RPG Articles

I’ve been coding for like 4 hours straight. My assbone hurts like you wouldn’t believe, but I feel so productive. Now, if only I can get paid for this gig, all will be a little better in my world.

Earlier today I was talking a friend of mine about Aliens. He mentioned that it is a perfect movie. Being hypercritical I had to pause and think on that, but really, I couldn’t find any fault.

But why? What does it nail so effectively? I think there are three primary keys: Fantastic actors across the board, sets done with loving detail, and sound. Sound is what brought about the comment because I mentioned how perfect the sound of the pulse rifles was. Meditating on it I realized that the movie makes such good use of sound. Every scene is loaded with at least a small amount of background noise, adding realism and of course the chance to imagine sounds that may not be there, like skitterings. Of course, the restored footage at the beginning adds so much to Ripley, and Weyland-Yutani for that matter.

Few movies can hold up so well. Alien is fantastic too, don’t get me wrong, but Aliens edges it out because there’s enough action to make it perfect home popcorn fodder. Alien really only comes into its own on a big screen, preferably with a quiet audience. Know what I mean? Aliens, while diminished at home, has a place. Plus, you know, powerloader.

Yes, I am bored and posting too often.

You know how sometimes you go “Blue Monday, that was a good tune”, only to realize that it’s way too fucking long to be a good song? Yeah, I thought so.

Ended up watching this last night. Talk about a mixed bag.

It starts off well enough, with some great shots and sequences. You have no idea what’s going on, which is compelling, and so much better than when it starts trying to explain itself.

Technophobia is at the heart of plenty of movies, good and bad. Mostly bad. Especially if computers, and gHod forbid the internet, are involved. At the very best they’ll bring up one ignorant idea that the story clings to, like an overboard sailor grasping a rotten plank, crying “Oh, oh, why can’t you anchor me to something you understand?”. In the middle you have multiple technologies/disciplines totally butchered. At worst, you end up with a writer that, rather than so much as look at wikipedia, seems to have filled a hat with bits of jargon, then attempts to build sentences by reaching to grab a fistful. I’m sorry to say that Pulse is of the latter type.

Here’s a sentence for you - “Frequencies we didn’t even know existed”. If you know what a frequency is, I’ll let you chew on that. If you don’t know, then go back to school. As we find out from a deranged… guy?… technician?… whatever, we find out that these apparently dead people came through some equipment for an “ultra wideband” telecom project. Naturally this means that they can traverse the internet and cell phones. Because nobody on the writing staff knows any fucking thing they don’t seem to propogate along power lines. Oh, and naturally even wired computers have wifi.

Somewhere in this mess we’re told that red duct tape can block them out, blocking some part of the EM spectrum that they need. Seeing as this would likely be a form of light, I have no idea how the fuck they’d travel a wire. READ MOTHERFUCKERS!! PAY ATTENTION IN SCHOOL! Sorry. Anyway, if I were in this situation, and had this info, Wal-Mart would be out of three things by the time I was done shopping- red duct tape, ground wire, and mid sized dowels. I would wear of coat of much duct tape, and start experimenting with tape covered dowels and grounding just to see what can be done about the situation. Know what I mean? Science people; look into it. Screaming and running will only get you so far.

So anywho, we get to the end. People are living in “dead zones” where there’s no “signals”. Let me tell you something, since these things don’t seem to need a receiver, because nobody learns at all, at the world is awash in a sea, nay an endless fucking ocean of microwave signals, there would be no such thing as a safe place. Just because your shitty Cricket phone doesn’t get a signal a mile out of town doesn’t mean there’s nothing there.  Oh, and during the last little sequence fighting the “dead”, the lead actress kicks one in the face. Now.. up to this point I thought they were intangible, you know? If I can kick something in the face and hold it off with duct tape, you must understand that this would simply be a very small step up, in difficulty, from your average zombie scenario. It’s game over for these things, understand? For that matter, you think tape is a problem, wait until I roll out an EMP. Seriously, just the tape was enough, knowing that you can beat them around physically tips the scale all the way over, simply in terms of morale.

To make an effective technophobic story you have to focus. Have to. Otherwise it’ll be stupid gibberish, like this was. Think Godzilla, the inscrutable motives and devastating atomic force that marched through all opposition. Colossus: The Forbin Project, the first AI, given absolute trust and power, only to find that we didn’t bother to see what it thought about things first.

Anyway. Let’s sum up here.

The good- Some great shots (probably lifted frame by frame from the Japanese original), and knowing, for the first half anyway, to not clutter things up with too much dialog.

The bad- Stupid characters, as in room temp IQs, and a really stupid premise.

I feel that I need to explain the stupid characters just a bit. Bad form to do it after a summary, I know, but nobody reads this anyway. Mattie (Kristen Bell) sees this dead thing in her bath water. Instead of leaping from the water like a person who just saw an undead evil thing staring up from their bath, she sort of curls up to one side of the tub, then reaches down to pull up a bath sponge. Yeah… that’s a human reaction for sure. There’s plenty of stuff like this.

There’s word of two direct to DVD sequels. Oh boy.

I’ve been pondering the various books that I can really say have changed me. Typically these are works that either exposed me to something I hadn’t known before, but identified with on a level which I can only describe as genetic, or challenged me in some fashion.

Here’s mycurrent list, in the order that I recall reading them.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Showed me the value of taking nothing seriously.

