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solacefruit · 5 years ago

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Hi Grey, I struggle a lot with world building and I think it's easiest for me to learn by example. I was wondering if you had any books or series you'd recommend that you thought did particularly well in the world building department or that you found inspiring. I'm trying to start building a list of things to read, could be any genre

Hello there and thank you for your patience! I’ll be honest, this one’s a challenge to answer, but I’ll do my best. I’ll put it all under a read-more, because I’m going to talk a lot about why I feel these books are good places for thinking about world-building.

Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman. (fantasy)

This one comes up a lot when I’m making recommendations and that’s because I love it. For me, it was deeply formative in many ways, and especially when it came to world-building, because Pullman uses a style of world-building which really clicks for me--which is basically throwing your reader into a world and not explaining much at all, leaving many things gestured at but never explicitly said. Things just happen, things just are, and the reader has to keep up. There’s a lot that goes unsaid in this book, and it means you as a reader have to start thinking and “solving” the gaps in the world yourself. There’s room for speculation and I thrive in that environment, and lean on it heavily in my own work.

A great example of that comes in the first chapter of the novel, on the fifth page and then again on the seventh:

“As Lyra held her breath she saw the servant’s daemon (a dog, like almost all servants’ daemons) trot in and sit quietly at his feet...” - page five. “... and said something to his daemon. He was a servant, so she was a dog; but a superior servant, so a superior dog. In fact, she had the form of a red setter.” - page seven.

That’s good oblique storytelling, because you are told so much and simultaneously so little. From these two tiny pieces, you now know that:

servants usually have dog-shaped daemons

some daemons, even within a family, are “better” than others

daemons mean something about their person

But these pieces tell you enough that you can now speculate and question the world as you read on. Things like:

why do servants have dog daemons?

what makes a red setter daemon better than another dog daemon?

what does a dog daemon mean?

what is the hierarchical system of daemons, who is better than whom?

are people sorted because of their daemons, or do the daemons reflect where the person is sorted to after the fact?

what do other daemons mean?

are these meanings innate or cultural?

The book itself will directly answer maybe one or two questions, hint at a few others, and leave many completely unresolved. But that’s not bad world-building. For me, that’s the kind of world-building I love best. The book can now say, “this person’s daemon is a butterfly,” and you will be primed to read symbolism and significance into that, even in moments where the book itself doesn’t give you any. You’re a participant in creating the world as you read. A little goes a long way.

The Discworld novels, by Terry Pratchett. (fantasy, comedy) If you’re trying to pick a first book, start here.

And now for something completely different. Pratchett’s Discworld is an absurdist world, created to satirise fantasy tropes and play as the stage for social and political commentary. What makes Discworld so interesting as a place to learn about world-building is that it is a world that doesn’t take chronology or “consistency” or “authenticity” seriously. Where a lot of fantasy writers will stress over making sure every detail lines up, and their fans will often get very upset if they find anything “inconsistent” or “incorrect”, Pratchett’s world entirely rejects that way of doing things. Pratchett commented:

“[S]ometimes I even forget [...] where things are ... I don’t think [...] even the most rabid fan expects complete consistency within Discworld, because in Ankh-Morpork you have what is apparently a Renaissance city, but with elements of early Victorian England, and the medieval world is still hanging on. It’s in a permanent state of turmoil, which is very interesting for the author.” (quoted in Hills, Guilty of Literature).

There’s something very liberated and fluid in how Discworld forms, because it’s such a committed pastiche, but it doesn’t at all (at least, for me) undercut believing in the characters or story. I adore Discworld and its characters. I think it’s very valuable to read if you’re in fantasy writing (or speculative fiction in general), because it’s easy to fall into thinking that unless you make everything Perfect and Realistic and Consistent, your world-building isn’t good.

Something else about Discworld worth noting is that, despite being absurd and fluid, it is also grounded in the real. Pratchett’s world is in turmoil, but it includes sewer systems, passages of trade and commerce, and a pervasive sense of the civic life happening and living outside of the plot-line: it’s not just a diorama to be walked through, but a place where people exist and do mundane things and have everyday needs. I personally find it fascinating that the story manages to exist sort of balancing at oppositional ends of the “realism” spectrum at all times, but I think that’s also the key to why it is so successful at what it does.

(Side note: Matt Hills’ chapter in Guilty of Literature is a great read if you want to know more!)

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie (science fiction)

I’m not a big reader of science fiction, because my heart is with fantasy, always. But this series was super interesting and I can recommend it, especially if science fiction is more your flavour! It’s been a while since I’ve read it, so I can’t give the same amount of detail as I’ve done above, but it was thoughtful and intriguing and I loved the ways this trilogy defamiliarised and refamiliarised ideas through the world and characters.

“The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas,” by Ursula K. Le Guin. (short story)

It’s only four pages long, but it’s haunting. I’ve put this story on the list because I feel like Ursula K. Le Guin belongs in many conversations about world-building; her work, in her time, was often radical--and remains so, in many cases. She didn’t flinch away from making her worlds alien, not in the sense of writing about space and people out among the stars (which admittedly she did also do!), but truly questioning and challenging cultural and societal norms and creating new ones, even (and especially) when they were uncomfortable to the status quo.

To me, that’s a core part of good world-building. You can just recreate the world we live in, with all the biases we’re raised to have, with the beliefs and expectations of conduct we have, with all the same bigotry--or you can push yourself to pull it all apart and pick from it the pieces you want to play with. You can push things to their extreme limits, or erase them entirely, or just... slide things a little to the left and make the whole world slightly off. Being able to be flexible in your thinking is vital for making vivid, interesting worlds, and Ursula K. Le Guin's work is a place you can start exploring that kind of thing if you’re unfamiliar with it.

For instance, in her novel Left Hand of Darkness, there is only one pronoun (a theme you’ll notice in Ancillary Justice) and the people of the planet Gethin change sex regularly. In her collection of short stories, “The Birthday of the World and Other Stories,” she writes about sedoretu, a four-way marriage she invents, as well as exploring gender, religion, culture, and society. Any of these are worth taking a look at, if you’re feeling a little boxed in.

