The RoboCop of Elephants

I don't know if you know this, but they're equipping elephants that were injured in the line of duty with advanced, 21st Century prostheses.

Okay, well that's partially true. The elephants were injured in the line of the duty of being an elephant, which is mostly just wandering around doing elephant shit. By which I mean the shit that elephants do in their day to day lives, as opposed to the shits that they do in their day to day lives. It is actually both, though. The shits are encompassed within the shit.

The power of English!

Anyway, it's pretty much all we should be asking of these guys. The shit and the shits. That and they don't do any of the aforementioned on the people furniture, but you want to be polite about that. Don't antagonise an elephant. That's some life advice.

Write it down.

So, in an attempt to stamp out crime they've now pushed these cyborg elephants into patrolling the streets, essentially making them the 'RoboCop of elephants'.

Here is an artist's rendition:

Okay, not an actual artist. It was me. I photoshopped that. It's the same picture from the top, but zoomed in and tilted a little. Did you notice? I'm not going to do two. Maybe I will, because I also potatoshopped this:

That's his partner. It's a potato. They're a team.

Okay, not all of what I am telling you is true, but you know what? You are not the boss of me. You're not my mum or dad. Well, one of you is my mum and dad. Two separate ones. Not the same one. Probably. I'm pretty sure my mum and dad still read these (Hi guys!).

But you know what else? They aren't even the boss of me either. I'm a fully grown arse adult. I mean, my arse might do some more growing. Summer is coming, and that is my favourite season to 'not ever go outside' as much as possible. I hate the sun, along with a lot of the other outside things.

I've totally lost my train of thought now.

Look, here is a video that will probably clarify those truthful bits of what I've been saying, and what is wild speculation.

It would be fair to say that my version was more spectacular. It's the Hollywood version. The Bollywood version would have a huge dance number.

Huge from the size of the elephants, not the number of elephants. We can only have four, because of the budget.

Inclusionary Tactics

I tend to geek out in an obsessive and gleeful sort of way. I've been known to wriggle, squeal, and make databases when expressing my love for something. I'm like Sooty with SQL.

These are observable behaviours.

Beyond the non-verbal vocalisations, and data entry, is another equally observable behaviour. I like sharing the things that I love with the people I love, like, know, meet, and/or of which I am in the immediate vicinity. Some might say 'aggressively so', and indeed some have said that. To my face. It's real! Let me share my things that I love with you.

All I need is your face, and the things that are on it! Your face bits!

I play a game and I want my friends to also love this game (I suppose sometimes I need hands too for these activities). I watch a show and I want my friends to eat fish fingers and custard with me while watching the show. I watch a movie and I see it with as many people as are interested in going even if it means that I have to see Guardians of the Galaxy a cool fourteen times on the big screen.

So cool.

So very, very cool.

When I love a superhero/video game/comic/movie/book/show/album/musical/teddy bear/documentary and I can take something away from our time together that I find joyous or meaningful, I want to be able to 'psychologically motivate' my friends to participate in this thing so that they might also experience that joy or meaning. That seems like an important thing to me. It makes sense in my brain.

In my brain it is a really deep sort of love and affection. Remember this when you have things pressed against your face.

What doesn't make sense in my brain is the idea that anyone should be made to feel excluded by the things that joy me up in my face. And butt. That's where my wriggling starts. Right down in the butt.

Why wouldn't I want everyone to have equal opportunity to feel represented, empowered, and inspired by the mediums that mean so much to so many of us? That seems dumb.

I'm not saying everyone should like everything, because that's unwieldy. It's the kind of idea that breaks things. It's clumsy. I'm saying that everyone should have the opportunity to love everything.

There should be some variety of fair representation within a medium and genre and the services that deliver them to our face receptors. And, I suppose, hand receptors.

Call it a campaign of selfishness, and you can, but just because someone wants something that someone else doesn't think they should have, it doesn't mean that they shouldn't get it.

This is topic du jour, and I'm not contributing anything groundbreaking here. All and all, this is mundane in its passivity, but these are my words on the thing.

