Mile Zero
no matter where you go, there you are
Mile Zero is the personal website of Thomas Wilburn. All statements and opinions here are my own, and do not represent the views or policies of my employers at Congressional Quarterly, Ars Technica, or other publications.
Had a long meeting this morning and passed some of the time thinking about this Electroplankton project. I realized I've been going about this all wrong--I'd been thinking about ways to use the DS as a processor/sampler, but that's no good. Part of what shook me out of it was picking up my harmonicas for the first time in a while, an instrument that requires a microphone for amplification, and which doesn't treasure fidelity in reproduction. The other revelation was remembering that I already have an extensive rig for live sampling and looping, from the pretentious solo project.
Instead of trying to use the DS as a replacement for equipment I already have (or trying studio tricks that I don't fully understand), I should be putting it in front of the pedals I've learned to use skillfully, sampling it and looping it. In other words, doing what I've been saying all along and treating EP as an instrument, not as an oddly-shaped rack unit. Immediately I have a whole new concept on how to put this song together, revolving around the ability to loop one plankton, mute the DS and switch to another. The ideas are coming in fast, and I can't wait to get home and try them out.
06:03 x Thomas x /gaming/society/art x link x 1 comment
Is that an offer, or a warning?
00:00 x Thomas x /dc/local_flavor x link x 0 comments
Can we (and by we, I mean the collective group of us here on the Internet, particularly those people who write about or reference gaming) agree that there are two items that should never, ever be mentioned again?
07:00 x Thomas x /gaming/perspective x link x 1 comment
Stephen Colbert interviews DC's congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton.
Colbert's previous best moment with regards to the district was his description of it from the Washington Press Dinner:
00:00 x Thomas x /dc/gov x link x 0 comments
Tonight I attended one of the Media Bistro happy hours for the DC area. It was a good event. I met some interesting people, some strange people, did some networking, handed out a ton of business cards, met someone who had also worked for the Washington Asia Press, and got a connection to some possible freelance work. It seems like a fine, if not particularly structured, place for journalists/writers/media types who want to meet other professionals and schmooze a little. And from what I gathered from other attendees, the site itself is apparently very helpful. It's hard to get good writing positions in this town, so every little bit helps.
I think I got on their mailing list by adding myself to their freelance listings several years ago--if you'd like to get more info, but can't get access, let me know.
00:00 x Thomas x /journalism/professional x link x 0 comments
She's not my usual cup of tea, but this video of KT Tunstall performing with over a loop is pretty cool. She's using an Akai Headrush 2 with a switcher pedal on the mike to add background vocals and tambourine taps to the loop. The song is called "Black Horse and Cherry Tree."
14:55 x Thomas x /music/artists/tunstall x link x 1 comment
Finished Half-Life 2, which was just as good as I expected, and then decided to save some money by turning my attention to all the older games I've bought and never finished--starting with Jedi Outcast. Oddly enough, what I miss the most from more modern games isn't better character modeling or more realistic level design. It's the checkpoint save system.
There were parts that I struggled to complete in HL2, but it was rarely a chore to try them again, and it didn't take any effort. The level designers would usually set an autosave regularly linked to the game's scripted events--in fact, I was constantly surprised when I would give in to the long-standing gamer instinct and find a fresh save waiting there. Only in the last few chunks of the game did I feel like I needed a little extra security.
You get spoiled by that kind of treatment. Halo is the first game where I really noticed it, but I guess it's been around in the better console games for a while. Whereas, loading Jedi Outcast, I solved most of the first level, then got fragged by a map glitch--and was dumped all the way back at the beginning. I couldn't work up the interest to go through all of that over again, and that was my only choice.
I walked out into the dining room, where Belle was sitting. "How's the game?" she asked.
"Oh, just remembered why I stopped playing it the first time around."
11:49 x Thomas x /gaming/design/structure x link x 1 comment
I'll be honest, I'm still irrationally angry about the OLPC sequencer malarkey and probably won't write much today. So instead, here's a "chapter" from A Fear of Yesterdays, the Great American Time Travel Novel that I've been working on every now and then, but probably won't ever finish. This bit is set in 1492 Italy.
"The thing about all this time travel," Simon begins, "is that you start to feel a bit like a deck of cards."
Jesus provides the obvious next line. "You're all shuffled," he says.
"Exactly," says Simon, leaning back in his chair with great satisfaction. He, Jesus, and Thirteen are all flagrantly anachronistic--but they have managed to convince the passers-by that they are part of a roving theater group, which will work temporarily. It is made more believable by Simon's constant low-level theatricality, as well as Jesus's total-body tattoo job. Every now and then, Thirteen wiggles a hand puppet to complete the illusion. A trio of small children has gathered a few yards away to watch them speak, even though they can't understand a word.
"Here, I'll show you what I mean," continues Simon. "So this one time a few years back, I'm seeing this chick--"
"Wait," says Thirteen, "you mean a few years back from now? Or a few years back Simon-time?"
Simon glares at her. "I will handle the temporal disintegration, thank you very much. The answer is both. Real-time, it was around 1350."
"The black plagues?" Thirteen shakes the hand puppet in mock-reproach. "Simon, you nasty little dog."
"--May I continue? Thank you. So we're staying in London, we've managed to nab a room for a couple weeks. We're both at that puppy-love infatuation stage, going at it like wild mongeese and doing drugs she brought over from 12th century Arizona, and we get the bright idea: why not do the time out of order? So we grab a piece of paper, write the numbers 1 - 14 on little squares, and each of us picks an order out of a hat."
