First little steps

So I tried joining an informal work out class tonight.

I aten't dead.

We'll see how next week goes.

((Yes, for those familiar with Discworld, I did make this blog post just to make that joke.))

The Knight of Flame and Bone

And so the Knight set forth. He -

“The Knight of Flame and Bone.”

I beg your pardon?

“The Knight of Flame and Bone. It's my full title.”

It's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? This is just the start of the story, there'll be plenty of time to get into that. We don't want to overwork the reader just yet, do we? Let's ease them into it.

“But how will they know I'm the Knight of Flame and Bone if you don't tell them?”

You can introduce yourself to someone later.

“Like who? It's just me here.”

Well, I don't know yet. We haven't got that far.

“Well, hurry up then.”

Right. As I was saying, the Knight set -

“Flame and Bone. Remember the title.”

Look, what kind of armour do you wear, hmmm?

“Oh, you know. Knightly stuff.”

Lots of metal plates? Steel or something like?

“Well, yes.”

No bones?

“That wouldn't make very good armour, now would it? Give me good, strong steel any day!”

No bones. Is your armour, or maybe your weapon or shield... are they decorated with bones? Or skulls? Even in motif?

“Ummm... nooooo...”

What about flames? Is there a particular flame motif? Is your armour the colour of fire? Is the blade of your sword orange, or edged with jagged waves like tongues of dancing flame? How about your shield? Any flames there?

“Um. No, no, no.... and no.”

So you are the Knight of Flame and Bone... but there are no visible flames or bones at all.

“I suppose not.”

You are, in fact, only a man in plate armour, riding on a horse. You do have a horse, I assume?

“Oh yes, of course! What kind of knight would I be without a horse?”

Indeed. So, to sum up, you are in fact indistinguishable from any other knight at all. Nobody would know just by looking at you that you are, in fact, the Knight of Flame and Bone. You look like any other ordinary, common or garden knight..

“Well, when you put it like that...”

Shall I continue, then?

“... Alright.”

Ahem. And so the Knight set forth. He -

“Why are you doing that, anyway?”

… Doing what?

“Starting the story like that. 'And so'? What do you mean, 'and so'? You're making it sound like you're carrying on from a previous event, but the story just started! There aren't any events yet!”

There won't be at this rate, either. Look, it's a literary device. Now, if you don't mind, I -

“And 'set forth'? What does that even mean? It sounds like there were three people having dinner and a friend popped round so they needed another place setting.”

It's not that kind of 'forth'. Setting forth means you begin a journey.

“Oh, I see. Why not just say that then?”

Because 'set forth' is more concise. This is a short story, after all. At least, it's supposed to be.

“I don't think I like your tone.”

Oh, really? And what are you going to do about it, hmmm? I'm not a character, you can't touch me.

“Well, I... I could refuse to do the story. You can't have a story without your main character, and that's me!”

That's beginning to sound very appealing...

“What was that?”

Oh, nothing... Are you quite finished? Can we go on?

“Well... If you like.”

Right. Let's see...

He sat proud upon his steed, and -

“That's not the beginning!”

What's your problem now?

“That's not how it begins! It should have that 'and so' and 'set forth' stuff.”

I've already said that twice now. It saves time if I just carry on where we left off.

“Ah. Gotcha. But what's with that steed business? I don't have a steed. I think I'd know if I did.”

It's your horse, you.... 'steed' means your horse.

“His name isn't Steed. It's Jacob.”

Jacob. Your horse's name is Jacob.

“That's right.”

Any particular reason? Usually a knight's horse has a grand name like Gallant or Maximus.

“You'd have to ask him, he chose it.”

He chose... no, never mind. I don't want to know.

“Is something wrong?”

Yes. You keep interrupting.

“Well, if you'd tell it right I wouldn't have to.”

Tell it right?! Look, who's the narrator here?

“Well, you...”

Have you ever done any narration?

“Well, no. Not professionally, anyways. I do have this funny story I tell around the campfires. It's about this turnip, see...”

