSS. As a student, this is something you need to know about. RSS allows you to know when a website, like this blog has been updated with new content. It's used all over the web from Boing Boing to ZDnet. In order to take advantage of RSS you need to subscribe, either through your browser's RSS feature or through an RSS reader. To do this in a browser you click on the feed symbol.

This is what the RSS symbol looks like in Safari on Mac OS X 10.6.2.

This is the standard broadcast symbol for RSS.

Often, syndicated content will have a link in each post asking you to subscribe as well.

This is what Lifehacker's subscription page looks like when you subscribe in Safari.

This is the RSS screen in Opera 10.

I don't use a browser to read RSS though, I prefer a reader. There are a variety of local readers available for just about any operating system, but my preference is Google Reader.

This is Google Reader. I like it because it can go anywhere you do. It works on your desktop, notebook and many internet connected mobile phones. This can be a real advantage when say, your desktop dies, as mine just did. I didn't lose any of my RSS feeds and everything stays up to date. It's also integrated with Google's new social networking product Buzz - as you can see in this picture. This allows people I follow to share their favorite articles with me, and vice versa. In Reader, you just copy the address you want to view in reader, press the add a subscription button, and paste. Then you can organize it with folders like I have, and it's immediately available for reading.

You can also have persistant Google searches show up in Reader, this is a real benefit for students - you can put in a term that you're writing a research paper on, see the initial search hits and see if new ones turn up each day. It's like having a research assistant right in your browser. It also allows you to see stats, hence why I know that I have three subscribers on this blog, though it doesn't say specifically who they are (I know two of the three subscribers I have personally.) You can see how often each blog you're subscribed to updates, how much of each blog you've read and a variety of other information. If you're into that kind of thing, and I most certainly am.

In addition to using a search engine like Google, Google blogs, or Technorati to find blogs you're interested in, Reader will also suggest blogs based on what you're currently subscribed to. Again, if you're doing research this can be invaluable. Best of all, it's free. I've experimented with a few local (as in on your computer's harddrive) readers, but none has impressed me as much as Google's.

If there is an RSS reader you're using, I'd love to hear about it or maybe you have a question, please let me know in the comments.

Burning the Midnight Oil

It's very late, and I'm outrageously tired. I just finished up the final draft of my annotated bibliography for Composition II and have been busy propagating it for the past couple of hours. I've made a number of changes, the most import of which is a change in my term for forwarded emails/statuses/tweets, and a somewhat more focused title.

I also changed how I created the document. In my last attempt, I wrote my annotated bibliography in Google Docs and downloaded it to my local word processor, NeoOffice. This time I created it natively in Open Office format, saved a PDF copy and uploaded to Google Docs. This preserved the formatting which was my goal to begin with, but there are no options for editing or publishing here directly. I don't view either of those as a serious issue, though losing the ability to share editing is a bit disappointing.

Trying to upload in .ODT still mangled my citations, so I deleted that one, I'll play around with it a bit more after I've had a bit of shuteye. In the meantime, you can find my final draft here. If you have a moment, I'd appreciate any critiques or comments you could provide.

As always, you can find information on my sources, and the link I provided above through my delicious.com account here.

Thanks for staying up with me, I'll see you next post!

Geek Issues: Star Wars, Trilogy vs. Trilogy

In my last post about Star Wars, we talked about what was great in the original trilogy. Now let's look at what I find disappointing about the new trilogy. The answer isn't as simple as "Jar Jar," no matter what arguments I might have put forth in the past. It really comes down to characterization.

I want you to think of the words "The Empire," not even the full and proper name for the bad guys of the original trilogy. It's sharp and evocative. When you think of those words you can see the Death Star, hear the Imperial March, and the clattering armor of a platoon of Stormtroopers. Darth Vader strolling through a fire fight, and his asthmatic breathing, looming over everyone else in his stark, black armor. The whine of a tie fighter as it flies off camera. An Imperial Star Destroyer dwarfing Princess Leia's transport after immobilizing it with a tractor beam. The Empire is monolithic, ubiquitous and a sharp contrast to the Rebel Alliance.

