tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22764999626998472552024-03-08T08:29:06.874+00:00Scavenger Ethic[ @ScavengerEthic on twitter ]
(<a href="http://spiderted.eu/authors/petealexharris.html">My Writing</a>)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.comBlogger390125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-39218128728609547722017-10-19T17:11:00.002+01:002017-10-19T17:11:57.386+01:00Riding the Avalanche<div style="text-align: justify;">
Technology is coming like an avalanche, to flatten and sweep away everything you have become used to, and cannot be stopped. Your children will not live as your parents lived. Some of this will be good, some will be bad. It is not going to be a random outcome though: how good or bad will depend on us consciously riding that avalanche to get to the future we prefer, out of the available options.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Note that I say ride rather than steer. Nobody's steering this thing. The undead hand of the market has its usual vampire-strong grip on the steering wheel, and as usual there are no credible solutions to that. There will be attempts to legislate against some of the products of technological advance, but the incentives that drive it are an intractable problem, because they work through the desires and problems of billions of people.</div>
<br />
So, an example.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Increasingly intrusive surveillance is going to get increasingly cheap. Any corporation will be able to gather most of what they need to know about as many of their customers or competitors as they want. And anyone with a reasonable budget of time and money is going to be able to gather as much detail on every aspect of any individual's life as they want.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To repeat: we can't stop this. We can make practices or technologies illegal, which makes it slightly more expensive to do. It only has to be worth slightly more than the expense and more advances in technology will always drive the cost down or work around the laws anyway.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What can we do?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Re-analyse the problem.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The problem with a government or a company or an individual being able to find out about you is that it gives them some measure of power over you. Can we do something about that? Maybe.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We can commit to human rights and human values. Create societal expectations of tolerance for our lifestyle choices, devaluing secrets about our private lives to the point where there's no profit in collecting them. We can take a stand against both domestic and impersonal violence on a legal and cultural level, so that we reduce the danger to all of us from dangerous men who Know Where You Live.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We can make our voting system as fair and as resistant to demagogical attack as possible, and educate our children to think critically, so collecting data about us to manipulate us politically becomes harder.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Know as much as you like about me; it's all junk data if you can't use it to make me do something I don't want. I'm bisexual and a mediocre writer and I have a cat. So what. Tell my employer, my wife or my mum and they'll all say "so what." Try to sell me science-fiction-themed cat insurance maybe. Good luck with that.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But for this to work, we have to ALL say so what. We have to have ALL of each other's backs. Even if you think you're going to be OK with a little bit of intolerance for "those people" as long as it doesn't affect you? No. That avalanche is coming, and picking up speed. Some of your grandchildren and their grandchildren will be "those people" when it hits them.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So even if you consider yourself conservative, know that tolerance is both a liberal and a conservative value. Liberal because it's about freedom, and conservative because being unable to co-exist with the unusual is going to be pretty untenable basis for conserving things sooner than you think.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-4010548537852344982017-08-02T13:00:00.001+01:002017-08-02T13:00:13.374+01:00Some Book News - The Source of Fire<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Some Book News - The Source of Fire</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
[a pre-WorldCon newsletter of sorts]</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
So, my Fantasy/SF sequel <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">The Source of Fire</em> is finally out after about 3 years of work, and is available on Smashwords, Kobo, and Amazon.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
There is also a paperback version of <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Mix-tapes for My Friends, Duct Tape for My Enemies</em>, but that's really just for completeness and to try out the KDP way of making a paperback, which is slightly more streamlined than going via Createspace. There's no particular reason to get it as a physical book unless you really like that kind of thing.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
I am working on the paperback version of <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">The Source of Fire</em>, which will be worth it, because I've taken some effort with the typography and chapter heading layout etc.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
As usual, you can find all the links to things I've written that you can buy or read for free <a href="http://spiderted.eu/authors/petealexharris.html" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease;" target="_blank">here</a>. In particular, you can read <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">The Silk Mind</em> on Movellas for free, if you want to have some context for the sequel but are suspicious that my first novel <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">might</em> not be as well written or worth paying hard cash for. This is … not a completely unreasonable suspicion for someone to have.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Background to The Source of Fire</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
One thing about just spewing out 50 thousand words to win NaNoWriMo is that you'll end up with a fairly unstructured mess of ideas. Some will be good, but not all of them can get developed and explored properly. That's very much what happened with <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">The Silk Mind</em>.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
So without too many spoilers, we have as loose ends:</div>
<ul style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1.2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">A child genius with the resources of an empire, playing chess with a powerful non-human intelligence that can't under any circumstances be trusted</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">A murderous cult which has lost one local leader, but is certainly more widespread and still up to no good</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Elves (actually Fer Shea, who are an advanced civilisation of humans) interfering in politics</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">a Great Wave that happened 80 years before due to a meteor/comet/something(?) impact and the king at the time knew in advance it was going to happen (how?)</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Two members of the Badger Survey get their happy-ever-after, but two others have some story juice left I think, one of whom is a <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">were-badger</em></li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">There's at least one surviving family member of that murder cult leader, by the way</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">There's also at least the possibility that one of the interfering Fer Shea will have caused a new member of someone else's family to exist</li>
</ul>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
You would think I could tie off some of those loose ends with a more tightly-structured conventionally-plotted storyline, without introducing a huge number of new characters, ideas, and invented languages.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Ha ha wow, no. You would only think that if you had never met me.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
But I do promise all those loose ends are addressed in ways I think are satisfactory, and all the new characters are at least there for a good reason.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
I just … look I started writing a scene where a completely unrelated character from a culture that I never mentioned in the first book is explaining how what is basically a nuclear-powered steamship works and how it can go horribly wrong, and the storyline grew out from there to a parallel with a very different and rather more technologically advanced ship. <i style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">These things happen</i>, OK?</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-79800050951687488012017-05-31T11:12:00.000+01:002017-05-31T11:12:21.945+01:00On the Tory Manifesto 2017<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
It's here if you want to check my working: <a href="https://o.ello.co/https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease;" target="_blank">https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto</a></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Page 1</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />> "Brexit will define us: our place in the world, our economic security and our future prosperity."</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
No shit. That's very much the problem. This page mentions strength four times. Twice a stronger Britain, and it's clear what that means to Theresa May, because that is mentioned first: a strong and stable government, a strong and stable leadership.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
This is authoritarianism, right out of the starting gate. A country is its people, not its leadership or its government. The representatives of the people are its parliaments, not the central government, and certainly not the leader of the government. Her strength to do what she wants is not our strength as a people and as a country. But she conflates the two immediately here, and in fact <i style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">all the time</i>.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Page 4</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />Reiteration of the need for strength, raise the spectre of grave consequences for getting the next five years wrong. Well, there has to be looming threat, doesn't there? And who better to give the responsibility of defending us from that threat than the shambolic opportunists who made it happen.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
But what is the opportunity that awaits if they succeed? A "Great Meritocracy"</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Take a moment to understand what meritocracy means coming out of the mouth of a millionaire sitting as a Prime Minister nobody voted for and wielding executive authority to negotiate a hard exit from the single market that also nobody explicitly voted for, and which she campaigned against when it suited her.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Take a moment to understand how merit is going to be defined when someone like Theresa May will be the one to define it.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
