Howdy. I guess the nerves hadn't woken up yesterday because most of my muscles are currently complaining about their ill treatment. -.-
... *spends some time staring out of the window in McDonalds* ...
Lady friend has apparently caused more damage to herself. Torn something which sounds like an integral part of her organs and infection has returned or something. Last week the thing that's meant to be healing her or something was dislodged and she opted not to go back to the hospital, mostly, I think, because her friend was visiting this weekend. This is probably going to result in major surgery next week because some holes will have healed up.
I'm too tired to care very much really. Not a very cleaver thing to do, ignoring your doctors and gaining even more hospital time and yet more down time healing.
So there's that.
Why is it that the only mentally compatible individual I've met this one that seems intent on hurting herself...
I'm once again parked in McDonalds. Just for today, and then tomorrow I'm going to the library once I've paid rent, done laundry and shaved my head. Not storing anything more in that damn hostel fridge. Four different thefts occurred this week; two of butter, an entire loaf of bread and four large potatoes.
Started rewriting my computer games thesis in Google Drive along the lines of a technical manual. Think I said yesterday...or I just tweeted it...could be, but anyway, I've organized it into 3 sections - front/body/back matter - in accordance with some of the principles of the Wikipedia article on Book Design. The front and back sections mirror each other with contents/index and so forth. The body section is the big one.
I was just going to write the books content into ad hoc articles and then publish it at the end of the year, which is essentially what I plan on doing still, only modified, and then add to that for the 2015 edition, Doing it this way will build it into a compendium on games design which grows like a fungus and stays current with modern theories and methods for implementation. This is especially handy if I write anything platform or kit specific which is highly transitory and only temporarily relevant to how the industry does it.
I say my method of construction is modified because yesterday I realized how I had set up the thesis and decided to use the same methodology again.
The basic tenant of how to design games in my literal book is that you start with analysis of what already exists. This is to say that you need some way of categorizing computer games which exist right now so your contribution to the industry has a defined type and you can then check out other titles of the same type for general structure, what worked and what didn't, and then implement the best subsystems into your game.
So the way I've laid the book out is so the first section is Analysis [Categorization] which firstly serves to outline the virtual shell of all computer games [there really is an almost (note almost as there are, of course, exceptions) uniform structure to all games as you essentially require the same functionality in the same general format regardless of your game], then secondly follows that up with a redefinition of genre identification [which includes only 5 genre's with subgenres for categorizing anything more specific, and definitively does not include the fucking Action or Adventure genres, which are blatant misnomers carried over from the TV and Movie industry where they are in fact apt].
The next five sections then serve to identify and categorize the various systems and information which are iconic to any given genre. The Strategy [Information] section for example serves to identify the base quantified attributes of anything and everything within a virtual interactive environment - what, why, when, where, who, and how essentially. Then the Roleplaying [Setting] section serves to identify the representation of those attributes in a presented form - the last section quantifies the figures, whilst this one presents it graphically. Platforming [Environs], Racing [Interface], and Combat [Interactions] build upon these principles until you have a fully functional virtual interactive system. To change the game you just need to define or not define where the goal posts are in terms of need and objective.
I'm still kind of unpacking information from the back of my personal library - think of it like unlocking layered zip files...seriously, I write one layer down in Google Docs and then a few more zip files decompress and dump a fuck ton of information back into the forefront of my consciousness. Apparently that's how my brain does business. It stores absolutely everything but so as not to drive me bugfuck insane it compresses a fuckton [which are proper units of measurement don't cha know] of it and puts it in storage until I try to recall it and then it spools back out into active memory. Yesterday when I started the process of recall and documentation it felt like someone was frying my forebrain with electrodes and I went to bed with a headache.
The human brain is an amazing place, and either mine's a special one or other people just don't try to think about the world around them. :P
Gonna go widdle, have a drink, play a few matches of Hearthstone and then focus on getting the last of my coursework done. I'm probably just tired and not especially in high spirits due to the crappy food and caffeine I've been getting lately [if healthy veggies and a fuckton of pasta can be considered crappy anyway].
