Off to Balticon

Geeks all across Maryland, DC, Virginia will pack their geeky bags for Balticon 42, including yours truly. I always get the feeling that I am not geeky enough to belong, despite my geek cred in the real world among the non-geeks. You could say I'm a geek and a geek fanboy, in that I think geeks are cool and don't feel worthy. No physical science degree, no comics pedigree, no l33t hacker skillz, no RPG XP, no publications. But somehow the tribe doesn't kick me out.

Every year, Balticon is like a checkpoint on the writing career such as it is. So here's a progress report:

Short fiction sold: 0.
Short stories drafted: 1.
Short stories reviewed by outside readers: 1.
Novels being drafted: 1.
Novel drafts completed: 1.
Novel drafts reviewed by outside readers: 1.
Novel drafts in rewrite: 1.
Query letters sent: 0.

Not very impressive, and a few years ago, I might have become mightily discouraged at the glacial pace of things. But some experience in crafting quality things suggests that time to get things right is time well spent, especially when building expertise and new skills. It's supposed to take ten years to become an expert in something. The Crashpoint Cascade has been in production seriously since about 2003, so I'm halfway there, right?

The Shiniest RPG in the 'Verse?

Just stumbled across this in my travels around the Cortex. Looks shiny. But are there enough Browncoats out there to sustain it? Maybe there will be some at Balticon. I'm not sure I have time enough anymore for RPG play, what with keeping my own ship flying, writing, video games and all, but I hope somebody does.

The Truth about Video Games

The release of the widely hailed Grand Theft Auto IV indicates what a sea change has happened in how society treats video games. GTA was ignored, GTA II (the first I ever played) got a smattering of negative press, and GTA III was treated as if it were a dire threat to national security. GTA IV is being treated as an entertainment and artistic masterpiece. Oh, how the times have changed.

Video games seem to be a major point of contention for this generation of adult males. Regarded as a childish pastime that every young woman instantly writes off as temporary but soon finds is not, video gaming has become a sore point and a cause for celebration at the same time. The truth is that video games are like any other entertainment: capable of greatness, culture-changing and yet prone to misuse by those who take everything too far, including those looking for easy scapegoats.

No longer is the video game the ridiculous boogeyman blamed for school shootings, carpal tunnel or empty bowling alleys (no, that would be guns, the mouse and the cell phone). But it is the culprit of the male college freshman who stays in his room for days, hiding from the unfamiliar campus, skipping class and ultimately dropping out. Being able to socialize with high school buds via email, texting and social networking also are crutches to make staying in his high school and parents' world so comfy.

Ah, but video games have risen in social status too, as us males of the first video gaming generation have ascended to positions of influence in industry, media and entertainment. And the games have gotten pretty good, in part because they don't take themselves too seriously. Why not celebrate them? They are the first and only completely interactive form of entertainment: mentally challenging and entertaining in ways completely unlike previous forms.

Cases in point would be games coming up in the near future:
Lego Batman: Play with a Lego Batman. If this is half as fun as Lego Star Wars, yum.
Lego Indiana Jones: See above
Spore: Be the (intelligent?) designer of an organism that evolves and eventually flies to other planets from Will Wright, the guy who created Sim City and the Sims.

And in a sign that games are supplanting movies, comics and books in some ways:
Ghostbusters: in lieu of another sequel
Star Wars: the Force Unleashed: Be Vader's apprentice in a brand new chapter that takes place between the trilogies, with a super realistic physics engine.

Tasty butterflies and other discoveries: BikeAbout 2008

The 2008 Columbia BikeAbout happened on a gorgeous spring-summer day, sunny with the temperature somewhere in the 70s and a light breeze. I covered the thirteen miles of woodsy Columbia trails in two hours exactly, stopping on occasion to take in some exhibits on Columbia's history and suck down water.

Any time I am in the woods it is akin to a religious experience. Call it some Gaia religious belief riding alongside my (nonsecular) humanism: I worship nature and humanity. If that sounds flaky or contradictory, consider that I have no embarrassing clergy or bizarre rules to explain. And since humanity is part of nature, then the two actually go together like cereal and milk.

A rabbit raced me down one trail, scared witless, a squirrel did its best to run under my front tire, but missed, and a butterfly flew right at my mouth, which thankfully was closed. I could feel both its wings flatten against my lips like it was a feathery light bandage covering my lower face. Then it flew off. Since I was whipping along downhill at the moment and it was capable of flight, I didn't stop to see if it was okay. It didn't check on me either. Nature loving can be rough sometimes.