I think we should all have a Nightwing. He changed my life. I'm not even kidding. He did that! From his pages! Nightwing is the real hero in the entire Batman franchise. For me. The rest of them are tragic figures. It's bananas gothic up in Gotham.

And Barbara Gordon. She is also my hero. She's fucking awesome.

From the honest places of my self, it frightens me to think of the lives of others without the refuges and representation that I had just because of who I already was when I was born. I feel like it helped me.  I really do.

There should be enough variety so that we can all have a Nightwing (or Barbara Gordon), and we should all feel welcome there. We should all feel welcome in all the Leagues and Squads and teams and Tardises (Tardii? Tardims? Tarda?) and servers. All the servers!

Because I want you all there!

A Spot of Building

There are grand plans for it when it's finished. Well, not grand, but grander. Right now it is mostly used as a landing strip for sandwiches that I toss up so that I can eat them in bed. Needless to say, there has been an increase in the number of sandwiches being consumed in bed.

Imagine that you're already at a point where, most days, you're at two out of three meals a day being of the sandwich format. Plus, maybe, some sort of smaller sandwich type snack. Most days.

This is your starting point. Well, it's ours.

Any new advancements made to broaden the sandwich based meal horizon is something of which advantage will be taken.

Though sandwiches were being consumed in the bed previously, there was a limit on this because there was nowhere for unconsumed sandwiches, partially consumed sandwiches, or the resulting crumbed sandwich bag or plate to reside.

This is changed. We have homes for all those things.

It would be fair, and honest, to say that this sandwich based functionality is not a temporary situation. The plan now is that this sort of sandwich convenience be ongoing. If push came to shove and hard decisions had to be made, I would live among the boxes, and keep the 2220mm high sandwich table.

All in all, Panda and I are happy with what's going on here. Sandwiches are more or less a guarantee of that.

Burgeoning Demographics

It was around the time I was standing in the shower on my fifth beer of the evening that it occurred to me that the secret of mobile app development is probably in the discovery of untapped demographics.

The question isn't so much 'what do people need?', but 'who is capable of using a smartphone that doesn't already have a dating app specifically tailored to their needs?'

The answer is pretty clear, and as it turned out I had already thrown together some concept art to reinforce a joke I had made early that evening, which in hindsight was probably the reason I was drinking beer in the shower wondering if an otter could even use a smartphone.

One better than the one we're doing now!

From a strictly numerical point of view, next year will be one better than the one we're doing now.

I'm all about this!

By all traditionally observed units and measures I failed at 2014. I don't often go in for traditional though, unless it's something that I like, but even then I'm not exclusively traditional, it's just in amongst everything else in the grab-bag that I have grabbed.

So I'll take my +1 thanks folks.

I'm not unhappy with 2014. It saw the beginning of some projects that I hope to continue/finish, a couple of which are things you can (and may have already) see(n), I discovered that you can cook cookies in a wok, and Scott Bakula is once again the lead of a Donald P. Bellisario TV production (where he belongs).

Panda is the star of his own comic now. That's new for him. He's having a good time with it. We both are.

The people who've known Panda the longest have been aware that this was an idea back in the early days of our partnership. They've heard me talk about it to varying degrees over the last few years, and also probably heard the umming and ahhing that went along with the ebb and flow of my enthusiasm for the project.

The drawing, which was the original deterrent, has ended up being far easier than I imagined. I'm not totally terrible at it. Stuff looks like stuff, which is the goal. The writing jokes in a neat three panel format, on the other hand, is something that I need to work at.

It's still a weird process for me. It's different. They're not really one-liners. They're interactions that sometimes contain one-liners, but they need to have these breaks in them. There is a pacing thing on which my grasp needs to be mightier. I often say them out loud, and I've realised that that's not working. It's a different system of delivery. Something that I've never really thought about before.

I'm enjoying the whole process, so there's a good chance I'll keep making them.

There is this other thing over on another part of the internet that I am doing with my old friend, maverick_boxer. That is not his real name. Clearly. He has another name, but that is the one he is using for this thing that we're doing. This thing called Failure to Launch, and it's a specific kind of thing that is pretty different from what I do here. It's one of those let's play shows that all the tubers are doing these days.