The Great Meritocracy will be Might Makes Right, plain and simple, with wealth as the source of might, and the "merit" of everyone not wealthy enough to matter will just be about labelling the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, with that "un" applied liberally as required for the political narrative of the day.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Page 5</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />> "Above all it will require unity of purpose stretching across this precious union of nations"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />That is not going to happen. I am very worried about what Theresa May plans to do to force it to happen or claim that is has.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Unity is another authoritarian fetish. Democracies do not have unity of purpose. They have negotiation of mutual advantage between multiple competing purposes. And the most obvious reason why unity of purpose is not a good in itself is that people <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">get things wrong</em> and need to act as a check and balance against each other's error and misunderstanding.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Nothing is more guaranteed to bring calamity in Britain's exit from the EU than unity of purpose in the face of increasing evidence that the purpose is ill-advised.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Page 6, 7</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />More strong and stable government, three mentions of long-term challenges and this:<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />> "This manifesto offers our vision for Britain not just for the next five years but for the years and decades beyond"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />Well, that's chilling.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Let's see what the 5 "giant" challenges are that Theresa May needs unaccountable power for decades to meet.</div>
<ol style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2.2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
The need for a strong economy. This would be less of a giant challenge if the last two Tory governments hadn't been weakening it with austerity that has failed even on its own terms.</div>
</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Brexit and a changing world. I'm particularly worried by the suggestion that Britain "must take a lead in the world to defend our interests" Firstly, obviously the "our" doesn't include you or me. This is going to be more dick-waving and flag-waving and making this small island look even more ridiculous than it already does.</div>
</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Enduring social divisions. Which are the inevitable outcome of every Tory policy ever but yeah.</div>
</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
An ageing society. Their plans for long-term care of the elderly are pretty sickening but obviously not mentioned here.</div>
</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Fast-changing technology. I expect their plans to protect "our" security from all this technology will be both scary for personal liberty and about as effective as their protection of NHS security by making them run unsecured Windows XP for years.</div>
</li>
</ol>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Their approach to tackle these challenges is "Governing from the Mainstream". Well, no, it isn't. But that's how they describe this:</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
> "we will need to govern in the manner established by Theresa May since she became Prime Minister last year"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />So, unelected, bloody difficult, hiding from the press and the public, taking powers out of the hands of parliament unless the supreme court can pry them back out of her fingers. Got ya. As expected.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
> "We must reject the ideological templates provided by the socialist left and the libertarian right"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />So, the "mainstream" for Theresa May is the authoritarian right. This should be news to precisely nobody. But take it seriously. When someone shows you what they are, believe them.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
>"Rather than pursue a supposed centre ground defined and established by elites in Westminster"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />When a millionaire talks about challenging elites they are calling you a fucking moron to your face and expecting you to be too much of a fucking moron to see it. This is a woman for whom the half-elected parliament of Westminster (a parliament that includes a house of politically-appointed actual Lords and bishops) is a "supposed centre ground" that isn't authoritarian or right-wing enough for her.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
> "We will run public services in accordance with their values as important local and national institutions"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />Their value to her class, not yours.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
> "The government's agenda will not be allowed to drift to the right"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />My guess is instead it will be rammed forcibly to the right as far as it can go. That's the only way I can interpret this claim as remotely honest given everything else. Or maybe it'll not get much more economically right-wing and just get more authoritarian.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Page 8</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />At the bottom of page 7, we get to the "ordinary working families" The definition begins there and continues onto the next page. I'll summarise: it's the "deserving poor." Apparently they "don't ask for much". All you bastards that ask for something Theresa May doesn't think you deserve will be labelled "undeserving" in a heartbeat of course. Non-working families, non-ordinary families, working non-families? This manifesto is not "dedicated" to you, so you can all fuck off apparently.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
> "We believe in the good government can do"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />Insert long section about strength and unity etc. Another bit about the Great Meritocracy. It seems this is intended to help solve "long-ignored problems" and "long-lasting injustices". Do I need to point out that the Conservatives have been in power for seven years now and if they have ignored problems and injustices for seven years, do we trust them to stop doing that and fix it all in the next five? Or the "decades" that they fully intend this vision to span? Well I don't.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Page 9</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />> "We will need to take sometimes difficult decisions that ask more of one generation to help another."<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />Google "dementia tax" But note the wording. One <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">generation</em> will be "asked" (hah) to help another. But not a <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">class</em>. Not a <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">tax bracket</em>.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
This is all about squeezing another sector of the middle class and seeing if they can get away with it. They are going to asset-strip the property of anyone who dares to reach old age with wealth that rightly belongs in the pockets of her pals who own health insurance companies. Immigrants and other enemies of the people will be blamed for the necessity of doing this.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Then they set out "Our Principles". This is mostly flatly dishonest claims about how they aren't the caricatures of conservatism that they manifestly <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">are</em>. But they can't help letting a few things slip even here:</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
> "change can be good, but that change should be shaped, through strong leadership and clear principles for the common good"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />Look, no. Just no. Strong leaders do not get to <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">define</em> what is in the common good. Clear principles won't help you get that right. The messy, slow, iterative, negotiative process of representative democracy is how the perception of the common good is evolved and we move towards it together consensually. Beliefs that there might just be a shortcut if only you give the right leader a strong enough hand are seductive but JUST FUCKING WRONG.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Another mention of generations, with "society is a contract between the generations". No, the social contract is between government and the people. Even if you had a contract with your gran to solve the housing shortage or invest in renewable energy, she can't do that for you. We give governments limited power over us to collect taxation and use the money to organise things on a large scale, with our consent. That's the social contract. That's the contract Theresa May wants to tear up.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Page 10</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />> "We are already the fifth largest economy in the world"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />Interesting use of the word already, because we used to be before the EU referendum, and now we're 6th or 7th depending on how you measure it, last I heard.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
> "hugely respected armed forces that can project power around the globe"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />Gross, and embarrassing.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
> "We sit in exactly the right time zone for global trade"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />This is not an unchanging constant relevant to how global trade works. I'm not sure, but I think Paris being one hour further east is not going to be a problem for them, and Dublin's in the same time zone as us anyway. The UK is in the world's largest trading bloc. In less than 2 years it will be sort of next door to it, and geographically isolated from all other large trading partners. There is no way to spin that into a net positive.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
> "Our capital city is the global capital of finance"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />Not once you lose financial passporting rights for EU trade it won't be.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
> "Our language is the language of the world"<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />The white world maybe. Mandarin, Hindi and Spanish all have more speakers. And all other English-speaking countries that haven't just made themselves economically less relevant have no reason to cede advantage to us just because of Shakespeare.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Conclusion</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />That's the summary. The devil is in the details, but I've wrestled with enough devils for one day.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
