Pteryxx Tracks

Quotes of the week, 4Dec09

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 06:57:06 GMT

This week: The shard-strewn path from bitter rage to healing.

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Once there was a fine warren on the edge of a wood, overlooking the meadows of a farm. It was big, full of rabbits... One day the farmer thought, 'I could increase those rabbits: make them part of my farm - their meat, their skins. Why should I bother to keep rabbits in hutches? They'll do very well where they are.'

...So they lived as he wanted them to live and all the time there were a few who disappeared. The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits. They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected, they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and there, never enough at a time to drive them away. They forgot the ways of wild rabbits. They forgot El-ahrairah, for what use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?

-Fiver in Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Haitian zombie, Davis argues, is the product of a series of terrifying experiences, all specific to the cultural context of rural Haiti. First comes the overwhelming trauma of having been buried alive. Clairvius Narcisse reported total lucidity through the entire ordeal. Upon removal from the coffin, the would-be zombie is fed a hallucinogenic drug from the plant Datura stramonium, locally known by the suggestive name concombre zombi. At the same time, the victim is given a ferocious beating by his captors. The final touch is the total rejection of the zombie by his own community. The cumulative effect is the destruction of the zombie’s will — what the Haitians call the “ti bon angel,” or the good little angel, the unseen thing that gives personality and resolve to each individual soul. The victim is now a zombie, and he knows he is now a zombie: He has fallen into a well-known trap from which no man or woman escapes.

His soul collapses.

The zombie is now like a living corpse.

- Mischa Berlinski

Link to source

From "Dear Bigot:"

My daughter is surrounded by people of many backgrounds and religions, and has learned a respect for different beliefs. She may not always feel that way, but when she feels afraid of something different she asks questions rather than lashing out at the unknown. This is the difference between compassionate intelligence and loathsome stupidity.

My daughter is a better person than I am. She would likely embrace you, loathsome correspondent, as a human being worthy of respect and love, regardless of background and beliefs.

I'm not there yet.

-PalMD

Link to source

Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world - "No, you move."

Captain America in Amazing Spider-Man #537

You're learning a hard lesson, little muffin. Science does not always turn out the way we hope or plan when we do an experiment. That is sometimes really, really challenging for the undergraduates in our lab to internalize -- that their experiments will not work quickly and easily. But, before we get to what you do about it, you really do need to put your chin up and get back to it. It's alright to have moments of tear-inducing frustration, but when that perpetuates into a state of mind, you've gotta shake it off, plan out a new strategy, and move on. It's not easy, but that hot, hot science ain't gonna do itself.

-Dr. Isis

Link to source

Silver: But you're not playing hard enough if you're not vomiting uncontrollably.

I have this theory about intelligence. It's an over-simplified theory but here it is...

There are three basic levels of intelligence. The first level consists of people who are not smart enough to know anything about the complexities of the universe and the deep suffering humanity has endured since its beginning. These people, unaware of the dark or disappointing aspects of existence, take blissful pleasure in small, insignificant things like a sunny day or a blueberry waffle. They spend their days with dumb looking grins on their faces, talking about unimportant, simple pleasures.

The second level of intelligence is made up of people who are smart enough to have a notable understanding of those complexities of the universe and that deep suffering that humanity has endured. With their grasp on the bleakness of existence, they see no emotion in a sunny day, knowing full well that emotions are nothing more than chemical reactions in our brains, triggered by our environment to help dictate our actions in ways that might benefit our species. They fail to see the point in that blueberry waffle, knowing that at any given time, uncounted people around the world are dying of hunger caused by corruption.

People within the third level of intelligence are also aware of these detailed and dreary points of our world. They understand the moral failure that so much of our planet endures. They know about the distant, permanently undiscovered details of the universe that are so vast and numerous, they masquerade as a great, black emptiness to our simple, mortal minds. Yet, these people who are completely aware of the dark or disappointing aspects of existence, have the extensive intelligence that is needed to take blissful pleasure in small, insignificant things like a sunny day or a blueberry waffle. They spend their days with dumb looking grins on their faces, talking about unimportant, simple pleasures.

~Thunt

Link to source

Quotes of the week(s) 30Nov09

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:01:00 GMT

Interesting couple of weeks. Some laughs, some darkness, a couple of practical exams and lessons learned both harsh and enlightening.

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The Seattle Sobriety Test

In Seattle, when you get pulled over because they suspect you've been drinking, the cops take you around to the back of their car and show you five bins of different sizes and colors, one of which is segmented into three sections with moveable partitions, two of which are lined with plastic bags. The officer hands you a box. If you can successfully sort all of the trash in the box into the compostables, landfill, glass bottles (separating dark colors, bright colors, and clear), paper, and plastic, then you're free to go.

-Elf Sternberg

Link to source

My parents never controlled what I read, watched, or played. I was always an advanced reader, and would read nearly anything I could get my hands on– including [comic] books with naughty material. What kind of degenerate life am I leading now at 22?

I’m in law school. Those damn comic books.

-Alexa

Link to source

... So, basically, saying that this game [FATAL] should be burned is an insult to fire.

The worst part of reviewing this shit is that I actually have to think about it. I actually have to read this shit, then comprehend it - and this is the hardest part - then try to explain it to you, then I have to spend half an hour with a pencil up my nose trying to fish out the piece of brain that died the minute that I tried to use it to understand FATAL.

-Darren MacLennan

Link to source

"Spell your name with the realism!"

It's "I was just going to kill you, but now I'm going to pull your spine out through your anus and play you like an accordion."

-Gasmaskangel

Link to source

Too needy, too unable to face reality, too frightened of our own shadows, and of the shadow of death, we are, it's clear, a pathetic species. Capable of so much, individuals having created transcendentally beautiful art, invented amazing things, taken flight, peeled back layer upon layer of ignorance, collectively we are inexplicably easily manipulated, distracted, lied to, compelled to act against our own interest, to fall upon one another in hatred.

-Sid Schwab

Link to source

"As president, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. And I also want to keep an eye on those robots in case they try anything."

--Barack Obama, speaking to Washington D.C. schoolkids on Monday as part of his science education initiative. 25Nov09

I'm not sure if there's an afterlife, but if there is I hope my grandad has got enough clothes with him and I hope he's not hungry.

-Chemicalwolf

Link to source

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool."

-Richard Feynman

"Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."

-T.H. Huxley

Quotes of the week 16Nov09

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:27:30 GMT

...It's been far too long, but waiting for the perfect time just ensures it will never arrive. So this is as good a place as any to post the quotes I keep wanting to post.

Quotes I've found this week:

I don't write because I know so much--I write because it gives me an opportunity to learn.

-Arthur Goldwag

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

~ Thornton Wilder

You must know how to make the most out of all your talents. That means if you're brilliant, lead with your brains. If you're savvy, go with your gut. And if you are luckier than me and are born beautiful, at least make sure you wash your hair regularly and wear a clean blouse.

-Mika Brzezinski

Link to source

My country is very good at giving people a national soapbox and even electing them to office when we really ought to be forcing them to repeat junior high.

