zume

copracat gave me the following words to talk about:

discussion
I love discussion! Debate! Argument! I have been known to debate whether it's day or night! I've been known to dispute things I agree with, just to keep the conversation going! I have been known to pull out the dictionary to win arguments! To me, it's a normal mode of discourse, the back and forth, the rambling tangents that help me figure out what I think about things, and that occasionally change my mind. I started out in online fandom on discussion newsgroups, and discussion of the sources I love is what I came to online fandom for, and even more than the fanfic is what makes me feel engaged and excited about a source. I mean, fic can be a solitary pleasure - amirite, lurkers? - you never have to interact if you don't want to, but discussion - you need someone else to bounce ideas and theories off of, to multiply squee and talk you down from rage. At least, I do. Once I don't have someone to discuss a source with, I don't stop loving it, but I may stop being fannishly active about it. It's the lifeblood of my fannishness. Even fic, in a way, is a discussion - with canon, with fanon, with my own stories and other people's - and it certainly fosters discussion and relationships - a lot of the people I am friends with now, I met through leaving or receiving comments on fic, or on posts about sources we have in common. Discussion! It's what's for dinner awesome!

Xander
Okay, so I mentioned above that I came to internet fandom via discussion newsgroups, and the second of those was alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer, soon after Becoming 2 aired. That was the summer of Xander Lied! A flamewar discussion that went on so long as to become legendary. I was on Xander's side, of course. I still don't think he did anything wrong in that particular situation, but I don't really want to revisit the topic here and now.

Anyway. What I love about Xander is that even though he has no special powers, no special destiny, he's just a nerdy loser who somehow never even gets trained in basic self-defense, he throws himself into the fight over and over again, because once he knows what's out there in the dark, he can't not. He can be bitter and angry and resentful, he can hold a grudge, but he's also loyal, funny, and kind, and smarter than he looks, and he will have your back when you need him when the apocalypse comes knocking, and he'll find a way to help you win. Because he's awesome like that. Xander! ♥

rock
I don't even know what to say - music is so fragmented these days, so niche marketed that it seems almost ridiculous to talk about rock'n'roll and have it mean something. I mean, the history of rock, of R&B, of country, of doo-wop and Motown - it's all rock to me on one level, before it splits out into genres. Most of what I listen to is rock - alternative rock (or modern rock, as we called it in the '80s), classic rock, hard rock, southern rock, angry chick rock, pop rock - right this minute, my iPod is playing "Love Reign O'er Me" as covered by Pearl Jam. I am less hung up on genre than I was as an indier-than-thou teenager - nowadays, I like what I like, mostly without regard to the labels the music comes with - and I wish there were more public outlets for that kind of mixing and mingling. Have I mentioned that NY radio sucks? So I don't really listen to it anymore, and that makes me sad.

New York (it's one word, Frank says so)
Frank! I love New York! There's just something wonderfully alive about walking down the street here - on one of those unexpectedly warm days in February, or when it's a beautiful spring day in March, or a cold crisp night in November - there's an energy, a powerful belief that anything could happen at any moment, and that even though we don't know each other, on that street in that moment, we are all in this together. It's corny, but I do feel like my heart swells with love sometimes when I walk down the street, even when I'm just going to CVS or picking up my laundry or whatever. I love the neighborhood I live in, where I can walk to the movies, to the bookstore, to a great bagel place and more restaurants than you can shake a stick at. Where I can hop on a bus or subway to go to someone else's neighborhood. I find it energizing, even though it is also very fatiguing sometimes to live here.

poetry
I love poetry. I find the way it uses language fascinating, the way words and images can double back on themselves, invert, subvert. The way so much emotion can be packed into something tiny, something regimented, something that is both subject to and free from rules. I love that it can contain itself and its opposite, ideas that seem jumbled but with the right rhythm, it all makes sense. I think my fascination with playing with structure and tone in stories comes from my love of poetry. I write to the rhythm in my head.

***

*yawn*

I am very tired. I dreamt last night that I woke up late for work (at 8:46 am, which is usually when I'm arriving at the office), and called in to say I was late, and then I woke up *in the dream* and went to work and told one of my co-workers about it. Even in my dreams I have anxiety dreams. I don't even know.

***

I posted a story last night:

swim in my blood when it's warm
Supernatural; Sam/Dean; pg; spoilers through 5.04; 3,434 words
Sam's seeing everything clearly now.

Talking about playing with structure - this is built around the five senses, and started out mostly as a way to make myself write more sensory detail, more vivid imagery, so it's pretty plotless and very schmoopy and features the staples of my oeuvre: boys doing laundry,brotherly banter, insults, and references to Pinky and the Brain.

***

Ugh. I suppose I should work now. Sigh.

***

This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/95836.html. people have commented there.

Сергей Кустов ("Мирс"): «Закат бумажной книги не за горами» | Pro-Books.ru:

– Сергей, расскажите о сегодняшней динамике продаж по тематическим нишам в сети «Мирс», какие разделы пострадали больше всего?

