The apple, falling only a short distance

Recently Pinkie Pie decided to start blogging.  Not the same sort of blog as I have, where I yell about political opinions and vomit my brain onto the page, but rather a blog where she tells a story.  It is located at https://meetmeatdawn.blogspot.com/.  It is just a few weeks old now with a couple of posts, but it is her foray into putting herself out there on the internet.  It is a drama of sorts, focusing on kids in school, but it has lots of supernatural elements.  The kids have powers, are directly related to mythological beings, etc.

I wonder how much of her decision is related to me writing here.  She knows about my blog, and has asked about what sorts of things I put here many times.  For her blogging is sort of a normal thing that adults do, though certainly she is aware that most of them do not.

Most parents, when their child does something, seem to desperately pump it up, telling the kid how good it is, and trying to get everyone else involved.  That is definitely not my way.  Pinkie Pie asked me to mention it here, and I did, but I won't be pitching it or trying to twist people's arms into offering support.  I can say though that her first attempt at writing is going a lot better than I had ever thought it would.  It isn't polished the way published material would be, but for something written by a couple of 12 year olds without much in the way of editing I am impressed.

The question is, will she keep at it?  When I first posted here I noted that the average blog has something like 4 posts in it.  1 really excited post, 2 mediocre followups, 1 long drunken apology for not writing, and then silence.  I have gotten well past that stage, and although I am posting infrequently here there days I do not expect to stop.

I certainly won't be apologizing for not writing.  Down that path lies madness.

But you never know whether a thing like this will seize you and sustain itself over a great deal of time.  Sometimes the most promising beginnings fizzle with no sense of why, exactly.  And sometimes a post made mostly on a lark becomes a ten year project, as this one did.

In any case, what she has so far is an interesting start, and you are welcome to check it out if you like stories about weird, magical teens getting themselves into and out of trouble.

Fixing it up right

A few years ago I had to replace my toilet.  Doing this has taught me a lesson:  When you buy a toilet, don't buy the cheap one.  Since I installed it I have had to repair it on multiple occasions, and I wish at this point that I had just spent more.

Last year I had the problem that the flap that controls water flow into the tank wasn't sealing properly.  It was shifting along its shaft a little, and when it did there was a constant slow leak.  A normal person might have just gone to buy a more expensive and better flap, but I am not that person.  Instead I wound some elastics around the shaft on each side to keep the flap from shifting around, and my hack worked.  Fixed forever!

Until a couple of months ago, when the flap started leaking again.  This time even though the flap was sitting in the right place on the shaft it wouldn't keep a really tight seal as there wasn't quite enough pressure.  No problem!  I grabbed a rock and duct taped it to the flap (using rainbow duct tape, obviously) to add some extra weight and the issue was resolved.   Fixed forever, surely!

Then I heard the leak happening again.  The tape had let go and the rock was sitting on the bottom of the tank while water slowly leaked through.  This time I had to fix things properly.  No more half measures.  I got the right equipment together and this time I used TWO rocks and four times as much rainbow duct tape.  Now the leak is fixed.  For real.  Forever!

I wonder what my parents would think of all of this.  They fix stuff themselves, and my dad absolutely loves building his own stuff.  So maybe he would be impressed with my innovations.  On the other hand he does like doing things properly, so maybe he would be horrified by my silly hacks that can't possibly last.

In any case I find it really quite entertaining to fix things this way.  Wendy just shakes her head and wishes that I would buy some proper equipment and do it right the first time, but there is little joy in going to the store and buying gear to do it the way everyone else does.  Finding a fix in whatever I have lying around the house though?  That is a good time.  Pinkie Pie certainly finds my hacks funny, and I wonder what sort of lessons she will take from watching me fix things like this.  Surely they will be different than what I learned from my father, but what effect they will have I cannot say.

One honest girl

Pinkie Pie wants to have a movie night.  She even has a particular movie in mind, but unfortunately that movie isn't available on Netflix, to which we are subscribed.  The only legal way to get it is to pay for it on Youtube at a cost of 4.99, so she has decided to save her money until she has enough to buy it and then invite people over to watch the movie.  This has put me to a tricky decision.

I like the idea of training her to save up money for things she wants.  She has a tradition of spending everything she has instantly on the first shiny thing she sees, and this trend of thinking about purchases for more than five seconds is a welcome one.