Maybe I'm drinking the Columbia Kool-Aid in saying this, but I think the Columbia street naming convention is neat. All Columbia street names are based on poetry, literature or in some cases the usual forgotten historical sources. Lots of people think these names are bizarre and that street names ought to be boring old and familiar (1st st, 2nd st, etc). Liquid Laughter Lane and Rippling Water Walk are unique and lyrical. In many cases, the original poetry has been expanded by the addition of the street type.

All in all, a very pleasant morning in suburban utopia.

Prediction markets and Innovation

Check out this NYT article about using prediction markets to capture innovative ideas, foster communication and to give heads up to people in an organization about events or trends that are emerging below the radar. More companies are jumping into this because they hold some promise.

Google has experimented with this as well for improving idea generation and communication, and some folks have actually researched how well it works.

Prediction markets have many uses, one of which apparently is not political markets. Market response to elections seems to follow the latest polls exactly and is not often that accurate. These things have their limits when it comes to the general population. Within organizations, where knowledge is both common and not, they may be quite revealing.

As many of you know, I have been looking at prediction markets and other ways of predicting the future. Interestingly enough, prediction markets seem better at finding and aggregating existing information about the present (like 'we are behind opening a store in China' as the story points out).

If you want to know more about wisdom of the crowd-type techniques, read The Wisdom of Crowds. Who wrote it? Click the link, I'm too lazy to post all that info when you have your hand on the trackball.

The sweetless it is, the sweeter it gets

I've written about fighting off the dreaded High Fructose Corn Syrup devil and in general becoming post-food. Here is an account from Slate of someone who went even further. Does sugar intake cause zits? Don't know. Does the taste of sugary things become unappetizing when you go off it even to some extent? Absolutely.

I haven't had the sugar cravings that this woman describes, nor the hangovers she had, but I have been not quite avoiding sugar as much. (Organic root beer and sarsaparilla rocks!) It could be your brain trying to go back to the 'good times' even though your body chemistry has moved on. Avoiding dairy and all fruit seems too extreme, and I can't eat nuts, which seems to be a major leg of her food consumption patterns. Some of the problem, as she points out, is that you really have to prepare all your own food to dodge sugar entirely. And that is just not possible at breakfast (organic cereal is the best I can do), lunch (at work: leftovers, frozen or buy it).

Still, I get the feeling that she and I and Dr. Trackball are much further ahead than most adults. Now if Pot Bellies would just stop making those chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and Trader Joes would stop selling cookies altogether...

Where you are is who you are

How did it end up that I was geeking out around the LucasArts facility in the Presidio in San Francisco rather than working there? This occurred to me when I was taking a picture of the bronze Yoda statue by the front entrance, the only sign that a ton of really cool jobs working on the next Indiana Jones and Star Wars properties were on site. Only real geeks know that Lucas Arts moved whole hog from Skywalker Ranch and other locations to a nondescript but beautiful section of the Presidio.

People end up living where they are via three routes: accidentally, intentionally, and indirectly. Accidentally: most people in the US simply live where they grew up because it's familiar, family and friends are close by and it is so easy to piece together an existence from all that familiarity. Intentionally: at some point early in their lives, some people say, look, I want to live/work/go to school there and then they make it so. Indirectly: some people follow a job, a spouse or a passion that limits where they can live, and the choice is just fallout from that initial decision. There are few nomads, other than those required to be so due to their job (military, sales, corporate execs, etc.).

As I travel around the U.S. to places I've always wanted to see, I play this game in my head of trying to figure out how people who live there came to live there. I'm in San Francisco now and my feeling is that there is a greater proportion of intentionals here than in other places. It's the same vibe I get from immigrant and transient-heavy DC. Maybe it's because both are creative class meccas, granted of different flavors. Richard Florida, who studies these issues, has a new book out called "Who's Your City?" I haven't read it yet, but it deals with this kind of thing.

Given my job, DC is the obvious choice for me and I realize now that I figured out where I wanted to live and what I wanted to do at about the same time. I wanted to go to college in DC but was stuck in NY for financial reasons. But I made sure to go to grad school inside the Beltway. Thinking these things through paid off very nicely for me. I would recommend to any high school student that he/she factor location into the college decision. College location feeds into social and business networking quite heavily. Yes, you can get a job in Miami after colleging in Seattle, but it's swimming upstream. And above all, don't let your location just happen, because these things tend to get locked in after a while. Someday, you might look at that Yoda statue, or the dairy farm in Vermont, or a restaurant in New York, and get pissed that you're just a visitor.