"Different orders?" says Jesus.
"Right, totally different. Completely random. We each promised to do the full two weeks, no matter what happened, and every night at midnight exactly we'd jump to the next day in the list."
Simon takes a moment to stretch. The children look at him wide-eyed. "Boo!" he mutters to them, and they giggle. Thirteen gestures impatiently. "And?" she asks.
"It was fantastic." says Simon. "One of us did something stupid, impossible to say which or when, pissed the other one off. 'Next' morning, of course, the other person doesn't know what it was, because they're from who knows when subjectively. We bounced back and forth, one of us almost always either mad because the other did something wrong, or because they had to wake up next to a cranky lunatic for no apparent reason. It was two weeks of constant stress and make-up sex." He pauses, reflecting. "Best relationship I've ever had, really."
"Doesn't surprise me," Thirteen says. "So what you're trying to say is that we can only survive being time travelers because we're too self-centered for paradox?"
"Exactly," yells Simon. "Look at us: forming friendships with other time travelers requires all three of us to either maintain a planned sequence of meetings--which we almost never manage to do perfectly--or to recklessly toss causality aside when our subjective experiences don't match yet."
"Not bad," says Jesus.
"'Course it's not bad," says Simon. "I've thought it all through."
"Wasn't bad the last six times you said it, either." says Jesus, catching Simon mid-gloat.
"Wait, what?"
Jesus nudges Thirteen. "Have you ever noticed how much he repeats himself?" he asks.
"Oh yes, constantly. That's what I like about Simon. He's a rock of stability in my life. It's so nice to see him do this bit for the 'first' time, though."
Simon searches their faces and sees only glib humor. "Oh, no," he moans. "I've messed up the dates and picked a later one, haven't I? Just how much time have you guys got on me?"
Thirteen can't hold it--she bursts out laughing. "Got you," she chuckles. "You're on schedule. We're just messing with you. Should have seen the look on your face..."
Simon just looks at her, wide-eyed. "Are you sure?" he asks. "Because Jesus looks about right, but I'd swear you're looking a lot older--"
The children cheer as his sentence is cut off by a fast-moving, airborne handpuppet.
13:26 x Thomas x /fiction/short x link x 1 comment
Musical Sketchpad, Session Eight
This is a pretty short audio file--only a couple of minutes long. It's still only instrumental, and doesn't it develop very much. But I'm posting it for three reasons. First of all, this is the next all-new original I'm working on, and I thought people (someone? anyone?) might be interested in hearing a song as it develops from a riff (this .mp3) to a scratch vocal version to a full structure to the final, polished version. So this song will be the subject of the next few sketchpads.
Second, it illustrates a quick object lesson for any other budding engineers out there. I don't know if I ever made it clear, but I've never been entirely happy with my recorded bass sound. The lack of balance can be partially blamed on bad headphones (now remedied) but was also caused by a lack of bass and a shrill high end (see: the distortion from Sketchpad Seven). I had thought that running the direct output from my bass amp's preamp section would give me a better sound, but it seems to interact oddly with the Tascam, and the result is not significantly better than before. Concerned that it might be a problem with my pedals, I tried swapping out my MXR distortion for my old Digitech Bass Driver.
Now, the Bass Driver wasn't necessarily an improvement. But it has two outputs--one marked "Amp" with a clean signal, and one marked "Mixer" that adds a speaker simulation for direct recording. And while I wasn't necessarily happy with the overdrive I was getting, I did notice that it sounded remarkably better through the Mixer output. A few quick patch cable switches, and the final result was to record my usual pedals through the cab sim on the deactivated Bass Driver. Now what the laptop hears is a lot more like what I hear from my amp. There's a bit more meat and less rattle from the MXR's distortion, and the clean channels have a better growl to them, with a more contained bottom end. All thanks to the speaker sim on a (nowadays) $50 pedal.
Finally, I'm putting this up because I think this is probably my favorite background loop for anything I've done so far, and the bass riff isn't bad either (although the chorus progression may have to go). I'm really looking forward to putting the rest of the song together.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/recording/sketchpad x link x 0 comments
The Case for Breaking Up Wal-Mart
by Barry C. Lynn, reprinted at Alternet from Harpers. Found, as so often with these kinds of economics bits, via Mark Thoma.
00:00 x Thomas x /politics/issues/economy/corporate x link x 0 comments
...that it is all about me, in the end.
11:15 x Thomas x /random/personal x link x 1 comment
It took me a bit to get used to this homey approach to music and performance. New Yorkers are sadly more “professional” in their attitude towards their art. We usually perform for money under controlled circumstances. We see ourselves as artistes whose performances are as controlled as we can manage them. (More on control later.) The camaraderie amongst musicians does exists up here in NY, but can you imagine a house party where Madonna picks up a guitar after dinner and serenades the drunken guests with a new song, and then passes the guitar to David Bowie? Not likely, I imagine, though who knows? But amongst Texans it’s the normal course of events. When I fist encountered and participated in these campfire sings I realized the meaning and resonance of these things goes deeper — to some extent this is a way of resisting the century-old trend of produced and commodified entertainment and culture.
We tend to see our culture and entertainment as something made by “others”, by “professionals”, which we then buy, attend, consume or purchase. It has been removed from us, our own culture. It’s made by those with distant professionals with the requisite levels of skill. craft and polish. When it was discovered that there was money to be made in marketing and packaging what was once locally produced and amateur popular music (and everything else) it slowly was insinuated that it was weird and uncool to make it at home with your friends — how unprofessional! It became considered strange and unlikely to create your own entertainment and to leave the TV off (as well as being unprofitable.) But in quite a few places this never took hold — Texas, Brazil, and Spain I can personally vouch for as examples of cultures where this process of creation and performance continued being transparent and public (well, amongst friends.)