If that's the sort of thing that interests you, take a gander. If listening to me talk a whole lot of nonsensical shit while my friend tries to explain how a computer game works sounds like your cup of tea, you should definitely take a gander.

I might try and find a way to tuck it away somewhere here on The Glue, so that you can stay informed. Sort of a cross promotional thing. For now though, it's over on the InterTubes.

I hope you're still reading to enjoy the flavoursome juices that United by Glue will be bringing you in the coming year. I look forward to smuggling these things deep into your brain for the purposes of mirth. 

Oh, I just thought of something. 

Porpoises of Mirth and a Happy New Year!

Are you being hacked?

The word 'hack', and derivatives thereof, get thrown around a lot these days.

It's a popular word that is becoming increasingly meaningless.

People use it to cover a lot of different behaviors and activities. It seems to be most commonly used these days to refer to finding an account open. It's kind of like claiming that someone broke into your house when you left the front door open.

People also use it to describe scam accounts, 'parody' accounts, and other doppelgänger (I love that word) accounts on social media sites. This isn't really hacking either. It's more of an old school con with new toys, and is pretty easy to do even if you turn your security settings up. If this does happen to you, I recommend following this link. More often than not they're used for marketing scams, but are occasionally used for more malicious activities.

As a result of all of this, the term 'hacking' is wearing a little thin. I'm all for the evolution of language (and 'hack' has done its fair share), but at some point we should restrict the number of definitions we offer up for a single word within a single arena.

I'm more on board with the 'life hack' use of the word, as it is more in line with the usage that led to the definition that I'm complaining is currently in the process of being bastardised.

There is a great history of the term in one of the books I have floating around. I did spend some time looking for it before I started writing this, but I was unfortunately unable to find it. If I find it. I will share the title of the book with you.

Hacking Facebook is very difficult, and something that Mark Zuckerberg has been known to take very seriously, but 'hacking' Facebook is very easy, and is something that is more often than not wholly reliant on somebody leaving their account open.

Look, those are the two far extreme ends of the 'unwanted access' spectrum, and there are a variety of 'hackings' that can go on in between the two. Some of these aren't really hacking, and some kind of are. For the most part we, as individual users, are only really capable of protecting ourselves from the one end of the 'hacking' spectrum, and the rest is up to the people that provide the service.

In the Facebook case, their end of the spectrum is relatively tight. They appear to be pretty good at it. I'm not privy to what's actually going on over there, which is fair, but they look like they know what they're doing.

Your end is probably another scene entirely. Maybe not yours specifically, but yours generally.

There are a few things that you should be doing, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. This is just a good place to start.

Always log out properly

Whenever you use a computer that other people might be able to access, log out of Facebook (or other service) properly. Once you have logged out, delete the history, and close the browser. Then reopen the browser, and go back to Facebook (or the other service) to make sure the password hasn't been 'remembered'.

This isn't fool proof. Actually, far from it. It is better than not doing it though.

Don't use public computers

Don't log-in to anything on a public computer. Don't check your e-mail. Don't check your Facebook. Don't check on your World of Warcraft anything. Absolutely never do online banking on a public computer. Even if you are in the habit of logging out properly, there isn't much of a guarantee that there aren't key loggers on the machine, or something else with a similar purpose.

If it is an absolute emergency, and you really need to check one of these things (not your bank account) you should change your password on a trusted computer as soon as possible afterwards.

You shouldn't be doing it in the first place though.

Don't reuse passwords across services

This is a really big problem. I'm not gong to explain it. I'm going to let xkcd explain it for you

http://xkcd.com/792/

Funny comic. Serious problem.

Even if a site isn't out to get you, you have no idea how good/bad their security is. It's that weak link in a chain metaphor that people are prone to harp on about. This same metaphor is good for talking about the one person on your network/system who has atrocious password practices. 

Don't write down your password

I wouldn't have even mentioned this one, except that it came up recently when I found out that it is being taught at my brother's expensive high school as a way of remembering passwords. No!! Bad expensive high school. Very bad! 