The waters in the prequel trilogy are considerably muddier. We have the Trade Federation, and seriously, who are they? They sound like a rotary group. Not exactly the stuff of nightmare. There's the Sith, who at least after we've seen Darth Maul seem a little more threatening, but you get very little back story. Sidious (Palpatine), Maul, Tyranus (Dooku) are the only Sith who are clearly identified, and none of them are very intimidating save Maul who doesn't last very long.

When we compare these villains to Darth Vader, they come up decidedly short. Vader was the stuff of our worst fears long before Lucas created him. Large and physically menacing, Vader was played by a Swedish wrestler. Sweden seems to have a history in producing science fiction and horror villains, Tor Johnson who was also a Swedish wrestler, was a staple villain in many older films. Vader was clad in black body armor, which provided both a mythic hook to hang the villain on from the countless legends of men in black and dehumanized him, as the armor obscured his features. His asthmatic breathing reminded us that he was a living being, not a mere machine. His evil is clear and unambiguous. He commits both murder and genocide by the time the credits roll in A New Hope. Despite the fact that his origins are purposefully obscured, Vader moves into his role as the principle villain of the original trilogy with little effort.

I understand that the evil presented by the future Emperor Palpatine is purposefully different. He's from the "evil mage" school of villainy. But I feel both trilogies and especially the prequel trilogy fail to present this well compared to more conventional fantasy. His evil in the prequel trilogy is subtle, but as in comic books, subtlety is not a device that works well in fantasy. In fantasy there is typically a very stark contrast between absolute good and evil. In this genre, evil even when it is not strong in the physical sense, must have the appearance of overwhelming strength of some kind - typically it should appear a great deal stronger than the heroes. Palpatine as a character fails in this, both in the final movie of the original trilogy (in which he is killed by Vader, Luke resists temptation and Anakin is redeemed), and in the prequel trilogy. We never see him as powerful, in fact, we usually see him as weak. This is communicated in both trilogies through his frail frame. Granted, he does best two Jedi and feigns weakness as part of his plan to bring Anakin Skywalker to the dark side, but overall he seems to be a one trick pony. Force lightning, Force lightning and failing that, yet more Force lightning.

We could compare heroes and see many of the same weaknesses. In fantasy however, villains tend to be more emblematic than the heroes. For instance, in Lord of the Rings, Sauron or even the One Ring itself is more representative of the story than any of the heroes. But I believe that the heroes in the original trilogy are stronger than the prequel in any case.

I believe almost anything Lucas had followed the original trilogy with would have disappointed. Similar to Joseph Heller spending his whole writing career living in the shadow of his most famous work, Lucas was too successful with the original trilogy and there was too much time between it and the prequel trilogy. By the time The Phantom Menace was released, the original trilogy was part of my generation's childhood, and changing anything in regards to those memories is to wander into dangerous territory.

No Problem.

So my schedule this term is an experiment on how tightly I can pack my school/life schedule and remain sane. How's it going?

I'm almost tested out. Last one for tonight. Three more scripts and tests before 23:59 Wednesday. Phew. Then I just have to have a final draft for my annotated bibliography done on Tuesday, study for my LAN final the same day, hand write (Seriously?!?) two pages of notes for my government test on Wednesday and leap a few tall buildings before spring break starts. 

No problem.

The Dizzying Heights of Celebrity?

I want to apologize, my posting has been a little irregular recently. I'm currently trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis of my two express classes which are ending. I wanted to celebrate a gala moment for this blog though. As of last night, my subscription numbers have tripled! That's right! I have three subscribers. Of course, that really isn't important on a student blog - this is the place I practice writing for my Composition Two (Electric Boogaloo?) class. But subscriber number three, you are welcome here!

I have to admit that it went to my head a bit when I found out. First, I enjoyed an exotic alcoholic beverage . . . from Milwaukee. Then I attended a movie premier . . . at my neighbors house. I made him roll out the red carpet and shoot pictures of me entering his living room with his digital camera. We watched the camcorder footage from his vacation last year. There was pop-corn. It was fun. When it was time to go home, I was driven by a chauffer . . . my neighbor's son, in the cargo area of his little red wagon. I tipped him a fiver and returned to my customary seat in front of the iMac.