SO, since you are not, in fact, the narrator, and you have never BEEN the narrator, don't you think you might want to leave the narrating to... oh, I don't know... the narrator? Hmm?

“... I suppose.”

Good. You just stick to your dialog. One more word out of you at the wrong time and you'll find yourself riding off a cliff.

“You can't do that!”

I'm the narrator, remember? What I say happens, happens.

“But I'm far too smart to just ride off a cliff!”

That is debatable.

“Oi! There's no call to be rude! And what about Jacob?”

What about Jacob?

“No horse is just going to run off a cliff. It's contrary to all survival instinct!”

Maybe you're being chased. Horses tend to panic easily in high stress situations, and you would be distracted... It could happen.

“Nice try! There are no chases in this story!”

There could be. Or perhaps you'd prefer to have an encounter with bees? That would probably do it. I wouldn't think that having bees crawling around inside your armour, stinging you, would be too nice. 

“Now you're just reaching.”

You know what? I've had enough of this.

On the far side of the world, two gods fought. Furiously they strove to overcome the other, pitting vast strength against vast strength. Such was the force of their battle that it shook the earth to its core, causing ruptures and volcanoes to occur across all the known lands. The shifting of the tortured earth tore at a previously undisturbed fault line, opening a chasm beneath the Knight of Flame and Bone. Down he fell, still astride his steed, Jacob, only to land in a river of molten rock spewing up from the deepest regions of the earth.

What do you think of that then?

“It's a bit unlikely, isn't it?”

A bit unl... you're up to your armpits in molten lava and all you can say is, 'a bit unlikely'?

“Well, yes.”

… Why aren't you burning in agony?

“I'm the Knight of Flame and Bone, remember? Fire doesn't bother me.”

But your armour must be melting, surely.

“Nope. Fire resistant. Would have to be, wouldn't it? Imagine I'm fighting a dragon and he breathes on me, right, all fiery like an inferno. I'd survive, but I'd be stark naked. I can't fight dragons naked!”

But you never said... You said your armour was ordinary steel!

“Well, it IS steel. It's just enchanted. You didn't ask if it was enchanted.”

I'd at least think you'd be a bit more worried about Jacob.

“Why? He's fine.”

He fell into lava!

“Yes? What's your point? He's a pyrostallion. He was born in a volcano. Lava doesn't bother him. He's having a nice swim.”

This is the first I've heard of it.

“You never asked.”

But still... a pyrostallion? That's the silliest thing yet.

“What else would a fireproof knight ride? Imagine I'm fighting a dragon and he breathes on me, right -”

Yes, yes, I get the idea. Well, I guess there's only one thing for it then. I'm leaving. Goodbye.

“Hey, wait! Where are you going?”

“Are you still there?”

“Hello?”

“Well, that's great. Just great. Now who's going to sign off my timesheet?”

CSI ventures into Cyberspace

So we've just watched the first episode of CSI: Cyber. ((And no, not about cybersex. Just wanted to get that out of the way)).

The danger with a franchise show such as CSI or NCIS is that they could become stale or formulaic. Thus NCIS moved from Washington to LA to New Orleans. CSI moves from Las Vegas to Miami to New York, and now to cyberspace. Unfortunately, it's not cyberpunk-style hacking with jacking in directly to the computer and mentally skating the ICE. There's some holographic stuff though, and lots of computerised representations of computer connections and the like, which is cool.

Unlike previous CSI teams which were attached to the local police departments, Cyber is FBI based, which apparently means they're based in Washington and travel all over the US. It's also a change in theme, taking on a particular focus, which makes it akin to Law&Order's two spin offs, SVU and Criminal Intent.

But is it any good? Well... yes, so far. Bit of action, bit of cool investigatey stuff, interesting characters and banter... I like what I've seen.

It's also the first of these shows to have a female lead, Avery Ryan, played by Patricia Arquette. She's a former psychologist turned behavioural analyst. Cool, determined, strong willed, and always two steps ahead.