– Больше всего «просели» деловая и компьютерная литература, и связано это не только с кризисом. Дело в том, что эти тематические группы в наибольшей степени подвержены угрозе со стороны Интернета и электронных публикаций. Удивительно также, что люди стали экономить на детях – средний чек при покупке детских книг заметно уменьшился. Вместо дорогой подарочной книги за 650-700 рублей, люди ищут книгу за 150-200.

«Просел», на мой взгляд, и раздел «дом, быт, досуг», где опять же часть информации читатели черпают из Интернета. Дорогие книги из этого раздела перестали продаваться совсем. Например, кулинарная книга по цене 800-1000 рублей практически не продается. Учебная литература для школы, как обычно в сезон продается активно, здесь люди пока не экономят, а вот с вузовской литературой для студентов ситуация гораздо хуже, опять же по причине доступности электронной книги, кризиса и роста цен. Студентам намного проще объединиться и купить одну книжку или просто ее «переснять». За 400-600 рублей учебник для вузов, выпускаемый на газетной бумаге, практически не продается. На мой взгляд, издатели очень сильно завышают цены на эту литературу. Им необходимо находить какие-то варианты – делать мягкую обложку, объединяться или заниматься продвижением учебника, добиваясь тем самым большего тиража и уменьшая отпускную цену.

I've given up the trappings of being metal, that ritualistic body-shaping and hair-growing and fetishistic costuming so that everyone around me would KNOW I was X-TREME. I've quietly settled down since then into jeans and T-shirts, which are what I'm comfortable in. 

I am what I am.  I know this.  I don't care if you think I'm mundane, and I no longer really care to announce my memberships with a tribe to all passerby.  You can find out who I am by talking to me.

This feels like a cleaner, saner way to live.  At least for the moment.

In the beginning, there was an A, and it went straight to Z. Such was the way of computerized roleplaying games.

The storylines of RPGs have expanded somewhat since then, but every RPG has an interesting conundrum at its heart: you want to give your players the illusion of freedom, but realistically you need to keep your players pressed firmly against the rails of the plot. Sure, it'd be great if we had an RPG where you had three or four completely separate storylines - a series of noble quests for the good guy who wants to save the kingdom, a series of brutal conspiracies for the evil guy who wants to rule it, and a third series for the whacky guy who doesn't give a crap about the kingdom but wants to seduce nubile, beautiful conquests.

Alas, it's hard to justify creating large, expensive setpieces that won't be seen by two-thirds of your player base, so RPG writers do what Hollywood folks have been doing since movies began: they recycle sets. Whether you're good, bad, or just plain crazy, they have to engineer a plot where you're going to start at the carefully-balanced Shallows of Lakeshore and end up facing down the Big Bad in the very-expensive-to-create Grindguts Cave.

This, in turn, creates a really fascinating writing constriction: you have to create a separate emotional arc for each kind of player you allow. If the PC wants to be a good guy, that's great; everyone loves him, and he'll nobly set out to end the evil in the land. But if the PC wants to be a jerk (which 4.9% of you default to), then not only do you have to give him a motivation for setting out after the MacGuffin, but you have to create a set of separate goals for all your NPCs that explain why they put up with this bloodthirsty wahoo.

In other words, when writing a big RPG like this, you're essentially writing a separate storyline for each kind of playstyle you want to have. That's a lot of words. And if you do that poorly, then you run the risk of having every NPC being a punching bag. If the players feel like the NPCs are going to give you the Staff Of Plot Coupon no matter how they act, then they become less involved.

The way Bioware's gotten around that (at least partially) is to have players in your party have their own motivations. If you act too evil, the good NPCs will leave you, or even attack. Be too much of a nice guy, and that most excellent tank you've spent all that time levelling up will turn on you. Which is also a nice way to encourage a second runthrough.

The other thing Bioware has defaulted to (since it's mostly bulletproof) is to give you a Four-Plot Coupon structure. See, if it's a straight line from the start to the finish, then you run the risk of getting bored/stuck somewhere between A and Z. The standard Bioware structure is to get you past an introductory challenge, then branch off to an "open-ended" segment where you must complete four tasks before you can get to the end game - in the case of Dragon Age, you must do four things to bring the kingdom together against the Darkspawn. Those four tasks are each easily accessible, in a location with their own side quests, so you have the illusion of free will as you pick your choice of plots.

That choice, however, leads to another flaw: you're wandering around in the middle of the game with no ticking clock. Yes, everyone tells you that the Foobari invasion will start any time soon, but realistically you're just meandering and levelling up.

What they've done in Dragon Age to remedy this, however, is really brilliant: they've started tying the tasks together again. Which is to say that when I finished one quest, the only way it could be completed was to get the help of the Circle of Wizards - and when I got to the Circle of Wizards, guess what? They needed my help before they could help me out with my prior quest.