I may have gotten a little out of control, but I promise to use my newfound power wisely. You won't see me dancing without pants in a Hollywood discotheque. I promise not to run around with strange women. That's going to be an easy promise to keep, because women strange or otherwise seem to have enough sense to avoid running around with me. I won't cheat on my taxes, lie to Congress, or ship arms to the developing world. I won't publicly discuss my blog's subscription numbers or talk about Fight Club.

Oops. Cut me some slack, I'm new at this.

Sometime after Wednesday, I hope to finish up my series on Star Wars, talk a little about RSS readers, and maybe we'll have some cake. See you then, Buckaroos.

Chris Demmons, New Media Mongrel? Maybe I ought to be a "New Media Mongol?" That sounds exciting.

Let me know what you think.

Research Survey

I have to be careful how I discuss this, because I don't want to influence the results of the survey I take, but I need to set my thoughts in order regarding my survey. I'm going to be doing a survey to examine viral messaging habits on various platforms and to produce a picture of the average user who sends these messages. Obviously, I can't discuss the actual structure of the survey here.

Which is frustrating, because that is one of the areas I am having a lot of difficulty with. I'm also not sure how I want to distribute my survey. I have considered using Survey Monkey, but I'm not sure I will be able to convince my subjects to go use it. Which is a pity, I've heard it's great software for just this sort of thing. I've also considered using Facebook to distribute, but frankly it doesn't seem that people spend much time communicating on Facebook. It seems like it is mostly dedicated to broadcasting messages of your own, or more commonly playing poorly designed, scammy games. I don't have enough reach on Twitter or Buzz, so that's out as well. I suspect I'll be distributing via sneakernet.

I'm really slammed at the moment with the two express classes that are wrapping up next week, but I'd really like to have a good draft of my survey done by the end of the weekend. I then hope to beg, wheedle and plead for help from a few classmates in my American National Government class who are taking statistics. This sort of thing really falls far outside my purview, though I don't regret stating that I would do this when I sold my topic. Working outside of your comfort zone is something I think you really ought to be doing as a college student.

Geek Issues: Star Wars, The Holy Trinity

I want to talk about the fundamental issues for geeks, at least for geeks who include# science fiction and fantasy. Most of us have some intense feelings about Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Star Trek. In my neck of the woods, discussions about Star Wars have a tendency to turn ugly. I saw this article on CNET recently about a documentary about Lucas work on the Star Wars series, The People vs. George Lucas. You can see the film's website here and the first teaser trailer here on Youtube.

I saw Star Wars the year it was released with my parents. I was two or three years old. It changed my life forever. It was one of the last things I remember that we did as a family. My parents separated the next year and eventually divorced. This film was a part of my story well before I was rolling d20s or reading Asimov. I saw it many times that year, and it was my constant companion throughout my childhood.

I saw The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as they were released in the theater. Like Star Wars IV A New Hope, I saw these films over and over. They just never got old. I had the actions figures, the X-Wing, a Tie Fighter, the Milenium Falcon and the Death Star play set. I even had the action figure case shaped like Darth Vader's head, which was probably a bad idea. Darth Vader gave me nightmares. Later I ran campaigns in the Star Wars role playing game that West End Games published. I still have the oversized Star Wars comic book that I got not long after seeing the movie.

I don't think George Lucas "raped" my childhood. Far from it. I owe Mr. Lucas a great debt and thank him for the things he created that changed my life. In my next post I want to compare the original trilogy and the prequels. I hope you'll join me.

Social Bookmarks and You

One of the things I'm looking at this term is how to make life easier for students. I've known about social bookmarking services like delicious.com, digg and stumbleupon for a while now but I'd never really taken the time to investigate them. Probably because I didn't have a need. I usually have at the very least my Macbook available to me when I'm on the road, but a few times this term I've been stuck without it and had all my very important (ha!) research on my browser here at home.

I started out using XMarks, which has elements on the client (your browser) and their server. I like the fact that they aren't married to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or Apple. Unfortunately, I'm not fond of their UI, it feels cumbersome and difficult to use. When you're using their extension, it is a direct one-to-one sync - meaning that if you delete a bookmark on their server, it will also be deleted in your browser. It is still a beta product, that is still in testing, so perhaps it will improve in the future.