This is ridiculous. Don't ever do this.

This is an absurd habit to get into, and is an incredibly irresponsible thing to encourage others to do.

I could tell you stories. Crazy stories. Instead, I am going to tell you about a very dumb thing that I did.

Some years ago when I started a new job, and I was inundated with nine logins with random string passwords in two days, I wrote down three that were behind other logins. That is just an excuse, and it was still a super stupid thing to do.

Well before the end of that week I had changed the passwords to something else, and left the note in my top drawer as a reminder that I am very often prone to doing incredibly stupid things, where it was found at a later date by the data manager in our office. How embarrassment!

Remembering a multitude of passwords is a good skill to cultivate, and is something that will become even more relevant in the future.

It is better to be inconvenienced by forgetting a password than to make it accessible to others. Especially in a professional scenario where there is an IT department who can reset it for you. They do have better things to do than reset your password, but I promise you that they'll be far more annoyed if they ever have a serious breech.

There is this whole problem with this too, in that I would frequently argue that the security checks used to reset a password are far too often incredibly insecure. That is a story for another time though.

There is this whole misconception about password strength anyway, which is covered pretty clearly by this xkcd comic on password strength.

http://xkcd.com/936/

I guess the real takeaway from all of this is that you should be reading xkcd. It/he is the business. You will be totally emsmartulised. Also, it is funny.

Cleverness is the wombat's cummerbund. It increases one's nattiness.

Strange Days

If there was a competition for comic covers that bluntly depict the threat of reality invading the fantasies we've decided to live in, I'm pretty sure this would win.

The more you know about Adam Strange, and his story, the more this makes sense.

Depending very much on how you want to read it, Adam Strange could well be about a man fantasising that he is Adam Strange, which is not an altogether unappealing pass-time.

Fantasising about being Adam Strange is not a stretch for me. It's a fairly straight forward sort of activity that falls under the category of 'I import my heroes from space, and being one would be nice'.

Sometimes when I forget that people can see me I hold my arms out at an angle, and imagine that they help me steer my jet-pack adventures across alien landscapes. Sometimes I'm other things. Robots and dinosaurs are fun too.

Adam is not from the current space. He's from the old one, cut from the same space-cloth as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. You know the one. The one with the ray-guns and spandex.

Remember when space was like that?

On good days Panda and I try to find some balance between being space heroes and being mildly productive by some generally accepted Earth understanding of the word.

Strictly speaking we are not always successful. One might argue that Rann is defended with greater frequency and regularity than what should probably be the status quo is defended.

We pretty much have our own status quo. I've come to understand that it isn't unique to us.

'There are many like it, but this one is mine.'

It has less laundry than it should, but we're getting better at that.

Would you like some chocolate?

Whenever you are presented with chocolate, you have to ask yourself a question: is it chocolate, or is it carob? There is only one way to find out, and it leaves you open to disappointment.

Once you've had carob you will worry about it every time you reach for chocolate. Maybe for the rest of your life. A single carob experience can be scarring. There is chocolate out there, but you just got carob, and carob is finding out that Santa Claus isn't real for your month.

It is important to remember that just because you've ended up with a lot of carob in the past, it doesn't mean that you will always get carob.

Sometimes you might have so much carob that you forget what chocolate tastes like. Maybe you've only ever had carob, and you don't know the difference.

If you always seem to end up with carob while the other people around you are getting chocolate, maybe you need to think about where you're looking, and who you're trusting.

If you've developed a taste for carob, maybe you need professional help. Never settle for carob. You deserve to be treated better than that.

From Bricks of Plastic

A couple of years ago my wonderful housemates bought me a Lego set that can be three things. Well, there are many more things that it can be. It's Lego. That is the point of Lego. The possibilities aren't infinite, because there is a finite number of bricks, and only a finite number of different combinations in which the bricks can be arranged, but it is definitely a lot more versatile than most of the toys.