If I had made a different career choice and was successful, maybe I would have ended up at a West Coast entertainment or tech company. Growing up in the Shire made this difficult (especially for laying the ground work for comp sci or anything artistic) but not impossible. I could see an alternate timeline where that did happen: I would be slaving away on animation shots for the upcoming Star Wars movie, halfway through my 30s, unmarried, wondering if what I was doing was truly meaningful and if life had more to offer. All geek and no life makes the Trackball a dull boy.

So how did I react when I saw Yoda and realized that I was on the outside looking in? I took his picture, with my kids in it, felt a little sorry for the people inside (I'm not kidding it was a beautiful day and I was on vacation) and moved on with a big grin on my face. I mean, I was standing right outside a geek mecca! Awesome! I score major geek points.

James Bond + Dilbert in the Dunwich Humor

I've been reading Charles Stross novels at a feverish pace lately. Like Neal Stephenson and Richard K. Morgan, I'll read anything he writes.

Even still, I was more than a little surprised at how much I like his Bob Howard novels. The main character is a sarcastic IT support geek who works for a secret British MI6-type place that combats the supernatural world. Yes, he is in expert in computational demonology and is regularly threatened with Powerpoint, government bureaucracy and clueless computer users as well as zombies and demons straight out of H.P. Lovecraft. And I mean straight. out. of. Lovecraft. These are Lovecraftian sequels, really, but with humor instead of horror and the world of Dilbert instead of a creepy gothic Halloween vibe.

Brilliant.

The first novel was The Atrocity Archives.

The second is The Jennifer Morgue.

Entangle your destiny with them and thank me later.

Hey Air Force: above all, stop the web blackouts

Has anyone else begun to grow tired of Air Force 'Above All' ads blacking out an entire website? The military essentially running pop-up ads that 'block' or 'black-out' a website won't win them much love.

The Air Force 'Above All' campaign though, especially the cyberspace defense ads with that cool 'Minority Report' command center, is pretty darn neat. The issues it raises lie near and dear to my novel's heart. So I'll throw a link in to their site in hopes that they stop the blackout ads.

Pew has released a major survey on religion in America. Big result: people are moving fluidly between religions. And the second biggest religion behind Christian is 'unaffiliated' which translates to 'none'. Not that the unaffiliated don't have religious beliefs, but that they don't belong to an organized religion. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Check out the results, including state breakdowns for the lower 48, here.

As a humanist and free thinker, I find this encouraging. More people are exercising their free will and are breaking out of whatever mold their families may or may not have tried to stuff them into. It makes society less tribal, more thoughtful and more heterogeneous. Maybe Sam Harris was on to something in The End of Faith.

Since atheism is the new gay, maybe the pockets of high 'unaffiliated' will correspond to creative class meccas in the US, a la Richard Florida's hypothesis that the presence of gays in a city is a sign of tolerance, a key ingredient for municipal success. (See 'Creative Class: how cities succeed' link on the right).

Rewrite Hell

I have been rewriting the novel The Crashpoint Cascade for years (very part time though, because of family and work obligations). It has gone through about four major drafts and is now into its fifth. Some of that has been due to me learning how to write a novel. But a lot of it is just the requisite work needed. With two readers having poured through an entire draft, I have a pile of edits to put in. This is a real rewrite, more so than the others, because it is based on input from two other human brains that are not mine.

Rewriting is creative destruction in its purest essence. Favorite chunks of prose are slaughtered, ideas are belittled, put on the stand, and often executed. Characters become collateral damage. The process can seem endless, pointless, and will make you question why you ever bothered to show the world how you are a no-talent idiot that doesn't have the sense to recognize the foolishness of trying something so far beyond your abilities. Sometimes you have to write some new stuff that you know will be trashed just to get you a couple more steps on the journey to better understanding the story or a character. And sometimes you don't realize that it will be trashed until later on during a quietly sober moment of despair.

And then, while rewriting, you'll see a story point snap into place. A character steps into some contrived dead end you are sweating and takes the story in a better direction. You find some really cool chunks and they point you to new changes. Edits that you or the readers suggest spawn a whole series of new ideas and you are off and running again. Crest and trough, crest and trough.

Other writers have talked more eloquently about rewriting hell than I have, (Elizabeth Bear has this excellent post about rewrite hell here and and elsewhere she recommends this post by Justine Larbalestier) but experiencing this first hand is worth sharing.

One of the key things they and others mention is that you have to persevere. There won't be a light at the end of the tunnel for a long while, if ever, and if you stop, all is lost. If you don't go far enough, the finished product won't be good enough. Rewriting makes everyone feel like an abject failure and question their use of talent and time on writing. It never goes away, apparently. Or, as Woody Allen put it, 90% of success is showing up and by definition, not giving up.