However, despite saying all this: I don’t really enjoy her writing! I don’t have fun reading Le Guin’s work in practice; it doesn’t mesh with me beyond my delight at the conceptual elements she discusses. I often feel about reading her work like how kids think about medicine: tastes kind of awful, but it’s good for you. I’m grateful to her for paving the way, but I don’t read her work for fun.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente.

I’m throwing this one in the ring for a few reasons. One is that I am heavily indebted to nonsense; I grew up on Dr Seuss, Roald Dahl, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland + Alice Through the Looking-glass, Edward Gorey, A. A. Milne, H. R. Pufnstuf, and a little later, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Discworld. This book feels representative of that big love, and taps into what I love about nonsense.

Another reason is that it’s a good example of what I think of as delightful lawlessness in storytelling. It feels--as respectfully and lovingly as I can say this--like a game of mad libs turned into a book, because of how free and wild it is with what is allowed to happen. I think it’s very difficult to do something like this well, but I also think it’s a great place to play around when you’re first beginning to get to grips on world-building. Spin a wheel of options and go, “okay, so there’s a manticore in the basement, what now?” Make up reasons for things on the spot as a game for yourself. Ask and answer questions, just for fun! “Why is there a manticore there?” “It got in through the magic portal.” “Where’s the magic portal?” “It’s an old picture of the protagonist’s grandmother.” “Why is it a portal?” “The grandmother is secretly a witch and the ex-queen of a fantasy land.” “Why is the manticore here?” “Come to retrieve the queen, but accidentally takes the protagonist by mistake.” “Why does the manticore want the queen?” “Extreme Trivia Night at the Castle has really sucked lately. Also she misses her.” And just like that, you’ve got the start of a wacky but not impossible-to-tell story.

My final suggestion isn’t a book, but a podcast!

Be The Serpent (a podcast of extremely deep literary merit).

A fortnightly podcast by three charming writers who discuss a different theme or topic each episode (using a couple of texts as reference material), and will also make media recommendations. I love listening to it and it’s a great place to think about writing, both as a reader and as a writer. I don’t have a lot of writing friends myself, unfortunately, so it’s honestly so valuable to me to be able to hear them discuss their process and ideas on topics I care about.

I hope this helps! Best of luck to you, and please feel free to write in if you have any other questions.

#reply #advice #world-building #book recommendation #tumblr automatically put my reply under a read-more and i can't undo it?? what on EARTH is going wrong with this website

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donnnoir · 5 years ago

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I am back, well for the most part. This process being contingent upon my time management and allotment of same. Believe me it is not from lack of desire, rather it is dealing with the typical Luciferian practice of distraction and delay; added to that is their ubiquitous practice of poisoning those they target, along with the microwave and other energy / frequency weapons used on targeted individuals. An if ever there was a target on their BINGO List I am in the top three. I live only by the grace of God. Presently it appears individuals are putting some petroleum based distillate into my drinks and food. I suspect that there are several other types of unhealthy food additives being put into that which I consume. The other items I suspect are some sort of heavy metal salts like Thallium, Arsenic, or similar. The only good thing that can be said about what is presently occurring is that thus far they have not resorted to using metal salts which have been irradiated, like they did when I was being Fox-ed in Southern California around the Long Beach and Wilmington areas primarily. Even so the amounts have been sufficient that if I was anybody else, I would be very concerned and more than highly upset at several persons around me, all the more so given the great lengths they go in saying we are fast friends, family even. An although I know I will survive I am needless to say highly upset. Yet my circumstance is not such that I can easily or directly deal with the matter. Instead as it is part of the larger issues I have dealt with all my Life I prefer to just add it to an ongoing tab. Soon enough the paradigms and social conventions we Live by shall come undone, and my hands will be free. When the Kid gloves come off, and I am given leave from my G-d I will commence to balancing the scales. Until then I must suffer the indignation and deprivations to my soul. This exposition project will continue as time and situation permits.

Thus in consideration to this process I have undertaken it is abundantly clear that I should present myself and a general perspective of the terms I have strove to have all my Life. All the more so since in pursuit of the purpose of this blog and my venturing out into the media of sorts will invariably bring the entirety of my life under the scrutiny of those that will for one reason or another seek to discredit what I intend to present. An I being the disreputable soul that I am will be an easy target. Wherefore it is incumbent upon me to get out ahead of the ball on this, so to speak. I know that no matter how I attempt to be forthcoming on matters of my personal life and the manner in which I have Lived. I will invariably miss many details that in due course will bite me in the arse. I am fond of reminding persons that Life is in the Living; and that last I checked Living was and is a very messy process. Or, rather it can be. An all things considered I have done a bang up job of leaving a mound of detritus in my wake. A side effect that has only increased as of late, albeit with a helping hand from those that would rule over the world. At the time of my composing this my Life has become defined as a series of ongoing train-wrecks. What chance I had to have any kind of Life resembling normality is no longer serviced by the train station. Regrettable as it may be I am at least comfortable with that reality. Wherefore how best to succinctly present a proper representation of the Life I have lead which represents a degree of my thought processes and a degree of my character and nature. A usually straight forward idea, yet for myself I find it immensely difficult. Yes I am a son of Light, I have always professed the Truth. Nonetheless I was raised to be a Man, a hard Man of character meant for vastly more difficult and dynamic social and cultural circumstances than has thus far been required of me or us in general as the human race. Yes we have Lived through challenging times even survived an insane period of global ego paranoia we commonly referred to as MAD. The legacy of which will yet play out in the not too distant future. What we as in the entire World must struggle and fight Our way through beginning shortly within the coming months, to frame it in proper temporal perspective. These events will exceed all that has happened in the past. The Seers of Old were shown many of these things, they however lacked the conceptual context or even words whereby to begin to explain what had been revealed to them. My mother worked hard to raise four Men, as she understood that to mean. We all were each individual anachronisms for the present. We belong to times five hundred to five thousand years ago. Understanding this, perhaps the rest will find context and help those that wish to maintain perspective. Elsewise my existence and life’s work will seem almost contradictory to my stated purpose and desires. Hell I will be the first to admit I am a living ball of contradictions; nonetheless I have maintained a course that has been exemplified as of late. A portion of the story we shall attend to a bit later; sooner than it would in chronological order.