-Blake Stacey

Link to source

Random Act of Awesome: Tweenbots

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:47:31 GMT

Little cardboard robots with flags stating their destinations, released as a street art project in New York City. The artist made them disposable, expecting that most of them would die in the wild; but over the months, random strangers came through time and again, rescuing the bots and guiding them to their destinations. She states, "Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged."

http://www.tweenbots.com/

Another discovery by the folks at boingboing.

Flying down cliffs: What dreams are made of

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:33:26 GMT

We've always dreamed of flight, we humans. Hang gliding was cool, sure; parasailing is cool, base-jumping is very cool. These guys, using wingsuits to skim down cliff faces in Norway, make all of them look as clumsy as kids paddling in water wings.

Humans aren't much as vertebrates go; not big nor strong nor fast nor particularly well-armed by nature. What we mainly are is crafty. Humans imagine things never seen or used before and have the hands to bring them about, and the language to show their dreams to each other. We're the tool-usingest species there ever has been. Our minds reshape themselves to make use of our tools, creating alternate body maps that reach beyond where our flesh and fingers end. Every time a person learns to wield a paintbrush, a scalpel, a hammer, a sword, a computer mouse or the bow of a violin, that object becomes an extension of ourselves as mapped by the motor regions of our brains. We hold many such maps, switching between them at will without a second thought, or even a first thought. The pencil is simply there, part of the hand that holds it. Something similar happens with the tools that move us; the car or canoe or bicycle that we steer as deftly as we walk. It's not just a figure of speech when a driver says "That jerk just cut me off" or "cracked my windshield". The moving vehicle, the animated tool, is a person in a two-thousand-pound skin.

So the wingsuit, a relatively simple construct, combined with a great deal of parachuting and base-jumping experience, enables a handful of humans to learn the skills of frigates. Balancing their bodies on the rush of air to steer and tumble, skimming a few body-lengths from the cliffs. Humans were always able to fly, given the right set of tools.

Phraseoftheday: Kitteh Figleaf

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:44:02 GMT

Today's addition to the Net-savvy wanderer's meme vocabulary: Kitteh Figleaf.

On the December 4 episode of BBTV, BB Gadgets reviewer Joel Johnson did his first (official) naked shower scene while reviewing the Soundwave waterproof mp3 player. While the video is totally worksafe, commenters did enjoy watching his goofy dancing in the buff.

Joel the Naked Gadget Reviewer on BBTV: (Link to BB page)

Then, on yesterday's episode, Joel reviewed the Norelco Bodygroom electric shaver. He tried it on various areas, uploaded his video to the site, and only then discovered that his "footage" was shot a bit low. The error was quickly rectified by the application of a soft fluffy kitten picture in the appropriate area.

Joel the Half-Naked Gadget Reviewer on BBTV, Pettable Edition: (Link to BB page)

Attributed to Xeni Jardin, editor-contributor to the BoingBoing blog. Previously incarnated as the Blockatiel.

Random Act of Awesome - Welcome Home

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:17:39 GMT

Airports aren't fun places these days, which makes for excellent random brightening. Twenty "Agents" of Improv Everywhere spent a few hours at JFK Airport greeting strangers with flowers and personalized Welcome Home signs. Their event writeup explains in detail how it was done, how people reacted, and showcases some fine wide-eyed expressions.

Improv Everywhere's writeup here:

Welcome Back Mission

Photo is from crnphoto.com 's Flickr stream. The rest of the set is here:

Welcome Back photos

Via that repository of fascinatingness, BoingBoing.

Random Moment of Awesome

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:06:05 GMT

From TVTropes' "Crowning Moment of Real Life" page:

"When acclaimed rapper Nas pulled out of a performance on Later With Jools Holland, a little-known Scottish woman was invited on - with 24 hours to prepare. Armed with only a guitar and a loop pedal, she proceeded to comprehensively upstage every other act on the show with a stunning performance of sheer, utter balls. Yep, it's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" by KT Tunstall."

TVTropes: CMRL

In case of embedding failure:
Youtube link.

$700 Billion Bandaid

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:29:34 GMT

For anyone who might be thinking that rolling handouts are a bad idea... here's some background info. This might be a good time to make those phone calls, yah.

[

Articles about the stupidity of the Federal bailout plan below. We need to make some noise about this fast, as both parties are saying they 'must' put us 700 billion more in debt and 'fast' because 'the alternative is worse'. Haven't we heard that one enough times by now?

Saner alternatives include forcing banks to raise capital equilaterally by cancelling dividends and/or issuing new equity; using the government to buy equity stakes in the banks themselves instead of buying up bad debt; and debt relief directly to households rather than financial institutions, allowing them to keep their mortgaged property under new terms.

Go to congress.org to find your officials and their contact information. Actual phone calls work best.

[url]http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/[/url]

Mallaby on the folly of starting a financial war:

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/20/AR2008092001059.html[/url]

[quote]"With truly extraordinary speed, opinion has swung behind the radical idea that the government should commit hundreds of billions in taxpayer money to purchasing dud loans from banks that aren't actually insolvent. As recently as a week ago, no public official had even mentioned this option. Now the Treasury, the Fed and congressional leaders are promising its enactment within days. The scheme has gone from invisibility to inevitability in the blink of an eye. This is extremely dangerous."[/quote]

Krugman says the bailout plan won't work anyway:

[url]http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/no-deal/[/url]

[quote]"The Treasury plan, by contrast, looks like an attempt to restore confidence in the financial system — that is, convince creditors of troubled institutions that everything’s OK — simply by buying assets off these institutions. This will only work if the prices Treasury pays are much higher than current market prices; that, in turn, can only be true either if this is mainly a liquidity problem — which seems doubtful — or if Treasury is going to be paying a huge premium, in effect throwing taxpayers’ money at the financial world.

And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving."[/quote]

Zehner on the fatal flaw of trying to protect crippled financial institutions:

[url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-zehner/atlas-shrugged-a-reaction_b_127749.html[/url]

[quote]"Similarly, as the homeowner loses his equity, so should the investment banks. Out of greed, they took on too much risk and funded it too short term. That's their mistake, not the U.S. taxpayer's, and they should not be protected by changing the rules of trading.

The free markets are meant to function as a corrective mechanism for companies, and for governments for that matter too. When a company is doing well, its stock is meant to rise, when it does poorly, the opposite should happen. The change in short selling rules has circumvented that feedback mechanism. Financial companies are now insulated against market discipline. The consequences could be disastrous because the global markets will ultimately provide the discipline that the US authorities lack the courage to administer. The result will be nothing short of the destruction of the US dollar as a reserve currency."[/quote]

Exley even more plainly:

[url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/understanding-the-trillio_b_127853.html[/url]

[quote]"ZE: If their representatives did stand up for them, what should the American people be looking to get in this deal?

MFW: Firstly, they should have a say. They are missing the size and profundity of what is happening. We are selecting our national priorities and committing our tax dollars -- for years -- right now. What is on offer to distressed homeowners, struggling college students, unemployed Americans, pension and 401K accounts hammered by what has already happened? What is being done to address the core mismatch that created this problem? People can't substitute loans for wages and savings! They still can't after this deal goes through! Until and unless we fix that problem, all solutions are temporary and we fix one problem by creating the next problem.

