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| Friday, July 17th, 2009 |
tikiwanderer
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8:11a |
Here's one of those unpublished stories if you want to read it
Doing the first lines meme reminded me that I had this story to do something with. I finished it over two years ago, but never submitted it anywhere. Firstly, I wasn't sure it was good enough - it's sort of a curious style and I'm not sure it hefts enough mass somehow, though maybe that's me being culturally sexist and not sufficiently valuing a feminine manner of story construction. Not sure. The other big reason for never submitting it was that shortly after I wrote it, a very well marketed and prominent piece of pop culture media was released that had a sufficiently similar premise to the twist in this story to make the story suddenly entirely predictable to a reader instead of potentially surprising and interesting. It's now been long enough that it might possibly be less predictable enough to be worth reading. Maybe. I'm putting it up online anyway, for those of you who feel like reading something short and fluffy instead of working today :-) Enjoy (or not -grin-)! |
| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 |
tikiwanderer
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6:19p |
First lines meme
As on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) angriest and dalekboy: first lines of published works and works in progress (note that "works" is fiction, not including my science writing): (published) BirderWhen I first saw the yellow flash out of the corner of my eye, I thought it was a bird. (finished but not published, or not submitted anywhere)The InterviewThe sign wedged into the door said "Kronos Trucking – We Run On Time". SamoyekhreThe street was the usual mix of lights and grime, people coming off duty and going on duty, staggering home to bed or heading out for a party of a night. You Can Take ItThey were wrong. Red Jacket ManThe two boys crawled up the bank, pushing through the prickly bush. The Song of the Dark and ColdDarkness. (in progress far enough to have a first line)The mysterious art of Genka-fuiWhen my new neighbour moved in, I said hello over the fence. (Huh. Seems that the key stories I have in my head, like the Scrambles kids or Kingston SE, are still only in scrap form, without a real beginning yet. Not surprising, though - I tend to write short stories in very intense bursts that leave me with something very close to a complete first draft in one hit.) |
leecetheartist
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11:33a |
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dalekboy
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11:06a |
First Line Meme
There's a meme going around for first lines from published stories and for first lines from works in progress, so here goes... ( Read more... ) |
| Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 |
drhoz
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2:53p |
Cheese Amok!
Been having a lot of fun with Spore : Galactic Adventures. For one thing I can really go to town on alien cities, with hundreds of buildings, flying machines zooming around in every direction, strange vehicles thundering along roads, and busy crowds all chatting or shouting or running in screaming panic. Admittedly the crowds do tend to thin out a bit when the citizens stroll out into oncoming traffic. I can build hideously complicated mazes as well - such as the one I'm using as the corridors of the Mukpukukmukpluk Cheese Foundry, where they have a rogue Edam on the loose ( and the room full of giant cheese mites is genuinely disturbing); or the aerial platforms of an experimental spice mine on a gas giant, where only half the teleport pads are working, and you have to jump between the rest in the middle of a howling hurricane. Writing the dialogue and cut scenes is fun, too - the dialogue for Wynan, Cheese Knight in Cheese Beast! is especially silly. :D Future adventures planned - The Goodies episode Kitten Kong, a sequel to Skyfall! and Cheese Beast! and a zombie bash complete with allies succumbing to infectious bites. So far my creations have been well-recieved. Should be fun :D |
finback
|
1:01p |
