Unimatrix Two

The Science of Doctor Who: s01e06, “Dalek”

Remember these? It’s only been a gap of nearly three years, after all, hardly a blink in the overall scheme of space and time and universes. And while my focus will remain on the science issues of the scripts, there’s likely to be commentary on plot elements too. There’s simply too much to talk about as new Who evolves. So lets talk about one of the best episodes of the Ninth Doctor, and probably the best Dalek episode since 1963.

The Dalek itself doesn’t pose too many science problems. It’s a mobile armored life-support unit for the Kaled mutant inside, and while some of the construction materials and power sources might be a little implausible, there’s nothing especially offensive there. However, I would like to know how the Dalek regenerates itself simply by “extrapolating the DNA of a time traveler”. I’m willing to accept that there’s a cloud of strange energy following time travelers around because of their exposure to the Time Vortex and the energies powering the TARDIS. I have more trouble that a simple touch from Rose could provide the Dalek’s nanomachines (of course it’s nanomachines, right?) with enough energy and raw materials to repair all the visible damage. Just how much time-zap do Rose and the Doctor carry around, anyway?

“The Dalek’s downloading the Internet!” Well, that’s great. But here’s how the Internet works: There are a bunch of files on a computer somewhere which make a game or a web page. Your computer sends a request from your home connection, to your Internet provider, to the big telecommunications networks, to the other computer’s provider, to its connection, and finally to that computer, which sends you the file(s) back over a similar path. Each part of that path can only send so much data so fast, so it doesn’t matter if your computer and your connection can download the Internet in an hour unless all the other parts of the path can.

And, well, even if super-rich guy has the special private uber-connection into the big telecoms, it doesn’t help. You still are limited by the capabilities of the local networks and computers from which you are downloading. So, sorry… no downloading the Internet in an hour, even if you are a Dalek. (And by the way, they’s why the “I own the Internet” line makes no sense whatsoever. Own all the big telecom companies? Well… maybe. Maybe. He sure as hell doesn’t own all the ISPs and the computers attached to them. Sorry, big guy.)

Oh, and could someone tell van Statten that we’ve invented all sorts of machines even in real 2005 that can scan someone’s biology without causing them excruciating pain? X-Rays, MRIs, tomography machines… van Statten’s clearly a bit of an idiot who doesn’t care how much he’s damaging the thing he’s “studying”. Hell, if he took proper care “studying” his specimens, he’d probably have learned so much that he really would own the planet.

And speaking of which, what sort of idiot kills people on a whim if they fail to amuse him? He’s a monster, and it’s played for a giggle but is really not funny. The guy’s lucky one of his own men hasn’t shot him in desperation by now if he’s been making a habit of this. And don’t tell me van Statten isn’t really having them killed: if your memory’s been wiped clean, your body may still be alive, but you are gone. You are never coming back. He’s a murderer on a whim, and I can’t say I’m sorry he gets the same done to him. (Yes, that means that Bail Organa and Owen Lars are also cold-blooded murderers, and no I’m not kidding.)

Still this is a great episode. Rarely has a Dalek been this terrifying; we can see that stairs really don’t bother them; and as someone said, this is the episode where a Time Lord acts like a Dalek, a Dalek acts like a human, and a human acts like a Time Lord. Some excellent acting all round, and this is one of my favorites. See you soon for “The Long Game”.

February: A Con Odyssey

Just did Farpoint in Baltimore, and MystiCon in Roanoke back to back. Both cons are five hours away from my home. Pro tip: don’t do this.

Farpoint was the second stop for Luna-C, so as usual I spent most of the weekend preparing for the performance in one way or another. Of course, I simultaneously love live performing from the depths of my soul and it triggers my anxieties as only a job interview can, so it’s both relief and regret when the show is done. Regret must win, though, since I’m always eager for the next show. We premiered my “Lonely Villain” skit which I think is quite funny; and I got to play Scotty again, which has been one of my lifelong dreams.

I also premiered the My Little Pony “Twilight Sparkle” costume at Farpoint, and I must say it was a pretty big hit. I’ve known since the fandom took off that I would need an MLP costume before long, so of course I had to do it in my own special fashion.

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Instant Death, No Saving Throw

In 1974, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created Dungeons and Dragons. Sometime around 1978, I acquired a copy, and my leisure time pursuits were changed forever. I owe the both of them a debt of gratitude I can never repay (and a debt of finance as well).

They made one mistake, though, and my gamer friends and I have been dealing with that mistake since then. I don’t know how it got into the game originally; in fact, sometimes I wonder what it was like gaming with them under this philosophy. The attitude is never openly stated in the books, but the early game materials make it clear: the Game Master is the other players’ enemy.

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Why Warhammer 40K Makes Me Unhappy

Today, the social media channels are abuzz with the ongoing story that Games Workshop got the e-book of M.C.A. Hogarth’s “Spots the Space Marine” pulled from Amazon on the dubious grounds that no one else is allowed to use “Space Marine” in an e-book. They may or may not have the law on their side – most folks suspect not – but it remains a dirty, unethical, and ridiculous thing to do either way. It’s costing Hogarth real money, and one notes that they didn’t go after any well-established, well-funded estate or media organization that’s featured space marines in e-books since such were invented. Also, this event exposes flaws in Amazon’s due process which concern many an independent writer.