Then there's Elijah Mundo, a former Marine. He's kinda the action-dude of this team, and, surprisingly, he's played by James Van Der Beek. For anyone who doesn't recognise the name, ever hear of Dawson Creek? It was a angsty teen drama some years back, and Van Der Beek was the titular Dawson. He's actually fairly likable and convincing in Cyber.

We also have Peter MacNicol as Ryan's boss, Simon Sifter. He's kind of a departure for MacNicol so far, as he's not at all geeky or quirky as he was in Ghostbusters 2, Ally McBeal, or Numbers. Instead, he's a fairly normal guy who is perhaps (I'm not sure of this) not entirely comfortable with technology or maybe just with cybercrime, but is willing to give Ryan the benefit of the doubt to do what she needs to.

Those are the big names so far. The team is rounded out by three more:

1. Krumitz (Charley Koontz), a white-hat hacker who is so far the stereotypical fat computer geek.
2. Raven Ramirez (Hayley Kiyoko), who the Wikipedia page describes as a former black-hat hacker, now working as a specialist in social media and trends.
3. Brad Nelson (Shad Moss), another reformed hacker who apparently works through complex problems by speaking out loud in rhyme. He's the only black guy on the team, so it miiiiight be a rap or hip-hop reference.

Overall they seem to be a fairly good mix of characters and relationships. Everyone is distinct and has a role to play. The banter between them wasn't too bad, although at the end of the episode Sifter cracked a joke about "You can all go home to your basements". Sigh.

Diversity wise, for those keeping score... if we take Sifter out of the mix because he's not really part of the team per se, then you get five altogether. Three are white. Two are women. One black guy. And Raven Ramirez is a slight puzzle, Spanish name but the actress has Japanese ancestry, so it's a toss up whether she's meant to be Latina or if it's just a name, like Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds. Oh, and one fat guy.

If you're wondering why I bothered listing all those, I like that the show is somewhat diverse. And it might help anyone who wants to see more diversity on screen if they decide to take a chance on the show.

I'm not a professional critic, so I don't have the highly tuned senses or the long experience of trope and cliche. But I know what I like, and this is a pretty good start so far. Time will tell if it lives as long as CSI Miami and New York, or if it goes the way of Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour.

Today's slice of WTF

I learned something today.

Some people have no perspective, no clue, and no depths to which they will not sink.

Well, I knew the first two... and I guess I should have known the third.

So, long story short, there is a conflict. I am on one side, at least in spirit, and I have at times been arguing/discussing with people on the other side. Some are reasonable, some are not, as you do.

One of the key points, at least for me, is that last year the other side linked arms with a notoriously foul bigot, famously titled by one of his targets as a Racist, Sexist, Homophobic Dipshit. They brought him in, alledgedly, just to piss people off, and those people remember it this year, and there is criticism.

Especially since the bigot has formed his own campaign and mucked everything up even more.

However, the Other Side keep trying to make it about THIS YEAR's campaign, and not their movement as a whole. They disavow any connection with the bigot (but they neither confirm nor deny how they feel about his views and actions), and they claim that the perceived connection is just a handy means to attack them. (It's not that so much as it is one point of criticism among several).

Now. A bit further back, back to the 60s, there are a couple of people who were, ostensibly, liberals. One a popular fantasy author, the other a known figure in the local scene with a couple of claims to fame of his own. Except he eventually becomes known as a child molester, and his wife, the author, is known as his accomplice... until recently, when she's been accused of molestation as well. It's all very horrific and weird and tragic, but both of them are dead now so all we can do is debate and try to help the victims pick up the pieces.

So anyways, in response to a comment I made about the bigot, one guy from the Other Side makes this startling claim: "If I'm responsible for [the bigot], then you're responsible for [the molesters]".

Wow.

I can see why this might make sense if you're not really thinking. I mean, the Other Side is nominally right-wing, and so is the bigot. I'm nominally left-wing and so were those two. Same same, right?