Fascism doesn't come to you openly declaring an intent to take away your freedoms. It comes with hand-waving bullshit promises to protect you from dangers in return for a few necessary concessions, then fucks you over once you hand it the keys.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
That's what this manifesto is offering right now, and I'm weary with the expectation that it will succeed. The parts that don't seem <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">too</em> bad will be torn up, and the parts that seem a bit worrying now will be dialled up to 11.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
I may make a follow-up post, but honestly, I don't think there's any hope that enough people will change their minds or register to vote in the time that remains to stop this, so I probably won't bother.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-82763155828745940632017-03-09T17:00:00.002+00:002019-02-18T14:47:03.768+00:00Migrating gradually off BloggerI find I have less reason to use blogger these days.<br />
<br />
My stuff about writing will probably appear on <a href="https://ello.co/petealexharris">ello.co/petealexharris</a>, I write smaller snippets of politics and nonsense on twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/ScavengerEthic">@ScavengerEthic</a>.<br />
<br />
A list of things I've written is on my low-maintenance website (now at <a href="https://torn-and-crumpled.page/">https://torn-and-crumpled.page</a>)<br />
<br />
I'll still probably post rants here now and then.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-78835258431749650312017-01-23T12:52:00.001+00:002017-01-23T12:52:22.531+00:00On the punching of Nazis<div style="text-align: justify;">
I am a strong believer in the rule of law, and freedom of speech. I do not, in general, think hitting people in the face because of what they are saying is something I can support. The kind of people who would hit you in the face over a difference of opinion are not the kind of people I want to prevail in a debate, all else being equal.</div>
<br />
That's not what happened the other day though. All else was not equal.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Posing as a Nazi to seem edgy, or out of some narcissistic impulse to show your awesome power of offending people, is not harmless. If some wee shite who has advocated the extermination or oppression of people you care about is currently in the middle of a TV interview, you bet punching him in the face, on camera, is a political act of self-defence.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
No, he's not coming round to your house this weekend with the secret police to take your loved ones away to a death camp. He probably wouldn't have the balls; he <i>might</i> even have enough empathy to be horrified at the reality of what he's saying, if it came down to it. But normalising the idea, even just to puff up his own ego, is making it slightly more likely to happen, and you bet that little poseur isn't going to do anything to stop it if it does.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So no, don't just go round accusing people of being a Nazi, or beating people up because they're accused of being one. But if a Nazi is right there in your face, telling a TV camera about how you don't have a right to exist, he needs to know this:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Denying other people's humanity is a hard-contact sport.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-86448744309226830782016-12-27T19:00:00.002+00:002016-12-27T19:00:18.663+00:00Caption competitionI have three paperback copies of Miasma to give away.<br />
<br />
See caption competition here on twitter:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/ScavengerEthic/status/813732983274434560">https://twitter.com/ScavengerEthic/status/813732983274434560</a><br />
<br />
There is one extra rule: if I have to block you on twitter for being a prick before the competition ends, you get disqualified.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-57097953187869645542016-11-29T13:42:00.000+00:002016-11-29T13:42:08.644+00:00The Horror In The SnowMore detailed announcement over on ello:<br />
<a href="https://ello.co/petealexharris/post/f7ynzc9ms28qmpo5zp2dsw">https://ello.co/petealexharris/post/f7ynzc9ms28qmpo5zp2dsw</a><br />
<br />
I've put up a free audio version of one of the stories in my upcoming collection (which is now available for pre-order on Kindle)<br />
<br />
A few of you might have found this story before, since I've had free PDF of it up for a while. This is a little bonus is all.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-43651842876559422402016-11-15T16:56:00.001+00:002016-12-16T15:56:22.924+00:00New Book Coming SoonI've gathered together a bunch of my short stories (13 of them); some refurbished and 5 new ones, plus two sample chapters from upcoming works. And some poetry but fuck that, right?<br />
<br />
You can pre-order from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQI0Q66">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQI0Q66</a> at the ridiculous low price of $0.99 or approximate local equivalent.<br />
<br />
<b>Update:</b> as of 2016-12-13, it's out.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-32905136201584322002016-11-09T16:24:00.002+00:002016-11-09T16:24:57.628+00:00Leviathan<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskBold, AtlasGrotesk-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">LEVIATHAN</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: AtlasGroteskRegular, AtlasGrotesk-Regular, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; margin-top: 0.9375rem;">
The War of All Against All is started<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />Leviathan rises, streaming dirt<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />to glut on the meek and the gentle-hearted<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" />and save his own tribe–for dessert</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-44566374058678907012016-10-10T13:38:00.001+01:002016-10-10T13:38:48.228+01:00Convergence on the Answer<div style="text-align: justify;">
A word about referenda and democracy. I've been on the losing side of one or two referenda recently It depends on how you measure the results. Scotland voted to remain in the EU, so I was on the winning side of that referendum, except the UK government seems determined to apply the UK-wide "leave" result without consultation.</div>
<br />
There's a lot of talk about this being the will of the people, so it has to happen and there's nothing we can do about it.<br />
<br />
This might be politically true, but as a matter of principled democracy, it's bullshit.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The thing about referenda is, they are a snapshot poll on a complicated issue reduced to a simplistic question on the ballot with a binary choice. By their nature, they create a huge gap between what people think they are being asked, and what they will get if they answer one way or the other.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If a genie gave you a lamp on the condition that it would grant one wish exactly as asked, provided that the wish took the form of a referendum question, you would almost certainly be living in a hellish dystopia within the week, and probably have ended civilisation or the world by the end of the month.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The job of representative democracy is not to "give the majority what they want". It is to apply damping to the various cultural and economic forces that push this way and that, and converge on a workable solution that is broadly acceptable to as many as possible. Public feedback on the workings of a representative democracy depends on information flowing in two directions:</div>
<br />
<ol>
<li>The representatives say what they will try to do, and then–if elected–do it, neglect to do it, or try to do it and fail.</li>
<li>The public decide which representatives are trying to do the right things, or have done the right things so far, and vote them in or out. They also express opinions constantly, some informed, some not so much.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
The most pathological kind of referendum you can have would be one where:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>There is no clear prospectus, no commitment to a specific course of action. The details are left unclear. People are free to imagine the question means whatever they wish it meant and campaign or vote accordingly.</li>
<li>The implied contract of honest debate is thrown out the window. Vagueness is bad enough, but outright lies are repeated unashamedly even after being refuted, and then reported unchallenged by news media.</li>
<li>The very idea that both sides of the question can be weighed factually on their merits is thrown out of the window too, with appeals to fear (least rational of all the emotions) and "common sense", and scornful dismissal of expert opinion.</li>
<li>It is explicitly legislated as advisory or consultative, with the expectation that elected representatives will enact legislation to move forward in that direction, then soon after a narrow result it is painted as the irrevocable will of the people and doesn't need further refinement or debate.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We had one of those in June. We still don't know what's going to happen, and it's looking like the worst possible option "Hard Brexit"–in other words, withdrawal from the single market of the EU–will be chosen.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Not because it's a good idea, certainly not because it's the settled will of the UK (arguably not even of just England), since that wasn't the question asked in the referendum. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It will happen simply because it's going to be politically impossible not to pull the Article 50 trigger soon, and practically impossible to negotiate anything workable in the two year time limit that article specifies. Nobody has ever done it before, even without trying to persuade the EU to let a stubborn and uncooperative country have free trade without freedom of movement and EU regulation.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Eventually, some terrible deal will be cobbled together and put before parliament as a token gesture to representative democracy, and parliament will have two choices: accept it no matter how bad it is, or reject it and get "Hard Brexit" anyway, because that is what will happen when the 2 year timer runs out.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Scotland voted to stay in the EU by a much larger margin than the UK as a whole voted to leave. It seems like the only way to avoid the worst case scenario is to have another independence referendum (with maybe a little clearer proposals than last time), and stay in the EU as an independent European country.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-50741118169380732662016-09-23T11:11:00.000+01:002016-09-23T11:11:05.698+01:00Link Summary PostLinks to some stuff:<br />
<br />
I wrote several (18) short blog posts (out of a possible 100 or so) comparing fiction writing with game development, as viewed through the Art of Game Design's "lenses". It starts <a href="http://scavenger-ethic.blogspot.com/2014/03/book-of-lenses-for-books-1.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and I may write more if there is any interest, but probably not until after the next two book releases I announce, because things are that busy.<br />