Lego make these 3 in 1 Creator sets, of which there are a few. One set of pieces, three sets of instructions. They are pretty sweet. My friends got me one that can be a seaside cafe or something, a boathouse, or a lighthouse with a little dock. There is a coastal theme on the scene. Theme on the scene. That's fun to say.

I left it boxed for a while, because I didn't really have the space to do it, and other made up reasons, but one night my anxiety remembered my full name, and used it as it whispered gently its opinions in the wee hours of the morning. I'm sure it grinned as it watched them stack up behind my eyes making it difficult for me to see out past them. It's always grinning. So pleased with itself. 'Silly Jacob, you're so gullible', it thinks to itself. Anxiety is so smug.

In a moment of lucidity I realised that this is what I had trained for for all these years. What is the point of building this underground base, and spending all this money on suits, and gadgets, and custom vehicles with a specific motif if now in this hour, I am to stand idle? I am the night! And at that I swooshed a great many things off my desk and onto the floor with reckless abandon, making sure to remove breakables and other valuables prior to the swooshing. Swoosh! Swoosh went my arms brushing side the pens and paper! Swoosh went a hat as it fell lifeless to the floor! Swoosh went a textbook that I hadn't noticed under some papers, so I quickly picked it up and placed it neatly in its spot amongst the others. Swoosh went some other things!

Now freed from the shackles of untidiness, which I had cast unto the floor, I placed the Lego set upon the desk, then with my own bare hands I rent each baggie asunder, mixing the pieces together, because I am a seeker of thrills. I'm not really a thrill seeker. I seek no thrills. If I were a thrill seeker, I would sprinkle the pieces on the floor and turn off the lights. I am more of a piece seeker, because I know that in the seeking of pieces one may find clarity.

I built all three sets before dawn, leaving the lighthouse for last. Did I know what I was making? Not consciously. I mean, look, I knew what I was making because I had the instructions, and it wasn't like the pictures isn't on the box. I knew it was a lighthouse, but there is more to it. You people are so literal.

I knew I was building a lighthouse, but did I know what it was that I was building symbolically in the building of that lighthouse? Not consciously. Is it more likely that in those desperate moments when you are emerging from a distraction back into the crippling fear of anxiety you are likely to grasp at hands in the darkness for guidance because you know soon that you will have to find your way impaired? Yes. That is probably it. Anxiety is scary. And I am prone to finding resolve and hope in symbolism and inanimate objects when I'm frightened. Regardless of the logic, the lighthouse sat there on my desk, and as I depressed the button and turned the crank, and watched the orange light moved throughout my room I thought, 'I really need a lighthouse, and now I have one.'

These days it sits on my shelf, positioned so that I can see it from nearly anywhere in my apartment. It reminds me that all of the scariest things in my life are things that my mind has built for me. Custom made to keep me awake, and keep me afraid. The lighthouse makes it easier to see what I am doing. It makes it easier to see the real landscape. It has its limits, because it's going up against a warping of the way I perceive the world around me, but it reminds me to look harder. I still get anxious, and I still get depressed, and I still get paranoid, and all the other fun stuff, but I remember that it isn't going to last forever.

Hello, Lighthouse!

Pat your machine!

I have a coffee machine that sits there and makes coffee. That is its job. I don't pay it. I pat it. But coffee machines, like dogs, cannot live on pats alone. You also need to plug them in. The coffee machine, not the dogs. Do not plug your dog in. Unless it is a metaphorical plugging in, and you're actually taking them to socialise. Plugging them into the puppy social scene, so to speak. You can do that. It is good for them. Electricity is not. If you didn't already know this, you should find a new owner for your dog. Love is no substitute for basic household safety. No! No, it isn't.

The coffee machine used to be Steve and Selena's, but they put it in a cupboard for some reason, and then later offered it to me, which I subsequently accepted, which turned out really well for me, because I like coffee, so I drink a lot of it, and it really cuts down the amount of walking and paying that I do, and it is a little machine, and I like little machines, so it has a lot of positive aspects, which I feel we all need in our lives, because they're positive, and positive is better than negative, which goes without saying, but I said it anyway, because sometimes we need to be reminded of these things, and we have word counts we have committed to, but I digress.