Not really. Asking a group to take responsibility for THEIR OWN actions LAST YEAR is in no way comparable to.... well, demanding that I accept responsibility for things that happened before I was born.

The molester dude died in '93, so I was only 12 at the time. Even if he kept offending, I was waaaaaay to young to have any part of it, or to be part of the community that supposedly turned a blind eye and enabled him. Not to mention I live on the wrong continent.

But, y'know, taking responsibility for the asshole from last year is JUST THE SAME THING as taking responsibility for one who's been dead 20 years...

Oh, and one more example of no perspective and no clue.

The response to the bigot mucking things up has been a rumble of basically shutting everything down. And the bigot has gleefully announced that if people shut it down on him this year, he'll make sure it all gets shut down NEXT year... and so the dude running the Other Side, who has been playing the plausible deniability card all this time, is jumping up and down and screaming about it.

"It's just what he wants!" he says.
"Listen to me!" he says.
"Follow the proper rules and do things right!" he says.... even though he bent those rules himself and has gone on record as saying that ethics don't matter anymore because OTHER PEOPLE did it first.

And, of course, he blames anyone but his side. He acts the victim because everyone's so against HIM that they let the REAL monster in the door...

The monster that his friends were only too happy to invite to the party.

But that was last year, right?

On empathy...

Empathy.

The ability to see people as creatures distinct and separate from yourself, with their own ideas and motivations, and from there to understand those

I swear some people lack this. Completely and utterly.

Like, not just the ability to understand how someone else feels, but the ability to understand that anyone could feel any differently about anything.

And, worse, they tell themselves that other people LIE about how they feel. For reasons.

There's a series of books which starts with 'The Black Jewels' trilogy and expands into several sequels and anthologies. They're extremely dark and disturbing in places, especially the first book, but there's one part that has always stuck with me, because it tickles the bit of my brain that is fascinated by human nature.

See, the bad guys are always coming up with plots, setting traps, sending spies. But nothing ever goes their way, and much of the time the good guys don't even know they've foiled a plot. Oh, they fought an enemy or something weird happened, but they don't put the pieces together for a while.

And the reason that the bad guys keep losing so badly is because they honestly believe the good guys think the same way they do. They even think that the good guys only pretend to value things like honour. Every single plan is basically, "I would react like this in that situation, so we'll do this to trap her".

Every single time. Like, "We'll get this guy to drug her so she's easy to seduce, trick her into getting married, and then she has to do what her husband says! And if we control the husband, we control her!"

Except the young woman in this equation has A) severe PTSD regarding sex (again, very dark books), and B) near-omnipotent magical power (which the bad guys are trying to control through this plot). So the seduction ends with the guy being pretty much vaporised.

And while I won't defend the darker aspects of the book, the inability of these characters to even comprehend that other people have different perceptions... it just rings true for me.

As Puck says in one of Neil Gaiman's Sandman stories, "It's true! It never happened, but it's true!" I may have paraphrased that, but it's the essence. And that's one reason books are so wonderful.

So where does that bring us? Well. Partly I've just been wanting to express that about Black Jewels for a while. But also, I swear I've seen the phenomena come up in the Hugos kerfuffle (yeah, lot of things revolve around the Hugos these days).

See, there seems to be this idea... well, first it starts with the assertion that the winners in recent years were somehow swayed by a secret cabal of liberals or SJWs or something. Which is weird enough, really, because people suck at keeping secrets and if anything like that had happened there'd be a lot more evidence than just 'This book won, that story got nominated'.

But then it seems like some people ride that bus into a corkscrew high dive off a cliff. They imply, or even assert, that some stories are ONLY voted for so the voters can show off how progressive they are. Like, they didn't REALLY like the story, they didn't REALLY rate it higher than anything else, they possibly didn't even READ it. But because there's a one-legged Korean transsexual hobo character, or some other combination of diversity and intersectionality  it's the Holy Grail, and so of course all those brainwashed liberals will vote for it!