My roots, in case anyone was wondering, are basically white-trash Appalachian. My dad's from southern Virginia, my mom hails from North Carolina. They're the first generation of their families to graduate from college. Whereas the running joke with my friends in college was that I grew up in "urban Kentucky," a phrase that's apparently hilarious to people who A) are not familiar with Lexington and B) prefer to live in a stunted, stuffy, yuppie-filled fever swamp like Washington, DC.
I remember as a kid that my parents would sometimes just sit down in our townhouse with various instruments--my father was a music major who played french horn, my mother played trumpet and (speaking of the mountains) hammer dulcimer--to go through a few songs. I'm not aware of any other real musical history in the family, and certainly few of my relatives (outside of my immediate family) have ever shown any interest in performing music rather than just listening to it, but it would be pointless to deny the front-porch legacy of Appalachian musicians. Once upon a time, the past tells us, that's what you did. Before we had a million other things--produced distractions--to occupy our time.
Were we profound? Or just bored stupid?
Maybe this is a symptom of the volume and bombast of Rock music, but I don't meet a lot of people who just get together and play a few songs with each other any more. It's a part of the culture that's been lost. It puts music into the realm of the inaccessible, turns it into something that Other People do. And the few of us who do learn how to play an instrument, to make a pleasing sound or two, we don't gather others around and share that sound just out of friendship. We try to reach the level of Other People on a stage, in an event.
Which is one reason why I don't really go looking for gigs any more. And why Belle needs to get cracking on learning to play her guitar.
10:25 x Thomas x /music/business x link x 1 comment
CDM reports that the One Laptop Per Child program now has some of its groundbreaking educational software available for screenshots.
It's a music sequencer.
Good to know they're concentrating on the parts of development that are really important. I'm sure clients in Nigeria, Thailand, India, and China will feel much better about their $100 million investment.
It's also nice to see that their wiki still does not address the serious capacity concerns that I summarized from numerous critics a while back. Because for an education project to learn from the experts as opposed to attacking straw men--well, that would just be crazy.
This whole thing makes me so furious that I am honestly just about speechless. And we all know how hard that is to accomplish.
10:04 x Thomas x /bank/analysis/development/technology x link x 1 comment
Guess what showed up on my doorstep yesterday?
The World Bank Institute's ProTools rig was also delivered yesterday. I am filled with rare good will for the shipping industry.
00:00 x Thomas x /random/personal x link x 0 comments
According to Express today, famed Congolese trance-rock garage band Konono No. 1 will be playing tomorrow at the Black Cat. $15 gets you in, show starts at 9:30. I picked the CD up on the way to work today. It's pretty good, as long as what you're expecting is heavily electified African music. It's probably not something I'd go to see.
But just to note a quick correction for today's paper: Death By Sexy, playing at DC9 tomorrow night, is not a side project of the singer from Queens of the Stone Age. That band, called the Eagles of Death Metal, did release an album titled "Death by Sexy." But it's not the same group. I used to play with DxS's drummer, back when Mile Zero was a band instead of a chronicle of mental illness.
00:00 x Thomas x /dc/events x link x 0 comments
Went down to Comcast today, to get the new apartment activated for Internet access. They kicked me in the shins, knocked me to the ground, stole my lunch money, and then told me that for $50 a month they'd only punch me in the left kidney.
Sadly, this is considered "ahead of the game" for American broadband access.
09:49 x Thomas x /random/personal/events x link x 1 comment
To be fair, it is a lot of fun for seven out of ten minutes.
Shorter Half-Life 2 load times:
00:00 x Thomas x /gaming/software/halflife x link x 0 comments
The new apartment is getting closer to its final unpacked state, and while Belle has taken charge of themes and decorations for most of it, I do get this little corner for my home studio. I've got a giant clock face to mount above it. Groovy.
So here's what I'm tracking with nowadays, from left to right:
08:45 x Thomas x /music/recording/production x link x 1 comment
Visitors to DC this week may notice large yellow newspaper boxes on the streetcorners with the Epoch Times logo on the side. I've written about the paper a couple of times in the past , but it occurs to me that I're been fairly elliptical about why they make me nervous. With the physical paper so easily available now, it's easier to organize my thoughts--and if you want to fact-check me or see for yourself, you can find a copy without much trouble. I'm going to argue that the Epoch Times is a mouthpiece for the Falun Gong cult, also known as Falun Dafa. I'm also going to argue that it is, like most cult publications, not to be taken seriously. It can be considered a younger version of the Washington Times, which began (and continues) as a publication evangelizing the Moon cult. All examples will be taken from the April 17-19 edition of the paper.
The most immediate reaction to the paper should be to glance through its bylines, in which case two curious facts emerge. First, at least half of the paper is taken from the Reuters wire service, and it's likely that even the "Epoch Times Staff" content is being written on the backs of other reporting, and not by actual correspondents. For example, take the story on Western Sahara from page A5. It's written straight from this Reuters article, mostly summarized but with some segments taken directly from the text. That's not necessarily a complete mark of shame. Many small papers do the same thing. But it doesn't bode well when the Epoch Times not only republishes wire reports, but then has to rewrite them (badly) in order to get the majority of its coverage. By rough estimate, I'd say about 75% of the paper is created this way. Almost all the images are likewise taken from Getty or AFP. We'll get back to the implications of that in a minute.