By the way, the US Dollar is now the world's first currency backed by home mortgages!"[/quote]

Hillary's plan for mortgage modifications, where homeowners and lenders re-negotiate terms:

[url]http://www.correntewire.com/acronyms_to_watch_for_roubini_supports_hillarys_holc_not_rtc_rfc_solutions_to_financial_crisis[/url]

[quote]"Last spring when I called for a modern version of the HOLC, that’s the Depression-era entity that bought up old mortgages and issued new, more affordable ones in their stead, most people did not pay much attention. But I think it’s important to note that by the time the HOLC closed its books, that agency had turned a small profit and helped over a million people keep their homes. And this was 70 years ago. Our population has grown dramatically.

So, obviously, if we did it right, we would be able to save a lot of homes. And I think if it is administered correctly it could be actually a net expenditure or even winner for the federal government."[/quote]

NPR article on the power grab language in the bailout bill:

[url]http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2008/09/now_we_see_it_the_white_house.html#more[/url]

[quote]"I would guess that this has to be one of the biggest peacetime transfers of power from Congress to the Administration in history. (Anyone know?). Certainly one of the most concise.

The Treasury Secretary can buy broadly defined assets, on any terms he wants, he can hire anyone he wants to do it and can appoint private sector companies as financial deputies of the US government. And he can write whatever regulation he thinks are needed...

This graph really stands out:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."[/quote]

Mortal Men

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:29:45 GMT

As I write this, I'm watching (for the fourth time now) an episode of Deadliest Catch, the documentary-drama about Alaskan crab fishermen working the hazardous Bering Sea in winter. Like many fans, I've been watching religiously for years and feel I know these folks.

A series of storms battered the fleet during the night, damaging several of 'our' boats. Phil, the captain of the Cornelia Marie, got thrown from his bunk and hit the corner of a cabinet opposite, breaking some ribs. His son Josh bound him up and they all went on fishing while Phil kept up a quiet, steady coughing behind the wheel.

During the day he started coughing up blood. Josh came up to check on him, and Phil with unaccustomed gentleness thanked him and asked for a few ibuprofen. He said nothing about the blood. "My health is on the back burner right now, we got a lot to get done... Chances are this is nothing."

After a day of fishing and getting gradually worse, Phil called up Murray, his senior crewman and best friend. Murray listens and says "Sounds like you poked a rib into your lung." Phil says "Yeah." Then they go on fishing, Murray working the deck with a solemn face, Phil coughing into bloody paper towels and hiding them in crevices in the wheelhouse.

Late in the night, now 24 hours since the injury. Phil abruptly calls a hospital in Anchorage, then says he's got fishing to do and hangs up. "I got to find another hospital... I don't like what this one is telling me. She says get to an ER right now."

The next morning, two days after the injury. Murray checks on Phil and finds him slowly getting worse. Phil keeps saying he doesn't want to let down his crew and his ship. "I always had this dream that I'd die at sea." Murray keeps on fishing, but before long he disobeys orders and tells Phil's sons what's going on. Josh comes upstairs and says screw the fishing, screw the money, if it was me we'd be in dock already. Phil gently says he needs to be alone right now and sends his son away. They go back to fishing, now all the deck in silence, but their postures speak volumes.

Later that day, another captain calls Phil about the fishing. Phil says listen, I got hurt and now the hospital's after me. The other captain goes, You did what?! Call the coasties, make the call, don't be shy. Phil thanks him for his concern and hangs up.

He turns to the camera and mutters how everybody is after him now...

"This is starting to get to me man... I don't know what to do. Big tough guy huh, ain't so tough. Big tough guy that ain't so tough."

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It's hard to grasp the scope of what a human mind can do to itself. What we believe is more central to us than our talents, more powerful than our intelligence, more important than our survival. We believe so easily, so willingly. And what we believe, no force on earth can change without our consent.

"Something will go wrong, it always does."
"I just don't have the talent for it."
"Everything would be okay if I just do better."
"Nothing I do would matter anyway."
"He's trustworthy because he's one of us."
"But I love my mate."
"I'm not the kind of person that has this problem."
"I don't need help."

We minimize, we rationalize, we deny. We guard our beliefs as jealously as a dragon with its hoard and respond to any intrusion with overwhelming force. Changing our souls is so threatening, so terrifying, that we can't even conceive of the possibility that we might be wrong. The world might not be what we think it is... indeed, it never was.

"I've seen many times that after the shock of violence has begun to heal, victims will be carried in their minds back to that hallway or parking lot, back to the time when they still had choices, before they fell under someone's malevolent control, before they refused the gift of fear...
"Often they will say about some particular detail, 'I realize this now, but I didn't know it then.' Of course, if it is in their heads now, so was it then. What they mean is that they only now accept the significance...
"This has taught me that the intuitive process works, though often not as well as its principal competitor, the denial process."

-Gavin de Becker in 'The Gift of Fear'

'The Gift of Fear' is primarily about teaching people how to predict violent behavior and avoid it; but it is also, at the core, about intuition, creativity, and humanness. When a person frees oneself to guess, to make mistakes, to ask questions, one is more likely to find a workable solution to a problem. This can be demonstrated through experiments with simple puzzles, or by posing a question to any group of young children. Adults are expected to be more reasonable, which often means conforming; and school tends to be a long process of training in the fear of being wrong, both scholastically and socially. Artists, and especially writers, often have to *un-learn* this fear in order to fully capitalize on their creative abilities. In the deep places of us where creation happens, the heart does not know the adult's fear of making a mistake. It can never be less than true to itself.

The freedom of the heart that speaks without words, seems to me to come from those questions that are the stamp of childhood, as well as storytelling and art and creativity in many fields. One is "Why are things that way?" and the other is "What if they were different?" Why is the sky blue... what if it were green, or white? Why can't dogs talk, and what if they could? What might happen if we colonized Mars? What would a laughing pear look like? What if this species had three legs? What would it be like to live the life of this person we admire? What if those signals really add up to something.... what if I really need help?

Asking such a question implies willingness to search out and create an answer, one that is not necessarily right or wrong. It's our birthright, a free pass on our own recognizance to wander in the strange open lands beyond the walls, to see with eyes unclouded.

---------

Three days after being injured, Phil concedes under pressure and sets course for the nearest clinic at St. Paul island. All night, the word is spreading through the fleet, and other captains start calling on Phil's radio, concerned for him. He answers none of them. On the Time Bandit, Johnathan says, "I'm sure he ain't gonna call us (back), he's the tough guy. Tough guy just gonna disappear on us... Say a little prayer for Phil. Hope he's gonna be okay."

Phil: "It's weird, you feel alone. Never felt real alone before...
"If something happened to me right now, what would happen with the boys? What would happen if I fell off the face of the earth right now?"

He finally gets medical attention, 60 hours after the initial injury. As the episode closes, we see him standing in the snow and slush outside the ER, gathering his nerve to go inside.

"I can't believe that this is happening. But it is, and I'm here."

-------

Further reading:

Deadliest Catch fan forums

Blain's page on denial

Amazon link for 'The Gift of Fear'

'Little Brother' by Cory Doctorow

Tue, 13 May 2008 04:44:27 GMT

Heya all,

Below find the link to the novel 'Little Brother', being given away by the author Cory Doctorow on his own website. The reasons for letting anyone who wants download his latest, just-released book for free, in this case are twofold: First, because authors need buzz before they can expect to sell anything. Second, because ordinary people dealing with the constant presence of security and technology in their daily lives, desperately need to learn to think critically about what those things really can and cannot do. Mostly we just trust the little black boxes that run our lives.