Except... that's not how people work? I mean, if we're doing it to show off... who are we showing off to? Each other? But if we don't really believe what we're doing, shouldn't we know that nobody believes it, and... what would be the point?

But that's what the Sad Puppies apparently believe. After all, their motto basically boils down to 'Vote for FUN!'. As if anyone votes for anything else. They really think 'lefties' are that stupid.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe they can't comprehend that things they don't like could be fun for someone else.

"Don't give me messages, give me entertainment!"

I believe they call that 'reality TV'.

Don't give me messages. Bah. Don't ask me to think, more like.

Honestly, I don't understand this idea that if you don't like something, you have to trash it into the ground, and assume the worst, the most stupid motivations, of people who do like it. That they don't REALLY like it. Secretly they agree with you, they're just PRETENDING not to. For reasons.

But maybe that's a lack of empathy on my part?

The lies we tell ourselves

There's a thing I keep seeing in discussions of politics and social justice and free speech. When comic book covers get pulled, when things get criticised, when stuff happens that some people don't like. Those people blame someone, sometimes in pejorative terms like 'SJW' and 'feminazi'. And sometimes it escalates into full-blown, paranoid conspiracy. Such as this gem from a Facebook thread:

"So the left excludes, bans, shouts-down, censors, banishes, demonizes, all badthought and badthinkers everywhere they can..." 

There was more to it, but the rest is not germane.

I have no doubt that this person feels strongly about this, and from his point of view it may even seem true. Somehow. I don't know, it seems pretty distorted to me. It's like, if anyone was excluded, banned, shouted down or what have you, a lot of the time it's because that person was being an asshole. Not simply because they said stuff that people didn't agree with. Although that may also happen. I dunno, I wasn't there.

Also, censorship? Man, I didn't know the government intervened in stupid Internet squabbles.

But then there's the second part of the scree, "badthought" and "badthinkers". Wrongthink. Groupthink. Whateverthehellthink they lifted from 1984 and Minority Report. The idea that THE ENEMY are marching around jackbooting anyone who isn't 'ideologically pure', who doesn't 'toe the party line'.

Which, again, I don't buy, see point above about being an asshole.

So they lie to themselves about their own behaviour, justify it in their own minds so that it's THE OTHER GUYS that are at fault. But that's not the only lie they're telling themselves.

The other lie is that they don't do it too.

Oh, they (in this case 'the right', right wing, conservatives, etc.) use different words. Libtard, prog, 'cultural marxism'. Statements that the people to the left of them are all programmed drones, all fakers posing for the moral high ground. And so on.

Different words, same thing. Don't toe their party line? Don't match their politics? Say something they deem to be too liberal? BAM.

Not all of them, sure, but it happens. Like so, from earlier tonight:

"Of course it was also specifically chosen to point out that, like the good Prog you are, you would go right for the perceived "injustice" just like you've been programmed to in order to engage in moral status preening."

Yeeeeeah. I'm not the only one who's been programmed, buddy boy. You're basically a wind-up toy with springs made of frustration and anger.

But of course he doesn't see it that way.

People are weird.

All things must come to a beginning...

I've been thinking for a while that I should do a blog of my own. Nothing fancy. Just a place to publish my thoughts and opinions. I used to use Twitter, but the character limit is, well, limiting, and it's time consuming staying on top of everything people say. Maybe I did it wrong.

I have Facebook, of course, but I don't want to flood my family and various friends, many of whom don't share all of my interests, with arcane rants about stuff happening in the wild and woolly intarwebs. This way, I can link it and they can read if they choose. Or not.

Mostly this space will be for me. Too often I read something moronic online ('Someone on the internet is WRONG') and I really, really want to say something, but I don't want to get into a stupid slap fight. But I still want to say it. But, again, I don't want to bog down my Facebook.

Or I have some random thought or philosophical notion, or half baked idea... Maybe review a book or a tv show...

This is the space for all these things.

I don't know if I will allow comments. Maybe not all the time, but as long as everything's chill and the discussion is interesting, I can go with it.

So. Yeah. Here we are.