Thus Be it Known I was born August 31, 1960, in the year of Our Lord. In the humble back water town of Socorro, New Mexico. And yes, New Mexico is a State in the Union of the United States of America. My Christian given name is as my fathers, thus making me a junior. My father is your typical WASP American. Gifted with a Highly keen intellect and analytical mind. My Mother’s people are a unique blend of Native American and Spanish. Our Spanish roots go back five hundred years. Two brothers were shipped to further point in the Spanish Empire to protect their bloodline till the end of time. They came in chains as Crypto Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. My father later was one of the engineers working on the Mercury and Saturn / Apollo Rockets which eventually landed men on the moon. My parents being the strongwilled dynamic individuals that they were eventually divorced, with my Mother taking us from California back to New Mexico. I was blessed to have lived in New Mexico when it was an open confluence of differing forces and ideologies. It is sadly no longer such a place. I grew up in the company of different beliefs and fellow students who came from backgrounds that valued intelligence and knowledge. At the same time others taught me that a person needed to see beyond the bonds of knowledge and see the foundations of the world and universe as they were originally cast that being spiritual and some would say ethereal. Thus to me understanding Our World from more than one perspective or level of sight is normal. As a matter of fact this perception of reality goes all the way back to my earliest memories back to being in my crib. An when it comes to sighted, I in previous conversations with others have described how my vision worked when I was younger. As many of us may recall from our halcion days of being in elementary school. There were those overhead projectors which our teachers would then apply various overlays. Well that is a very good analogy of how I actually would see my world. There was/ is the reality that everyone sees, then there were generally two additional overlays, usually one in front of and one behind the norm. But this could also be two behind or two in front of the norm. On rare occasions there would be more than two in a variety of configurations. At times the overlays would have no obvious association to the normal view. Matter of fact I have had here recently cause to remember images I saw almost fifty years ago. Some things that go back to before I was two. Now I have always thought I was a bit different, and naively I to this day can’t fathom that everyone doesn’t in some way or another see the world similar to how I have. Being a precocious young man to say the least, I do recall the statement that if you would be great that you should select a great adversary. An as Lucifer is Humanities great adversary it was natural that I would select him. Now it was also an extension of my visions from when I was nine. So as I listened to the conflicts of the day, did I become aware that there among the idyllic images of society that I heard Lucifer’s voice spreading his lies and vile beliefs. Since no one else was pointing a finger or raising an alarm in that sector I figured I might as well go poking around. That when I was approximately sixteen, needless to say it has been one hell of ride. Now, bit by bit I have slipped into the abyss which is present in all part of our society and culture. Because, well that is where I was needed the most. However it takes a toll and like some foul ichor adheres to those who travel extensively in it, such that for fear it may infect anyone not disposed to it I avoid deceit folk. I have made my way doing business and working often in the byways of this abyss. As a female friend of mine once cried to me that I couldn’t let myself be killed because in all the world I was the only person who did what I did. That I would actually willingly go into to the places that these Luciferians inhabit to take the women and child out. Others might help, but none of them would go into the place alone and face them down. To this I must admit is the Truth. An for anyone else to do it would be a fool errand. Because as they stare at me with fake smiles wanting only to kill me; I would stare back and challenge them to bring it. They wouldn’t because what they see when they look at me is a blackness darker than any they have seen before. Now along the way I have become a felon more than on one occasion. My record shows several convictions, some I am not guilty of what I am convicted of having done. As is often the case the Truth is the first victim of a good fight. And believe me I have been fighting the good fight for a long time, up until recently I have generally gotten a big return on my investment. Recently I have been handed my ass to me in spades, with nothing to thus far show for what it has cost. Believe me it has come at an immense cost, with no end in sight. Yet it is the ticket I bought on my way to Creation; so Hell be Damned if I am going to start whining now. I do at time bitch a little, but I am only human after all. Hahahaha……..

So, having accepted responsibility for having lived the woolly life that I have. To say I have a checker board past is to be kind but nonetheless True. Consequently what I share with you is the Truth. I wish I could say it was assembled in a coherent manner so as to be easily understood. Sorry such is not the case. More Over I will no doubt go off into various tangent issues and share what at times is my unique history and understanding of a given issue. Somethings may offend some of the more “sensible” readers. I can accept that. Know that I once thought as almost everyone else in the world. It is only because of my life’s experiences and knowledge acquired by other means that I now believe as I do. What is particularly ironic is that no matter how large my “craziness coefficient” may get; I am withholding the more extreme things I have come to know. Hang on as best you can an hopefully my writings will permit some of you to prepare for that which shall shortly come to pass. Granted my current biggest obstacles are getting past the AI’s that are acting as guardians at the gates. We shall do our best.

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paintthebrain · 6 years ago

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Hey hot stuff!! Just found your tumblr even tho ive been following your writing for what feels like forever. And I have lots of questions! Do you write your stories from start to finish or do you write in fragments? What’s harder- dialogue or plot driving? What genre do you like writing best (fluff, angst, smut etc.)? What genre do you find the easiest? The hardest?