<br />
I have a self-constructed author page which is itself mostly links to stories I've written, including books of mine you can legit pay me for if you have a mind to do so. <a href="http://spiderted.eu/authors/petealexharris.html">http://spiderted.eu/authors/petealexharris.html</a><br />
<br />
You can find me on twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/ScavengerEthic" target="_blank">@ScavengerEthic</a> and on ello as <a href="https://ello.co/petealexharris" target="_blank">@petealexharris</a>.<br />
<br />
You can pre-order the hardback of the <a href="http://www.shadowsatthedoor.com/store/" target="_blank">Shadows at the Door Anthology</a>, which has one of my stories in it that you can't read anywhere else, but also has a lot of other spooky or dark tales by proper published writers.<br />
<br />
And for no particular reason, here is a picture of some plants.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4i6FJAEMX0U/V-T_ZD1CSCI/AAAAAAAAEds/Fk9B8Y4Vnfk3Fa2762G-S5OKThEx5crQACLcB/s1600/IMG_20160730_102827.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4i6FJAEMX0U/V-T_ZD1CSCI/AAAAAAAAEds/Fk9B8Y4Vnfk3Fa2762G-S5OKThEx5crQACLcB/s640/IMG_20160730_102827.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.glasgowbotanicgardens.com/" target="_blank">Glasgow Botanic Gardens</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-60650562398477902352016-09-03T23:15:00.001+01:002016-09-03T23:15:17.070+01:00Latest Score: LaTeX, Several Hundred — Me: 1<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
All I wanted was one Japanese Kanji centred on the page to act as a scene break.</div>
Like this:
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
鵼
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You wouldn't think that was too much to ask. But I was using LaTeX (or more accurately, the LyX editor which uses LaTeX to produce its output.)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Fine, just use XeTeX and set various magical font options. No. That was not enough. But it was far from clear how to say what font to use for that one character. Everything I tried caused "missing glyph" errors.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I found this command:</div>
<pre> \newfontfamily\jfont{IPAexMincho}
</pre>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So I could just (!) put a LaTeX command in, like <code>{\jfont 鵼}</code> and the character would render in my PDF as "鵼". And so it did. However, in the XHTML output I use to generate ebooks, it rendered as "\jfont 鵼", because LyX doesn't really know what goes on inside LaTeX command boxes. It gets confused.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, I had just about solved the problem of adding a new environment for scene breaks before, in Miasma. Here is the magic incantation added to the LaTeX preamble:<br />
</div>
<pre>\makeatletter
\@addtoreset{chapter}{part}
\makeatother
\makeatletter
\newenvironment{sbreak}{%
\par\vspace{\baselineskip}\hfill\Large\bgroup
}{%
\egroup\hfill\vspace{\baselineskip}\par
\@afterindentfalse
\@afterheading
}
\makeatother
\tolerance=800
\hyphenpenalty=24
\usepackage{sectsty}
\allsectionsfont{\sffamily}
</pre>
<br />
The next step was creating a "Local Layout" for the document, called "Scenebreak":<br />
<br />
<pre>Format 60
Style Scenebreak
Font
Size Large
EndFont
Align center
LatexType environment
LatexName sbreak
TopSep 1.5
BottomSep 1.5
NextNoIndent 1
HTMLStyle
div.scenebreak {
margin-left: none;
margin-right: none;
font-size: 150%;
text-align: center;
}
EndHTMLStyle
End </pre>
<pre> </pre>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
That worked. Don't know exactly how. But now I could select "Scenebreak" as the paragraph type, and get centred large text. Adding "\jfont" into the \newenvironment command seemed to work, making it use the correct font family. I added "Family jfont" to the local layout's Font definition, which it complained about and that maybe didn't do anything.<br />
<br />
Still, success. Kanji in the PDF, kanji in the XHTML. <br />
<br />
Almost nobody needs to know how to do that, or cares. But it was a small victory against an implacable foe, so I'm recording it here with a trace of pride.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-3826102077476211522016-08-19T10:55:00.000+01:002016-08-19T10:55:38.059+01:00Genetics for Racists<h2>
Lesson 1: DNA doesn't mix like paint</h2>
Really, it doesn't. Race mixing like paint as a metaphor breaks down in every way. DNA doesn't dilute, it doesn't blend. It consists of thousands of discrete genes, which code for different things. You have the same genes as every other human on the planet, but there are variants of each one, and you have your own selection of those variants picked at random from the menu provided by your mother and father.<br />
<br />
When people have children, the genes don't mix, they recombine. People who have a similar set of variants will probably give the same ones to their children and they'll look similar. They'll also likely have the same defective ones, with more chance of getting two copies of a bad gene and suffering problems from it. That's why you don't marry your cousin, and broadly why it may be a safer genetic bet to breed with someone who is from a completely different population.<br />
<br />
That recombination property of genes also means there aren't inherent natural "primary colours" of people-- white, black, Chinese, Indian, Jewish--whatever you think the categories are. The fact that different variants of several genes cluster together in a population is largely a historical accident. If things had gone otherwise, maybe red hair would have been common among the Inuit, and epicanthic folds over Welsh eyes.<br />
<br />
But what if every white person bred with someone of a different colour? Would the "white race" disappear, and everyone after that would be some shade of brown? No, because again, it's <b>not like paint</b>. The genes for having not much melanin in your skin would still be there. They'll always be there as long as some people live at high latitudes and need lighter skin to make enough vitamin D. That's how that mutation became common in the first place within an initial human population of dark-skinned Africans.<br />
<br />
What would happen after such a hypothetical global interracial love-in (which you have to admit has few downsides) is that in the following generation, some fraction of the children would get a selection of genes that gave them "white" skin, as white as any of their grandparents.<br />
<br />
The main positive difference would be they might be less racist than their white grandparents, but as anyone with white grandparents can tell you, that is a pretty low bar to get over.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-56248300681571179422016-08-16T20:21:00.001+01:002016-08-16T20:21:52.543+01:007 Things Cameron Could Have Done<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 34.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>David Cameron resigned while I was making this list, and then I never got around to posting it for ages. I had other things to do. But never mind—it’s not so much for his benefit as it is a handy cheat-sheet of mistakes for others to avoid.<br /><br />I’ll try to put them in approximate chronological order.</div>
<h3>
1 - Introduce PR during the coalition</h3>
Not doing this didn’t look like a mistake for the Tories at the time, and you could accuse me of applying 20:20 hindsight. But Cameron had no majority without a coalition with the Lib Dems, and the public’s support for Nick Clegg (at the time) was no doubt the stirrings of an appetite for reform. It was the right thing to do, and only a sociopath waits to do the right thing until he’s sure it will benefit him directly.<br /><br />But Nick Clegg was weak, and Cameron was more than happy to let the Lib Dems disappoint the electorate and destroy themselves, rather than hand them a concrete achievement. No way that could come back and bite Cameron on the arse later, right?<br /><h3>
2 - Put a credible devo-max option on the table</h3>
During negotiations for the Edinburgh agreement, Cameron insisted on giving the electorate a single choice: independence or status quo. His reasoning was probably this: support for independence was about 25% and unlikely to rise much, whereas popular support for increased powers to the Holyrood parliament was bound to be overwhelming right after a surprise SNP majority.<br /><br />Let’s be clear, David Cameron didn’t want to relinquish any power. Right from that moment, everyone paying attention would know any subsequent desperate promises of devo max or any reform whatsoever were empty. Cameron’s intentions had been made very plain.<br /><br />Also, if devo-max was on the ballot, Labour could campaign for it against the Tories, without sacrificing such principles as they pretend to have. That might help Labour in the next general election. Again, better to let them disappoint the electorate and destroy themselves: win/win.<br /><br />Cameron was going to win the referendum conclusively while crippling his main opponents, right?<br /><h3>
3 - Run a positive, fact-based, pro-union campaign</h3>
Alex Salmond is no fool. He gave himself plenty of time for a long campaign to overcome the disadvantage of selling an all-or-nothing proposition to a cautious electorate. Besides the SNP, Yes Scotland, WFI, RIC, the Greens and others all focused on hope—Another Scotland Is Possible. Whereas the Better Together campaign was a scream of shambolic and outright dishonest negativity.<br /><br />It had to be all stick and no carrot, because Scotland might have settled for the carrot, which had been yanked off the plate by Cameron.<br /><br />Better Together went beyond saying that independence was too risky: it strayed into bullying and threats that the jilted UK would make it so. Lies, once exposed, damage your credibility. Threats lose their force with repetition, and lose their bargaining power if you then carry them out anyway. You have a finite supply of both, and they get used up very quickly in the internet world.<br /><br />When even that didn’t seem to be working, a last minute carrot was procured (another stick painted orange, as it turned out on the 19th of September).<br /><br />But at least the referendum was won, and everyone would now forget the threats and the bullying and the offer of better, faster, safer change within the union. It would all go back to normal now, right?<br /><h3>
4 - Show respect and conciliation</h3>
The attitude of a lot of Tories was that they’d defeated the Jocks and could stop pandering to them. This was the attitude of a lot of the ignorant Sun-reading masses, too. This insular Little Englander attitude was very useful to the Tories at the time. It was used to indirectly attack the vulnerable and hapless Labour party. They could portray Ed Miliband in the pocket of Alex Salmond, that ogre the papers had used to give the whole Scottish independence movement a single scary face the year before.<br /><br />Here was a chance to show that reform of the UK was possible, and the positive aspirations of 45% of the Scottish electorate could be channeled into making Britain actually Better Together. It was a chance Cameron felt no need to take. He had an election to win, right?<br /><h3>
5 - Not promise an EU referendum</h3>