The other interesting thing about the bylines, if you're looking at it for Chinese ties, is that none of them--none at all--are ethnic Chinese names. Let's not leap to conclusions here: a name is not necessarily a trustworthy indication of either ethnicity or ideology. And honestly, I don't know whether there are any real conclusions to be drawn from this oddity. I simply find it interesting considering the extreme China-centric stance presented here.
There are a few original and non-China articles written here, but they are odd to say the least. One is a guide to nutrition by "Patricia Muehsam, M.D." who is a "holistic physician." Muehsam writes about the body/mind/spirit balance, advises that iced drinks "inhibit the digestive fire," and advises that readers not drink with meals. A quick Google finds that Muehsam is one of the more outspoken advocates for alternative medicine, including magnet therapy and Qigong (meaning ties to Falun Gong). A feature called the Antidote on page B7 features writer Christopher Nield and his examination of a classical poetry. In this case, he covers Inversnaid, by Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. My favorite special to the Epoch Times is a column from former Anglican priest, the Reverend Frank Gelli. I can't find anything too outlandish about Frank Gelli himself, except that he seems to have a Princess Diana fixation. I just think his op-ed about Middle-Eastern espionage from a Christian perspective is hilariously disjointed (sorry, I can't find an online version yet).
Now, the paper's articles are stilted and badly written, but are they really pro-Falun Gong? Well, they're certainly anti-PRC. The front page of the paper features a large editorial regarding purported Chinese organ harvesting from captive Falung Gong practicioners, insisting that the lack of evidence found by the US investigation is proof of a wider coverup. The Epoch Times website devotes an entire category to China in its menubar, and all of its features center on China--including a lot of space devoted to the Nine Commentaries and their effects, which I've already found suspicious (although I am far less critical of the paper in that post). Its editorials often explicitly refer to the Falun Dafa, and so does a large ad run across the back page, in which the organization co-sponsors events revolving around the (what else?) Nine commentaries. Subtlety is not a strong point. The paper itself has always denied ties to the religion, but it's notoriously shady about its actual funding. I'm certainly not the only person to make the connection: you can find more at this link.
Again, I'm not going to go out to say that the Chinese government is innocent of human rights abuses. I'm sure that it is, in fact, guilty of some such crimes. The problem with the Epoch Times is the breathless way it reports these stories, with dubious sourcing, and (in at least the case of the Nine Commentaries) it feels free to step forward without any concrete evidence of its claims. These are not the actions of a reliable news source.
Okay, fair enough. What's the point? Well, for many Americans that don't know much about China, the Epoch Times (along with sister media NTDTV) are valid voices in the debate, and they're working hard to be louder and more influential. Maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but I get nervous when messianic cults like the Falun Dafa aspire to wider voice--and as I've said, we've seen that it's possible for fringe-owned media to prosper with the Washington Times. By all means, the Epoch Times should be allowed to publish whatever it wants--but people should understand just who and what is being published. It needs to be understood that the paper is a delivery vehicle for a specific viewpoint: all that Reuters-repeat copy exists specifically to lend legitimacy to the two or three pro-Falun Dafa editorials spaced throughout. Right now, they don't have the balance quite right, and most will probably see through it, but that may change in the future. Putting distribution boxes on so many corners, with a free paper, means that someone has invested some serious money in this venture.
When I've met them in person, the Epoch Times representatives often come across as strange extremists. When I've pushed them on their views, the conversation has taken a turn for the surreal, sometimes even veering into classic conspiracy theories ("We can't get our message out because of the Jews!"). The paper is a way to legitimize their work, and limit the crazy factor. I'm writing this in part because of a comment that someone left in response to this post, which I didn't find in time to respond. I'm hoping that I can add just a little bit of skepticism and rationality to the Internet's store of information, so that the next person searching for information might not take the paper at face value.
22:48 x Thomas x /journalism/investigation x link x 1 comment
Could be worse, I guess.
00:00 x Thomas x /movies/television/galactica x link x 0 comments
Rescued from comments over at Design Synthesis. I think it's an argument that needs more exposure.
And for that reason, while I personally find it irritating when people advocate mysticism and New Age thinking as equivalent to science, I also find it immoral. It provides cover to the NGOs who won't provide condoms and vaccines to developing nations, the politicians who won't do anything about carbon output, and the fake psychics who take money from people who--thanks to the faithful--will never be informed of just how unreliable those psychics are. Perhaps a placebo can cause cancer remission some of the time--but it's not going to stop HIV, ever. Science might, if people will stop devaluing it by acting like it's just another "faith."
UPDATE: Now, before anyone says anything crazy in comments, remember--that's my job. Patrick notes that this is still a democracy, and that I might simply be mad at the neanderthals occupying power. Fair enough: it is (so far) and I am. But he doesn't link the two together, and perhaps I should have to forestall discussion. After all, the neanderthals in power got there because they were (discussions of voter fraud aside) elected through the democratic process. And therein lies the point of my ethical appeal.
The deciding factor in the last election, we are told and I believe, was "moral values." Most of the time in this country, that's code for "gonna hate me some gays and some Muslims," but I would like to think that it does actually signify some amount of identification with a code of ethics--thou shalt not kill and the rest. Frustrated by a set of policymakers who only pay lip service to these values ("Constitutional amendment to protect marriage! Massive carving of the ten commandments! Mr. Bush, build up that wall!"), many voters find themselves driven toward the fringes--and there they become the subject of animosity by people like me, and the cycle continues.