But that’s my problem with Games Workshop in general. Why am I down on Warhammer 40K specifically? Well, I’m glad you asked that. (Of course you did, don’t you remember?) Let me fire off a few disclaimers right at the beginning: I have never had the chance to actually play the game and would love to give it a try if it could be done without supporting GW. And if you love the game and have been playing for years, this isn’t an attack on you. Having fun? That’s *excellent*.

My tabletop battle experience is primarily through FASA and its descendants. I had seen Battletech materials in my game stores, thought it gauche that they were using Macross and Dougram mech designs, and given it little more thought before getting caught in a blizzard one weekend and giving it a fair try. I fell in love with the game, still play when I can, and even enjoy the click-base version as an entirely different game in the same setting.

But I’d seen lots of 40K stuff in the stores too, all of it illustrated by photos of Games Workshop’s brilliant modelmaking and paintwork. Of course I was curious! And I knew a gamer or two who loved it, though none of them happened to game with me. Finally, I learned enough to discover how many figures a player uses for a basic game, and checked on the price.

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A Slightly Classier Agreement

I have a lot of fun making “DVD covers” in Photoshop for my little video efforts. It’s weird, because they don’t show up in hard-copy very much any more, but it does make the movie files look better when I’m browsing them in a media manager.

To that end, I made this today:

If this had been a real DVD cover, I’d have added a lot more info about the actors and crew, and copyright disclaimers and the like. But this will do for now. It looks a whole lot better in iTunes.

Oh, and for the few readers of this blog who don’t know, the two parts of this video are right here:http://youtu.be/3nnLbQ1JvXs and here:http://youtu.be/iS6iGACneEQ Be kind.

No Such Thing As A Free Badge

Reason number 724 that I am a very lucky man: Despite not having much in the way of cash flow in the recent months, I’ve been able to keep attending cons.

For the most part, this is because I have convinced several conventions that I have skills of enough value that they should be covering a fair chunk of my expenses. I’m pretty proud of those skills, and I work hard in return for my badge or whatever, but it generally means I miss out on a lot of the event, and am a little more worn out for the remaining parts. So, these days when I get to go to an event at which I’m not preforming / presenting, it’s a nice vacation.

On, the other hand, it means that right now I can’t really afford to do that. Which means that I was pretty darn disappointed to hear that MystiCon, a con in Roanoke I’ve been wanting to attend for years, was going to feature Sylvester “Seventh Doctor” “Radagast the Brown” McCoy*. I made vague promises of going, but the closer the con came, the less likely it appeared that my cash would handle it.

Well, lady_or_tyger wants to go, and feels that since she’s never been to a Roanoke con, that I’d make the perfect guide. So she’s going to cover my expenses as a gift, and I’m actually going to get to see some of my fandom peeps for the first time in ages. I’m very excited!

*McCoy has had a schedule change, and now they have Peter “Fifth Doctor” Davison. That’a a bit less cool to me than McCoy, but that still leaves lots of room for Pretty Danged Cool.

Neither the World or My Blog Ended

And so, 2013 begins. (Yeah, okay, it began three weeks ago. Whatever.) And let’s look at things since I last blogged.

I’m still not keeping up with my blogging the way I want to. I know this is the seductive voice of depression telling me there’s no use in it, and making the process of putting words down on paper for all to see a terrifying one. All I can do is keep fighting that, and continue working to get back to where I was. It’s so easy to procrastinate when your head keeps whispering that doing anything good with life is useless and dangerous. I know those are lies, but I can’t always remember that. Nothing for it but to keep plugging.

Still looking for new work. A couple of interviews haven’t worked out, but of course that’s something I know I just have to keep trying. The fears are ever with me there as well, but luckily they are balanced a little by the knowledge that I have to keep working. Food good, you know? Last month I had a shot at a fascinating job which would have paid 50% than the xTuple job, but my resume was only slightly weaker than the competition’s. Damn it.

InterventionCon was a lot of fun, and I revelled in the pleasure of a con where I was committed to nothing and could enjoy myself. I think I over-did it a little bit in 2012: the two cons near the end of the year at which I presented nearly sucked me dry. Part of that involved other stressors, but I’ve only agreed to four acting / presenting commitments this year, and one (MarsCon) is already past. I’m not saying I’ll take no others, but I may be pickier.

We filmed the script in September. I tried a two-camera setup again, with plans for even more ambitious editing, and right after I transferred the secondary (iPhone) footage to my computer, the hard drive died. I’d already deleted it off the phone, so all that was gone, as well as a year’s worth of other work. (I’d backed up my entire machine in 2011 to an bootable extra drive in order to be able to use old software.) I edited around all the footage I lost, and the results didn’t suck, but when I watch it now I can’t help but see all the awkward angles that should have been replaced by footage for the second source. Lesson learned: I now have a spare drive which gets updated by Apple’s Time Machine every hour.

