Anti-writer's block tactics...
...and strategies.
Thoughts on adding new characters.
2024-10-16
2024-10-15
2024-10-14
模倣子 TOOL Ideas Have Consequences
Introduction
I found it hard to put my finger on anything that Richard M. Weaver wrote that I actually disagreed with. Ideas Have Consequences is a wonderfully written and dense book, of which most every line could be an inspirational and thought-provoking aphorism to be printed at the top of a page-of-the-day of a Franklin Day Planner, for instance.
I was intrigued by what he said about feminism, especially, but among many other things, such as the function of education. We could probably chase our tails all night about what he says about the nature of society and the individual, which made me think about his comments on the arts and on aesthetics, and on science might be a good focus for discussion.
Art & Music
He comes down hard on modern art and music. He makes comments similar to what he says about other larger more abstract things, like decrying the rejection of transcendentals. The idea that "the naked truth" is more truthful, that there are no outlines in nature, sensuality without ironic distance.
He takes a poke at modern art, painting landscapes, photography, etc. He doesn't mention still life painting that I recall--perhaps he's okay with that--while landscape painting, and painting of haystacks at different times during the day is "industrial." I wonder how he'd feel about Generative AI, or even machine translation.
Science & Technology
Weaver writes about the atomic bomb, so he had at least some access to the scientific ideas that informed that project. He takes a shine to the Platonic idea of forms imperfectly realized. However, when I talk to molecular biologists or quantum physicists, and increasingly, cosmologists; these fields all look like rabbit holes or "turtles all the way down" where there are no rules, no perfect forms that we already fully understand and are just trying to fill in the details. Do we hope to find the rabbit, or the mind of G-d, at the bottom somewhere, or are we resigned that we'll never get there, and if so, does this represent something that cannot be shoehorned into Weaver's otherwise very appealing worldview.
Early 20th Century math and physics was characterized by unknowability and uncertainty, with Werner Heisenberg and Kurt Gödel, among many others. Weaver seems to agree with the idea that "the information from our senses is actually the least reliable source of information" but does that include scientific measurement? Is this what he means by transcendentals, or to be dismissed along with a lifetime misspent mapping the nervous system of the leech?
Language
Weaver says some interesting things about language. One thing he said that I found particularly intriguing is that the exercise of translation is one of the best ways not to be self-deluded on the subject of meaning. I can't say I disagree. Of course he gets into the equivalences the Bible makes between G-d and The Word, and how this is an important concept, and how both the Bible and science are very much about assigning proper names to things, as in G-d calling Adam, first thing, to his side to tell him the names of all of the plants and animals, and how that was their names thereinafter. Anyway, he says that the degradation of culture and society is linked to the degradation of language.
Again, what about things like machine translation? Is this another example of the machine telling human beings what to think? Human beings skipping the process of developing skills and applying them to process and leaping straight to an unselfexamined and automatically blessed finished result?
The Stereopticon
Joseph Goebbels really went to town on these ideas, especially with his attention to the radio. He made it the law to listen to the radio, for one.
One thing that struck me is "laugh tracks" or "canned laughter" as a way of telling people when to laugh at shows, and how people respond to this more and more. Laughing, as well as crying and yawning, are all memetic responses (they may be induced by memetic interactions, and are contagious) hence even en absentia people may be synched up memetically, icons downloaded, and so forth, and this has huge ramifications for the consolidation of power.
Also, "what is a newspaper?" I had some thoughts about the early development of this technology, for instance, that presses dashing off a quick page or two each day and making money was probably an economic motivation for putting out newspapers instead of books. Books were worked on over time, and there was a problem of setting up for a given folio or qaarto, and one had to decide how big of an edition to make straight from the start, even though it might take months or even longer to complete the project, which meant no profits from the expensive printing press the whole while.