To win the election under FPTP, which he had earlier preserved, Cameron had to prioritise defending his marginal seats out of all proportion to their actual vote share. And the big threat to Tory marginal seats (and many Labour ones) was UKIP.<br /><br />Rather than argue cogently against the rather obvious problems with UKIP’s proposals, he promised an EU referendum in 2017. That saved his marginal seats, and both Labour and the Lib Dems were useless enough that he even got a narrow majority.<br /><br />A surprising victory, but he’d now created two problems: he didn’t want a referendum, and he’d undermined a major pillar of the argument against Scottish Independence.<br /><br />But the Jocks were back in their box, right?<br /><h3>
6 - Double-lock the EU referendum</h3>
The FPTP voting system came back and bit Cameron again. The SNP took all but 3 of the Scottish constituencies, and were the third-largest party in the UK parliament. Scotland was clearly unimpressed with the limp outcome of the Smith Commission.<br /><br />The Tories could still scornfully vote down everything this new block of MPs proposed. But one thing was already different. Dismissing 6 MPs with a curled lip and a racist quip is good for a few guffaws from the back benches. Dismissing the representatives of nearly an entire country looks very different to their constituents. And it reminds your constituents that there’s no point getting above yourself. Nothing can be allowed to change.<br /><br />The SNP offered Cameron an opportunity to solve his other problem: make the outcome of the EU referendum non-binding unless all countries of the UK agreed. He dismissed it. He’d win without yielding an inch to Scotland. After all, he won the last one, right?<br /><h3>
7 - Run a positive, fact-based, pro-EU campaign</h3>
David Cameron’s patented referendum-winning strategy is simple: Project Fear™. Bring out Gideon again to make more economic threats. And this time Cameron could pick his battlefield. He didn’t have to let his opponents have a long campaign to build support. He could bring the referendum forward a year.<br /><br />However, the Scottish independence movement had come from far behind, propelled nearly to the winning post by a sustained campaign. The angry, ignorant UKIP beast railing against immigrants was already winning. Cameron had helped create it, nurtured it during a referendum and an election, and taught it by every action that change would always be held out of reach by an arrogant elite.<br /><br />It was Cameron who needed more time and a fact-based campaign to counter that.<br /><br /><br />On that farcical Thursday, his time ran out.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-664942703321913982016-06-23T09:12:00.002+01:002016-06-23T09:12:49.265+01:00The Boy Who Cried WolfLet me tell you the story of the boy who cried wolf.<br />
<br />
Once upon a time, a boy cried "wolf" and the people of the village ran to help, but on even a cursory examination there was no wolf there. No droppings or pawprints; nothing.<br />
<br />
He did it again, and this time the people looked a little closer. But still no wolf. Some of them even asked him if he meant something different by the word "wolf"–some non-obvious meaning that nobody else was aware of–and if so, suggested that he might try to be a little clearer.<br />
<br />
But no. He kept doing it. Everyone realised he was a jerk and there was no point in having wolf-related conversations with him at all, because they never went anywhere and it didn't seem to alter his behaviour.<br />
<br />
Then, one day …<br />
<br />
… there still wasn't a wolf. There <i>never</i> was a wolf. He grew old and bitter and became known as that angry wolf-shouting guy.<br />
<br />
He died alone.<br />
<br />
Blaming the wolves.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-4068236419173218002016-06-16T17:11:00.000+01:002016-06-16T17:11:08.556+01:00Things you should know aboutThere's a difference between things you should know, and things you should know about. You can only develop mastery of a few skills, basic competence in larger set, and passing familiarity with everything else that touches your life.<br />
<br />
Here are a couple of things that are valuable to have passing familiarity with. They aren't on the level of knowing that you should wash your hands after going to the toilet or being able to read, but they are not, to use a terrible cliche, rocket science or brain surgery.<br />
<br />
Disclaimer: may contain traces of physics and neurology.<br />
<br />
You don't need to be an expert in these things, unless you want to, but <i>not even knowing they exist</i> is limiting in ways you won't even be aware of.<br />
<h3>
Probability</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You know opinions about things in the real world can be factually wrong, right? (That shouldn't be too surprising. I haven't even listed "objective reality" in this post, because I am free to choose not to believe in the existence of objective-reality-deniers.)</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But more importantly, uncertainty about the facts can be measurable, and there are ways to work with uncertainty that make sense, and ways that do not. Certainty increases towards 1 (but never reaches it) with the addition of supporting evidence, and decreases towards 0 (but never reaches it) with evidence against. There are equations that govern this, they have proven properties, and if you are not using those equations you are estimating probability in a way that is provably wrong.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The entire gambling industry is based on humans being really terrible at working with probabilities by intuition alone. Just knowing that might save you a life-changing amount of money one day.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is also why scientists roll their eyes at crackpot theories. It's not stubbornness or snobbery; it's just that the evidence for the prevailing model is immense and interlocking. Someone feeling <i>really excited</i> about their pet idea is not a comparable weight of evidence.</div>
<h3>
Engineering</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Engineering is about problem solving, and specifically about optimising measurable requirements within measurable constraints. What you need to know about engineering, even if you aren't an engineer is that <i>all</i> realistic problem solving is that.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You can't always get what you want, but the engineering mindset asks: </div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>How much of what I want can I get with the resources available?</li>
<li>What other options exist? Maybe I want them instead.</li>
</ol>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Your first idea is usually not your best idea. If you haven't got a backup plan, you haven't got a plan. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Watch Apollo 13 to see how that mindset triumphed in an extreme failure situation. Obviously you can apply it to anything less difficult.</div>
</div>
<h3>
Ape Status</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You almost certainly care more about what people think of you than you should. More than is in any way helpful. Your ancestors evolved in an environment full of danger and short of food. If you were accepted and esteemed by the tribe, you got plenty of food and sex. If you were shunned and disparaged, you led a miserable and short life.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Almost none of this is still true.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There is no shortage of food, there is no shortage of potential mates. We live in a high resource, high population-density, high diversity environment. So many patterns of behaviour that used to be successful (as long as you came out on top) are now sub-optimal.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Jesus actually <a href="http://biblehub.com/luke/14-8.htm" target="_blank">knew a thing or two about counter-productive status-seeking</a> 2000 or so years ago.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's hard to let someone be wrong on the internet. It's hard to admit you're wrong. It's hard to take a risk and not fit in to the expected behaviour of the people around you. It's easy to be offended, threatened, frightened or angry when someone is having a great time being something you are not.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But all of this is due to a million years of ape-optimisation that <i>doesn't work any more</i>. If you were most other kinds of animal, your species would be extinct after a rapid change of habitat like that. You're not, though. We have so many more options, it should be absurd to panic as much as we do when things don't go the way we want.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Being aware of that will let you take a breath and decide what you really want.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-59687550917219488632016-05-26T09:54:00.000+01:002016-05-27T13:46:05.416+01:00Goal Graphs for Character Development<div style="text-align: justify;">
Goal trees, or And/Or trees are a notation from computer science. Specifically, from the field of knowledge-based systems, part of what used to be called artificial intelligence. I'm going to try to apply them as a tool for writers.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A goal tree is a diagram showing how a top-level or final goal is broken down into sub-goals. Each goal can be: a leaf node, simple enough to do immediately; a choice (this OR that, any of these); or a set of requirements (this AND that, all of these).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The diagram is more a notation for explaining the concept; if you were making a knowledge-based system, you'd write lines of code in some programming language.<br />
<h4>
Sandwiches</h4>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Let's have a concrete example, but not a computer science one. Suppose you want a sandwich.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OfMKxxyWxW4/V0WTH3Bvv2I/AAAAAAAAEEY/C1YLTbiJpCAcDU_0821XIBp9neCJniBewCLcB/s1600/sandwich1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OfMKxxyWxW4/V0WTH3Bvv2I/AAAAAAAAEEY/C1YLTbiJpCAcDU_0821XIBp9neCJniBewCLcB/s200/sandwich1.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
fig 1: simple goal tree - you want a sandwich; that's all you know about it.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Let's break that goal down a bit. To get a sandwich you need bread, butter, and a filling. You want cheese or jam, either will do.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-REdd9uyJWSw/V0WemGpW_8I/AAAAAAAAEEo/Mtfb0a9pmYYCXppdeJB7tPlv0h7Dia0sgCLcB/s1600/sandwich2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-REdd9uyJWSw/V0WemGpW_8I/AAAAAAAAEEo/Mtfb0a9pmYYCXppdeJB7tPlv0h7Dia0sgCLcB/s320/sandwich2.png" width="310" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">fig 2. that sandwich broken down into sub-goals</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The sandwich goal needs all of its sub-goals, one of which is a choice that is satisfied if you have cheese or if you have jam (or both, I suppose). Pretending to be a computer, you walk this tree collecting bread from the bread bin, locating butter in the butter dish, looking in the fridge for cheese. If there's no cheese, you backtrack to the nearest "OR" and try the next option. If there's jam in the cupboard you get your sandwich. If not, you have failed.</div>
What drawing out the goal tree does:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>make you think clearly about what the conditions of success and their dependencies are, and</li>
<li>give you the outline of a plan.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<h4>
So what?</h4>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