Get some proper fruit, cheese, bread and stuff tomorrow, some Monster Assault, and start revising for my exam resit. That's the ticket. And focus on getting into the police force. My lady friend's activities are her own concern for now. I've always thought it was too soon to be so focused on one person, but she's the only one around who seems to give a shit about me at the moment so.
That's the point really. For all the women and a few men who've shown sexual interest at me over the last few weeks, only one has shown real concern and offered to buy me food, rather than what I could give them. She might be a bit silly, not traditionally the type of girl I'm interested in physically, and not nearly on my level mentally, but she puts up with my batshit crazy and actually gives a flying fuck about my well being.
At the end of the day, what matters more?
See you on and on...
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
15/06/2014
On Falling...
NOTE: The following might be a bit of a mess. Currently ill, wrote this around 3am originally, and presently in no condition to edit it for beans. Posting it anyway.
Again; healthy for years, now I have a fitness test for a job, hai, allow me to give you a bad case of flu or infection or some stupid shit that makes you feel like death.
---
As the messengers who rebelled against the farther of all fell from grace, so to does the mind of a man against the farther of time.
---
- POST REF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld
Open that to cross check what I'm talking about if you're not familiar with the subject.
---
In this context however I refer to the 'Fall' of The Discworld by Terry Pratchett as entropy and fate saw fit to inflict Alzheimers on one of the great literary minds and he has covertly handed off, I suspect, the Discworld Chronicles to Stephen Baxter, his co-author on The Long Earth series [unrelated to the Discworld, and something like a sci-fi alt-future series].
For those who read the series, and are more observant than the average human, you may be familiar with quite a dramatic change in the structure which started around Unseen Academicals, which was book 37 of the series, and continued, in the adult series, into Snuff, 39 and really hit hard in Raising Steam, book 40.
Loss of key identity of certain characters established over multiple volumes, lack of humor and subtly, and blatant retconning [the rewriting of established lore to suit the present] even beyond the marvelous 'Thief of Time Retcon Solution'*.
Snuff was something of a decline. Not the abject nonsense that is Raising Steam, but certainly not in the same grade as Thud!, the previous Watch novel. You have to note presentation and handling of the books content. Being a country copper is nothing like being a city policeman. The theme and structure worked, quality content, but its format was degrading from the flowing narrative of all previous Discworld novels to clunky set pieces which didn't intermix.
...I'm finding this hard to word, but imagine threads.
A good story is all about interwoven threads, seemingly interconnecting randomly, but there's always a central plot which is inexorably progressed by each thread as they touch the core. This is a proper narrative.
A bad story is a pulsing line of threads, the core being prodded by a thread, retracted and then prodded by the next, each prod a set piece, like an artists artifact, and an improper narrative.
Making Money and every other book previously was the central protagonist being touched by a succession of threads. Unseen Academicals was similar in it's smooth flow. Snuff had set pieces but it still managed to bridge them together.
...Then Raising Steam crash landed...
That book, good grief.
Beyond all this, and back to my original point, is that you have the aforementioned issue of set pieces. There is very little continuity between each of the events.
Half the time the author is going on about the personal worlds of people whose only real connection to the books events is that they sent a letter to the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork for some reason.
The book moves forward, but by jerks and starts, and with the bastardization of the Discworld's own lore it makes an avid fan like me twitch and cringe every disconnected and randomized scene.
This fucking mess I highly suspect, on the grounds that it reads almost precisely like The Long Earth series in structural format, was written mostly by Stephen Baxter who is now authoring the Discworld because Terry Pratchett's brain has succumbed to Alzheimers and the series is worth too much, both culturally and fiscally, to let it die with him.
I've got nothing to prove it but the cross comparison between this book and The Long Earth series, and most people probably can't see it, but I've got enough to prove it to myself, and generally speaking that's all that matters.
In my view this is where the series will fall to it's grave, if not commercially than at least in terms of quality.
It's a shame because some of the best Discworld titles were, in the adult series which is all I personally read, 29 Night Watch, 33 Going Postal, 34 Thud!, and 36 Making Money. I mean, I love pretty much all of them from 4 Mort onwards because it was by the forth title Terry found his feet and started to make the magic happen, but those last few before Unseen Academicals were where he really shone as far as I'm concerned.