One could wonder if the whole culture of newspapers and journalism, and the printing up of handbills for ads, political or otherwise, derived from the need to get money out of one's expensive capital investment without the risk that a book, exacting and months in the making, with lots of up-front work and supplies outlays, would otherwise involve. This same economic culture, of course, exacerbates the cult of popular authors, or the fact that everybody wants a bible, and large organizations (such as churches) can pony up large sums for large quantities to printers, who would otherwise be taking a chance of making a run of books and then trying to get the money back by selling them.
So this might be a kind of "memetic accident" associated with the printing press as a technology, trying to replace an oral tradition of minstrels and speakers and such. I could go on and on about the odd memetic dynamics we've perhaps inherited from these past early decisions and vicissitudes. For example, how nowadays journalists could spend months on a story that is effectively printed once and then to a decree forgotten, e.g., Woodward and Berstein, the Boston Globe Catholic Child Molestation story, etc. Unlike books, which are collected, kept in libraries, referenced (which newspapers can be as well these days).
Rob Words on the printing press
2024-10-13
Moves in So-soo-yoo
Me explaining moves in sosooyoo
Add this link to page for so-soo-yoo
I added this to the main So-Soo-Yoo page I made for the Bridges Conference
2024-10-11
摸倣子 Alternate Lord's Prayer
Previous Version
I need to get the verses right and maybe add another one to match them up so this will go right up against the original side-by-side in say, an AA meeting.
| Original | New |
|---|---|
|
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever and ever Amen. |
Higher Power, Who farted the Heavens, “Howard” be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day some garlic bread, And forgive us our jokes, as we forgive those who laugh at us. And lead us not into self-urination, but deliver us from ego. For wine is dumb, and true story, I am a drunk for ever and ever Say "When." |
2024-10-10
Read this essay on TIME TRAVEL
This has a lot of insights, I think for my novel coming up this November (whether or not Nanowrimo is still functioning).
2024-10-09
漫画 Part Wars Comics for VP Debate
Full List of Comics - Election 2024 Comic - Girl Scout Merit Badges for Trump era
漫画 Birthday Link to All Comics
Full List of Comics - Election 2024 Comic - Girl Scout Merit Badges for Trump era
Hey folks! Sorry my blog is such a mess with lots of long posts that make it hard to get back to the comics index, so here's a page to link there.
Yes, it is my birthday today!
I plan to draw another four pages for the Election 2024 comic and put out a new 'zine edition. I plan to make both available on my Etsy site.
2024-10-08
Nautical-but-Nice Fast Risk, Streamlined
Overjuiced version - Previous Rules Set - Medium on Risk math
MBJp134
Introduction
I’m going to streamline the set-up, so that the whole board may be set up the same and players just choose which army they want, and kick of the game from there.
Set-Up
Deal out the 42 Risk cards into six piles. Each of the six colors of armies gets one pile. Place two armies on each card territory. Give each army a factory and a ship with three armies on it. For each army, choose a random card from that army’s pile of seven for the location of the factory and again for the coastline of the territory to put their ship.
If the territory for the ship has coastline on more than one ocean, roll a die to pick one. If it has no coastline, pick again.
For each army color, choose three random cards from their pile of seven cards and place three armies on the indicated territories.
Roll dice to determine which player goes first, each player chooses a color of army.
Shuffle the Risk cards and poker cards. Each player gets 2 Risk cards and one poker card to start.
Assign one or more poker suits to each allied army, i.e, hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades.
Players may move their factories, ships, and armies as desired.
The game is ready to begin.
Joining and Leaving Mid-Game
If a player turns up late and wants to join the game, they pick an allied army to take over. They immediately draw two Risk cards and one poker card.
If a player leaves the game, their army becomes an allied army. Any Risk and poker cards they have remain with the new allied army and may be seized by the first player who manages to play the allied army (by a poker win or if unchallenged--see below) or if the new allied army is completely defeated by another player.