Hm. A little perturbed by something from the Magic: The Gathering website. So, the new basic set is out, there've been new cards added in place of simply rotating in cards from other sets. That in itself is fine. But some cards seem to simply be slight modifications. Grizzly Bears is out.. but now we have Runeclaw Bear, which is the exact same thing with a new name. It's more a flavour change. OK. Orcish Artillery is out, but now we have a duplicate named Goblin Artillery, which is exactly the same - only it's more tribal. OK, I can see that (although I do think they're killing off potential tribes which they may one day wish to revisit. If they do a new set, they'll simply say "we'll make it a goblin, rather than an orc" - a case of simply repeating what's been done before, when Magic is a game about innovation. But there's a card, Savannah Lions. A rare 2/1 creature for W. But the new version is a 2/1 Soldier (named Elite Vanguard), costing W, with the rarity changed to uncommon. And this is why: There was concern that this would frustratingly devalue people's Savannah Lions (which had been rare in previous printings),. This bugs me. Since when has Wizards worried about the *secondary market*? When Chronicles came out, people complained that reprinting stuff like the Elder Dragon Legends would devalue the originals.* Serra Angel has dropped from being an uncommon, to a rare, to not being in the set, to being back as an uncommon. It never mattered before to WotC what people were paying outside the game though. So why now? A card's "value" on the secondary market has no bearing on the actual price of the card - it's worth the paper it's printed on. It's the *players* who attribute real-world dollar values and significance to the cards. Generally, rares are better cards by way of having super-duper effects, etc. That's fine. But cards only increase in value when there's demand in the secondary market - player X wins a tournament using Fairy-Dragon Juggernaut. People start emulating that deck, and want more Fairy-Dragon Juggernaut cards. So they haggle, and soon the card raises in price. One year later, maybe it's old hat, and noone cares, and the card comes down in value. But WotC makes nothing off the secondary market. So why are they so worried about someone's collection of Savannah Lions losing value on the secondary market? |
| Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 |
dinosaurs
[ tyranny658 ]
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6:00p |
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leecetheartist
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3:52p |
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leecetheartist
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12:54p |
Message to my Kingdom Loathing Clannies
Today is Dependence Day. For our newer members, and our veterans, a reminder. There are Snakes, M-242s and Sparklers in Clan Storage. Don't bother to buy them at the Market we have more than we can use, due to me buying up like a maniac in my first year, believing that I could use them any time. You can only use one of these fireworks, once. Choose wisely. Or go for a random pick. It'll increase one of your three stats by %100 for 50 turns. Happy KoLing! Current Mood: helpful |
leecetheartist
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10:50a |
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| Monday, July 13th, 2009 |
amarafox
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10:44p |
Oyama Alpaca Farm
I went to an Alpaca farm this weekend and took lots of photos. Check 'em out! :D |
drhoz
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6:03p |
Cool!
Now there's a surprise. I found a scorpion in my art folder as I was tidying up my study. Cool! |
purrdence
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5:06p |
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finback
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12:10p |
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tikiwanderer
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12:03p |
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finback
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10:03a |
Heh. I have gained some respect for Slash for these comments:
“I once asked Axl why he left the ‘E’ off his name. He started crying and said he thought he’d spelled it right.” – Slash
“An anagram of Axl Rose is oral sex. Why do I know? Because when I’m not playing music I love solving erotic jumbles.” – Slash |
| Sunday, July 12th, 2009 |
drhoz
|
8:04p |
Hottest 100
Some of the songs and attendant video clips from the just-finished Hottest 100 Of All Time, on Triple J. Audio streaming there. myrystyr - you'll be pleased to know Pink Floyd got in there a couple of time :D Johnny Cash's cover of Trent Reznor's 'Hurt'John Lennon - Imagine (apparently Yoko Ono has already given Triple J permission to use a rare studio recording of it on the compilation album they're releasing in a few weeks!) Hunters & Collectors - Throw Your Arms Around Me Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower ( and as used in the Watchmen film here) Daft Punk - Around The World (which reminds me - I really must hunt down a copy of the film Interstellar 5555 ) and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Into My Arms |
tcpip
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9:51p |
Management studies, Environmental United Fronts?