How is this useful for writers? Note that the example above begins "suppose you <i>want</i> a sandwich". If you are writing fiction, you are creating imaginary people and making them do things. It's almost too elementary to be worth saying, but the protagonist of a story <i>wants something,</i> and the things they do to get it, the choices they make and the setbacks that occur, are what make the central thread of the story.</div>
Therefore, if you can't say clearly what a character wants, or you make them do things that <i>from their point of view</i> don't make sense as a plan to get it, your story is in trouble.<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Also, this kind of mental exercise can help in other ways. Even if you did already know what your character wanted and what they are going to do about it, breaking it down in detail may spark some ideas.</div>
<h4>
Writing example</h4>
I'll do a more complicated example from my current WIP, for the goals of one of the main characters. There are no significant plot spoilers.<br />
I already wrote the character Jens as restless, vain and glory-seeking. But unpacking that into sub-goals gave a bit of clarity about who he is and what he eventually chooses.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yZxE7P7oZzg/V0XQmNJFN0I/AAAAAAAAEE8/NS-sefDM2CgQ8jfJZoxYcFAtvz1sbNMqwCLcB/s1600/Source%2Bof%2BFire%2BCharacter%2BGoals.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yZxE7P7oZzg/V0XQmNJFN0I/AAAAAAAAEE8/NS-sefDM2CgQ8jfJZoxYcFAtvz1sbNMqwCLcB/s640/Source%2Bof%2BFire%2BCharacter%2BGoals.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">fig 3: what Jens Anders of The Source of Fire wants</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(Note this is a Goal Graph, not a Goal Tree, because some subgoals are dependencies of more than one goal. You could do various kinds of transformation to make it a proper tree, but that's just maths. There's no need for rigour here.)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Jens wants status in the eyes of others, and also to feel good about himself. He feels a particular lack of those things, and entitlement to them, so those are the main desires that drive his actions.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He could have status from his family connections, but he does <b>not</b> want that, for reasons you can read about next year, or guess by reading <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Silk-Mind-Atlar-Book-ebook/dp/B013O364BS" target="_blank">The Silk Mind</a></i> now. He wants the status of public acclaim, but also he wants patronage from someone with higher social status than himself, because he doesn't really respect the public enough to be satisfied with their good opinion.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He values his friendship with Alun, who is ready to follow him anywhere and adores him. But he somewhat under-values it, because it's not enough, again because he doesn't really respect Alun. He also wants to accomplish something and get recognition for it.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Here's where the goals converge in two places. The highest status personage in this world is the Empress Celandine of Andaro. Her patronage and favour would give him status and a sense that his achievements had been recognised. He's an explorer, a natural fit for someone so restless, with inherited money and no desire to remain in his social circle. He sets his heart on discovering and bringing back some wonder of the world, to exhibit to the public and present to Celandine.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A previous expedition yielded a somewhat fake natural wonder, which was not bad for exhibiting to the public; but Celandine's no fool, so he needs a real one. That backtracking through the "Fake OR Real" node is what drives Jens into the story.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
Extending the idea</h4>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A goal tree or graph is a static picture of what is needed to satisfy a set of conditions. Viewed as the desires and plans of a character, it's a slice of one part of their storyline. But people change, and characters have to change in plausible ways to be interesting. So you could for example have different goal trees for different parts of the character arc, or colour-code goals for when the character becomes aware of them (people don't always know what they want until they get what they don't want).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You could have lines and arrows joining the goals of different characters to indicate how they interact. You could have a notation for what people are trying to avoid as well as what they desire.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I'm going to play around with this idea and see if it clarifies the motivations of a few other characters, because Jens is a rather simple case. Celandine, for example, is a lot cleverer than Jens (her plans have to make more sense) and being an Empress, her goals and constraints are more complex.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Update</span></b>: judging from the feedback from my writing group last night, I really need to do this for Alun, because wow, he is <i>so</i> ineffectual in the early parts of the book. I had better firm up his motives. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-21232081684319509282016-05-04T12:38:00.001+01:002016-05-04T12:38:26.606+01:00Tribalism is Fractal<div style="text-align: justify;">
The other day I made a throwaway comment on twitter, that "tribalism is fractal". This in response to someone posting an example of a phenomenon you're probably aware of, if you have any shared hobbies or political interests.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sooner or later, factional disagreements will occur, and <i>no matter how trivial the issue at hand</i>, sides will be taken and held with passionate ferocity. Hobby-horses will be ridden all over the place. People might even fall out over things worth <i>much</i> less in reality than their continued friendship, which is absurd and deeply irrational.</div>
<br />
What's going on?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Loosely speaking, a fractal is a shape where the individual parts of it are in some way similar to the whole. You know, like broccoli. This property of self-similarity that endures at different scales is due to the process or algorithm that makes the shape of the fractal being the same at all scales.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In humans, it seems to be that we are using the same neural circuitry to predict the behaviour of every group of humans, no matter the scale. And it's been calibrated over the last million years to work for small groups of humans who know each other. So we intuit the answers to questions about neighbouring countries the way we would for neighbours next door, and so on for every group of people, whether they are a city, a fandom, a corporation, a criminal gang, or an actual small group of humans.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And we seem to do the same for abstract ideas. Instead of evaluating them as propositions, with a probability based on Bayes theorem and the available measurable evidence (which we are <i>not</i> evolved to do), we view them as statements belonging to or identified with people, associated with those people's motives (which we are evolved to do, <i>however badly</i>).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is why arguments about Pokemon or font choice sound more or less the same as arguments about basic standard income, nuclear disarmament or the constitution.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's not that we can't do better. We absolutely can. There's no way even 1% of what we've achieved technologically or socially could have been done by making decisions based on inter- and intra-tribal status contests. But most of the time, unless we catch ourselves, and really think about it, we don't.</div>
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-64164280187329822102016-04-02T14:53:00.004+01:002016-04-10T11:01:43.724+01:00Genre as Ingredients<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is another of the articles I challenged myself to write, to help promote the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/330261639/shadows-at-the-door-an-anthology" target="_blank">Shadows at the Door anthology</a>.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I am a bit of a sceptic about genre and form. I think genre is a concept best suited to high street bookshops where you might walk in, in the mood for a bit of horror or cookery, find the shelf marked accordingly, and browse for something that appeals to you.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The fact that we have a notional split between literary and genre fiction proves it's not an essential property of writing. Literary fiction is sorted by author name and that's it. I assume the marketing for literary fiction works mostly by name reputation. If you don't know who all these writers are, how do you know what you're getting?</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Not so with genre fiction. There is a very real danger of knowing exactly what you're getting, if a book can be exactly and clearly defined by its genre, it is literally generic.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But this is also more or less true of cookery books. You buy an Italian cookery book, you may not know any of the recipes beforehand, but you know that sooner or later tomatoes, olive oil, and pasta are going to make an appearance. It is the typical ingredients that characterise a cuisine, but that doesn't mean that every Italian dish is just a bowl full of all and only those ingredients.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To the extent that horror is a genre at all, it's the same. There are a lot of ingredients you might expect to find: ghosts, the devil, murder, isolation, disease, madness, spiders, aliens. But they are so disparate you can't reasonably put all of them into any one story. Nor can you exclude love, botany, crime, adventure, space ships, humour or sex just because they are not central horror elements.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Modern e-book stores let you tag books with multiple keywords, so you can, if it takes your fancy, seek out the intersection between <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Miasma-Pete-Alex-Harris-ebook/dp/B00Z0JHA5E" target="_blank">"Science Fiction > Genetic Engineering" and "Romance"</a>. I don't know, there might be something there that takes your fancy.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A reason I mention this is because one of the great writers of short stories was H G Wells, who produced plenty of them, some horrific, some scientific, some humorous, some melancholy. And he was, I think, better qualified to express his own scepticism about restrictions on the form and content of a short story than I ever will be (from his introduction to <i>The Country of the Blind and Other Short Stories</i>, which you can get free on <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11870" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a>) :</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