The strongest way for an author to have his stuff read, the way most likely to gain him fans and spread his name, is by the personal recommendation of a trusted friend. I just finished the book, and I found it good enough to pass along to y'all. It's fast-paced, keeps raising the stakes, and it's also full of information that amounts almost to tutorials. It reads a lot like Heinlein's 'Have Spacesuit Will Travel' that way, a story that does as much teaching as storytelling. But it is NEVER slow. It's basically a showcase of the hacker mindset and gamesmanship. I thought character-wise it was pretty flat; Marcus, whose POV we share throughout, does think about and react to what his actions mean. The teachers, authority figures, and parents act pretty much like you'd expect them to, and hold the views they need to hold. It's Marcus and his friends who know the reality of the technology they use, and who know that the DHS detained them and forbade them to tell; everyone else, all the people living in the ordinary world, are the ones they have to wake up, to convince. But that IS the purpose of the novel; it's a meta-story, a call to action by blazing the path and showing what it means, what it's like to decide to fight the system.

http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

Take care all, enjoy, and pass on.

- Peace, Pteryxx

Orphaned Works and Premature Activism

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:42:49 GMT

In the last few days, the Net has lit up with alarm about a bill pending before Congress that would effectively remove copyright infringement penalties for any artwork not specifically registered with a paid service. Art communities are justifiably concerned by the prospect. Journals, blogs and emails are flying the banner "Legalized Theft!" passing the message on like a grass fire. All the power of the outraged communities is being brought to bear for the crusade.

Problem is, no such bill exists. Yet.

The rumor arose from an article by Mark Simon on Animation World Network, which claims that all unregistered copyrights are under immediate threat:
You Will Lose All The Rights To Your Own Art
"If the Orphan Works legislation passes, you and I and all creatives will lose virtually all the rights to not only our future work but to everything we've created over the past 34 years, unless we register it with the new, untested and privately run (by the friends and cronies of the U.S. government) registries. Even then, there is no guarantee that someone wishing to steal your personal creations won't successfully call your work an orphan work, and then legally use it for free."

He's expanding on concerns raised by the Illustrators' Partnership of America, whose own news release of March 19 asks its readers only to be alert and stand by:
Orphan Works Update
"Many artists have contacted us, asking if it’s time to write Congress about the new Orphan Works bill. No, Congress hasn’t released an actual bill yet and lawmakers tend to ignore letters when there is no bill.

But when we do ask you to act, it will have to be quickly. We expect a bill to be released after the Easter recess. Sources say it will be introduced in the House and Senate simultaneously, and fast-tracked for a vote in the House by mid-May. Advocates hope for swift passage before the summer recess."

The IPA is responding to a presentation made to the House IP subcommittee by a company called Pic Scout. Pic Scout has created image recognition technology that can automate scanning for infringing works, and presented its newest product, the Content Clearance System, as a solution to the problem of orphaned works. Anyone wishing to use an image would upload it to be compared against Pic Scout's database, then receive back the image owner's contact information if it exists.
Pic Scout statement, 13March08
"This system targets the simple person who wants to use any digital file, and doesn't know who it belongs to. All he has to do is go online, upload this file to our clearance system, using our friendly interface, and click on a search button. Our system will compare this file to millions of other files, already stored in our secured database, and the user will receive an email notification with copyright owner detailed contact and licensing information. While performing this reasonable and diligent search at a little or no cost at all, the users will have the ability to decide whether they can and want to use the content."

While I'm sure Pic Scout would be overjoyed to have every artist in the States forced to pay a fee to get into their safe, gated database, it's a long road between here and there. For one thing, the Copyright Office has already considered requiring registration and rejected it as too extreme. Register of Copyrights, 13Mar08
"In our study of the orphan works problem, the Office reviewed various suggestions from the copyright community. These included creating a new exception in Title 17, creating a government-managed compulsory license, and instituting a ceiling on available damages. We rejected all of these proposals in part for the same reasons: we did not wish to unduly prejudice the legitimate rights of a copyright owner by depriving him of the ability to assert infringement or hinder his ability to collect an award that reflects the true value of his work."

For another, image comparison is just one potential tool in making a reasonable search for an owner. Art communities, websites, professional organizations and such already do a pretty good job of searching out infringement without any such technological aids. And new tools come along all the time, such as Google's Image Labeler currently in beta.
Image Labeler

Finally, current copyright law already stipulates that when the owner of an 'orphaned work' resurfaces, that work is no longer considered orphaned. The owner can still claim compensation for the image's use. Reasonable effort to search for the owner, and formal registration of a work, only come into play for statutory damages. If someone claims your work is orphaned, and you show up and say 'Hey that's mine', you have rights. It's that simple.

Current copyright law could indeed be in flux; it's been pounded from all sides by entertainment giants extending their terms, recording companies attacking fair use, and software producers claiming everything they make is only licensed and never sold. Any proposed legislation that appears in the next few weeks needs to be scrunitized. We have every reason to carefully watch the proceedings and keep ourselves informed of the laws. And then, when a real threat arises, to recognize and act on it as swiftly as we did these past days.

If nothing else, perhaps this scare reminds us how much we value our own creations and those of our fellow artists. The first step to believing something is the fear that it might be true*.

*(to paraphrase Terry Goodkind.)

Further reading:
Radio Free Meredith's excellent analysis on orphaned works:
Six Misconceptions About Orphaned Works"

Statement by Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights, before the House on 13 March 2008:
The "Orphan Works" Problem and Proposed Legislation"

Self-challenge: Habituate to Praise

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:11:26 GMT

Let me start by saying outright that I don't expect or ask you all to read this. The purpose of this post isn't to get attention from the community, but to make a challenge to myself in a way that I can't ignore.

I'm both a perfectionist and a procrastinator, as some of you well know. Over the last several months I've had ample time to study myself and ask just why it should be so damned hard for me to create. I know I can do it, I've done it all my life, and I've hardened myself to the fear of display sufficiently to post my works and even take criticism with more or less grace. Why do I still constantly engineer my days so that I run out of time to draw or write, and why do I grab at any flimsy excuse to avoid the very work that I most love to do?

One method to overcome obstacles is to visualize the path you wish to take. I've been working at it and I realized this morning that I can barely imagine what being a successful artist feels like. Working from home, being adept with my tools, discussing a client's needs, that's all the easy part. But looking down at a finished work with satisfaction, displaying it naturally instead of as an act of defiance, and accepting the word of others that it's not just good but excellent... it's hard even to describe. I can imagine being a sapient aquatic torpedo that navigates by pressure waves and speaks in patterns of light, but I have trouble imagining what it's like to hear praise and believe it. Anticipating praise feels very much like waiting for a lancet's stab, and receiving it feels like being pushed to the edge of a cliff, complete with scrabbling claws and desperation.