Hot stuff lolHiiiiii! Shall we begin? Well, I tend to write both chronologically and in fragments. I usually start with a concept. With TorC I think the concept was kind of a culmination of loving the hell out of the cutting edge and wanting that to be translated into the summer games. So I wrote a bunch of ideas down. Gustus and Insta were conceptualized then. I also did a vague outline. I wanted it to be a light and breezy romcom, but the theme of loving yourself kept popping up as I was writing each chapter. So that's when I started to write in fragments because I was seeing the character arcs and that drives a lot of the plot in TorC. So I started writing pieces of chapters and whole chapters actually that were farther along in the story. Such as the part where they finally get on the same page and most of the fluff after and the ending is done too. Usually it's once I start to see where the characters have to go. But in Black Magic part of the concept involved specific plot points so that ended up driving the characterizations. So that's been written mostly chronologically. Same with Gunbitch. But Relationship Anthology is more like Touch or Carry because it's character driven. So lol in short: I think I tend to write plot driven stories chronologically and character driven stories in fragments.Second question: plots points come easy to me I think. Making them connect and seeing the bigger picture is part of why writing is fulfilling to me. I love the problem solving aspect of it. As far as dialogue that can be trickier. I have trouble editing it and not creating long ass monologues that I think are hysterical or poignant but in truth don't add more to the story than if I just said it in 5 words.Third question: I don't really think about genres like that. I like writing stories that mean something. That will give the reader a new perspective on themselves or the world. So whether it's fluff or angst or smut, I'll write what is the most meaningful for that moment and the story over all.Final two questions: easiest is probably fluff with a slight bite to it. Sweet but meaningful. Hardest is probably writing smut. For the similar reason that fluff is easier. I want it to be meaningful and not just thrown in there for the sake of titillation.Thanks so much for all these amazing questions! Hope you are having a lovely day!

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topicprinter · 5 years ago

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Happy new year to all! Seems like as good of a time as any to get started with setting up a better foundation for productivity in all of our ventures.I run a conference business and have spent a huge amount of time and resources building up a running list of recurring tasks needed to set up a conference. All conferences have similarities, in that they all need a place, people and communication. I have set up and ongoing Google sheet with a list of hundreds of tasks that can be built upon, replicated, copied and pasted to start a new list for a new conference. This is how we manage, "recurring tasks." The idea is to make the organization scalable by not re-inventing the wheel for every conference.Of course, not every task in every single organization can be repetitive or recurring. We have lots of one-off tasks as well, which could be as mundane as, "Oh hey can you fix that font color on the website," or as important as, "Oh this larger customer wants X by Y date."So basically what we do for these is just write them down on to-do lists on physical pieces of paper and then cross them off as we go. We then three-hole punch these tasks and put them into a binder in chronological order, and later evaluate whether they should become part of the recurring task list. The advantage of this method is that it's easy, it makes it so that everything gets done, difficult to avoid, and just simple. The disadvantages include that this method does not work well for remote work, it's messier, there is less central accountability (e.g. you have to page through individual task lists for individual people rather than looking at a central database).I am looking for a creative way to organize one-off tasks, while also being able to maintain recurring tasks.If you Google, "best tool for one time tasks," which is essentially blog post after blog post of "Top 30 Task Management Programs."Looking for, "Management of Recurring Tasks," I found this link from Quora which lists out a ton of software platforms for managing recurring tasks.Going through software tools is all well and good, I think it's better to buy a solution than build a solution wherever possible and economical. However, I would like to really fundamentally understand my company's needs before even going through the process of evaluating what we need. What I am really trying to do is better understand conceptually how to manage building procedures vs. completing one-off tasks.Has anyone had luck with using something like a basic running Google Sheet formatted like this? If so what kind of business do you run and how many people are on your team? What advantages and disadvantages have you seen from this approach?Does anyone vehemently disagree with just using spreadsheets to manage tasks for one reason or another? If so why and what kind of business case have you experienced to show that this is a bad choice for improving your operations?Edit, here is some further discussion on Hacker News on "checklists."https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17537675Thanks,

#/r/smallbusiness #reddit

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neitaima-blog · 7 years ago

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Lessons from an Impending Separation

I’ve recently been contemplating divorce.

Ruminations began in earnest quite recently when I was in Paris. Not perhaps for the reasons you may think, although I confess to being quite drawn to the apparently innate confidence Parisians exude, but as a consequence of facilitating a leadership development programme for 25 incredibly bright, gifted and thoroughly likeable individuals from around the globe.

Over three intensive days, emerging themes reflected the concerns and challenges of the assembled throng with what it is people want in their leaders proving a significant part of our inquiry.

The general consensus, in line with research in this area, was they want them to be ‘real’, genuine and authentic. They want their leaders to have an enthusiasm, and passion that others can be energised and motivated by. People clearly need leaders to create a sense of community; providing something to belong to, something with shared purpose and benefit, something to engage with. They need their leaders to recognise and value them; to acknowledge the importance of them being part of that community, one in which they are listened to and to which they make valued contribution. And people want their leaders to have strength and resilience but definitely be human, demonstrating what we might call ‘tough empathy’ whilst also being prepared to show their own ‘allowable’ weaknesses and acknowledgement that they too are on a learning journey.

Being held in Paris there were, unsurprisingly, many Europeans amongst our numbers and understandably the subject of Brexit came up on more than one occasion. The media that week seemed to be filled with even more talk of a separation that seems to be getting messier by the minute. What started as a, “it’s not working anymore, but we want to remain friends”, no faults, reluctant ‘au revoir’ seemed to have escalated into a fight over the record collection, who pays what portion of the bills for the house one party is removing themselves from, and visitation rights.

On returning to the UK my thoughts gravitated towards the process our leaders in the UK had engaged the electorate in, questioning how we got to where we are now and what lessons, if any, we could learn from it all? In an attempt to find some clarity and possible explanation, I turned to a bit of ‘whole brain thinking’.

Ned Hermann developed the Whole Brain Concept in the 1970s going on to produce the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument in 1981 when working with General Electric. It has since been applied internationally to assess the mental preferences of many individuals, groups and organisations. Having capacity to shed light on why we do the things we do, why we do them the way we do, and why things don’t always go as smoothly as we might wish, could it be applied to improve understanding of what we had experienced in the lead up to June 2016?