Currently, I'm using delicious.com as my go to social bookmarking site. It's uncomplicated and easy to set up hierarchies of files. It also seems to have a large user base, which is handy in a social service. It's currently my go to and you can see my links here. I have a lot of things for my Comp 2 class, and I'm hoping to put up some of the links we've been using in the perl scripting class as well.

I'll continue to update the blog as I look into other services, and as always I'm open to suggestions in comments.

Follow Up: Google Docs and MLA

A while back I made a post about word processors for students, and I wanted to follow up on that. I also talked about MLA on the web here. We recently did the rough draft of our annotated bibliography for class. I wanted to approach the assignment as a non-technical person might and you can see the results here and here on this blog.

I wrote the piece in Docs, and then downloaded it for use in NeoOffice, the Open Office.org branch that I'm currently using on my Mac. One of the problems I had is that Docs displays output as a continuous stream of paper, and does not show pages unless you use the new print preview feature. While that worked well for a while, it was distracting and when I went beyond five pages the preview broke. I had to guess at the remainder of the formatting.

The downloaded *.ODT file was also messy on formatting, I had to do extensive corrections both in the introduction and in my bibliography. I think I spent almost as long on that as I did for the writing itself. Probably not suitable for beginners.

I also want to talk about publishing. I was able to publish it as a web page through Google Docs, and through the same set of sharing controls, post it here on Blogger. I'm not very satisfied with the results, but I'm not done trying. At the end of this course, I will post my full research paper as I would do it, using all the formatting tools that I know how to use.

With those caveats, I still am a big fan of Google Docs. I like having my documents and spreadsheets available on my desktop, laptop, and school computer in almost every format under the sun. I'm hoping to have more success doing it in reverse order for the final draft. I am going to try two tacks - first created a formatted file on my local word processor and upload it. Second, try doing it with portable document format file (PDF).

I'll keep you updated.

Public/Private Permissions: Is Privacy Dead?

Welcome to another day, ladies and gentlemen.

I really want to follow up on my experiment with Google Docs, this blog and a few of the other experiments I'm working on with technology and education. Also, I have some new theories on my research topic to run by you. But, I was puttering around last night and ended up watching Penn Says on Youtube. I'm a pretty big fan of his as a magician, I used to play around with stage magic back in the day, but I wasn't very good at it. I also think he's an interesting person. We agree on a lot of fundamental issues, we disagree strongly on a lot of others.

Penn Jillette is a pretty famous person. A celebrity, in fact. He does stage shows in Las Vegas, has a series on Showtime. I recall that he's had a few network TV specials as well. With his partner Teller, they've put out two or three books as well. The Penn Says series is basically his video diary. He puts it out on Sony's video platform, and it eventually trickles down to YouTube. He talks about whatever happens to be on his mind that day, and often addresses comments from the audience. Pretty cool.

In a previous show, he talked about sending his kids to a fancy private school in Las Vegas versus his lower middle class background. The episode is called "Have I Revealed Too Much," and there's a lot of harsh language in it - so if you're at work, or offended by that kind of language, I'd recommend not clicking the embedded video below.



For those who didn't watch: Mr. Jillette, after making that video I described above went to the parent's orientation night at that private school, and it turned out the principal was a fan. He watched Penn on his Showtime series, and on Penn Says. He said he hoped that they could make Penn feel good about sending his children to this private school. Penn felt uneasy about the principal watching him in a program he puts out for the public.

Now I want to contrast this with Penelope Trunk. I don't know that I would call myself a fan of her work, but I think it is interesting. She seems to write about her life, especially her personal life in a very open fashion out here. She's been called on it by commenters on her blog, people on twitter, and people in her personal life.

One interesting difference between them - Mr. Jillette is only a bit younger than my parents. He would have been entering high school the year after they graduated. Ms. Trunk is a bit older than me, there are about seven years between us. According to this article, and several like it people younger than me are very willing to share personal information online. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, was recently raked over the coals for saying "Privacy is Dead" or "Privacy is no longer a social norm" depending upon which site you're reading. The only issue here, is that he didn't say that. He essentially said that social norms regarding privacy are changing, and that people are willing to share more of their lives online. This is not immoderate statement and I would challenge even my most critical reader to deny it.