I admit that I'm rather offended at myself for clinging to a maladaptive response so strongly. I've read enough about the damage done by victimhood status, and it seems unfair that I should still be crippled by my past while people who suffered much worse abuse than I did survived with nothing but memories. Be that as it may, every living thing with two neurons to rub together is capable of associating warning cues with trauma on a reflex level. Suffice to say that I learned very well to associate both praise and success with punishment. Critique hurts, yes, sometimes very deeply, but praise is worse because there's no counterattack, nothing to fix that will stop it returning, and it'll only get more intense with time. No wonder I've learned the only safe path is never to finish anything.

If a thing can be learned, it can be un-learned. By experimenting and making mistakes, you not only learn to improve your technique, but to improve your acceptance of mistakes. I have all the practice I need in brainstorming concepts and starting a piece of work with enthusiasm and hope. Now it just remains to train myself in willingly finishing that work, presenting it to your consideration as an equal in rights if not in skill, and looking upon the positive comments as calmly and rationally as I do the critical ones. I'm able to accept thanks, most of the time anyway, so my challenge is to become habituated to praise.

I join communities, I'm active for a while, I make some friends, and then I find reasons to sneak away and protect myself from their eager attention. So I'm posting this message solely to ensure that there exists no haunt where I can run away from this challenge. I'm not asking for sympathy or recognition, though no doubt some of you will respond and I'll accept your words in the spirit they're given. I've hidden this fear from myself for most of my life, and I see no reason to make its continued concealment easy.

A letter from Tucker

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:23:47 GMT

Last week, Oklahoma State rep Sally Kern was recorded claiming that the efforts of gays to secure civil rights will destroy America. "It's the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam."

The responses have been lighting up the Net from every corner of the world, but the definitive answer has to be this letter from an Oklahoma student. As words are double-edged weapons, those that heal should be spread every bit as widely as those that kill; and the lesson learned from suffering can be either to hate or to love.

-------------------

Rep Kern:

On April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City a terrorist detonated a bomb that killed my mother and 167 others. 19 children died that day. Had I not had the chicken pox that day, the body count would've likely have included one more. Over 800 other Oklahomans were injured that day and many of those still suffer through their permanent wounds.

That terrorist was neither a homosexual or was he involved in Islam. He was an extremist Christian forcing his views through a body count. He held his beliefs and made those who didn't live up to them pay with their lives.

As you were not a resident of Oklahoma on that day, it could be explained why you so carelessly chose words saying that the homosexual agenda is worst than terrorism. I can most certainly tell you through my own experience that is not true. I am sure there are many people in your voting district that laid a loved one to death after the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City. I kind of doubt you'll find one of them that will agree with you.

I was five years old when my mother died. I remember what a beautiful, wise, and remarkable woman she was. I miss her. Your harsh words and misguided beliefs brought me to tears, because you told me that my mother's killer was a better person than a group of people that are seeking safety and tolerance for themselves.

As someone left motherless and victimized by terrorists, I say to you very clearly you are absolutely wrong.

You represent a district in Oklahoma City and you very coldly express a lack of love, sympathy or understanding for what they've been through. Can I ask if you might have chosen wiser words were you a real Oklahoman that was here to share the suffering with Oklahoma City? Might your heart be a bit less cold had you been around to see the small bodies of children being pulled out of rubble and carried away by weeping firemen?

I've spent 12 years in Oklahoma public schools and never once have I had anyone try to force a gay agenda on me. I have seen, however, many gay students beat up and there's never a day in school that has went by when I haven't heard the word **** slung at someone. I've been called gay slurs many times and they hurt and I am not even gay so I can just imagine how a real gay person feels. You were a school teacher and you have seen those things too. How could you care so little about the suffering of some of your students?

Let me tell you the result of your words in my school. Every openly gay and suspected gay in the school were having to walk together Monday for protection. They looked scared. They've already experienced enough hate and now your words gave other students even more motivation to sneer at them and call them names. Afterall, you are a teacher and a lawmaker, many young people have taken your words to heart. That happens when you assume a role of responsibility in your community. I seriously think before this week ends that some kids here will be going home bruised and bloody because of what you said.

I wish you could've met my mom. Maybe she could've guided you in how a real Christian should be acting and speaking.

I have not had a mother for nearly 13 years now and wonder if there were fewer people like you around, people with more love and tolerance in their hearts instead of strife, if my mom would be here to watch me graduate from high school this spring. Now she won't be there. So I'll be packing my things and leaving Oklahoma to go to college elsewhere and one day be a writer and I have no intentions to ever return here. I have no doubt that people like you will incite crazy people to build more bombs and kill more people again. I don't want to be here for that. I just can't go through that again.

You may just see me as a kid, but let me try to teach you something. The old saying is sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you. Well, your words hurt me. Your words disrespected the memory of my mom. Your words can cause others to pick up sticks and stones and hurt others.

Sincerely

Tucker

--------------

Sources: Originally from Topix.com in comments to Sen. Kern. Formatted here:
Letter to Sally Kern on Hyphoid Logic blog.

Burying Grandpa

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:35:15 GMT

Today we buried my grandfather, just my parents and I. His ashes are now sharing a headstone with my grandmother in the small cemetery where every name in the row is a relative of mine. My mother walked the row and pointed out people she remembered, and the spaces marked with the names and birthdates of the living. Her aunts and uncles are there, and her baby sister whom she named. My parents' names adorn the back of my grandparents' stone, with the names of their children carved below them. I don't have a plot waiting for me like they do, but my name is here nonetheless.

Yesterday it rained heavily, but today was bright and almost warm. We brought Grandpa's old shovels and the post-hole digger, laid in the back of his van next to the polished wood box that held his ashes. My dad and I carved out a square in the patchy dead grass and broke ground into the red Texas clay, piling the dirt to one side. Two shovels wouldn't fit into the laptop-size hole so we took turns, one digging while the other walked with my mom. The box was heavy so she set it down on the neighboring gravestone, and joked about not waking Grandma up.

Once we had a hole nearly three feet deep, Dad reached the box down and set it upright in the bottom. Next to it we laid the learner's braid that I cut from my hair, bound with a twist of wire from my robotics kit. I last cut my braid three years ago, nearly to the day, when I laid it in the casket with my grandma. Then we all three of us crouched together and scooped handfuls of the soft red dirt into the grave, filling the empty space around the polished box. It's wonderful dirt, scented and malleable, like snow that is perfect for snowballs and castles. With shovels and hands we packed it all back into the hole, and all three of us stamped it down neatly with our feet. We laughed at how we must look, three grown-ups dancing in a little circle on their parents' graves. My family's always been silly though, we figured they'd understand.

Next weekend will be the formal memorial, where we all will wear good clothes and hug people we haven't seen in years, pass out the booklets with photographs of Grandpa and a synopsis of his life, written by my dad. There will be music and hymns and probably a lot of flowers, piled in the front of the community church where Grandpa married my folks. But today was just for us, as it should be.

Things I learned this week:
The old van gets 18 miles per gallon, even when I drive on the side roads to save gas.
Everything I learned in high school and college about physical chemistry, atomic structure, and electromagnetism, was covered in the very first day of AC/DC class.
A tech instructor really can fill an entire hour with the proper methods of using a ruler.
Being able to lie to people involves understanding their feelings, on a level that is neither empathy nor behaviorism but partakes of both.
The pointed shovel is best for cutting into the ground, but the flat-bladed shovel is best for lifting or scraping the dirt back in afterwards. That's why you need both to do the job right.