Truth is, I would have gotten to the Circle of Wizards anyway since they were on my Plot Coupon Shopping List. But requiring their help as part of my prior quest made it feel like more of a plot. Now they were a large complication, not a check-off.

BioWare's also started having triggering events in between each of the Plot Coupons to keep the story rolling. For example, when you complete your first Plot Coupons, assassins strike at you on your way to Plot Coupon #2. Complete #2, another mini-quest triggers. This gives the illusion of movement.

It's fascinating, because every RPG has the same core elements: a player, who may or may not be a jerk, must go to various locations, kill monsters, and level up enough to kill the bad guy. BioWare is obviously feeling the restraints on that, and particularly for Dragon Age (I'm just getting to Plot Coupon #3) they're really trying to battle against those shackles. They did that already (most notably in The Twist in Knights of the Old Republic, which cleverly answers an eternal RPG canard), but it's really evident that they're going for broke here.

Dragon Age has a lot of flaws thus far: a hackneyed backstory, NPCs who fucking love jumping in front of you the second you try to open a chest (HAY GUY YOU WANTED TO TALK TO ME, RITE?), some sketchy level design (why, yes, I would like to walk into an ambush of six mages who I can't hurt until they've fired the first six shots!), every NPC is a pinata full of words that you can't really skip past, and of course there's the usual poorly-explained welter of controls. But the story is fascinating to see in its mechanics, because they're definitely trying to break the mold - and it shows, and it's compelling. And for that, I have to give them the long, slow clap.

авторы "грызловмена" - настоящие постмодернисты. они начинают со смешного и забавного героя, слегка придурковатого, но будящего интерес. потом быстро расправляются и с сюжетом, и с героем, и с интересом, и с зрительской симпатией.
теперь зрителю совсем неинтересно про грызловмена, но уже не может быть неинтересно про команду его создателей, довольно придурковатую, смешную и забавную, но занимающуюся какой-то поденной гнусью. эмоция зрителя сложная - на грани симпатии и брезгливости. 
"грызловмен" совпадает до странности с пелевинскими прописями "t", так же, как обстоятельства первого процесса над Ходорковским казались инсценировкой "любовной книги оборотня". интересно, как грызлорайтеры относятся к этой книжке?

( Doctor Who: Waters Of Mars (MAJOR SPOILERS) )

ok it is 4 am time to sleep

She never should have joined the color guard. Halfway through every game, her chronic fatigue would kick in, and she would begin flagging.

swim in my blood when it's warm
Supernatural; Sam/Dean; pg; spoilers through 5.04; 3,434 words
Sam's seeing everything clearly now.

Thanks to luzdeestrellas for betaing and to angelgazing and amberlynne for handholding.

( swim in my blood when it's warm )

~*~

Feedback is adored.

~*~

This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/95677.html. people have commented there.

"Sweet Fire Chicken?" That's cute, Panda Express, no really it is. Just give me 6 servings of Orange Chicken and nobody gets hurt.

more snow today.
i feel like i am getting a cold.
tea, tea and honey. we skyped
with our friends marc & yuri ♥
it was nice to see them after so long. it
took us a long time to discover the magic
of the webcam.

I sure wish Fox would animate that football robot comitting suicide

I was just trying to get Molly to get comfy and go seepy... she was being all shaky girl.

Lucky came up, and in true Lucky fashion, was overly excited.

That doggie licked my eyeball!!!


That was not pleasant.

Egads 'n chit.

The Balkan Vulcan DJ shift on Pirate Cat Radio.

I have a program for the N900 called "Belltower" which finds belltowers. Currently its main screen looks like this:

( Read more... )

But there are several apps for the phone which have a common design of front screen: a set of icons arranged horizontally with captions beneath them, all in front of a gradient fill. I wondered about making the front screen look like this:

( Read more... )

(but with better-drawn icons; these were pulled off the net in ten minutes). The idea is:

• By name allows you to type the name of a tower, e.g. "nicholas norton";
• By area gives you a list of countries to choose from, and then counties within that;
• Nearby uses the GPS to list all towers within fifty miles, in distance order;
• Bookmarks is a list of towers you've bookmarked;
• Recent is a list of the towers you've viewed recently.

Questions for you lot:

1. Do you think the mockup is an improvement?
2. Can you think of any better icons I could use?
3. Any other thoughts?

Да, и вот еще: у меня спрашивают, что случилось с Corpus'ом и вообще с моими книгоиздательскими начинаниями. Отвечаю со всей ответственностью: ничего не случилось. Corpus чувствует себя прекрасно, выпускает книжки одну за другой. Руководит им, как и прежде, Варя Горностаева. А я, опять-таки как и прежде, присматриваю за несколькими спецпроектами, которые с самого начала были на меня замкнуты и которые мне предстоит, несомненно, довести до конца.

Впрочем, о книжках Corpus'а - отдельно и чуть позже.