It is the tired man with a headache who values a work of art for what it does not contain. I suppose it is the lot of every critic nowadays to suffer from indigestion and a fatigued appreciation, and to develop a self-protective tendency towards rules that will reject, as it were, automatically the more abundant and irregular forms. But this world is not for the weary, and in the long-run it is the new and variant that matter. I refuse altogether to recognise any hard and fast type for the Short Story, any more than I admit any limitation upon the liberties of the Small Picture [<span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">…]</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
At any rate, that is the present writer's conception of the art of the short story, as the jolly art of making something very bright and moving; it may be horrible or pathetic or funny or beautiful or profoundly illuminating, having only this essential, that it should take from fifteen to fifty minutes to read aloud. All the rest is just whatever invention and imagination and the mood can give—a vision of buttered slides on a busy day or of unprecedented worlds. In that spirit of miscellaneous expectation these stories should be received. Each is intended to be a thing by itself </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
All I can say is, I agree. And the 13 stories in the Shadows anthology too are each a thing in themselves, by 13 very different writers, with very different ingredients. By all means put them on the bookshelf marked "Horror" or "Ghost Stories" where they will be good company to the others, but be sure, they will be anything but generic. And if you want to put them on your bookshelf, head over to the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/330261639/shadows-at-the-door-an-anthology" target="_blank">kickstarter</a> page and arrange for your very own copy to come out of the shadows and through your door.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-33842852425169184992016-03-26T13:17:00.002+00:002016-04-10T11:01:27.198+01:00Vivisection of a Horror SonataPart two in my series of posts about writing horror, while the kickstarter for the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/330261639/shadows-at-the-door-an-anthology" target="_blank">Shadows at the Door anthology</a> is running.<br />
<br />
There are a couple of things worth looking at before you read this post, if you haven't already.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
First, this lecture on sonata form available via coursera.org is interesting (well, I find it so):</div>
<a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/beethoven-piano-sonatas/lecture/dkzCF/sonata-form-in-practice">https://www.coursera.org/learn/beethoven-piano-sonatas/lecture/dkzCF/sonata-form-in-practice</a><br />
If you love that stuff, check out the whole lecture series. If you hate extracting information from videos, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonata_form" target="_blank">wikipedia page for sonata form</a> is pretty good too. This is all optional, because I'll summarise my own shallow understanding as I go on.<br />
<br />
The second is my short story <a href="http://www.shadowsatthedoor.com/2015/08/the-rat-catcher-in-the-walls/" target="_blank"><i>The Rat Catcher in the Walls</i>, on Shadows at the Door</a>. I'm going to be picking it to pieces and leaving bits of it all over the floor. If you don't want it spoiled, it won't take long to read and I hope you'll like it enough to want to come back and see where I'm going with this.<br />
<br />
<hr />
OK.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now don't expect this to be as wanky as you might have guessed from the intro, because although it is fairly self-indulgent to talk about my own writing, I'm going to come right out and admit I did not know or think about any of this stuff when I was writing <i>Rat Catcher</i>. This is only something I noticed subsequently, and I was as surprised as I think anyone might be that it fits the model so well. To the extent that it has a structure that works, it was largely an accident.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sonata form then, has three main working parts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ol>
<li>An exposition with a main theme in the home key and a contrasting theme in a different key that takes us away from home, creating tension.</li>
<li>A development section that moves around in different keys, developing the themes further and working towards:</li>
<li>A recapitulation, where the main theme and contrasting theme recur, but this time the contrasting theme has come home to the original key, and the tension is resolved.</li>
</ol>
Sounds like a story, doesn't it? This is not an original observation! I'm just pointing it out so we can see how it applies to one particular short story.<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In <i>The Rat Catcher in the Walls</i>, the protagonist's everyday life is set out at the beginning. This is the world he lives in, and horrific and abusive as it is, to him it is home.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4d4d; font-family: raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
I have been a catcher of rats, and sometimes a catcher of worse things, since I was a boy. For most of that time I have lived in Schloss Markmann, as an oath-bound servant to the Markmann family. Each member of the family has been kind to me, then forgetful of me, becoming at last by turns neglectful, spiteful, ungrateful. It is the family condition, to which they all succumb, sooner or later.</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He deals with the things such a dysfunctional dynasty might have roaming around the dark of their castle. His life is the first theme of the sonata. Then in story terms, a stranger comes to town. In musical terms, a second theme creates tension.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "raleway" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">It was late summer, hot and thundery, when the last true heir of the Markmann family fell at last, raving and clawing at his own portrait in the master bedroom. The schloss was inherited by a kind of distant niece, no true Markmann but rather the product of a poor cousin and some foreign slut he met before drinking himself to death. I confess I hated her, when I saw her arrive in a coach to view the property. I could see her disdain for the deep history of the schloss, and could tell by her newly-bought fancy attire that she saw the inheritance only as a way to lift her out of the gutter. I hated her and damned her in my heart.</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There follows the development of the story. The new owner of the castle is not aware of him, and he cannot reveal himself to her, so he continues his work in secret and hunts the nemesis of the Markmann family, a Man Faced Rat. But a slip, a failure in his duties sets them on a collision course.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4d4d; font-family: raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
Thus it continued into October, when again I stalked him, he escaped into the library, and the mistress saw him. She started awake in her chair to see him scurrying across the floor, where he stopped for a moment to look mockingly at her. I was turned more bitterly against her that night, because my failure had shamed me, and her composure shamed me further.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "raleway" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">She gazed at the rat, pale but unshaken, and said, “So, it was true. I shall have to employ an exterminator.”</span> </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Whereas in a sonata, there would be development in the form of key changes, variations (all kinds of stuff I'm not qualified to discuss) in a story, development means a ramp of increasing tension and conflict. The first exterminator finds nothing, but a second one is dangerously knowledgeable about arcane lore. He knows enough to bring about an encounter with what lives below the Markmann cellars, but not enough to handle it properly.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
At the climax is a fight in which the exterminator is killed, and the commoner countess is injured but rescued by our protagonist, who has finally accepted her as the last heir of the family, to whom his loyalty is owed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This leaves the recapitulation. The interloper is now a full part of the household: she is home, and will fulfil the destiny of her legacy. Poor Johan's loyalty, however willingly bestowed, will of course not be rewarded.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "raleway" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">She is so kind to me. I know she will be kind at first, and then forgetful. Later she will become by turns neglectful, spiteful, ungrateful. Then at last she will become like me. But rather than haunt these walls as I am sworn to do, battling with vermin, she will go below into the tunnels, to join with and gnaw upon her ancestors.</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The repetition from the opening paragraph in the last one is a literal recapitulation, but it works the way the recapitulation of a sonata works: unifying the second theme with the first by bringing it home to the same key.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What I take from this is that there are many workable story structures. Not only the hero's journey, the three-act structure, or the seven point structure. Other art forms and other cultural traditions have their own logic and rhythm for getting from first splash of colour, word, or note to an appreciation of the payload or meaning of the piece as a whole. The right form for a particular story might be one borrowed from another medium.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-56515887632571134782016-03-21T21:14:00.002+00:002016-04-10T11:01:15.249+01:00Write What You Fear<div style="text-align: justify;">
Answering the questions for my <a href="https://kbgoddard.wordpress.com/category/books-and-literature/author-interviews/" target="_blank">interview by K B Goddard</a> for the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/330261639/shadows-at-the-door-an-anthology" target="_blank">Shadows at the Door anthology</a> made me give some thought to what kind of horror writer I am so far. So while the kickstarter effort is underway, I'm challenging myself to write a few short posts on the subject of writing horror. Essays, if you will. If you won't then so be it.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I suppose you can't write humour without finding things funny, nor erotica without reference to something that makes you horny, so you probably can't write horror without touching on the things that scare you. (And preferably things that scare enough other people; if you have a phobia about frozen peas you're writing weird fiction more than horror).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
One good place to find things that scare you is the dusty old box of childhood fears that you keep at the back of your mind. Have a rummage around (metaphorically, with a long stick in a brightly lit room) and if anything you find is still horrifying now, then you've won the prize of a possible story idea and the bonus prize of a few dark and sleepless early-morning hours too. Lucky you!</div>
Here are four of my childhood fears, which are in themselves not very welcome in my life, but also each stands for a broader category of things that creep me out and form the basis for horrific elements of my writing.<br />
<h3>