There's a reason why many published writers' first complete novels sit in drawers, unpublished but not unloved, but never to be returned to. It could be that these novels are the necessary learning failures, never ready for primetime. And maybe each is the scar that reminds the writer about hard won lessons driven home about slogging through the rewrite stage, the bionic right hand that constantly reminds what impatience, inexperience and lack of commitment can result in.

Boycott MySpace

Because they discriminate on the basis of religion by deleting groups for atheists and agnostics after they were hacked by Christians. That it is owned by Rupert Murdoch should come as no surprise. Fox Noise regularly refuses commercials that it doesn't agree with too.

Thanks to Charlie Stross' blog where I first heard this, and see the Cleveland Plain Dealer here with the full story.

Of course, I'm already on Facebook and have little use for MySpace. I wonder what other groups MySpace will persecute next.

Trackballs set for Balticon 42

The whole Trackball clan will peek in on Balticon 42 on Memorial Day weekend. Dr. Trackball surprised me with a hotel reservation where the con takes place.

Their only con experience has been an exhausted romp through ComiCon last year in San Diego. Balticon is much different, much lower key. This should be interesting.

Lair Deadline is set

As a pal mentioned here in the comments, I should have the Lair ready by the premiere of the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight. The movie will feature a new Batcave, which you shouldn't underestimate as an influence on Lair design.

So, this year, by July 18th, when the movie premieres, the Lair will be finished. Of course I have no idea what it being finished means, but I will figure it out.

I must catch this when it comes to town

I know, I should be beyond the Star Trek thing by now. The only Vegasy thing I did in Vegas in 98 was catch Star Trek: The Experience at the Vegas Hilton. Loved it.

But Star Trek: The Tour is coming to DC. No way I miss that. Thanks to Wil Wheaton for pimping it on his blog. The more of his stuff I read, the more I like him.

Oh, and on a related note, the Lair is coming along. Still looks like a basement corner, but it's taking shape. When it's done, it will be Lair 1.0 still, but 1.0 is better than 0.0.

The Truth about High Def DVDs

A couple months back, I bought a Playstation 3 in part to upscale DVDs to near high def and to play high definition DVDs. At that point, and even now, there has been a format war between HD DVD (Toshiba) and Blu-ray (Sony). Blu-ray has sold more discs but Toshiba has sold more single-purpose players (not counting the PS3, which if counted, hands the player race to Sony). They also had pulled in most of the studios to their side. So I bet on Blu-ray.

Looks like I was right. Sony just scooped Toshiba to sign Warner Bros., the biggest DVD content studio, to an exclusive Blu-ray only deal. It's over.

Some say that this is all moot because we'll all be downloading movies to our TVs and DVDs will go the way of vinyl LPs. Not so fast. The American internet is too slow to handle standard definition TV, much less high def. Video on demand has not taken off for standard def and that is the closest analog to downloadable movies. No one wants to be in the middle of a thriller and then hit internet lag, or worse yet, wait three hours to download a two hour movie.

The cosmic reward for excellence

One of the truths about life seems to be that the world takes notice when someone does something difficult, and does it well. Everyday acts of excellence, like landing a plane safely, or keeping the internet infrastructure operating, are well compensated. Apple and Google have done really well, and it's not an accident. Pro sports performers and entertainers rake it in because they are that good, people recognize it and money and acclaim just flow.

Maybe this is an intentionally constructed feedback loop by human society or maybe it's unintentional. Since it's not always noticeable via financial compensation, the feedback mechanism can be hard to spot ('she's, like, the best cupcake maker ever'). It's still pretty neat to see nonetheless. Whenever you come across one of those really well done things, it's a 'wow' moment.

Reading Charles Stross' science fiction is becoming a consistent 'wow' experience. Like Neal Stephenson and Richard K. Morgan, reading him prompts feelings of both 'wow, this is good' and 'I can only wish to tell stories like this.' He is the cutting edge of sci-fi. Chris Nolan is one of the cutting edge filmmakers and most of his movies are so good that I could easily start from the beginning after each ends (he made Memento, Batman Begins and The Prestige).

In general it takes about 10 years for someone to become an expert at something. They may be unrecognized, even by themself, as being just barely proficient until they make it all the way to expert level, but that doesn't mean that their mastery isn't advancing the whole time. I have seen this happen in my own line of work. Also, I have stared at my own lack of expertise in writing a novel for years and slowly watched myself chip away at it. I can see it happening with Guitar Hero III, which I got for Christmas, and have gained a whole new appreciation for real guitar players.