Turn-by-Turn Play
Reïnforcing at Start of Turn
At the start of every turn, including the first, a player gets:
Territory bonus (divide number of territories by three, minimum of three)
Continent bonuses
2 armies per factory (on the factory territory)
Card turn-in (armies, factory, ship, with territory bonuses--see below)
Armies may be deployed to any territory held by the player, but may not be deployed directly to a ship--a ship may only pick up or drop off armies to a coastal territory within one boat length of the ship's location, during the player's turn.
Card Turn-in
A player gets either:
Armies equal to two dice rolls
A factory (to be placed at the end of turn)
A ship with one die roll worth of armies on board to be placed in an ocean bordering one of the player's territories (if no territories have a coastline, no shipbuilding is allowed)
ALONG WITH two armies for each card territory owned by player, on that territory
Mobilization Bonus at Start of Campaign
The first time a player is attacked during a turn, they may get a “mobilization bonus” on one or more of their territories immediately. Cut the Risk card deck and if they own the territory shown roll one die and place that many armies on the territory. The player also has the option of revealing one or more of the Risk cards they hold showing territories they possess and roll for armies on those as well. The card-cutting bonus goes for allied armies as well. If the cut shows a wild card, or the player holds wild cards (and they want to reveal them), the mobilization bonus may be placed at the attacked player's free choice (by the player rolling the defending dice in the case of an allied army).
End of Player Turn
Draw a Risk card and a poker card (if territory taken)
Place any factories purchased at start of turn
Replace any and all captured army tokens with tokens of player's own color (see below)
Make a single troop transfer of one or more armies through contiguous territory
After their turn, a player may choose to play an allied army
If a player has more than five poker cards at the end of their turn, they must discard some to get their stash down to five.
Playing an Allied Army
If nobody challenges, a player just plays the allied army, otherwise the player must win a poker game, and their winning hand must contain at least one card in the suit of the allied army they wish to play (otherwise they just collect the winnings and their turn ends).
An allied army gets all of the same army bonuses as a player at the start and gets a troop transfer at the end.
Playing Poker
The active player and all players contesting them count out their "betting pots," or all the armies they stand to get at their next turns, including factory bonuses. At their next turn, the player uses this pot instead of normal reïnforcement bonuses (but still gets factory bonuses), and they use the pot as it is for any other poker games that happen before their next turn.
Any player may be the dealer. The game is five-card draw. Each player must take at least one poker card from their stash to play.
Red queens are always high.
Each player antes up one army, then the cards are dealt. The bet is to the active player (they start the betting). Each player may bet, check, call, fold, or raise. Each action is for only one army at a time.
Betting is where a player adds one army on top of the ante (if no bets have been made yet, i.e., the "live bet" is zero). Calling is where a player matches the "live bet" (which includes what other players may have made on top of the initial bet by the active player). Raising is where a player adds another army on top of the "live bet". Folding is where a player drops out of the hand, forfeiting their armies in the pot, and not showing their cards.
The betting round ends when all players have had the chance to bet, raise, or fold, and no one has raised the last bet.
Next, each player may discard and draw either from their remaining stash cards, if any, get cards from the dealer, or both.
Another betting round ensues, followed by the showdown. If all players but one have folded, the remaining player wins the pot. If a player has been called, they must show their hand first. All other players have the option of showing their cards, or mucking, i.e., folding without showing their cards.
The best poker hand wins the pot.
If the active player wins, and their winning hand contains at least one card in the suit of the allied army they wanted to play, they may play that army, otherwise they just collect the pot and their turn ends.
The player who wins the pot converts the armies they won into their own color, and keeps them to use for their next turn or if they want to join another poker game before then.
How to Campaign
Normal battles are conducted as in normal Risk, i.e., the attacker rolls up to three dice, and the defender rolls up to two dice, ties going to the defender.
However, these battles can slow the game down considerably, especially when large armies are involved. One solution is to roll more dice and force both sides to commit more armies. This is done through two types of attacks: Committed Attacks and Flanking Attacks.