Considering thinking styles, and how we see the world, Hermann’s model provides a four quadrant metaphor of the brain organised around cerebral-limbic and left-right hemispheres. Each quadrant has different characteristics relating to the specialised thinking structures of the brain. These four thinking ‘selves’ can most simply described as, Analyser – an analytical, logical, fact-based, rational ‘bottom line’ view, Organiser – an organised, detailed, chronological ‘control’ orientated view, Personaliser – an interpersonal, emotional, ‘people affect’ view, and Visualizer – an intuitive, conceptual, ‘big picture’ future view. The result of these different styles is far reaching, filtering as they do our experience of the world and impacting on our success or failure in communicating with others and making decisions.

I have often used the Whole Brain Thinking ‘Decision-Making Walk Around’ with clients to support and challenge them to consider options and opportunities from all perspectives. It involves asking some simple but provocative questions:

Beginning with ‘Why’, I initially pondered the British public’s understanding of the original purpose behind the EU and why we had actually joined the then EEC back in 1973? Did they actually know what the ‘vision’ had been? Did we really understand what we were deciding to leave or remain a part of?

I may not have been of an age to take too much interest in the details of what joining the common market entailed, (I was more concerned with finding ‘The Real Me’ with the help of The Who), but I do remember being told the EEC or European Union was essentially set up to ensure a peaceful post-war future for Europe. Wow, incredibly big stuff! However, to be fair, I also seem to remember references to Britain being ‘broke’ and that closer ties with Europe would be our financial salvation. Is it unfair to suggest the UK’s joining was a ‘marriage’ made of a desire to be part of a big bold vision and an economic crisis demanding a dollop of pragmatic opportunism? Certainly, looking back, the question of, ‘What’ was in it for me (Us)’ seems pretty apparent and quite compelling – and nothing wrong with that.

Turning my attention back to the events of 2016, I found myself asking, “What exactly was the future either the ‘leavers’ or ‘remainers’ were offering us?” Initial recall suggests each side of the Brexit debate appeared both enthusiastic and passionate about their respective causes. Each painted pretty emphatic, if not particularly clear or compelling, visions of a future Britain in or out of Europe. However, perhaps a symptom of failing cognitive ability and emotional connection on my part, try as I might, I can’t actually remember hearing any promise of a future that particularly excited or engaged me, or for that matter anyone else I know.

Additionally, did our leaders present sufficient facts to ensure clear understanding of the issues? The ‘debate’ seemed to focus on some relatively singular if high profile and emotive concerns. And, if I’d been ask by anyone (which, although I have no idea why I didn’t get the call, I wasn’t) I would have probably agreed with the view that the public’s perception of the issues had, as is often the case, become more dependent on communication strategy and skill than objectivity and fact. Did the messaging feel like a reflection of genuine and authentic leadership? Whole Brain Thinking encourages us to recognise the benefit of having confidence in the facts we are basing significant, long lasting decisions on and to do that we need to be transparent and accurate in our examination, communication and debate of those facts. Clearly the decision makers were denied this.

In the course of my ‘whole brain walk around’ I was additionally struck by the apparent lack of planning, for either eventuality, by anyone! Now, I’m not naïve enough to think governments and leaders don’t develop contingency plans for many eventualities about which the public remains blissfully unaware (although I’m not trusting enough to think they always do so!) When, however, stakeholders are invited to decide on an issue, Whole Brain Thinking reminds us of the obvious importance of considering how something will be implemented and the criticality of such consideration in good decision making. The apparent lack of planning for the potential outcomes of the referendum may have been deliberate political ploy, arrogance, anxiety or simple oversight. However, without some sense of not only where people are being led but also how they might get there, a vision no matter how eloquently and compelling communicated, can only remain a dream (which may just turn into a nightmare!).

In consideration of what WHT sometimes refers to as ‘people affect’ I am struck by the ‘distance’ between our political leaders and the stakeholder public. There is little evidence of any clear empathic understanding of what was really behind the disquiet of the British public leading up to June 2016 – how they really felt? One of the most important and critical attributes of modern leadership is the leaders’ ability to observe, collect, and interpret soft data and respond to the context of each situation by taking appropriate action. What were the needs of the British people that were being expressed in that vote? Could it be they simply needed to be heard - to protest at someone or something, anything, about their dissatisfaction with years of austerity and not feeling listened to? But did either the ‘stay’ or ‘go’ leaders really try to understand what they needed or merely respond to and exploit what they said they wanted? Consider, did the British people feel they really belonged to and were engaged with this European Union, shared its purpose, felt valued and included? And what part did the leaders in Britain and Europe play in the people of Britain feeling this ‘marriage’ was no longer working for them and the only course of action was divorce? Had, for example, too much focus on creating laws meant Europe had lost sight of the ‘big purpose’ and the very people the ‘rules’ are surely meant to serve?

Over many years together, good and bad, my partner and I have, like many other couples, made many decisions. No matter where we have been in our marriage, sometimes content, sometimes wondering “what’s in it for me”, we have found consistently reminding ourselves of our ‘why’ has served us well. We have rigorously sense checked ‘what’ we know; testing our individual and collective perceptions against the facts of a situation. We’ve planned ‘how’ we might achieve something, considering what would be involved in following a particular course of action. And we have not just allowed ourselves to be satisfied that we have heard what we or others involved ‘want’ but done our best to really understand what both we, individually, and others need. Being very different people, we haven’t always found it easy to make decisions together but reminding ourselves the importance a balance of clear purpose, empathy, logic and planning, plays in good collective decision making has certainly helped.

In a world, a Europe, a Britain, where over the last few decades increasing importance has been attached to diversity, we are still finding it so difficult to collaborate with those who, essentially wanting the same future, may simply have a different way of thinking. One critical learning I have taken from working with the Whole Brain Model is that, perhaps unsurprisingly, using our ‘collective whole brain’ results in more robust, creative and mutually beneficial decision making. Overly focusing on one or two thinking positions and neglecting to review, reflect on and, if necessary, revisit and review decisions can result in catastrophic short and long term damage.