On the other hand I could just pirate the movie and save her 4.99.  I want to teach her about the various options that exist in the world, and since I gave her that 4.99 I would ideally like it spent optimally.

I watch pirated videos.  I also pay for videos, as evidenced by my Netflix subscription, so I am only a part time villain, not fully dedicated to the cause of evil.  The question is, what lessons do I want to impart to her, and what sorts of things will she learn from each tactic I might employ?

"Wow, it sure is easier to steal things rather than save up for them!" isn't exactly the lesson I want to deliver.  On the other hand "I can look around to find out the cheapest and easiest way to get stuff." is a good thing for her to take from the experience.

If only one could figure out ahead of time what sorts of lessons a child will take from an experience. Unfortunately that is not something that is available to parents.  I can attest to the randomness of children's learning from all the times my friends have told me about their parents attempts to instill values or lessons that completely failed.

Metal Feline

On Sunday I took part in a thing called Aluminum Cat.  It is a totally unique (in my experience) online experience where four players take the part of fresh recruits on a futuristic spaceship called the Aluminum Cat.  An actor plays the roles of everyone else on the ship, and the only way each player can interact with them and with each other is by moving their icon around the screen and changing what their icon looks like.  It is hard to describe, but highly intuitive the moment you try it out.

Also it is really fun.

The actor really got into the roles, rapidly switching from person to person.  It was largely comedy, but all of the people playing with me seemed to take it seriously, and they tried to stick to the role and fit into the world being created for us.  It is funny to be able to get so much out of a single icon moving around the screen, but we were able to communicate pretty well, I found.

The production values aren't high.  The costumes are simple, there were a few technical glitches, and the backgrounds were just basic drawings.  However, it turns out that none of that lessened the experience at all.  That simplicity and the rough edges aren't surprising because it is still a new sort of endeavour, but the joy of the show was undiminished on that basis.  It was the interaction that was the fun part - it kind of reminds me of old BBS games in that way.  Even though the view wasn't that exciting, the experience overall was great fun.

The overall effect ended up being somewhere between a play and a roleplaying game.  Much of the plot had to happen, but we did have some real choices, especially near the end.  We also got to set the tone and pace and have some fun with it which I enjoyed.

I don't know that I would do this on a regular basis.  I do know that I am glad I tried it, and it feels great to be part of an experiment in new ways people can interact with technology.  I would recommend giving it a try to anyone, really.  Pinkie Pie was intrigued by it for sure, and even younger kids could certainly play.

Link:  https://escape-character.com/

One thing I would note is that if you sign up, you just need to check your email a couple minutes before it starts to get the link to click to join the group.  I missed that originally, and spent some time searching trying to figure out how I actually do the thing.

Banking is dangerous

I just finished book five of the Dagger and the Coin series by Daniel Abraham.  It is a high fantasy story with magic swords, dragons, and epic battles.  It is fantastic, but not because of the magic swords, dragons, or battles, but rather because of the amazing people that inhabit the world Abraham has created.

In particular, the villain is *amazing*.  Geder Palliako is a jerk.  Not a Sauron-like "I will cover the land in darkness!" kind of evildoer, just a person who is an asshole.  He is bigoted, entitled, selfish, and cruel.  But he is entirely human.  He has crushes on people, loves his father, attempts to do the right thing, and genuinely thinks he is really a good person... but he is also willing to burn down a nation to avenge a slight against him, will commit atrocities to save himself admitting he is wrong, and is more than happy to treat other people as tools for his whims.

Palliako doesn't even have any powers, abilities, or really anything at all to recommend him. He just ends up in the right place at the right time to do all kinds of heinous things, and he seizes every opportunity that comes his way.  It feels very much like the real world, where evil people like Trump are in power not because of being particularly good at anything, but simply because opportunity presented them with a chance, they seized it, and things went their way.

All this makes Palliako believable, frightening, and worthy of all the hatred I can muster.  Unlike "I am the prince of darkness" type villains which mostly make me laugh, Palliako feels absolutely real.  I can't just dismiss the story as silly, because I know people like him.  The things he does truly could happen.

It isn't just the villain that sells it though.  The circumstances that grant Palliako his power are a fantastic condemnation of religion, though I suspect that religious folks might not see it that way.  They might see it as a debunking of false religion, but I think the author is really pointing an accusatory finger at the way religions tend to make people think, and how they treat dissenting thought.  It is possible to reasonably argue that the villain isn't in fact Palliako, but rather a way of thinking, and that makes the whole thing have a lot more weight and interest.