The Great Gatsby - No other book, that I’ve read anyway, has demonstrated the power, and folly, of self delusion and obsession.

I, Robot - Sure, I should have read Frankenstein first, but I didn’t. Still, the idea of a functional, complete being that is treated as monstrous is something I imagine any teenager can relate to. For that matter it’s an idea that’s powerful to me even now, when I examine my inner landscape.

Dune - These books challenged me to think about what it means, what it should mean, to be human, the power and damage of blind(ing) faith, behavioral cycles, and really described a way of looking at the mind as a toolbox. It also laid the foundations for me to understand the Middle Eastern power struggles he drew upon, such as OPEC and the concept of hydraulic despotism, all tied to a culture of zealotry.

The Stars My Destination - A classic of Sci-Fi, illustrating a man’s progress from greedy, selfish animal to a citizen within a social contract. At the end of it all, he rises from his selfish crimes to commit a potentially world destroying crime, one that requires the power brokers of the solar system to own up to what they’ve done, changing soceity into something more honest. The most important thing is that, having done this, he knows it was still a crime, and the he must pay penance, even if the crime yielded something good. I’d say this really exposed me to the idea of moral complexity, as well as generating some feeling of what social contracts are about.

A Book of Five Rings - Distinguishing between strength, cunning, actual strategy, and how often these things are confused with each other, especially by the successful. Another powerful idea is that everything is of the world, so knowing one thing teaches you principles that apply to all things.

Catcher in the Rye - The ending of the book is like slamming your head in a door. It might be just trauma, or there might be meaning, but I can’t really tell and often find myself flipping around what it all meant. This confusion, and uncertainty, is by itself useful. Nothing is worse than absolute certainty.

Armor - I’m pretty sure it’s at least influenced by Batman and Superman, but I certainly won’t hold that against it. It takes a character that is, essentially, monstrous, but only because he is so very human. It describes a form of frustration that is difficult to define in less than a novel, while also demonstrating the cleansing effect of having your ego smashed against someone who is, quite simply, better than you. Not because you can’t be as good, but because what you thought was depth of will was actually a wading pool, and that you merely lacked perspective. The monstrousness comes about because the character, our protagonist, is essentially a tool of vengeance, not a traditional hero. He is constantly running, because the will to live is encoded beyond his control, while another character, truly a classic hero, dies fruitlessly, but not meaninglessly. It’s very complex, and brings up so many little challenges to the self, with a handful of big questions stitched into its very fabric, that I couldn’t help but feel different after reading it.

Blindsight - Talk about challenging. This book peeled back layers inside a version of me that I already thought pretty sparse. I related all too readily for comfort to the semi-sociopathic narrator, and found myself shattering alongside him. Question what being me really is, not just the useless idea of why but really what it all is. I felt lessened after reading it, but all the stronger for having the excess shaved away.

Large sections of America labor in unforgivable ignorance of the physical world. You know, the only world that means anything.

Some friendships have a strength inversely related to the power of the neuroses involved.

Clarity of memory, while something I wouldn’t give up, is something of a curse. Primarily this is true when someone else’s brain insists on lying to them.

13 inches of snow is a lot more than it sounds like.

Realbasic, while limited in some ways, is an amazing joy to use.

Linux is gaining a lot of ground, and the same people claiming otherwise are likely to also deride the idea of climate change.

Allow me to pause here to expand that one with a story. I was at a client’s house, his machine, an XP box, was royally borked. We were talking while I worked, and we get on the subject of linux. Now, with a straight face, he starts claiming the superiority of Windows while I’m attempting to resurrect this machine that was completely screwed because of a wonky update. So I asked him what he felt was so superior about Windows. He stated that he liked how everything he uses (specifically his Xbox 360 and PC) worked together. Now, I know there’s a few things you can do in that regard, but he wasn’t setup to do any of them so I asked “Like what?”, to which he had absolutely no reply. I even tried to give him the out of games, since there aren’t many major titles for linux, but no, he only plays console titles. As I once said to someone on 4chan, the big difference between people that mock linux and people that use, and love, linux but are ever more pained by Windows, is that we (linux lovers) have actually tried both. I still stand by that.

If forced to give a summary of this year, I’d have to describe it as an arc that went from “Pretty great” to “Shit” to “Sinking in Shit” to “Wading in it, but feeling oddly freer all the time”. I’m fascinated by the current economy, even if it’s completely raped my business, and find it strangely comforting. It took me a while to figure out why, but finally it hit me. I’m a product of the 80’s, and this is like coming back to the broken, disfigured bed of my youth. While not comfortable, it is non-sensibly comforting. This may be cause for corrective medication, but in a way I feel pre-adapted to what’s going down.

Anyway, best of luck everyone.

The download and install process are complete fucking ass. Not a great interface either.

The single funniest product in the known universe. Yes, yes I have a dirty, filthy mind. I’m pretty happy with that though, so it must be a you problem.

In case that’s down I’ll add a picture.

The kind of love you need a mop for

So, I’m reading this note on a tragedy in progress, make my comment, and check back later.

Lo, how screwed people are. I have a pair of comments on there, so far. I doubt I’ll muster the energy to comment more, but you never know.

That’s a lot of snow. Combined with a lot of people that fear it like cancer, or think there’s no reason at all to drive differently, it really is magical.