There are those on both sides of the Channel suggesting there is still time for reconciliation with Europe. Equally, there are those holding the view that it would be unlawful, against the ‘rules’, or simply wrong to consider it, now that the UK has voted - despite more and more emerging ‘facts’ about the issues, consequences and future that may be heading our way.

Having briefly considered events from a whole brain perspective, the complexity of Brexit is clearly immense and may well now have to run its course, but we can learn lessons for the organisations we lead? Whether you are facing a challenge of engagement, motivation, collaboration or some equally pressing issue, what will you choose to learn about how decisions are made in your organisation?

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lvdy4ixd-blog · 8 years ago

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Max and Leap changes

Once I had stereo sound working, I knew that I simply had to try and get a more immersive sound scape working. Even stereo panning was insanely effective, however, as soon as one turned their head so that both speakers are closer to one ear, the illusion is instantly ruined. Additionally, I thought that an interesting way of exploring my identity could be through recordings in multiple languages, rather than just English (at this point, I was still preparing for recording. Sorry about the inconsistency in chronology, but I was really working on everything simultaneously, so I’m breaking it up by topics for my own sanity).

Initially, I was very scared of even opening up Max. For me, patch-based programming is a bit alien, as it requires knowing what each object does, why each one is better for what, etc., whereas with Processing, even if there is a function for something, as long as I understand the very basics of how a library works, I can write my own functions and code to do what’s needed. Without Jen’s help, I probably would have been unable to get anywhere near the final patch, so Jen, sincerely, thank you. While I understood the basics of what was needed, and was able to find many examples for each of the separate elements of the patch, I was struggling to connect them together, as well as to integrate them with the Leap Motion. As it happens, the main documented methods of Leap integration with Max is deprecated for Windows, and as far as I’ve read, difficult to set-up, even on Mac.

I was already planning on using both Processing and Max, as I was nowhere near knowledeable in Max to undertake building the visual framework that I had in mind using it, I realized that I can simply send messages from Processing to Max with the data it needed.

Simply, he says. First, we start with a whole bunch of data from Processing that gets broken up into bits, as needed. So, we’re sending each hand’s XYZ, and each finger’s XYZ. And scaling all of them.

Two subpatches as below in the main patch (or at least that was the idea, maybe not in this specific version) In these, we take the position data of the hand to pan all of the audio of this hand (i.e. all of the audio of the left-hand-fingers), and set the volume based on the height.

Each of these subpatches has another subpatch, where we actually control the audio. So each finger has its own soundfile, which gets stretched and pitched based on the finger position. Easy:

Did I say one subpatch? Yeah, for testing purposes. Later there will be five of each for each hand. So ten sub-subpatches, in two sub-patches, in one big mess of a main patch.

So in the end, it looks more like this... just for the main patch and hand patches. There’s another ten patches within that, but I’ll skip those for lack of space.

So, as you can imagine, my lack of experience in Max meant that while it actually worked, it was so unbearable slow it might as well not have worked.

I had a lot of optimization to do. In my sketchbook, you’ll find all of the different notes I scribbled while trying to work out the best way of sending messages from Processing into Max. In the end, I first minimized the number of messages I was sending. Rather than sending a message with five values per finger, per hand, per frame (so that’s 5*5*2*60=3000 values to be sorted/second), I began by only sending the messages when they were needed. That is, if there was no hand visible that frame (checked via a trigger), a message containing x 0 y 0 z 0 would get sent to that finger, and then a trigger set telling processing it doesn’t need to send that message again. Alright, so now we’re sending only the messages we need to send. Rather than expanding the messages as I had until that point with many route objects (which then required the message to be far more complex, i.e. have variable names before variables, for proper routing), I learnt that I could instead have one very large unpack message. While this helped, it wasn’t really enough.

But what are we actually doing with the fingers? At this point, the work had become focused on imagery and storytelling. There was no need for each finger to control a sound, each, instead, each hand only needed to control one image in processing, and one sound in Max. So, now we can cut out many, many more messages. We’re only sending a message per hand, only when the hand is visible. So at most, we’d be sending 120 messages / second (not calculating in values anymore, as I was unpacking much more efficiently than previously. If your curious, I was sending anywhere between 12 and 5 values; in the latest version there are eight values), which already yields a great performance increase. Additionally, though, we weren’t having to deal with 10 different samples, where all of them had to be correctly moved around the ‘virtual’ space for the proper illusion of sound moving around the physical space. Instead, it was just two audio files!

For the moment, we can pause on talking about Max, and move over to how the visuals were progressing in Processing as all of this was happening.

Up until this point, I had really only had two versions of visuals based on Processing - simple shapes to provide myself feedback while working with the Leap, and the visual feedback by way of lights. I wasn’t really focused on the visuals at this point, though, and was rather just trying to create a system that would communicate with Max. So, after fourteen code iterations just with this library, the sketch that was sending messages to the first working max patches had the following visuals:

Very conceptual.

Once I actually had the Max messages somewhat sorted out, I actually began integrating the visuals - photos that in some way represented my identity or idea of home, that would get ‘drawn’ on the screen via the viewers’ interaction.

The very first version was actually a bit more of a challenge to make than I had thought. I had never really worked with images in Processing up until this point, only with generative visuals, so while just building something to draw one image in this way was easy, it was rather the thinking ahead and trying to make sure that the system was flexible that was the difficult part.

The first version is primarily based on the classic example sketch “Pattern” that draws ellipses at your mouse, where the size of the ellipse is dependend on the ‘speed’, yet I replaced speed with the y-height of the hand, thinking that might add some interesting interaction (which was a stupid thought, as it just meant that it was easier to draw at the bottom and harder to draw at the top, and was not interesting at all in any way interaction wise nor visually). As I had the Max side of things relatively sorted out at this point, I put a lot of work into really pushing this framework that I was building. Initially I was quite hesitant on having the visuals on screen without any sort of fading, where it would be just drawing over top of everything. So, I set out to build a framework where each pixel was drawn individually, and a few arrays kept track of which images were ‘active’, how many pixels of each image were drawn on the screen at that time, and what the ‘image’ of every pixel was.