But what if there were a way to bridge the gap? To appeal to those people in terms they can understand, but not sell out freedom and the scientific method in the process? Much has been made in recent times about the need for political liberals to trumpet their own moral values: fairness, standing up for the little guy, giving everyone access to a good education and healthcare. The same moral case can be made for science--and should be! True, we will never win over the fundamentalists (any more than they will convert me), but we can try to make the case to the decent human beings huddled somewhere around the middle of this country to say that scientists aren't all bad. We can point out that doing good is more effective with science, that it helps us achieve the humanitarian goals that we all, on some level, share. We can save the planet--science can help!
That's my real point here. Yes, I think that an argument for moral authority can be a real rallying point for those already on the side of science. And true, I consider it one of the real differences between me and the "hippies." But I also hope that it might be influential for those who simply don't know the difference, and need someone to explain in simple, inspiring terms why the scientific method is one of hope.
20:08 x Thomas x /science/skepticism x link x 1 comment
00:00 x Thomas x /culture/religion/satire x link x 0 comments
Scene: inside a large but shabby mobile trailer, parked on a field in Germany. RAY LIOTTA, JASON STATHAM, KRISTANNA LOKEN, and MATTHEW LILLARD sit in a semi-circle around an Ikea desk, where UWE BOLL is sleeping. In his slumber, Uwe has drooled a small puddle across a copy of the script for "In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale."
STATHAM: I'm not going to wake him up. You wake him.
LIOTTA: Not me. I've got something resembling an actual life. Lillard, you do it.
LILLARD: My good man, I may play the buffoon in numerous youth-oriented comedies and amateur-hour adaptations, but I am not a fool. Perhaps the lady would care to poke our director and rouse him? She has, after all, worked with Schwartzenegger: expertise with drug-fuelled rages is practically a given.
LOKEN: Like hell.
A pause. BOLL mumbles indistinctly and smudges the drool across the
page.
LILLARD: (sighs) Very well. But you all owe me.
As LILLARD approaches the director, BOLL suddenly bolts upright, eyes wide open.
BOLL: I DIDN'T KNOW SHE VAS YOUR SISTER!! (beat.) Ah, actors are here. Excuse me. Bad dream--which is not legally actionable, ha ha! Sit down, we vill look over ze script.
STATHAM: Yeah, about that. I had some questions about my role.
BOLL: Speak.
STATHAM: ...right, it's just that you have this character as "Farmer."
BOLL: Ja, our noble hero. Is he not sexy?
STATHAM: I really wouldn't know about that. I'm just trying to figure out, when you say "Farmer"--is that his actual name? Like, is he a farmer named Farmer? Is this just a temp name?
BOLL: Well... it is post-modern thing, yeah? Like Jackson Pollack.
STATHAM: That doesn't make any sense.
BOLL: No, you see, he is like an archetype. He represents all farmers. It is statement about ze way that videogames turn bland character to hero.
LILLARD: So what you're trying to say that you have named this character "Farmer" to symbolize the elevation of one computerized figure from a sea of other, anonymous figures that takes place when a player uses the first figure as an avatar? That this is a critique of the re-use of artistic resources, such as sprites and models, in modern games?
BOLL: Yes! Exactly!
LILLARD: That may be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And I was in Wing Commander.
STATHAM: So is his name Farmer or not?
BOLL: Ah, we were very high. (to LILLARD) Right, Shaggy?
LILLARD: ...
BOLL: "It is old man Withers," yes? Haha!
LILLARD: ...
BOLL: Ah, Americans. You have no sense of humor.
OFF-CAMERA VOICE: Boll! Excuse me, Mr. Boll!
BOLL: Who is zis? Who interrupts Uwe?
OFF-CAMERA VOICE: Ah, Mr. Boll. (stepping into the trailer) I need to speak with you a moment.
LIOTTA: Ben Kingsley! It's such an honor to meet you, sir!
BOLL: Vhat? Vhat? Who is zis person?
KINGSLEY: I'm Sir Ben Kingsley.
BOLL: Yes, you are. ...Who?
KINGSLEY: Perhaps you remember me from my award-winning turn in Ghandi?
BOLL: No.
KINGSLEY: Sexy Beast? Schindler's List? Searching for Bobby Fischer?
BOLL: Sorry, I am drawing ze blank slate.
KINGSLEY: (sighs) Species?
BOLL: Yes! Of course! Ze alien woman wit ze sex and ze stabbity and ze big gazongas! (makes cupping gestures in front of his chest)
KINGSLEY: ...yes.
BOLL: You were very good in zis movie! Not as good as ze sexy alien, but... who is, yes? You should be in my movie! Perhaps Postal, I am seeing you as ze cruel manager who turns into ze werewolf for ze big fin--
KINGSLEY: --actually, Mr. Boll, I've already been in one of your... films. That's why I am here. You never paid me.
BOLL: ...paid...you?
KINGSLEY: Yes, Mr. Boll. See, the way this works is that I act in your film, and then you give me--
BOLL: YOU ARE NOT EXPLAINING TO UWE BOLL HOW ZE PAY IS WORKING! I am ze financial genius! You think you are so smarty-pants you will tell me how and when I pay you? You think because I am Mr. Clever with my tax status that you can abuse me zis way?
KINGSLEY: Of course not, it's just--
BOLL: Always zey are saying I have ze shady finances! Claiming that just because Uwe can write off production costs through German tax loophole, he is not artist! They are just jealous!
KINGSLEY: I didn't say anything--
BOLL: JEALOUS! I WILL CRUSH THEM!