I have now read through about half of my textbooks for Financial Management and Management Perspectives and I have to conclude with something that I always suspected; management (at least the theory side) is easy or, more to the point, as a academic discipline it is rather lightweight (to this day, Peter Drucker is the only figure I can think of being worthy of note). Of course, I do come to this with decades of prior experience in the social sciences including a fair serve of economics, so perhaps it's just relatively easy given that background. Within the mindset however, I've also been reading Stephan Covey's popular self-help book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I am usually extremely cynical of the entire genre of such texts, but to give Cobey his due, he did a great deal of research on the characteristics of 'great leaders' and came to the conclusion is that it was their constant orientation towards universal moral principles that was their defining quality. A critic of "personality ethics" over "principle ethics", Covey quotes from the Marxist psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, radicals like Thomas Paine and Henry David Thoreau and existentialists like Victor Frankl. Attended a Labor Party branch meeting on Wednesday; speaker was from the Alternative Technology Association explaining the Federal governments subsidy and loans schemes for those who wish to put in solar hot water, insulation, energy efficient globes etc into their home (whether owned or rented). I consider such plans to good examples of interventionist, socialist economics; directed towards reducing the negative externalities and where the long-term savings far exceed the short-term costs. It strikes me that this has come through a reformist programme, despite the extra-parliamentary advocacy of environmentalist causes; and it makes me wonder how many of the far left have ever taken seriously Trotsky's theory of the united front - and what can be done about this. Of course, the key problem it is a united front of worker's organisations against the bourgeoisie; neglecting, yet again, the important possibility of the proletariat and bourgeoisie united against the landlord monarchs. |
drhoz
|
11:53a |
Bastardry
Discussing my efforts at dialogue and cut scenes in Spore : Galactic AdventuresPukusian General inspiring his soldiers before they go into some vicious door to door fighting : Try not to kill too many civilians. Remember, lads, we're not at home to Captain Collateral Which got us onto one of Ian's old characters - Captain Collateral, whose power was a ranged hole-in-the-middle energy blast, with cascading sixes. Thus, he could target somebody or something, and leave them unharmed, but fry everything in a ring around that. He once managed to get an 80 out of 6 dice. Unfortunately that vaporised the bad guys, the rest of his own team, and half of the Sydney CBD. Captain Collateral - a danger to himself and others... but mostly others After the Captain fled the country (after warning the world that if anybody came after him he'd destroy the rest of the city) Ian came up with another character with a knack for convincing bluff Incredibly Tough Man : *bursts into room* Never fear, Incredibly Tough Man is here!
Bad Guys : Er, how tough are you?
Incredibly Tough Man : You know Sydney? I was there
Bad Guys : Ok, we're going to shoot this other guy then. No point wasting missiles. In fact, his only super powers were super-human intelligence and incredible amounts of overacting. He built himself some powered armour later Incredibly Tough Man : *bursts into room* Never fear, Incredibly Tough Man is here! Now, in ARMOUR! But onto last night's game - Paddy McGinty - Mad Protestant Bomber Sydney Delthorn - Mad Unitarian Student Lucy Smith - Half Mad, Half Pickled Alexei Petrovich - Russia's Mad Monk Parapsychologist Me : "That reminds me - I have to do some research on vampires before Saturday's game"
My wife : "What kind of vampires?"
Me : "All kinds - hungry ghosts, vampire tools, hair-eating Burmese vampires, blood-sucking squash..."
My wife : "If any of them sparkle, they're getting staked on the spot"
Me : "No, no sparkles - well, there may be fireworks, but no sparkles." Finally got to run the homebrewed Cthulhu adventure I've been planning for months - the one that ties together all the clues about Boston crime bosses, stolen gold, the Miskatonic library's lending policy on the Necronomicon, and the reclusive 'Mr Smith'. And to my utter pleasure, and no little thanks to deliberate red herrings such as the quote above, they went in armed for vampires, and got Vitus. My wife, player of Lucy Smith and, formerly, 3 : Oh, you ****er. You ****ing ****er. Come here so I can slap you. AND you're sleeping on the couch tonight.
( Read more... ) |
| Saturday, July 11th, 2009 |
dalekboy
|
7:58p |
Torchwood - Children of Earth
Have just finished the fifth and final episode. Avoid spoilers and watch it as fresh as you can. Overall, a very good story, with an ending that works and doesn't cop out. If the other two seasons of Torchwood had been half as good, I'd have liked them. Current Mood: impressed |
stephen_dedman
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10:48a |
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tikiwanderer
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7:37a |
Sand (in the movies)
We watched Spaceballs the other night, for the first time in a long time. Certainly the first time since I started learning to track. You know how they've parodied a dune sequence, with the characters stumbling through the masses of empty baking desert until they find the secret hideout of Yoghurt? I laughed most of the way through it. Once you start paying attention to things like tracking, these scenes look so different. Tom Brown Jr mentions this in his Case Studies of the Tracker book, about how after working as technical adviser on the movie Hunted many of the movie crew who'd been paying attention to what he did with tracks, tracking and cleaning up had picked up enough understanding to be able to count takes in some movie scenes. And this scene was the first time I really got to do that myself. If you watch the shots carefully, you'll see that they've tried to hide anywhere where they've done multiple takes. They've tried not to be obvious. But in one shot when the light on the sand is glaring white so that no outlines show, watch the edges of their shadows as they ripple behind the characters. There's tracks aplenty in that. In another shot you can see where they've smoothed out the sand to hide evidence of a previous take - probably by running a sheet of cardboard over it or similar, and not very evenly. I spent most of the dune sequence laughing, and for a completely different reason than James (who turned around afterwards and said "Tracking geek!"...). So yeah, if you want to practice spotting tracks in a movie, that sequence isn't a bad one to start with. |
| Friday, July 10th, 2009 |
dalekboy
|
7:15p |
Whose son is he?