Committed Attacks
In a committed attack, the attacker commits some number of armies to the front line, from four up to eight, and must keep fighting, possibly sending in reïnforcements, if available, from the rear, until victory or all the front line armies are defeated. The attacker may increase this front line strength, but never decrease it. So long as the attacker maintains the front line troop strength, they get a plus-one bonus on any one of their dice and if they “totally defeat” the defender on any dice roll (the defender taking no armies) they capture one of the defender’s armies which is placed with the attacker’s reserve troops. If the attacker’s strength drops below the full strength value (initial or increased), they lose both of these bonuses. The defender must roll the full value minus one, or the full number of their armies if that’s all they have. Even if the attacker’s armies decrease, the defender always rolls the maximum (full values or max armies).
There are only two possible outcomes for the attacker:
They win and send in the committed troops and possibly more
All the committed troops are destroyed and the attack ends
If a committed attack fails, the player may take no more action from the given territory for the rest of the turn. This also applied to naval battles.
Flanking Attacks
A flanking attack is similar to a committed attack except that the attacker commits two or more separate blocks of troops (initially of equal size), or "flanks," to the attack. Each flank attacks as a committed block, one after the other. A flank may be a territory or a ship.
If a flank’s front line is completely defeated, and the attacker cannot or does not wish to reïnforce it, that flanking territory or ship drops out of the battle and cannot take any action for the rest of the turn. The other flanks carry on the battle.
If the attacker wins, all committed armies from all flanks (but not captured armies--they remain behind) move into the captured territory and play continues.
Ships
Movement
A ship moves one die roll worth of boat lengths on a cruise. If a cruise reaches a port of call (to pick up armies), or a landing, or a naval battle, and the embarkation, landing, or battle succeeds, the ship may go on another cruise, proceeding to the next action with another die roll. A player may take action with each of their ships at least once per turn.
Opposed Landings
An opposed landing is where one or more ships attack and try to take over a hostile territory with or without the assistance of the player's land-based forces. Multiple ships may attack the same territory in a flanking attack, otherwise one ship must mount the attack.
If the player being attacked has ships in the same ocean, that player may roll a die for one or all of these ships and if they can reach the ships doing the landing, they may attack it in a naval battle (see below).
Naval Battles
Any one or more ships may come up alongside an enemy ship and mount a regular, committed, or flanking attack (if two or more ships). “Total defeats” on die rolls in a committed attack result in capture of defender sailors, as normal, but a “total defeat” on either side may sink either the attacking or defending ship. Both sides roll a die, and if the totally defeated ship gets the low roll, their ship sinks. If all sailors on the defending ship are defeated, the attacker boards the ship with all committed troops (or flanks, if applicable), or can let the ship sink. The captured ship is free to take action (embarkation, landings, further naval battles).
Patrol
When a ship reaches a shoreline to make an opposed landing, if the defending player has ships in the same ocean, the defending player may roll a die for any or all of their ships in that ocean and if they can reach the enemy ship, they can engage it in a naval battle.
The separate oceans are, by the way, the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian, and the Arctic. The Mediterranean, Hudson Bay, Black Sea, Baltic Sea, and Davis Straight (Greenland) are part of the Atlantic. The Red Sea is connected to the Indian Ocean. Indonesia, New Guinea, and Siam are connected to both the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Western Australia is connected only to the Indian Ocean, and Eastern Australia only to the Pacific. South Africa is connected to both the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. Central America, Venezuela, and Argentina are connected to both the Atlantic and Pacific. Kamchatka and Alaska are connected to the Arctic and Pacific. Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, and Ukraine are connected to both the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.
Sea Roving
If all of a player's land armies are destroyed, but they still have ships at sea, they may continue to play, effectively as a pirate. They cannot reinforce however, even from the winnings from a poker hand, since ships may only embark troops from a friendly land territory.
Pirates may attack other ships or attempt opposed landings. If successfully attacking enemy ships or shore territories in a committed attack, they may capture enemy troops to be added to their own crews.
If all of a pirate's ships are defeated at sea, or captured in an attempted landing, the player is out of the game and may choose to play a still-active allied army, if any.