Report Nov 11, twenty days to go

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:15:34 GMT

Well, I don't have much to show as far as word count - just that parody (which took 8 hours! Lyrics are hard, yeesh) and a lot of ideas and background info for essays and stories and projects to make the world a better place. But I've learned a few things along the way so far... Writing is lonelier than editing. The Internet really can suck you into a vortex of time. Television stops independent thought, but music doesn't. Exercising every day is annoying as all get out but it does make you smart. Hornets swarm when the weather gets cold. And a piece of sandpaper wrapped around a popsicle stick does wonders for scraping out old tile cement.

I've written several thousand words of detailed critique in various venues, often writing longer critiques than the actual stories; and last night I spent seven straight hours editing and critiquing three different pieces, during prime gaming time. I love working with folks and helping them set their worlds on fire, more than gaming, more than roleplaying even. If I get over the fear of writing, will I love it most of all? Only one way to find out. But if I should somehow find a job helping other folks love their work, instead of doing it myself, well... there may be worse fates.

Parody - Author

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:29:30 GMT

Sung to the tune of 'Rockstar', with insincere apologies to Nickelback. - Pteryxx

Author

I'm sick of all these published books that are just wasted wood
Out of seven hundred pages, only fifty are good
And the sequel reads like it was plotted with a Ouija board

I want to make it big, if I got just one chance
I bet my grade-school novel could earn out its advance
And the science-fiction genre would no longer be ignored

I'll have a world that's a thinly veiled Coruscant
And an alien modeled on the ocelot
I got four books planned, and outlines for another three

Every fan forum's leading topic of debate
Will be whether my protagonist is gay or straight
I hear that Ticonderoga's gonna name a pencil for me

I'm gonna write my way to fortune and fame
I want every librarian to know my name

(chorus)
'Cause we all just wanna be big-name authors
With a mailbox full of royalties and contract offers
The words come easy and ideas are free
They can always be expanded to a trilogy
We'll lead all the discussions at the writers' camp
Sign our autographs with a rubber stamp
We'll have our book covers made just the way that we want
With our names in a hundred-twenty-eight point font

Hey, hey, I wanna be an author
Hey, hey, I wanna be an author

I want my own best-seller list in the New York Times
And a publicist so I don't have to write my own lines
I'll do appearances on Oprah, Leno, and Sesame Street

I'll put my Pulitzer next to my Nobel Prize
While Dreamworks is picking up the screenplay rights
And they're working on a first-person shooter for the PS3

I'm gonna write my way to fortune and fame
I want every librarian to know my name

(chorus)
'Cause we all just wanna be big-name authors
With a mailbox full of royalties and contract offers
The words come easy and ideas are free
They can always be expanded to a trilogy
We'll lead all the discussions at the writers' camp
Sign our autographs with a rubber stamp
We'll have our book covers made just the way that we want
With our names in a hundred-twenty-eight point font

And we'll meet up at the biggest cons
Standing-room only, every panel we're on
And we'll all roll our eyes at the wanna-be's
When they ask again 'Where do you get your ideas', well

Hey, hey, I wanna be an author.

So I spent another night
at my desk with QWERTY
Printed backwards on my forehead
at oh-dark-thirty
I've been hoping for that break all my life it seems
But the big bad world can't take away my dreams

(chorus)
Well we all just wanna be big-name authors
With a mailbox overflowing with contract offers
The words come easy and ideas are free
They can always be expanded to a trilogy
We'll lead all the discussions at the writers' camp
Sign our autographs with a rubber stamp
We'll have our book covers made just the way that we want
With our names in a hundred-twenty-eight point font

And we'll meet up at the biggest cons
Standing-room only, every panel we're on
And we'll all roll our eyes at the wanna-be's
When they ask again 'Where do you get your ideas', well

Hey, hey, I wanna be an author
Hey, hey, I wanna be an author.

Ken Levine quote

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 05:49:42 GMT

This month's CGW- err, Games for Windows magazine (*rolleyes*) has an interview with Ken Levine, the creator of the "survival-horror-shooter" game Bioshock.

GFW:
It's interesting that you bring up the notion of choice, because obviously a huge theme through the whole game is the idea that you don't really have a choice. Yeah, you can pick what plasmids you have, you might pick which path you're going down, but really, Ken Levine or whoever's designing the game is the one ultimately telling you where you're going and what you're doing.

KL:
When you go see a movie, does it have an emotional impact on you? Clearly, yes. You see a romantic comedy or something, and you look over to your wife, and you see tears running down her cheek... how does that differ from the tear on her cheek when you bring her flowers on her birthday? I don't know. Are the choices you have in games as valid as the choices you have in life? No, because the choices you have in life are infinite, and your choices in games are always a subset. With Bioshock, I wanted - in a postmodern sense - to comment on that. But I think all entertainment and all media experiences are, in a sense, an illusion of freedom, an illusion of emotion, rather than the actual thing. But does that make it any less valid? I don't know.

Page 272

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 08:01:28 GMT

"Page 272"

On The Hamburger Place, Jefferson TX, and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon.

"Only love could pick a nested pair of steel Bramah locks." -p. 532

Last week I brought a book to The Hamburger Place for lunch. This is part of the tourist-trap center of the three blocks of 'Historic Jefferson', with its turn-of-the-century buildings, antique emporiums, Riverport Bar-Be-Que and Old-Time Soda Fountain. The Hamburger Place is done up in full country-cafe decor, from the plastic red-checked tablecloths to the animatronic singing bust of Elvis. The walls and part of the ceiling are covered with dollar bills signed by visitors, tourists, and local students. I had the seafood platter with traditional fried okra, green beans that were at least 50% bacon, and wonderful handmade cornbread spiked with jalapeno peppers, finished off with an incredible homemade chocolate crisp. I didn't realize that frog legs were a seafood, but I guess that makes sense. Deep-fried frog legs look and feel a lot like deep-fried chicken wings, except that they have skinny little dense bones instead of hollow, big-barreled bird bones. And they seem to have a cool and green flavor, like sweet grass in the shade.

I was reading "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon. It's a big honkin' novel, 600-some pages, about the lives of two young men who join forces to create the next great comic-book superhero in the Golden Age of such works, 1939. It was recommended to me by the assistant and second-in-command at the Jefferson Carnegie Library (built in 1903) after we discussed graphic novels, book illustration, and the increasing prevalence of hybrids between traditional print novels and picture-book formats.

It's not an easy read. Chabon uses ornate, slow-paced description with meanings often layered three or four levels deep from the actual image. An excerpt near the beginning:

But for the most part, the families seemed not to have moved in together so much as to have collided, with an impact that hurled schoolbooks, magazines, hosiery, pipes, shoes, journals, candlesticks, knickknacks, mufflers, dressmaker's dummies, crockery and framed photographs in all directions, scattering them across rooms that had the provisional air of an auctioneer's warehouse. In many apartments, there was a wild duplication and reduplication of furnishings: sofas ranked like church pews, enough jumbled dining chairs to stock a large cafe, a jungle growth of chandeliers dangling from ceilings, groves of torchieres, clocks that sat side by side on a mantel, disputing the hour.