All things end, and should end, but I hope Terry hasn't got enough of his mind left to realize Raising Steam happened. That someone took his life's work and just shredded it in wood chipper. You'd think someone would be reviewing it before publication if he can't handle it anymore.
---
On a personal note, as a genius who values his mental facilities above all else [take it all, I don't care, so long as I can still think] I pity Terry like no one else except those of my kind.
The worst thing for someone who values their mind is to see it degrade from inside out, knowing at their core that they're losing control. Better to lose all possessions, all limbs, all life, all at once, than the mind, bit by bit, over years.
Leave me my mental acuity and you can have the rest.
---
I got something similar to say on the subject of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, which was fantastic until he hit Changes, book 12, and then went off the rails and lost the plot, but that's for another day.
Adios.
---
PS: Because I have the attention span of a housefly and the creative imagination of several terminal novelists, I wrote this when I saw the image on the page on DeviantART:
- http://cvaj.blogspot.co.uk/p/the-demon-binder.html
If it wasn't for trying to be a policeman, I would gladly expand upon that and then some, but I need money to live and writing this stuff doesn't pay anything.
C'est la vie.
Again; healthy for years, now I have a fitness test for a job, hai, allow me to give you a bad case of flu or infection or some stupid shit that makes you feel like death.
---
As the messengers who rebelled against the farther of all fell from grace, so to does the mind of a man against the farther of time.
---
- POST REF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld
Open that to cross check what I'm talking about if you're not familiar with the subject.
---
In this context however I refer to the 'Fall' of The Discworld by Terry Pratchett as entropy and fate saw fit to inflict Alzheimers on one of the great literary minds and he has covertly handed off, I suspect, the Discworld Chronicles to Stephen Baxter, his co-author on The Long Earth series [unrelated to the Discworld, and something like a sci-fi alt-future series].
For those who read the series, and are more observant than the average human, you may be familiar with quite a dramatic change in the structure which started around Unseen Academicals, which was book 37 of the series, and continued, in the adult series, into Snuff, 39 and really hit hard in Raising Steam, book 40.
Loss of key identity of certain characters established over multiple volumes, lack of humor and subtly, and blatant retconning [the rewriting of established lore to suit the present] even beyond the marvelous 'Thief of Time Retcon Solution'*.
*Thief of Time's plot concerned history on the Discworld, and a glass clock which, once smashed, also smashed the chronological order of history.
For example, technically Brutha, one of the central protagonists of the 13th Discworld book, Small Gods, is alive during the same time period as philosophers who speak to Teppic, Pyramids, book 7, who is trained by Dr. Cruces who is justifiably killed by then Corporal Carrot, Men at Arms, book 15, who later commands an Omnian named Constable Visit-the-Infidels-with-Explanatory-Pamphlets, Feet of Clay, book 19, who states that Brutha was alive hundreds of years ago.
The temporal inconsistency is such that the relative chronology of the Discworld between individual characters over multiple books doesn't make a dam lick ah sense.
Forward Thief of Time which explains it all away as a shattering of the timeline which required a patchwork string and duck tape job to rebuild. Only an outside observer could know, e.g. readers, history monks, and Death and Susan who remark upon the inconsistency in Thief of Time itself, the whole truth of the matter.Unseen Academicals wasn't too bad, generally speaking. The usual Discworld structure and cultural exploration was there, so too was humor, character development, and the focus on a central protagonist.In the aftermath of Making Money it was an acceptable addition to the Discworld Chronicles in my opinion.
Snuff was something of a decline. Not the abject nonsense that is Raising Steam, but certainly not in the same grade as Thud!, the previous Watch novel. You have to note presentation and handling of the books content. Being a country copper is nothing like being a city policeman. The theme and structure worked, quality content, but its format was degrading from the flowing narrative of all previous Discworld novels to clunky set pieces which didn't intermix.
...I'm finding this hard to word, but imagine threads.
A good story is all about interwoven threads, seemingly interconnecting randomly, but there's always a central plot which is inexorably progressed by each thread as they touch the core. This is a proper narrative.
A bad story is a pulsing line of threads, the core being prodded by a thread, retracted and then prodded by the next, each prod a set piece, like an artists artifact, and an improper narrative.
Making Money and every other book previously was the central protagonist being touched by a succession of threads. Unseen Academicals was similar in it's smooth flow. Snuff had set pieces but it still managed to bridge them together.