If a pirate makes a successful landing and captures one or more territories, on their next turn they may reinforce that territory with the usual bonuses, including any poker winnings still held.
2024-10-06
2024-10-05
Superheroine Movies
I'm not sure what it is, but superheroine movies just make me weep. I watch Wonder Woman (the first one) or this bit (I need to watch the whole Flash movie, though I heard bad reviews) and the tears just start rolling down my face. I don't know what it is, maybe the fearlessness in some woman who has powers and knows how to use them, the courageousness in the face of a danger that is always there--that balance. It's an emotional rush, of a type that I don't usually have access to. People who say that guys aren't interested in female superhero movies don't know what they're talking about. Of course, if she's complainy and entitled, that tends to turn it off for me (like I don't think Captain Marvel did it for me...I don't know why).
2024-10-03
Phone Hang-up App
Introduction
I got my inspiration from the "crack slam" reference in Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs, where Hermes hangs the phone "in the rudest way possible."
It occurred to me that one could make a "wrapper" app that goes around the built-in phone app that would add the feature that when one hangs up the app would play a "hang-up" sound before actually ending the call.
This means that one's caller could hear something like the sound of a heavy Bakelite headset being slammed back into the cradle followed by a dial tone and then the call cuts out. Or it could be anything else, including just a "Good-bye" message.
This is for fun, but it's also more polite since it sends a clear message to the callee that the caller has deliberately ended the call, as opposed to it just having cut by accident or loss of cell service.
The app could have any number of other features as well, apart from the novelty factor.
Safety and Personal Protection Features
It occurs to me that such an app could even include safety features, for example, for women walking home at night, such as a "dead man's switch" that when released would automatically (probably with a 2-3 second delay to avoid unintended calls) drop a pin and call the police, silently and without the phone user having to do anything, possibly also turning the phone's volume up to maximum and putting out a high-pitched alarm and a call for help message, e.g., "the police have been called," and/or "Help! I'm being attacked!" It could also go into speaker mode when the police pick up, so the victim could speak to the police on the line and the attacker would be able to hear it. In other words, the woman could activate the safety system, which would flash the screen for a few second's delay, giving her a chance to put her finger on the screen or grip the buttons such that when released the alarm would be triggered.
It could also do a host of other things such as send one or more texts to the police (if they can accept them) and friends or other responders, automatically overriding "notifications off" states in addition to placing automatic silent emergency calls.
If the app takes off, it could potentially become normal for potential attackers to automatically suspect that their potential victims are holding a dead man's switch on their phone which will automatically call the police and set off an alarm. They might then learn to defeat some of these features, however, which is a good reason to make the safety features highly configurable.
Possible Features
The app would have access to the user's phone list, so setting up a call would work the same as the "raw phone app."
The app could have pre-sets for some or all (with a default) of the people the user phones on the regular, so some callees could have their own hangup sounds which would happen automatically.
The user would have a short menu (visual) on the app so they could choose the hang-up sound they want at the time they are ready to hang up, e.g., the regular Bakelite hang-up could be the default (gentle plastic rattle followed by brief dial tone followed by click), but they could choose a different one, such as the "crack slam" (fart noise followed by loud, rattling slam of Bakelite on Bakelite, followed by dial tone and click sound).
Hang-up sounds could be downloaded and configured, and custom ones made. There could even be a hang-up sound server where users could share their favorite tones, including uploading their own. Users could even be rewarded somehow for uploading popular tones (of their own making...?).
Since it's a wrapper, the app could also play some custom sounds before the call begins (or rather, once the call starts but before the user begins speaking), e.g., a greeting such as a "secretary's voice" that announces that "Joe Blogs is calling" or a fanfare or whatever.