It's in a form evocative of a biography, complete with footnotes and occasional commentary, references to missing information, and matter-of-fact narrative ventures into the future and past to give encapsulated views of a character or incident. This is expected in a traditional history, but when combined with the deep emotions of the characters, it created a sense of vertigo. It's also exhaustively researched, by a lover and student of comics and their history, which I am not. The cameos of great comic artists of the past are largely lost on me.

After eighty pages or so, I was getting used to the sheer mass of description and learning to receive the metaphors at the deep levels where they connected to their hosts, and by page 100 it was becoming natural. The book began to read much faster once I learned to trust this author and understand his language. The heavy description isn't lagging per se, but taking its time, to fully absorb and linger over each event, investing it with weight and presence. People speak of great shared moments that we'll never forget (the Kennedy or Lennon assassinations for some; perhaps the Challenger disaster for us tech geeks) where one remembers forever the smell of the wallpaper, the angle of the sun, what was playing on the radio at that moment. It's a bit alarming to have that sense of a moment's presence evoked by marks on a piece of paper.

The start covers Josef Kavalier's half-hearted attempts to escape from Prague, following the plan laid out by his family, which will enable him to find shelter in America while leaving his family behind in a home where being Jewish is more dangerous by the day. The skills of a magician and escape artist serve him well and give him identity, something that can be trusted and held secret. The other half of the duo, Samuel Klayman, has little going for him except a determined, incessant ability to create pulp-filler stories. But behind that is his belief in, and devotion to, those dreams. They join forces to create the characters and stories that give impetus to the nascent superhero comic industry. The comics, bastard crossbreeds of the established newspaper cartoons and the pulp magazines, get bought off the newsstands by hundreds or thousands of patch-kneed schoolboys that the publishers never see except as cold figures: so many issues sold, so much profit made, room to expand to another line. The comics provide a venue, though, for their hero to do what America seems unwilling to consider - take on Hitler and the Nazis.

So I read on with steadily increasing interest and willingness, if not immersion. Until I hit page 267, where we're introduced to a new character based on the luna moth. I stepped into it knowing full well that it was only a story, and a silly one at that, marked by the red flags of comic cliches. Yet I still let myself be pulled along by the desire, the need, the conscious choice to believe. In this meta-story I gave myself over and said Yes, I will play your game with you, I will follow your path.

Like writers everywhere, he shaped his characters from a part of himself, in this case from the part that creates, the part that we share. Through his artist character's glance at the luna moth, he shows us how to see a small, fragile, common thing with new eyes. We are guided to participate in the act of inspiration, where a dreamer's will distills his life through a chance encounter into a triple-X spiritual moonshine. It's homemade, this stuff, it's rough around the edges and it'll make you cringe if you don't bolt it quick. But it's good and strong and gut-warming, as a comic book drama should be. I paused and looked up from page 272 to savor the moment, and saw all the green dollar bills on the walls fanning in the air currents like an army of luna moth wings.

Up till now I'd been following this winding path, enjoying the scenery, yes, but plodding along. Then I came to a point where the trees opened up to a landscape of breathtaking beauty, and I knew that I was standing in a friendly place; that all this way, I was accompanied by the shadows of all the readers who had also chosen to accept the red flags and walk along the trail that an author blazed. And here I was, seeing through his eyes the view that he saw when first he rested his blade on this point of land, with his shade nodding companionably beside me. Ah, you know what I did, he says with a small embarrassed smile. Yes, and it was a great trick, I reply.

That is what writing is; as Stephen King says, writing is telepathy. It's a way to connect two minds, across space and even time; a way to think each others' thoughts, feel each others' emotions, to dream each others' dreams. Like the golem brought to life by the word Truth, it's the tool of clay that can right the world. Because dreaming is as common and shameful and sacred as dirt, or sex, and for the same reasons.

Now, even I don't spend the money for a book unless I'm certain of it. So I returned the hardcover to the Jefferson Carnegie library, thought about it for a couple of days, and yes I ordered a copy to have for my very own. While I'll never read it again for the first time, and it'll still be work to get through it, and I'll probably skip the whole Arctic segment from now on, it's still worth having. Because I bought it for pages 267-274.

----

"The newspaper articles that Joe had read about the upcoming Senate investigation into comic books always cited 'escapism' among the litany of injurious consequences of their reading, and dwelled on the pernicious effect, on young minds, of satisfying the desire to escape. As if there could be any more noble or necessary service in life."

-Michael Chabon, 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' p. 582.

Post-Gazette review

Blogcritics review

The Amazing Website of Kavalier & Clay collected reviews

November 4 report

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 07:37:25 GMT

For National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, to the initiate) I'm going to practice pretend-freelancing and try to finish a project every couple of days. Raw material isn't generally my problem; it's carving it into a coherent form that really takes the time, and is also frightening. My stuff tends to come to me as imagery, and my first drafts are largely scattered words and phrases and even sketches.

So far, I've finished this one essay... and had five ideas for new ones, two new fiction projects, and one piece of software. *facepaw* The last thing I need is MORE ideas.

I also discovered that sticking your finger really makes typing annoying.

"Page 272" conceived Oct 27, started Nov 1, finished Nov 4, 1331 words including the quotes.

Image kindly made for me by Gene at typographer

Edited to add: This sort of counts, since we worked on it through midnight of October 31st. For City of Heroes RP, Guen's report of the death of character Charles Smithers, reshaped by me into casefile format. Fortunately Moonedit works beautifully even over my pathetic dial-up.

Report to Overseer

Link to thread for the rest of the story.

Dumbledore and The Question

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:08:36 GMT

By now, even if you've never opened a Harry Potter book, you probably know the latest news. I posted a comment on CC that got several 'well said's, so I decided to repost it here.

On October 19, author J. K. Rowling appeared for a reading and question-answer session at Carnegie Hall in New York. From the transcript, courtesy of The Leaky Cauldron:

The question was: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?

JKR: My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] ... Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent? But, he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that's how i always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair... [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, "Dumbledore's gay!" [laughter] "If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"

Since then, scores of articles and editorials have proliferated across the English-speaking world, and the Wikipedia article on Albus Dumbledore is being edited and re-edited as I watch. The articles range from celebratory to devastating, and accuse JKR of everything from publicity-baiting to recruiting to cowardice. Her answer is called a bombshell, a revelation, and often "an outing" as in out of the closet.

From John Cloud, in Time magazine:

So along comes Rowling with Dumbledore--a human being, a wizard even, an indisputable hero and one of the most beloved figures in children's literature. Shouldn't I be happy to learn he's gay?

Yes, except: Why couldn't he tell us himself? The Potter books add up to more than 800,000 words before Dumbledore dies in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, yet Rowling couldn't spare two of those words to help define a central character's emotional identity: "I'm gay." We can only conclude that Dumbledore saw his homosexuality as shameful. His silence suggests a lack of personal integrity that is completely out of character.

From Kevin Howell, from his blog Notes from the Bookroom:

But I also wish that Rowling had used her enormous power and visibility to have actually woven a gay or lesbian character into the fabric of her wonderful series of books. I wish that she had not merely thought of the Hogwarts headmaster's as gay, but written him as gay. I am not suggesting there should have been any overt sexual scenes--her novels don't have heterosexual sex, let alone homosexual sex.