I ended up having many, many issues with figuring out how to get it to work, but once I did, I instantly went to adding another function, that would put all of that hard work to use - for every pixel whose ‘image’ value was not one of the two ‘active’ images, the pixel had a probability of getting turned black. Basically, it was a way to fade the screen in the parts where the image was an ‘old’ one, not one being currently drawn.

Now, if you know anything about any of what I said above, you’ll probably already see that the way I was doing this was very, very inefficient. Every single frame, I was not only drawing massive rectangle-shaped bits of images, PIXEL BY PIXEL, but I was then at the end of the draw-loop going through every pixel, and comparing it’s value to that of the hands’. There’s 1920*1080 pixels. Just over two million pixels, that I was going through one by one, and for each of them asking - is the pixel’s value the same as x or y? Yes? cool, move to the next pixel. No? Alright, if this random number between zero and one is greater than 0.25, let’s make this pixel black, change the value of the pixel to 0, oh and also, what was the previous value of the pixel? Let’s subtract one from the total count of that value, so we can keep tracking how many pixels each image currently ‘occupies’.

youtube

Yeah, the system was a bit slow. But that wasn’t the real issue. The issue was that I wanted to create such a robust and versatile system, that I didn’t really think about what the system had to do. Yes, the sillhoutte-effect that happens as the image fades is quite cool, but past that - so what? Not only was it jarring to look at, it was also completely unnecessary. There was no conceptual reason for having this, in fact it was quite the opposite.

The whole idea of drawing the images was to layer all of these different places where I had lived and that influenced me one atop the other, and to show the viewer that this physical movement, expressed through their own movement and the movement of sound in the space, doesn’t allow for a single identity, for a single home. And here I was creating visuals where the other places, the other identities simply get removed. And sure, in a way, that is true - I have blocked out a few periods of my life from my memory, but that isn’t the point of the work. So, I made the decision that the whole system I was making had become too complex for its own good.

Rather than just removing those elements, though, I thought it was best to just take everything that I had learnt and write a new version of the program from scratch. Just before doing that, though, I played with adding a few simple calculations - a velocity-based approach to drawing the ‘rectangles’. The size of the image would only be as large as the speed at which the viewer moved their hands, meaning that one had to continue moving their hands to hear and see the story. As I knew the ‘center’ of the hand, and thus of the image, I could then use the velocity as an input for the size of the rectangle, setting one corner as the horizontal center minus one half the horizontal velocity and the vertical center minus one half the vertical velocity, and the other corner as the horizontal center plus one half the horizontal velocity and the vertical center plus one half the vertical velocity. Boom. Rectangle.

Having tested this, I began completely rewriting the code, including only that what needed to be included. This time, I was only building for the present, not trying to future-proof the project. Seven code iterations later, I had a system that worked just as well as the previous one, but much more clean, and was able to start working on all of the various extra elements past the main visuals. I began adding a title scene, rather than just having a blank screen, working on a reset mechanism, ensuring that the same images were not repeated (unless a reset happens), and sending new data to Max! Also, due to the wonderful GSA wi-fi, the processing sketch began to send the data to some bizarre subnet. Because I did not have a static-IP, and the OSCP5 IP address function worked in bizarre ways, rather than broadcasting to one single client, I switched to a (deprecated, yet still working) protocol - multicast. In theory, this meant that more than one device could be ‘listening’ to the processing sketch, and was a sort of insurance for myself, in case I did not receive the equipment I was hoping to get from the EMS for the degree show. This did mean some redesigning in Max as well, however, compared to some other issues, it was really a non-issue.

With a new processing sketch, I had to redesign the messages I was sending to Max. As the Max patch had also changed a bit, to reflect the overall changes (from finger control to hand control), I had to rethink a few things. The playlist object accepts integers to control which sound in the list should be played, howeever, every time them message is received, it starts the clip again. So, I could not send the image number all of the time. I mitigated this by placing the image number at the end of the message, and sending the full length message only when the image changed. This way, the message was sent once, and there was no need to complicate both sides by making new types of messages. While this allowed me to keep the Max patch clean, it meant that the sound would play when it wasn’t supposed to: the image, and hence audio file, would only change when the hand was NOT visible (and thus the image and audio should both be off). This then required another value to be sent - a boolean signifying whether the file is alive or dead. So now, every time that the audio file was changed, and began playing, a zero was also sent. That zero was then slightly delayed in Max, and attached to a pause message, meaning that once the audio file had been switched - the audio paused. Problem solved!

The data I was receiving in Max for each hand, every frame, was as follows: alive/dead,pos.x,pos.y,pos.z,vel.x,vel.y,vel.z, image (the velocities could be removed, as they only served a purpose in Processing, but the three extra values don’t actually slow it down, and the messages are so fragile that I would rather keep a working and slightly unoptimized version than risk breaking it for unnoticeable gains).

From 3000 values being inefficiently processed every second, to seven (the eighth only gets sent once every time you remove a hand) per hand per frame - 840 values per second, yet in such an efficient manner that reducing that number to 112 wasn’t even worth it. I think that speaks volumes for the amount I learned in such a short period of time.

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theshadowmenlounge · 8 years ago

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John Devil Expanded Universe

I want to talk here a bit about my personal plans for expanding on the John Devil universe in future writings.

Spoilers for what happened in John Devil will abound.

First to clarify I agree with Brian Stableford’s interpretation of what happened, Henri Belcamp and Tom Brown are the same person. His timeline in the back of his translation is also very helpful. I can’t overstate how much I recommend everyone buy it and read it.

Next I want to state that while my fictional universe in very much inspired conceptually by the Wold Newton Universe concept (particularly the French WNU) it's not ultimately compatible with the WNU proper.