Conversation with Sharon a while agoMe - Your son has been a right little horror all day! Sharon - My son? And when does he get to be your son? Me - When he sets fire to something or gets arrested for public indecency. -Beat-  Sharon - That sounds fair. Current Mood:  tired |
tikiwanderer
|
12:34p |
To drug or not to drug...
I've always been of the rough opinion that giving infants painkiller drugs like Panadol was overkill and more often about fussy parents than an actual problem of the infant's. And then yesterday I for some incredibly stupid reason in hindsight decided to book Mum and myself in for High Tea at Parliament House, having been invited by the Sarjeant-at-Arms no less, on the afternoon of the day that Sparrow had her first vaccinations. Sparrow followed a fairly typical pattern for babies who've just been vaccinated - cried when it happened, settled down with a feed, went to sleep, was drowsy for a few hours and stayed fairly settled - and then about five hours later woke up with a grizzling, inconsolably howling vengeance. This awakening coincided pretty much perfectly with our arrival in the hushed, ornate, 23-carat-gold-leafed and Edwardian-painted beautiful halls of Parliament House and our settling down into the leather benches, red velvet chairs, dark wood panelling and white starched napkins of Strangers' Corridor. After much walking up and down with her, changing her nappy, attempting a few times to feed or provide something to suck, it became obvious that she was tired and hungry, but too achy, hot and uncomfortable to either sleep or feed. Twenty minutes and one bare-minimum-dose of baby Panadol later, she'd settled down to the point where she could smile, and then fell asleep and stayed that way for the rest of the High Tea, our following walking-tour of Parliament House, our walk through the city afterwards and most of the train journey home. It would have been the entire train journey, but we got Connexed so there was an extra half-hour transit time in there. So, as described by the nurse and other mums, baby Panadol is certainly a magical thing in that regard. I had it with me at the nurse's recommendation, as it's what they suggest if she starts to run a fever, just to bring her temperature back down to a safe level. The nurse also said that while you don't give it as a matter of course, if she gets to a point where she can't feed it's worth it to settle her down so that she doesn't dehydrate. She wasn't in danger of dehydrating yet, but it did bring her back to a point where all the vaccination reactions were manageable for her. So I think giving her the dose was definitely the right thing to do. She only had the one, and has stayed mostly OK if a little more unsettled than usual since. But I still have questions of myself. And the answers aren't necessarily internally consistent, having disliked painkillers generally but having never had to face this situation before. For instance: if we had been in a university cafeteria instead of Parliament House, would I have gone ahead and drugged her to sleep? I'm not sure. There was a certain degree of social pressure, not applied by others but perceived by us, that in such a formal setting howling was inappropriate. So perhaps I moved to give her the painkillers sooner than I would have in someplace less formal and more noisy like a cafeteria. Would I have dosed her if I was at home? Maybe not - I would have accepted the howling for a much longer period, and perhaps she would have cried herself to sleep given another half hour. Another half-hour wouldn't have bothered my nerves at all at home, but it did given where we were. If it was an animal and not my daughter, would I have dosed her? Instantly. I don't believe in giving animals unnecessary pain, especially when it's not got an obvious cause - it had been five hours since the actual vaccination, and how would you explain to an unhappy dog that something five hours ago was causing the uncomfortable hot achiness they felt now? Why do I feel differently about animals and infants? I don't know. I just know that I have more of a tendency to say "Toughen up, Princess" to humans, even ones that can't talk yet. Would I drug her for something else if she was in pain? Not necessarily - most ordinarily-encountered pain is probably something she can and should learn to weather through. But a vaccination has that problem, as above, of not easily linking cause and effect so there's an obvious-to-parent cause of the pain (and a reason which is probably worth treating), but it's not obvious to her. She's just unhappy and uncomfortable. Am I happy with having given her Panadol? In this case, yes, though it does give me reason to ask these questions. |
| Thursday, July 9th, 2009 |
stephen_dedman
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7:54p |
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