Bad Dogs</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Bad dogs bite. They make loud sudden noises, have slobbery mouths and huge teeth. They can actually kill you, and every year several people, usually children, are killed by domestic dogs. They stand for the more general category of the predator that wants to hunt and eat you. It has no pity, and values you for nothing more than your calories. Bad dogs are more or less in the same category as flesh eating zombies or ghouls, and of course werewolves are the very baddest of dogs.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Bonus Fear</b>: Rabies. So thanks for that, Stephen King.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I don't think I use a lot of predatory animals in my horror so far. I suppose the ghouls in <i>The Rat Catcher in the Walls</i>.</div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Bad Men</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Strangers, murderers, child abusers, secret police, psychopaths. Bad men have human motives, however horrible, and what they want is usually more complex than the bad dogs. They are capable of cruelty as an end in itself, so the limit to how much they can hurt you is much higher.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You might be able to talk to them. You may even be able to bargain with them, at terrible cost. What makes bad men horrifying is that they should be like you, but they are not. They are human outside, <i>wrong</i> inside, and you don't necessarily spot them until it's too late.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Bonus Horror</b>: what if what they want from you, what they can extort or deceive you into doing, will make <i>you</i> a bad man?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I have some cartoonishly heavy-handed cultists in <i>The Silk Mind</i> and its coming sequel, who are very bad men, and they form a legitimate horror element in an otherwise much lighter fantasy work. I explore a few other kinds of psychopathic narcissist in the SF novel I'm pitching, <i>disOrder</i>. But that's not really horror. I suppose I find bad men <i>too</i> frightening, and use them sparingly.</div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Wasps</h3>
<div>
I never did like wasps. I like them much less than spiders. I'm not particularly terrified of them any more, but then my everyday environment doesn't contain a lot of them, so I can avoid them. I've been stung only once in my adult life, and it wasn't a big deal.</div>
<div>
But, I've never been swarmed by wasps. That would be a very different experience.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Wasps stand for the category of terrible, inhuman, alien dangers. They might attack you, even kill you painfully, but they don't want to eat you. They are beyond the pitilessness of the mere carnivore, having a mindless and incomprehensible deadliness that is almost Lovecraftian.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Bonus Terror</b>: poison, panic, and pain.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Plus there are wasps that lay eggs in their paralysed prey, so their grubs can eat it from inside. OK, none of them prey on humans that way. As far as we know.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In my stories, I'd say the thing that follows the protagonist in <i>No Rest</i> is more like wasps than a bad dog. The stabnettles in <i>disOrder</i> are in the wasps category, and set up a nice wasps/bad dogs combo too.</div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Nuclear War</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I grew up in the 70s and 80s, within blast range of a few probable nuclear targets, and I still live in the same town. So that literal fear, that hasn't really completely gone away.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As a child you can be frightened of getting lost, of your parents dying or separating and leaving you alone. Nuclear war is my prototypical example of a terror that hung over my childhood, and threatened to take <i>everything</i> away. You can't bargain for your life, you can't run, you can't rationally take steps to avoid it happening. Bad men in other countries will decide whether to end your life and that of everyone you know.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Bonus Nightmare Fuel</b>: Radiation. You might survive the blast, and die bleeding your guts out from radiation sickness. Or you might survive that and die of cancer. Or you might dodge that, and years later your children will be born dead or nightmarishly deformed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I've written only one short horror story that tries to deal with decades-long pervasive unrelieved fear of nuclear war, and it's not ready yet. All I'll say is it's a pretty fucking angry piece of writing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anyway, those are some of my fears. Sweet dreams.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-43915368544970900252016-02-12T15:49:00.000+00:002016-02-12T15:49:12.277+00:00Very Obscure Advice For Erlang Parse TransformsLet's say you're using Erlang, and maybe one of the third-party libraries that extends the syntax with a parse_transform. Say, the lager logging library( <a href="https://github.com/basho/lager">https://github.com/basho/lager</a> )<br />
<br />
Let's say you're also developing in Emacs.<br />
<br />
Now, for the 0.01% of you still reading …<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(I'm only posting this here for later reference for myself, but if you actually find this from a web search and it helps, why not drop in a comment to say hi)</div>
<br />
The symptoms of the problem are:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">call to undefined function lager:error(…)</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But, you've read the lager documentation, you've got <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">{parse_transform, lager_transform}</span> in the compiler options bit of your <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">rebar.config</span> file. It should work. What seems to be happening is the parse transform isn't getting applied, and so whatever <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">lager:error()</span> calls <i>should</i> get turned into, they are instead left as calls to functions that don't exist.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Except sometimes, your program does work! And sometimes it doesn't. You change things, you do <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">rebar compile</span>, and maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. You maybe, like me, like to hit Ctrl-C Ctrl-K in Emacs to check for syntax errors while making those changes, to speed up the edit/compile/run cycle.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Ctrl-C, Ctrl-K: no errors. Look, it's syntactically correct, and does nothing different to the previous times when it did work. Why won't you work, you little fucker?</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What I just realised is, when Emacs compiles a script, it doesn't know what compiler options you want. In particular, it doesn't know about parse transforms. But it does still compile the file, so when you do <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">rebar compile</span>, nothing happens, and you are left with a version of the compiled BEAM code that doesn't include any parse transforms, and will therefore completely fail to run.</div>
<br />
Simplest thing is to make sure you edit and re-save the source file (or <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">touch</span> it), then rebar will bother to compile it properly.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-14255926569257134112016-01-26T16:33:00.001+00:002016-01-26T16:33:46.499+00:00All You Need to Know About Thomas Hobbes*<div style="text-align: justify;">
A man who believed that politics should be framed on the perfectly rational model of geometry, so the correct course of action would be unambiguous and inevitable.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">For who is so stupid as both to mistake in geometry, and also to persist in it, when another detects his error to him? –– Hobbes</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Well, apparently, the answer to that question is … Thomas Hobbes. He died refusing to accept the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle#Claims_of_circle_squaring" target="_blank">impossibility of squaring the circle</a> by Euclidian methods, despite other mathematicians shooting holes in all his attempted proofs of the procedure.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But don't feel too sorry for him, because the conclusions he drew for the inevitable unambiguous solution to the problem of politics was absolute monarchy without any possibility of dissent; the monarch's will embodying and subsuming the will of all subjects. He felt this was necessary to avoid a death-struggle for resources, a war of all against all, that he believed to be the natural condition of humanity. Quite where he thought you'd find a monarch who wouldn't use absolute power to hoover up all the resources for himself I don't know.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To be fair, Hobbes lived and died before the discovery that π was a transcendental number and before anyone had heard of universal suffrage, civilian police forces, constitutional limitations on government power, or proportionally-elected parliaments.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(*) <span style="font-size: x-small;">You might need to know more about him if you are actually studying the history of philosophy. But you probably have something more useful to do.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-7621557223816678982016-01-21T15:28:00.001+00:002016-01-21T15:28:16.614+00:00New Author Web PageI finally stopped procrastinating and constructed an author web page for myself, with links to various things I've written. It's at <a href="http://spiderted.eu/authors/petealexharris.html" target="_blank">SpiderTed.eu</a>.<br />
<br />
I've simplified the design very ruthlessly (this is my "Dogme 2016" for websites).<br />
<br />
I'm only using modern HTML5, and using it in a way that if older browsers can't handle it, then hopefully the visual experience will degrade gracefully. But no tricky CSS or Javascript will be used to work around old browsers.<br />
<br />
All the content is static, because I'm serving it from an Amazon S3 bucket rather than a web server. This costs me on average less than £1 a month. I have only one CSS file, one Javascript file with (currently) only 2 functions in it, for google analytics. One image so far, and it's an SVG. That way, it will scale nicely on good browsers and simply not show up on old ones.<br />
<br />
The whole website is deployed from a git repo using a one-line bash script called "deploy":<br />
<blockquote>
<code>
s3cmd $(./creds) -P -M --no-mime-magic --exclude '*~' sync website/ s3://spiderted.eu/
</code></blockquote>
So, my workflow is pretty much: edit a thing, save it, check it looks OK locally, <code>./deploy</code>, check it looks OK on the website, <code>git add</code>, <code>git commit</code>, <code>git push</code>.<br />
<br />
Nice and simple.<br />
<br />
One thing this has reinforced is my appreciation for how well-chosen constraints can focus design, rather than being only a limitation on it.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2276499962699847255.post-57781080978625812962016-01-19T13:19:00.002+00:002016-01-19T13:19:43.191+00:00Whoever Keeps Breaking TwitterCan you please fucking stop doing that.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17782548877360270682noreply@blogger.com0