...Then Raising Steam crash landed...
That book, good grief.
- It's called book 3 of the Moist Von Lipvig series, but he's only in 2/3rds of it.
- Established ideas from previous volumes are totally forgotten, including The Undertaking, which was started in Thud!, mentioned in Making Money, and then binned by Raising Steam.
- The writer skipped wholesale over Moist and Adora Belle's wedding, which was criminal.
- Several major characters either act out of character, such as Moist engaging in violence which is almost the polar opposite of his character established in his prior two volumes. Add to that Bashfulsson who a] is a modern Deep-Downer who is allied with Anhk-Morpork and b] isn't a violent guy. Thud! made a point that he was a thinking Grag, not a violent one for fucks sake.
- Or characters have their own histories retconned to such an extent that FUBAR would be appropriate in their description [notably Adora Belle's infancy being in anyway related to the Clacks when her farther invented the first commercial towers no more than 15 years prior to Raising Steam and she's around 30 years old for crying out loud].
- There is no way in hell Moist could've commanded the 1000 Golems gained by the city during the events of Making Money to do anything whatsoever. Firstly he would've had to get into the Pink Pussycat club, secondly he would've had to summon the Professor, thirdly he would've had to bargain with the guy who was notoriously misanthropic and obstreperous for command dialogue in Umian, and fourthly it wasn't even mentioned that he did any of that, but only that Moist strolled down into their tomb and said hop to it lads despite the fact that Havelock probably has a continual guard over the whole boiling of em seeing as his currency is based on the buggers.
- And Gilt and Cosmo were antagonists worthy of the description, whilst the almost irrelevant bloody figure of the neigh mad Grag Ardent wasn't anything like a good counter point.
Beyond all this, and back to my original point, is that you have the aforementioned issue of set pieces. There is very little continuity between each of the events.
Half the time the author is going on about the personal worlds of people whose only real connection to the books events is that they sent a letter to the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork for some reason.
The book moves forward, but by jerks and starts, and with the bastardization of the Discworld's own lore it makes an avid fan like me twitch and cringe every disconnected and randomized scene.
This fucking mess I highly suspect, on the grounds that it reads almost precisely like The Long Earth series in structural format, was written mostly by Stephen Baxter who is now authoring the Discworld because Terry Pratchett's brain has succumbed to Alzheimers and the series is worth too much, both culturally and fiscally, to let it die with him.
I've got nothing to prove it but the cross comparison between this book and The Long Earth series, and most people probably can't see it, but I've got enough to prove it to myself, and generally speaking that's all that matters.
In my view this is where the series will fall to it's grave, if not commercially than at least in terms of quality.
It's a shame because some of the best Discworld titles were, in the adult series which is all I personally read, 29 Night Watch, 33 Going Postal, 34 Thud!, and 36 Making Money. I mean, I love pretty much all of them from 4 Mort onwards because it was by the forth title Terry found his feet and started to make the magic happen, but those last few before Unseen Academicals were where he really shone as far as I'm concerned.
All things end, and should end, but I hope Terry hasn't got enough of his mind left to realize Raising Steam happened. That someone took his life's work and just shredded it in wood chipper. You'd think someone would be reviewing it before publication if he can't handle it anymore.
---
On a personal note, as a genius who values his mental facilities above all else [take it all, I don't care, so long as I can still think] I pity Terry like no one else except those of my kind.
The worst thing for someone who values their mind is to see it degrade from inside out, knowing at their core that they're losing control. Better to lose all possessions, all limbs, all life, all at once, than the mind, bit by bit, over years.
Leave me my mental acuity and you can have the rest.
---
I got something similar to say on the subject of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, which was fantastic until he hit Changes, book 12, and then went off the rails and lost the plot, but that's for another day.
Adios.
---
PS: Because I have the attention span of a housefly and the creative imagination of several terminal novelists, I wrote this when I saw the image on the page on DeviantART:
- http://cvaj.blogspot.co.uk/p/the-demon-binder.html
If it wasn't for trying to be a policeman, I would gladly expand upon that and then some, but I need money to live and writing this stuff doesn't pay anything.
C'est la vie.