One reason is because I write my fiction assuming my interpretation of Biblical Chronology to be true, as a Six Day Young Earth Creationist, so that leaves no room for things like Conan The Barbarian or the proper Cthulhu Mythos.

Another is because I don't like the explaining talented people by saying their ancestors were affected by a meteorite to begin with. Though the idea of meteorites playing important roles in history is interesting to me. As well as in genealogies.

In both of those cases nothing I write for TOTS will contradict the WNU proper. Avoiding the events of 1795 should be easy enough, the closest historical period I might want to address is the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796-97. And since any stories written for that won't be set sooner than the English Revolution or at the least the Mayflower, anything said about Biblical history or the age of the Universe is free to be taken as merely that character's opinion. And I will write characters who don’t share my personal opinions.

But one remaining major deviation from the proper WNU that won't exactly be avoidable is that I want to throw out the traditional WNU genealogy for Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes in exchange for making them descendants of Gregory Temple. I have decided against my initial instinct of having it be through Richard Thompson II, and instead will speculate that naturally Richard Thompson and Suzanne Temple had other children. Mainly I want to give them a daughter who will become a detective herself but won't work for the police because of Victorian Sexism. She'll do battle with Sir Williams and his mistress named Moriarty during 1840-43. And she'll be Bisexual and eventually marry a Country Squire named Siger Holmes and give birth to Sherlock in 1854. She may also have some sexual tension with Moriarty.

Moriarty is depicted directly very little in Doyle's canon, allowing a lot of room for interpretation of his character. In the first Rathbone film he's essentially the prototype of Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor, on BBC's Sherlock he has a Joker quality to him, and in the RDJ films he's essentially a Victorian Post-Crisis Luthor. But it's not as common to depict him as a villain with an arguably good motivation, or as a character who at least started that way and lost sight of it as the power corrupted him.

But since his name as well as his right hand man Moran's is Irish, and he works with an Irish revolutionary group in The Valley of Fear. I feel, it makes sense to see him as someone carrying on the mission of Fergus O'Breanne from Les Mysteries de Londres. (Note, in The Vampire of New Orleans I had originally mentioned the IRA but the editors choose to replace that with a more generic reference to Irish Freedom fighters, which I fully understand. If I'd known then what I do now I'd have used the name of the group in TVoF).

So my genealogy for Moriarty begins with Sarah O'Brien (who I usually default to calling Sarah O'Neil because that's who we meet her as). After the end of John Devil she married Frederick Bohem and births an heir for him, but he dies after not very long. She then returns to The Gentlemen of The Night now being reorganized by The Colonel. She has an affair with Fergus O'Breanne (who she'd met before) long before he establishes himself as the Marquis of Rio-Santo, and they have a daughter born legally under their Moriarty alias. That daughter later has three sons, a Colonel, a Professor and a Station Manager, in my canon only the Colonel is forenamed James. It is only the Professor who is fathered by Sir Williams.

I'm not fond of the Moriarty is Nemo theory, Robur and Moriarty I could maybe see as the same if it'd chronologically fit, but not Nemo. Nemo I view as a son Henri Belcamp had with a princess in India while he was preparing that part of his plan.

Henri tells an elaborate story about how he met Percy Balcomb in Australia which we know is made up since Percy was really an Alias of Henri. But maybe some aspects of that story were based on how he met Fergus O'Breanne since we know he too was in Australia for a while and visited Napoleon about the same time Henri did. I think Fergus was a part of Henri's plan off screen, perhaps as a commander in the Navy that Henri wanted Robert Surrisy to lead. I also suspect that between leaving Australia and reaching St Helena they visited the Il Padre Diogni in Corsica.

There is a Walter Brown on the high council of The Gentlemen of The Night during the 1830s, as well as a Peter Wood who could be a relative of Mr Wood (according to Frank Morlock's translation of the Stage Play version at least). Could he be a son "Tom Brown" had as a result of some random affair? It's more common than you might expect for a child born out of Wedlock to still wind up with their Father's Surname. On the Mr Wood subject a James Wood also factors into Rocambole’s later adventures in London. I can't think of any fictional Characters last named Davy right now, but that would be interesting to look into. Same as Palmer, cause 2 other identities Henry went by were James Davy and George Palmer.

But Henri's only marriage was technically under the Identity of Percy Balcomb to Jeanne Herbert. If she conceived a child during their brief time together in July he/she wouldn't have been born until 1818. The now in the Public Domain 1919 film The Master Mystery starring Harry Houdini features a Herbert Balcom, who runs a Company in the United States that makes advanced Technology, and he turns out to be a Super-Villain of sorts. People often changed in some small way their Surname when they immigrated to the U.S. So, could Herbert Balcom be a descendent of Percy Balcomb and Jeanne Herbert? I think it's likely. Let's leave what happened during and after the events of John Devil and consider the background.

One CoolFrencComics genealogy suggests that the House of Belcame descends from Riene de Kergariou of Paul Feval's Fee Des Greves. Given the similarity in name and the common connection to Brittany, I think placing her in the ancestry of the Kergaz family from the Rocambole novels would be a more natural conclusion. A lot of John Devil characters were alive at the time of the French Revolution, which is interesting in light of my French Revolution Shared Cinematic Universe (FRCU) idea I suggested elsewhere. They all seem to be in London mostly during that time however, Armand De Belcamp went there after being exiled. Much of the drama of the Scarlet Pimpernel was in London at this time also, so there could be crossover potential there.

The desire to compare Gregory Temple to Sherlock Holmes is hindered mostly by that in John Devil we see the end of his career mainly, already old and past his prime. During the French Revolution he’s already began his career, we could have Helen Brown as his Irene Adler and Mr. Wood leading the Gentlemen of The Night.

I would course seek to tie this into my own evolving theories about the roles Secret Societies played during this history. Which I discuss on my Conspiracy History Facts blog.

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