(pause)
BOLL: (perfectly calm) My secretary, she is calling you next Monday?
KINGSLEY: (backing away) Fine, fine. I'll just be going now?
BOLL: Drop in anytime! Bring ze alien girl next time!
To be continued... or not. We'll see.
00:00 x Thomas x /gaming/media/movies x link x 0 comments
Monster Island, by David Wellington
There are far fewer zombie books than there are zombie movies. No doubt the visual appeal of the undead has a lot to do with this--zombies are a lot more menacing with a lot of tricky editing than as a slow, fumbling cannibal horde, and directors like Romero have always played on the creative costuming available to previously human monsters. Yet since the appeal of the zombie is less as an antagonist and more as a pressure cooker for the main characters, there's certainly room for them in prose. David Wellington's Monster Island attempts to explore this genre, but like its clumsy things that go bump in the night, it suffers a number of missteps along the way.
The setup is very smart. Dekalb, the main character, is a former UN weapons inspector who was traveling in Somaliland with his daughter when the zombification began. The lesser-developed countries, being heavily armed and used to conflict, survive largely intact, while Europe and the US fall to the undead. With aid efforts suddenly dropped as a result, the Somali warlord is left without her AIDS medication, and she dispatches Dekalb to UN Headquarters in New York City--accompanied by a troop of female child soldiers--to pick up AZT. In return, she'll keep his daughter safe. Tossing a monkey wrench into the plan is a medical student who figured out how to beat the brain-liquifying part of the resurrection process. He's undead and suffers from the same hunger as the rest, but he's self-aware and marginally more coordinated.
All of which has the potential to be an interesting, grounded, science-fiction take on the traditional zombie legend. But then Wellington starts to bring in mystical networks of "death energy," far less interesting motivations, and (in my eyes, worst of all) an undead druid who's been sitting in a museum display case for thousands of years. It is just a pet peeve of mine that bringing a geeky adoration of the Celts into anything ruins it, but in this case it is certainly true. The plot takes a nose-dive into something much less dynamic and much more predictable.
Monster Island got a huge boost in its promotion by being prominently featured on uber-tech blog Boing Boing, since it was previewed as a series of blog posts. As a result, its visibility has been heightened for probably millions of people like me, who vaguely remember it while browsing the stacks. But was it worth their breathless promotion? Sadly, no! It's not a bad title. It's a better book than the Resident Evil series were movies. But if I had to pick a place to revitalize zombies in popular fiction, I don't think I'd start here.
18:20 x Thomas x /fiction/reviews/wellington x link x 1 comment
Science is not a religion. It's not equivalent to a religion. It's not a belief system. It's very annoying when people claim that the two are the same sheep in different wolves' clothing.
What's the difference?
The snarky answer, which is abrupt but no less apt because of it, is that science actually works. Science gave you television and the Internet. Religion put people on television and the Internet who say that Jesus needs money, and he takes Visa.
I started thinking about this because Chris at Only a Game had written a silly, self-congratulatory post on what he considered skepticism. I don't usually read Only a Game, because people who use Greek terms to discuss video games annoy me. In this case, I was surprised to see a review of the philosopher Paul Feyeraband on gameblogs, and clicked over. Putting that review aside, Chris claims that skeptics exposed scientific "belief" when they raised the possibility of fraud in the laughable Ganzfeld telepathy experiments.
Confused? I don't really follow that either. Because the experiments (which still have a methodological hole a mile wide due to their reliance on experimenter interpretation) could be faked, the problem is science? The only way you reach that conclusion is if you've already decided that ESP is real and the experiment was perfect. In which case, why were you experimenting in the first place? Don't you have a seance to get to?
Now you might be asking, why get all bent out of shape over this? After all, Only a Game is a pretty nutty blog. In that same skeptic post, Chris also insinuates (and I paraphrase) that James Randi and Carl Sagan had someone killed for discovering mystical "orgone" energy! And I agree, that's pretty far out there. What bothers me about it is not this specific incident, but the recurring devaluation of scientific thought, of which his post is just one example.
The assertion of which, by the way, is not scientific. My claim to observe some kind of general trend from anecdotal evidence is exactly the kind of ridiculous and unfounded assertion you'd expect from a journalist trained in Intercultural Communication, not in science. Guilty as charged.
But on the other hand, 42% of the population told the Pew Center last year that life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time--they don't say, but I'm guessing for a lot of those people "the beginning of time" is only 6 thousand years away. Of the 48% who admitted a prediliction for evolution, 18% of them still figured that it was divinely guided. Homeopathy--literally selling people water that's had other substances waved at it--is a multimillion dollar industry. Chiropractics, another debunked psuedoscience, has billions in revenue even though it can be actively harmful to your health.
I mean, don't treat it as gospel, but that looks like a problem to me.
Now, in a liberal society it's important that people have freedom to do whatever they want, within reasonable limits. The people who alter their bodies and post pictures at BMEZine, for example, could easily be considered strange and disturbing. But if they want to jam pieces of metal through themselves, that's their right as long as they don't make me watch.
Yet people are actually hurt by unscientific ideas. They take homeopathic remedies instead of seeking treatment for medical problems. They get their spines cracked by chiropracters. And they get fleeced by fake psychics and astrologers, losing money and making bad decisions on flawed assertions. Someone is profiting by the exploitation of another person, a deeply immoral proposition. It is this exploitation that most self-labeled skeptics find most offensive, not just a call to truth.