The costume that I’d hoped to have for NekoCon isn’t finished, it’s on hold until I can improve my exercise routine and drop some belly, because it just won’t look good until that happens. However, a lady friend is bugging me about going out to walk every day, which I’ll be doing after I finish this!

Twins, Basil!

I have mostly completed the migration of my LiveJournal posts to my WordPress blog. Everything seems to work pretty well; I need to fix any post with an embedded YouTube video, and some posts have the comments repeated over and over, but its up and running for now. I’m still keeping the LiveJournal running, with all posts mirrored; no need to abandon everything just yet. Folks should be able to comment either place.

I haven’t written anything decent since Memorial Day; I’ve been dry as a bone. Bringing some attention back to this blog is intended to help me push through that. I remember when my LiveJournal Friends page used to show dozens of posts a day, now it’s lucky to have five or six. And I’ve let my own self be so distracted by Facebook and Twitter that I made the excuse that this was writing.

So, what am I up to these days?

• Polishing my resume to score a new job which will allow me to afford my own place again. I’m tired of making “just enough” money. I think I have the skills and experience to bring in the cash for my own place, and still be able to afford toys and travel with a little budgeting. So, we’re going to find out. The Foxes are absolutely Made of Awesome, but there’s something about having my own castle which I’m ready for.
• Trying to decide which of the outfits in my costume closet would work best to wear for InterventionCon this weekend. It’s not an anime or SF con per se, so I’m having trouble deciding which outfit’s the winner. The black steampunk is one of my all-time con favorites, but I wore it to Intervention last year. And by the way, that’s an amazing con. You should go if you can.
• Finishing a script that we may film the last weekend of September, if all goes well. It should be a lot cheaper to film than the last couple I did, which is an excellent bonus. No travel for me, and no fancy sets. 🙂
• Finishing a costume which will premiere at NekoCon if it doesn’t look hideous on me. I’ve been trying to complete it since Anime Mid-Atlantic – heck, the fabric is right here in front of me. But flagging confidence in my sewing skills and body image has kept me from jumping in and getting it done – it’s way past time.

So, is anyone reading this working on anything interesting?

Back from Shore Leave!

The new car behaved itself well! Much less general wear on a car = much better gas mileage, as I made Baltimore and back on only a tank and a half. Dwight and Dawn were excellent company: among other things, I got to hear a Duran Duran album I hadn't picked up yet. Huyndais handle differently with three people and a trunk of con luggage in them than they do with one, something I'm not yet completely used to.

The Hunt Valley no-longer-Marriott is an interesting hotel. Every year I manage to get lost in their hall layout at least two or three times, and combining that with the eye-searing carpet makes me suspect that it will be a rough place when the stars are right. Also, the room was too darn humid the whole time. Clothing in my still-packed bag felt a bit damp this morning.

The con itself was a lovely time. I picked up a nice Ron Weasley wand replica for the "Warehouse 9 3/4" skit and a replacement UFP patch for my Trek flight jacket. Didn't get to hit the vendor area much, which no doubt was good for my wallet; but I attended an interesting costuming panel and was a panelist on another, got many good costume photos of Kara that I must send her, and of course performed with Luna-C.

I glitched twice during my first skit, though I was assured it was unnoticeable from the audience. Phew! The other three went nice and smooth, and in fact I think the Holmes and Watson podcast skit got more laughs than ever. From a backstage perspective, the skits I wasn't in seemed to work very well, with good comic timing and plenty of laughs. I believe this was one of our strongest performances! (And we got to meet Kate Mulgrew very very briefly backstage beforehand, which I enjoyed!)

Afterwards, I got hit in the head with being 43 years old: I needed a nap. I wanted to watch the Masquerade but my body wasn't into it. We did head down to the Ten-Forward party at 11… the music mostly stank, but I finally got to put a name to Paulette Guillory-Gardner, a lovely lady with whom I've been crossing convention paths often. My Alice costume went over well, and I even got a picture or two with a White Rabbit before it was time to head back up to bed.

In the morning, we headed down for the Luna-C breakfast and wrap-up. Dana Stewart gave me exactly the Doctor Who costume idea I'd been looking for, complete with a bad pun to go with it – win-win. I grabbed a couple more click-base random starships, but I think from now on I might spend the extra couple of bucks and buy the specific ones I want from eBay. I don't like getting duplicates, when I don't have lots of folks interested in trading.

The drive home was too long, frankly. The company was still good, but I just wanted to be home. Still, made it in safe by 7:30, said my goodbyes to Dwight and Dawn, stuffed a sandwich in my mouth and was unconscious by 9:30. All in all: quite the good weekend.

Artificial Life on Mars

I couldn’t stay up to watch Curiosity, since I’d had a very long weekend, and an early Monday morning to head to. In fact, I didn’t manage to stay up until 10 last night. But I felt confident that Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ would tell me everything I needed to know when I woke in the morning, and they did. Well done NASA!

I spent some time at NASA Langley. Unless you know some of these folks you might not believe how hard they work at their jobs, how committed they are to expanding the scope of human knowledge, and how hard they have to fight against budgets and bureaucracy to accomplish the things that they do. This is one of the moments in my life that, however briefly, I’m proud of the human race. Let’s do more like this!