If the social norms are changing, and I believe they are, what does that mean for us? I can see a few advantages to a more radical version of this change through the lens of my upcoming paper as being a relative "good thing." I can also see why it would scare people, and even I find it a bit unsettling at times.

Welcome to the future, ladies and gentlemen, cake will be provided shortly.

Happy Valentines Day - Or Err Something?

So we're nearly at the big day, Valentines day or the international geek day of mourning. Of course, I'm not doing anything special. Writing perl. Working on this blog. Working on my social book marks for my side project and if I'm very lucky, seeing what Syria has in store for the main character of Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars. But I don't want to be stingy, or seem bitter - I want to give you a Valentine's day gift. Click the link below.

Violet. 

You're welcome. Violet is a text adventure, or interactive fiction game. This is one of the genres that I grew up playing, and I've never lost my taste for them. Sadly, you will never see them on the shelf at your local EBstop, but on the upside you can find them on the internet for free. An IF game is similar to a book in that it is text-based (any IF game which contains graphics is a heresy and must be purged), and all the action takes place between your ears. Unlike a book, you have to earn the content. Typically IF games are arranged around puzzles or riddles, and this works at two levels. The first level is what do I need to do to solve the current problem, the second is how do phrase that in a manner which the game will understand. Luckily, I'm a nice guy - Violet is a very forgiving game. It reminds you of which problem you're currently working on at the top of the screen and if you type "hint" it will give you a series of clues on how to solve the problem.

The original Infocom games were like novels, and I'm talking high throw weight novels like War and Peace or Ulysses. On your first play through you could easily burn hundreds of hours, if not more. Violet is short, and quite sweet. You could probably play through it in a lunch hour without using the hints.


Violet is also kind of rare (besides being quite a striking young woman, I'll admit that on my first play through I was a little smitten) as it is a romance. So far as I know Plundered Hearts (a pirate romance) by Infocom is the only example of IF in that genre that was released commercially. Before you start getting visions of Fabio or the women that typically grace the covers of romance novels, I'll remind you that this is geek romance - we do things differently here. "I don't think you have the upper body strength to pull that off, budgie" is a parser response in this game.


Which is odd as romance is the single largest fiction genre in American literature. The sales team for the average big five publishing house's romance division is usually larger than all the other divisions combined. I've never believed the common wisdom that female geeks and more specifically female video game fans, are rare. I've met more than a few, some of my fondest memories are of going down to the Treasure Island arcade with my elementary school crush and her father. She demolished me at Pac Man, but I ran Xevious. People make a big deal about women who game, but again, they out number us - the entire "casual" (a term that has gained traction in the gaming world which I detest) genre of games is geared toward women. They are the number one demographic who plays them. My favorite tank, and my favorite DPS (damage per second - a player class who focuses on dealing damage) in World of Warcraft, both were the same woman.


I think the problem is one of perception. I think some people, particularly male gamers, (another obnoxious word, gamer) choose not see how many how many women share their hobby with them. Maybe many women don't feel comfortable discussing their hobby with their friends and family? I think that's what happened with that girl in elementary school, she seemed to love the arcade as much as I did, but I suspect she worried about whether her friends would think it was "cool."


I think geeks are coming up in the world by necessity though. It's been a long slog from the days when brute strength was attraction++, to now when as a survival and income generating attribute intelligence is more heavily weighted. If you want examples, just look at the movies. From back in my day we have John Cusack's roles in Savage Steve Holland's films. A case could be made that he didn't play a geek in Better Off Dead, as he participated in a sport (downhill skiing), but I still say the way the characters acts screams "geek." Matthew Broderick played geeks in both Wargames and Project X. More recently, in Zombieland the romantic lead is a geek. So perhaps there's hope for us yet, but in my specific case, I'll refrain from holding my breath.



I think I've gone on long enough, and my Nintendo DS is calling - so as I've been taking a trip down memory lane, let's go out with a song:









I'll be back on Monday, and we'll have lots to talk about - my experiments with Google Doc for MLA formatted papers, some thoughts on my upcoming research paper, and more. In the meantime feel free to gloat, commiserate or point and laugh in the comments.