Science isn't a belief, it's a method. Specifically, it's a method of knowing--and unlike other methods of knowing, like ESP and religion, it produces reproducible, useful results. You can critique the policies surrounding it (such as the problem of global warming) or its cultural position (it's still too dominated by white males), but it's impossible to seriously dispute whether or not we are healthier and made more capable thanks to that method of experimentation and falsifiability.
It's true that science requires us to believe in an objective reality, where something can be "true" in that it accurately predicts outcomes. But why would we want it any other way? While considering the subjective/objective debate makes for a good intellectual bull session, when people begin being harmed or exploited (as they are) then you have entered the realm of policy--and that requires you to prioritize some policies as better or worse within an objective framework in order to make good decisions. Science is our best--I would say our only--reliable means of making those prioritizations. It should be our primary method of knowing for policy purposes.
So by all means, go ahead and believe crazy things. Consult astrologers, read your bible, and cleanse your aura. But let's not pretend that those methods of knowing reach the same level of quality as science. Clearly, from any pragmatic perspective, they don't. If you disagree with that, it's your right to head out into the forest sans flashlight, manufactured clothing, or botanical reference. Have the courage of your convictions and leave science behind.
I doubt we'll see a lot of takers on that one.
14:54 x Thomas x /science/skepticism x link x 1 comment
For my own future reference (if you've browsed any of the liberal blogs, you've probably already seen it): this NYTimes Magazine article on immigration from the economist's perspective is really just phenomenal.
00:00 x Thomas x /politics/issues/immigration x link x 0 comments
...with Metroid Hunters online. I might log back on for the ongoing tournament, but the game's frankly broken. I'm tired of playing only against Sylux because people use him to grab the deathalt first, or stay in his alt form the entire time. I'm tired of playing Combat Hall, where people exploit map glitches to snipe at me from the other side of the walls. And I'm sick of losing ranking points because people simply disconnect when I manage to get ahead.
The number of bugs left in the game code is pretty remarkable, honestly. Besides the map problems and the holes in the scripting system, there's also an error that lets Noxus use his freeze special from halfway across the map. It's just lazy programming, and it's a little unbelievable that they really thought they could put something with so many problems out on the Internet, drop it into a seething community of kids with too much time, and expect that it would remain playable.
Out of twenty or thirty matches tonight, probably half of them simply disconnected when they weren't winning. Most of the rest were breaking the game one way or the other--or they disconnected after using exploits because it became clear that (apart from the cheats) they weren't any good.
A lot of people are probably familiar with the David Sirlin "scrubs" article, which argues that there are no cheap ways to play a videogame, and you should do whatever it takes to win. According to that philosophy, the kids who are ruining my Metroid experience are just better than I am, and I should just suck it up. Hey, more power to people who feel that way. I can sympathize--I'm not that good. But let's be clear: I'm a working professional who holds down a second writing job. I have a life and a couple of crazy hobbies. I really don't have time to learn the countermoves to each of these exploits--and I don't really think I should have to. I just want to enjoy playing the game. Right now that's not possible.
Nintendo's got a pretty crappy track record with this so far. Mario Kart turned into a Snaking competition after only a month. Metroid managed to make it three months. In both cases, they don't seem to have tested their product enough, and they didn't build the architecture necessary to keep them moderated. For most companies, that wouldn't matter. But if Nintendo is serious about being the company that brings in new people to gaming, they can't let this keep happening to their online offerings. Because I guarantee you, as little tolerance as I have for people being jerks online, the average casual gamer is a lot less willing to deal.
So I'm done. Anyone who wants to meet up for a friends match online, I'd love to hear about it. But I'm not going to frustrate myself playing random matches anymore. I've got better things to do.
15:09 x Thomas x /gaming/software/metroid_hunters x link x 1 comment
More than a year now, I've been writing here. I still couldn't tell you why. But I remember thinking that at some point I'd want to use it as a way to chart my obsessive cycles. I haven't quite figured out how to gather that information from the filesystem, but I have managed to create a category count, so at least we can see where I'm focusing my time.
Here's a handy visual guide:
Obviously, this doesn't tell us actually how much text I've written for each category (although I could measure that by kB if I needed to), and if we looked at it that way the slice for Random entries would be far smaller. But I do think it's interesting to see how I spend 1/5 of my time writing about music, almost as much about games, and almost 1/10 each on fiction, the World Bank, and the medium itself.
I also think it's interesting to look at this and think about how much the categories actually overlap. After all, a significant number of those gaming posts are actually linked to music (at least 11 of them, by the extended count), and it wouldn't surprise me to find other ways that the categories are really just a starting point for organization. A lot like my desk, this is a messy system. I think that's one of the reasons I like it.
09:05 x Thomas x /meta/blosxom x link x 1 comment
This weekend I'll be back home to take care of my parents' dogs, Bill and Lucy, while Mom and Dad hit the beach. It's an easy job because they are old dogs, and don't ask much. My parents live in a very small town, and there's not a lot to do. I've picked up some reading material at the World Bank bookstore (employee discount, baby! Gonna read me some Stiglitz!) and I'm sure I'll be driving the neighbors crazy with the sweet sounds of Rock, but if anyone is interested in a DS WiFi game or two, send me an e-mail or leave me a comment with a possible date and time. I'll have my people meet your people, we'll do lunch, something like that.
00:00 x Thomas x /gaming/hardware/networking x link x 0 comments
Turning to Pitchfork Media for sane musical evaluation is a bit much, but I thought they got this bit right in their review of Muse's newest album, when they lay out the band's fundamental assumptions:
The fact that they thought those were cutting negative points pretty much explains why their opinion on the band is worthless.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/artists/muse x link x 0 comments
Wired's on the cutting edge of instrument news with this article on copycat instrument makers.