But I am not done with the praise.

The heroes also make me swoon.  Seriously, you know that a fantasy novel is working its magic when I desperately want to play a particular character or set of characters out in a roleplaying game.  Yardem and Marcus' interactions are a gem.  Abraham sets it up at the very beginning when the two have the following simple interaction:

Marcus:  So, Yardem, is today the day that you toss me in a ditch and take over the company?

Yardem:  No sir, not today.

This interaction sets the tone for their friendship and working relationship for five books, and the payoff is just perfect.

The story also features a hero who wields the power of economics.  She doesn't swing a sword, or cast spells, or command armies.  She just thinks about money and banking and how power really works, and her thoughts *matter*.  It is a rare thing for an author to manage to make a banker a compelling character, and her insights on banking into an important plot point, but Abraham does it.

I loved these books, and I recommend them to anybody who wants a fantasy story that has great villains and lovable heroes, both of whom manage to be flawed, messy, and believable.

I wish it was good

The new Doctor Who got some people excited because the Doctor is now a woman. I liked the idea, and I think it was about damn time they tried that.  Of course many misogynists yelled on the internet that maleness is a key, necessary part of being the Doctor, but they are just spewing sexism everywhere and making a mess on the carpets.

I am glad that the actress playing the Doctor now really nailed the part.  She has just the right enthusiasm and quizzical positiveness that makes it work.  Unfortunately I am a little bit skeptical about the writing, particularly for the third episode.  The episode focused around the characters visiting Rosa Parks, of US civil rights movement fame.  They had to stop a very racist man from the future from preventing her story unfolding.

I like shows that push back against patriarchal norms.  I also like shows that showcase racism in a serious, wrenching light, and this show did that.  It had the main characters talking about their negative experiences with racism, and dug into the topic.  Great!

But the show was terrible. The writing failed all kinds of basic rules, and left everyone watching with a bad taste in their mouths.  It made little sense, felt shoddy, and was a real let down.  Politically it was good.  The story and scenes though... they were rubbish.

It reminds me of the Ghostbusters reboot a few years back with a female cast.  I wanted it to be good, the sexist trolls on the internet hated it before even seeing it, and it ended up being a bad movie.  There is something extra disappointing when a piece of media aligns with your politics and you want so much for it to be good, if nothing else because that might help more things like it to be made.  There is a guilt that manifests if you say you hate it because it sucks, because you don't want to be one of those people hating it just because it features a woman, or a black person, or a gay person, or whatever.  But you do dislike it, not because of those things, but because it just isn't any good.

So far I have only seen three episodes of the new Doctor Who.  I like the way the show is going, and if you liked the older versions of the Doctor you will probably like this one.  Doctor Who isn't exactly my thing, but this show, and the lead actress in particular, do the thing that Doctor Who does really well.

But the third episode... not so much.  Hopefully it rebounds from here.

So many humans

This past weekend I went on a trip to New Haven, Conneticut.  Driving there reminded me of a feeling I always end up having when I am in the US:  The sense that I am surrounded.  When I am at home here in Toronto I have a low level feeling that there is a seething, noisy mass of humanity south of me but that north of me is a silent, primal place.  There is a sense that I am parked on the edge of the world and that I could escape the world of people and concrete if I want to.

When I am south of the border I lose that feeling.  Instead I have a constant sense that everywhere, everyway, are humans.  It isn't sensible, really, because when New Haven is on the ocean - I was only a couple of kilometers from a space that is really empty of humans.  Somehow that doesn't feel the same though.  There is something powerful about land that is unoccupied that ocean simply does not replicate.

It must be true that other people from Thunder Bay, where I grew up, have that same sense but more finely honed.  They must have the feeling when they come to Toronto that they are surrounded, pinned in, unable to escape the crush, and when they go home to Thunder Bay they are on the edge of the human world, not so far from wilderness.

I wonder if this is a thing that is widespread or not.  Do we all develop a sense of how many people we are used to, how full our world is, and get all discombobulated when we are in a place that doesn't have that same feel?

For me it is all about north, somehow.  That I am used to north being empty and open, and south being full of noise and pressure.  I doubt it would feel the same if I were in some other part of the world where empty space was in another direction from me.