From Barbara Kay, in the Canadian National Post:

There is something very odd though about Dumbledore being singled out from the huge cast of adult characters in the books as having any sexuality at all. Some of the characters in the books are married, many more are single. But their private lives and relationships are, literarily speaking, irrelevant. We only see the adults in terms of their relationship to the children.
<...>
Dumbledore's gayness is a brand new element, and from a literary point of view, absolutely inappropriate. There is nothing wrong with Dumbledore being gay in terms of Rowling's imaginative understanding of her character, but the gratuitous projection of this information into the books is inconsistent with the general character of her imaginary world, and in readers' minds will retroactively distort everything Dumbledore has said and done.

Note that the editorials all make inferences about JKR's intentions or craft as a writer, and express opinions on what, as an author, she should have done. Some readers are upset that JKR would reveal this information at all. I responded to one such poster on the CritiqueCircle boards earlier today:

Pteryxx Today at 12:59 [Quote message]
-------
Quote by: Hodgepodge
My problem with her outing him after the books have been published is that if she couldn't fit it into the story, then it doesn't need to be public information. Why can't more be left up to the imagination? I'm against the creation of the encyclopedia, and I dislike the epilogue. It should have ended with the last chapter. ... Isn't there something to leaving questions unanswered?
-------

In this case, as the scriptwriter basically got JKR in a corner, she didn't have much of a choice. It was either 'No, he never had a girlfriend because he's gay.' or, 'No, he never had a girlfriend, and you don't need to know why, he just didn't.' Would that second answer be any less obvious than the first? Believe me, when you try to conceal your sexual orientation, you can only do it for so long before you come to the crossroads of either admitting it, or lying. No matter how deftly or for how long you avoid the question, at some point it will happen, or folks will begin to cotton on that you have in fact been avoiding the question for months or years, and they will ask why.

As far as whether an author should reveal backstory... and let's be honest, it IS backstory, consistent backstory, and not actually part of the books... with a rabid fandom like this one, once again, either you reveal, you lie, or you refuse to answer. The questions will be asked, the assumptions made, over and over again. So we have books on the physics of Star Wars, the Klingon dictionary, and the annotated Hobbit. A reader should not, and does not, need those things to understand and enjoy the source material. For all I know JKR also knows Dumbledore's favorite Quidditch team, whether he's ever had pets, and what he thinks of economic imperialism. But none of those would have made world-spanning headlines, and that is just sad.

I would say, backstory is important to the character. It is NOT important to the WORK. It does not need to be explicit in the work, that is why it is backstory. It shouldn't need to be explicit at all. It shames me that this piece of information, rightfully left out of the work, and rightfully essential to the character, has resulted in every bit as much argument and furor as his death did. It breaks my heart.

There may well be other homosexual characters among those we've met in JKR's books. We don't know which ones they are, because it is not relevant. And it is not relevant because orientation is not that big a deal unless it directly affects the story. I would like to continue believing that there might have been a few stolen kisses in the halls of Hogwarts that were not just between a boy and a girl, and it didn't need mention because nobody cared. I guess it's only in the real world where that's a fantasy.

————
Peace, Pteryxx

Pencil. Paper. All you really need.

------

Finally, an editorial much more gracious than I could manage from Leonard Pitts, reprinted in the Salt Lake Tribune:

Or as actor T.R. Knight once put it, ''I hope the fact that I'm gay isn't the most interesting part of me.''
For some people, it is, and always will be.
Which is why there's a subversive genius in what Rowling has done. By declining to lead with sexuality, she allows readers to first know a beloved character in the fullness of his likes and dislikes, weaknesses and strengths - like anyone else. And the revelation, when it comes, is only ''an extra detail.''

Witness: Loss of an Officer

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 08:16:17 GMT

Yesterday, the community of Jefferson Texas came to a halt for the funeral of one of its own.

Officer Dale Sherrill was responding to a call when his patrol car was apparently broadsided by one of the logging trucks that swarm the roads here. He died in hospital a couple of days later. The ceremony was held in the largest church in town, and the crowds filled the adjoining building and still spilled into the streets. An estimated 600 or more attended, in a town with a total population of 2200. Police cars came from adjoining cities and counties, some from as far as Dallas. The funeral procession, with patrol flashers on and sirens silenced, numbered over 200 vehicles and closed Hwy 59 for half an hour. Dale was buried in the community cemetery, only a few miles from his birthplace, and just within sight of my new home.

One striking pattern of a small community is the closeness of people to each other's lives. There's less privacy, or more strictly less anonymity. My father can't so much as go grocery shopping without greeting half a dozen people by name every hour, and my neighbors take note of when my lights are on or off, and ask after me. Alarming as it may seem, this isn't so terribly different from how we city natives courteously greet each other before going our separate ways, or how we greet our online guildmates. We acknowledge each other, exchange a few sentences, and move on. But in a small community, every connection is reinforced. Dale was known to the townspeople he grew up with, to the officers with whom he served, to the residents he may have pulled over (traffic stops being a rite of passage in Texas), to the customers of his mother's store, to the parents whose children were his students and the playmates of his own children. And in this place, almost everyone fit into more than one role.

In an urban environment, you've probably interacted with thousands of people in many contexts, all briefly. In a small town, all those interactions are concentrated among relatively few people. But if everyone you have met and considered kindly in your life were put together - the stranger you assisted at the bus stop, the friend of a friend you laughed with at a party, the childhood classmates you haven't seen in decades - then your procession would stretch for many miles.

I met Dale once and talked with him for about ten minutes, and we had the beginnings of a good rapport. I think we would have been friends, if we'd met again.

References:

KLTV story

Officer Down memorial page

Wikipedia: Six degrees of separation

Take two

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:26:58 GMT

*surfaces, shedding water from its wings*

Now that this strange place is feeling like a home, and not a dream, it's time to re-establish my Presence. The fallout and shock is over and done, the wave retreated. As a side effect, this is the best chance I could hope for to practice being a freelancer, and see if it agrees with me. I've started to establish a presence on CritiqueCircle, NanoVirtue and AnthroArchives and will shortly reawaken my deviantart account. And NaNoWriMo is only days away. *shows beak-teeth in a grin*

If you had the choice, would you:

a) find a job that allowed you time to write on the side, or
b) write full-time, with all that entails?

Courage

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:50:40 GMT

From Superstenogirl, an unflinching first-person tale of abuse and the decision to break free of it. NSFW due to language.

Courage

"From then on I wore long sleeved shirts and baggy jeans. My parents began to suspect things were wrong when Joe and I would fight for hours on the phone. They told me he was abusive. I didn't believe them. Joe had a temper but it was okay because we were working on it. We'd get through it. We loved each other after all, didn't we?"

Bloodline

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:22:27 GMT

I'm not alone in using music as a survival tool... to escape frustration, undergo catharsis and bring myself to a stronger emotional state. Here I am testing embedding of my Bloodline playlist in Finetune.com, a limited but free streaming service through Flash.

(after some time spent futzing with Finetune's code...)

Or just go here and hit play.