No, wait a second. That's not news at all. It's an old, old story.
One of the most well-known and successful instrument makers on the market today, Ibanez, got their start in the 70's by making copies of then better-known guitars. They were good at it. A bit too good--the copies were cheaper than the originals, and often better quality. Gibson (the same company that was suing PRS for making a Les Paul singlecut copy--notice a pattern?) took them to court based on the headstock design. Today the copycat instruments are worth a decent amount of money on eBay.
Other than Gibson, the only other big manufacturer that still actively pursues copycats is Rickenbacker (as far as I know). But then, the Rick body shape and pickup design is radically different from anything else on the market. Both companies have profited from their mystique--you can't buy a Rickenbacker 4003 or an SG from anyone other than those two companies. But on the other hand, you can buy a knockoff of a Fender Strat from almost every company on the market, and it hasn't hurt their sales any. Musicians are still willing to pay more money for a real Fender, even if the only difference is the logo stamped onto the neck.
No offense, but musicians are kinda stupid that way.
The title for this post is the abbreviation for New Old Stock. You see it used when buying amplifier tubes a lot--it means that the parts in question are "new" in that they've never been used, but they're technically old parts.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/business/instruments x link x 0 comments
Open Mike Impressions: Under New Management
"He's got to learn the names of chords, instead of just playing them at me and assuming that I'll be able to figure it out," I say at the IHOP.
"Yeah, but you always manage it. That's why he keeps doing it," says Belle.
"Still."
It's been almost six months since I darkened the concrete stoop of Stacy's Coffee Shop for their open mike, and the event has evolved somewhat since then. An older man named John is running the show now, and he's a bit more organized, I guess. The old system was pretty much hit-or-miss, orchestrated through shouting back and forth with the barista. But in turn, most of the people that I used to see there are gone now--including almost all of the younger musicians. Have they been driven off? Did they go back to school? Like me, has work pulled them away? I don't know enough to say.
I end up on stage three times--once early on to waste some time, once with the white-boy bluesman who asked me to come (the same one I cut some basslines for a couple weeks ago), and last when the keyboardist finally shows up. There's an old joke: why was the keyboard player onstage with three bands in one night? Because it took the first two for him to set up! I am not sure that it's a joke anymore.
How does an open mike survive? It strikes me that they're like any organization. Some of them are strongarmed along by the charismatic and the insane, and without that person they fall apart. Others might be communal affairs, created and maintained by a fluid group. In both cases, the makeup changes, either through subtle selection ("This isn't really my kind of crowd") or the interpersonal equivalent of genetic drift. If I ever go back to school for a higher Communication degree, there's a paper in this.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/performance/impressions x link x 0 comments
Every few months, I listen to a bunch of other people's music while twiddling knobs on the Bass Effects Rig of Doom, and I think to myself, "you know, I probably don't need to have the distortion pedal set at 'Chernobyl' all the time. In fact, I really like that smoother, bluesier sound I could get with a lower gain."
Then I listen to my recordings the next day (because of course I'm the kind of person who obsessively listens to their own recordings) and I wonder why the treble sounds so muted. And I realize that the reason I was originally using the Face-Melting Fuzz setting in the first place was because otherwise it requires me to dig in way too hard to get a good sharp attack out of the notes. So I crank the gain back up, and enjoy the softer touch.
Then a few months later, I'm listening to some other music...
00:00 x Thomas x /music/tools/bass x link x 0 comments
Beth Kampschror writes in the July/August '06 Archeology:
Or rather, five pyramids. So says the Bosnian expatriate and self-styled researcher, Semir Osmanagic, who's leading the dig. In April of last year, the Sarajevo-born Osmanagic was in Visoko visiting the local museum director when he had an epiphany: The large hill overlooking the town, with its pyramid-like shape and sides corresponding with the four compass points, is actually the Bosnian "Pyramid of the Sun." He reckoned that four other pointy hills in the valley are the "Pyramid of the Moon," the "Pyramid of the Dragon," the "Pyramid of the Earth," and, at press time, an as-yet-unnamed pyramid.
Well, that's different. According to the article, Osmanagic has become quite the celebrity for these claims, assisted by charisma and an apparent tendency to dress like Indiana Jones. But is he crazy to think that there are pyramids in Bosnia?
Yes.
Wait, haven't I heard something like this before? From the similarly credentialed Freelance Police?
--Sam and Max, Fair Wind to Java
And as usual, and I hate to keep making this point over and over again but there's just no shortage of woo out there set me off, sloppy thinking from mystics and the credulous is actually going to cause much more serious problems down the line. Osmanagic's been able to take advantage of the disorganized Bosnian government and his new fame to grab digging permits for the hills. And while he's tearing them apart to look for little green men, real historical artifacts will almost certainly be disturbed or destroyed.
Like everyone else who makes these kinds of ridiculous claims, Osmanagic simply ignores critics and lies about his "accomplishments," claiming to have published articles that don't exist, and trumpeting laughable evidence. The pictures in Archeology are always fantastic, but here they're stunningly mundane. In one, Osmanagic stands next to a cordoned-off trench revealing what he claims is the first wall of the pyramid. It just looks like a big rock. The hill itself doesn't look particularly pyramid-like. If you published that picture with the caption "Low mountains of the Shenandoah river valley," no-one would look twice.
Archaeology has an update on the article, and the gullible media coverage of the "pyramid," here. Atlantis figures into it.
00:00 x Thomas x /science/skepticism x link x 0 comments