While it's fun to be at the crest of the learning curve, starting at zero can be very tough. There may be a learning curve restart at work on a project that is daunting considering the 10 year rule. It can be downright terrifying for the early retired or laid off who have to find a new field just to bring home a paycheck.

As a shout out to those who I think are experts in what they do, and who I aspire to follow gamely, this site will now add 'The Pros' links to the people who are recognized as having their expert shit together. Since I use the ToT site myself for interweb-wanderings, it's also a reference section for me, but please abuse it for your own pleasure.

So Happy New Year, and good luck to all who are just starting a new expertise learning curve or are already on their way. Remember, by 2018 latest, people will bow in your general direction.
For those who are procrastinating a needed start at the bottom of a learning curve, remember, the universe loves excellence. And you don't want to wait till 2019 to be an expert, do you?

My short EVE Online experiment

Yeah, I tried another MMORPG, EVE Online. Fell for the claims that it was different, that it was good, has wonderful graphics. It offers a total sandbox approach where everything is pretty much player created, even bounty-hunter mission assignments, corporate powers and the economy. They offered a 14 day free trial and I, being a total sucker, gave it a shot.

I was done with it in one afternoon.

Okay, it was different. No first person shooter, just you piloting a space ship. Graphics are gorgeous. My big problems with it are: the camera, the interface, the learning curve, the general feel.

The camera: staring at my own ship during combat is annoying. Controlling the camera in space, when in galactic map mode, etc. was difficult and annoying. This is why I gave up on Homeworld: camera issues made combat almost impossible. In the future, there will be some kind of combat schematic optimized to filter the necessary info out of lots of useless data. In Homeworld and EVE, well, can't let info management get in the way of showing off cool nebulas.

The interface is just overloaded with information and trying to figure out which system you're in is a chore. I lost the intro tutorial when I entered a space station, only to realize it was waiting for me to do something before it continued. The learning curve is tremendous: you essentially have to memorize a skill and spaceship parts catalog where every item sounds/looks just like the last one. You have to learn how to navigate through space with warp and jumpgates and nearly impossible to read maps of routes between planetary systems. Plus, you spend most of your time watching your ship fly through space with nothing to do.

It all adds up to not being fun, which is the point. Why would a casual gamer bother? Why would a hardcore gamer make the time investment to figure it out?

In contrast, recently I downloaded MS Visual C# and Sql Server Express Editions to toy with related to an experiment at work. I was up and running, and knowing what I was doing, within minutes of starting each program. My actions produced understandable results and I could see myself improving instantly. Why can't video game designers shoot for the same result?

Trackball math class tracking update: another loss

An update on the continuing saga of Minnie Trackball's math class tracking. If you remember, we were concerned about the frequent cancellations of math class in 2nd grade and resolved to keep a count of how many school days included a math class casualty.

The first two weeks of school, there was no math. They were both four day weeks though. Every day since then, there has been math. And it's been good stuff.

Until today. Math was cancelled for disability awareness day. Wheelchair races, awareness raising, etc. I have no problem with that. But cancel something else. Even reading or language arts. Illiteracy is not the problem in a high-performing school, but there is a chronic math and science lag all across the US, in even the best schools.

So far, there have been 9 days of no math class, a lot less than we feared by this point.

Post-food, but not dead

In the past, I've mentioned that I am evolving to a post-food position. Post-food, like post-materialist, means that one is no longer obsessed or possessed by food. It doesn't command a huge amount of attention, or produce a large amount of excitement or interest.

Having said that, I should point out that this doesn't mean that I don't like food or ignore it. Being post-food means that quality is more important than quantity. Which leads me to the three objects of praise in this post: Trader Joe's, Let's Dish, and Wegmans.

Trader Joe's is the much heralded low cost, mostly healthy grocery chain that sells a lot of its own brand food. Everyone who has access to one raves about it and for years I wondered if the hype was for real. We finally got one in Columbia, and it has lived up to everything everyone has said. The food is great, unique and cheap. Plus shopping there is a different experience.

As people who lunch with me know, the Trackballs have been using Let's Dish a lot. Dr. Trackball spends 2 hours a month preparing about 8 meals at their place, which she takes home and chucks in the freezer. The food is very good: usually a meat entree (we favor the poultry and seafood) that is tasty and just needs to be cooked.

Finally, Wegmans. Wegmans is a super grocery store from back in My Shire that has everything. Growing up in the Shire, I disliked the store for reasons having more to do with the upbringing that didn't fit me than anything else. In the land of crappy Giant and Safeway stores, Wegmans is a huge step forward. Still waiting for it to settle in Columbia.

Bon appetit.