If the app were to be set up to receive calls, (which could be problematic--see below), it could have an "electronic butler" feature, such that certain (familiar) callers could get a custom reply like "I'm in a meeting" or "I'm with my girlfriend/boyfriend" or "We're at dinner" or "I'm in a movie" or perhaps better, the user could select such messages from a menu when the call is received. In other words, before the call is actually answered (by the app), it could check who's calling, let the user know, even play them a "This is Vandelay Industries, hold please" before the user picks up, and the user has the option of sending a canned message of "I'm sorry, Mr. Blogs is unavailable, please call again later" or "Sorry, I'm in a meeting can you call back later?" This would be like the feature of sending a text to the caller immediately, but in voice form.
The app could also actually play the sounds of the starting sounds and the hang-up sound, as well as anything the callee says while this is going on, since these would all be available to the app while it is running.
As suggested in the safety feature side of things, the app could bundle things like calling and text messaging and emailing. This is kind of a vague idea, but say, somehow, if a caller failed to get somebody on the phone, the app could ask if they wanted to send a text or an email or both, as an immediately follow-up to the call. This could even pull in the phone voice recognition features, like Siri, and supply things like default subjects for emails, such as "I tried to call you" and be asked "change it or leave it?" and so forth.
On the sleezy marketing side of things, the phone could play an ad to the caller after (even before) the call. It would in principle have to be a very brief tag line, such as "Shop at Target" or "New shows on Netflix" or "Vote for Joe Blogs" or such. Still, these could be very valuable spots for advertisers. Presumably one would not play such tag lines to the callee, but this is not impossible either (and might result in actual payouts to the users, and there might be a way to configure no-ads towards certain callees or classes of callees, and so on and so on--the possibilities are endless). This sort of thing would, if done at all, be introduced after the app begins to be accepted, and one would offer a no-ads version for a premium--something like that.
There are a number of other features I've thought of and will try to remember later.
Possible Issues to Avoid
As mentioned above, allowing ads to go into tones or hang-up sounds or such which are played to the callee might be a big problem, probably to be avoided altogether.
One thing one should be cautious about is giving off any hint of doing a sleezy "Facebook Snatch" move of harvesting the users' phone lists in any way, which would be possible since the app would be connected to the Internet for downloads and would have full access to the users' phone list.
One issue is how the app would work with incoming calls. It should be possible to create an app that when invoked wraps the phone app, sending sounds before and after actually placing the call, but an app that could also receive calls and allow for custom hang-ups, i.e., one that replaces the built-in phone app in terms of catching the incoming call, is not guaranteed to be easy, and in fact might compromise the phone's functionality. That is, if there were some issue with the hang-up app, the user would always be free to use the default ap to place calls, but if the app catches all incoming calls, i.e., the phone's ability to receive calls could be compromised by any issues with the app, which could result in, at the very least, user complaints and reluctance to install the app.
Sample Graphics
I will try to make some phone screen-shots included a few GIFs of what the screen might look like in "safety mode." The phone might flash red for a few seconds when the safety switch is activated to give the user time to put her finger/palm/hand on the screen or squeeze the right button or buttons, such that the Dead man's switch will then be activated.
The app would look like a regular phone app, with some extra buttons and sliders, and a way to get to a menu to configure the phone.
Configurations would be a wrapper interface to the user's phone list, so as to be able to choose a default custom hang-up sound for each desired callee.
There would be a hang-up sound manager, able to determine which hang-up sounds will be available on the short list (a set of buttons to press when the call is active), upload and delete hangup sounds, and load new ones from files or from the sound recorder app on the phone.
Conclusion & Summary
The hang-up app would be a fun novelty app, but it would also have a lot of redeeming social value in terms of ending a phone call in a way that the callee knows for sure that a hang-up has occurred. Most of the app's features would come from the default phone app--it would just be a wrapper that adds sounds after the call and possibly before.
Since it's a wrapper, the app could also add features such as automatic emergency calling using a dead man's switch and so forth.
It might be impractical to make the app receive calls since this could compromise the phone, which wrapping outgoing calls would not. This could open up a lot of opportunities for incoming call management, however.
There may be, funnily enough, a lot of opportunities to sell advertising through this app.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)