If I were a Transformer, this would be my grumpy face.

Probably the best thing about the coffee machine is that it is just over there. Do you see where I'm pointing? There! See on the Ikea kitchen bench thing on wheels? Near the microwave. It is super close. It is two regular step and one big step away from where I am right now. The big step is to get over the pile of washing, which is on the floor. If you are wondering whether it is the same pile of washing, it probably is. It's like a hotel for clothes made of clothes. It is a sort of meta hotel. It only exists because it has guests. Without guests it is just an empty space. Some items come and go, only there for short stays, but there are shirts in there that remember when we served horse meat during the war.

I particularly enjoy making my own coffees, because it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I made something today. Well, I made seven somethings. They were all flat whites. Plus it has a knob, and a switch, and this thing that needs filling with water, and then the coffee handle bit locks into place and it is basically a big lever, so it is pretty much as close as I am going to come to being an astronaut. Man, I need a space helmet.

Ground control to Major Tom,
Take your coffee beans, and put your helmet on!

I guess what I'm saying is that I like coffee, and pretending to be an astronaut, and David Bowie.

Shuki and Louisa are ruining the dip curve

I don't often write about food, because of so many reasons. Mostly though I just don't have the required vocabulary. I will brazenly endeavour from time to time because of my affection for snacking, but whenever I do, I inevitably end up using words and phrases I would use in other arenas. So, when I say something like 'Shuki and Louisa's muhummara is a broad-spectrum solution to your flavour needs', what I am trying to say is it is good on everything. Well, not 'everything' everything, but enough of everything that it might be considered some sort of a flavour panacea.

Humus in a stylish harissa hat

It was introduced into my life, and my face, as a 'dip', which is a role that it plays well, but you will find that it excels when applied as a condiment. If you really want to get down to it, dips are a sort of condiment in a scenario in which the condiment is the primary purpose for culinary engagement. Shuki and Louisa's muhummara made everything that I put it on better. You need to put it on some sandwiches.

Muhummara was new to my life, but harissa, babaganoush, and humus are all things I have been partied too before, and these Shuki and Louisa guys do them really well. I have a humus story. I'm not going to tell it, but I'm completely cured. That is how good this humus is. If this were the humus standard from which a humus unit were derived, then the measurement of humus would resemble measurements of probability, because nothing would exceed one. That is what we're talking about here. This is the level of humus that we can expose ourselves to if we were to proceed with this proposed plan.

Their babganoush is, and don't bother disputing this, the best baba I have ever had. It handicapped my ability for conversational progression. I was stuck, and I got annoying. I actually annoyed someone with my smoked eggplant triggered repetition. Wood-fire smoked eggplant. If I were German-American, I would call it 'The Übergine Dip', but I'm not, so that won't happen.

The wood-fire smoked Übergine dip

It's wood-fire smoked and then lovingly annihilated by hand, and it tastes fresh. They smoke the eggplants, and they just taste really fresh. The consistency is another experience entirely from what you might be familiar with. It's not smooth. That's good. It is. If you have been consuming smooth babganoush all your life, you might just feel a little bit robbed that this is only happening to you now. It is exceptional in its deliciosity. This will be the frontline of the dip revolution.

The Moroccan carrot and beetroot and dukkah dips are also exquisite, and the green tahini and harissa are about as versatile as the muhummara, and I highly recommend you find a way to add them both to more meals. Personally, I think a good starting place would be using either with some fish, or eggs on toast, or sandwiches. I had an incredible time with the harissa and muhummara on a roast beef and vege sandwich. You could have that too.

They are also all vegan. If that sort of thing is something that you are likely to want to know, there it is.

If you are in Melbourne it is much easier to get this than if you live anywhere else. Here is a list of where they are going to be in the Melbourne market scene, and where you can find them in stores. Sydney-siders can go to the Gladesville Organic Markets on a Saturday, and/or the Marrickville Markets on a Sunday. Everyone else just has to keep eating whatever it is that you have going wherever you are. Sorry.

The Days Ahead

To some degree, I find myself thinking about the work of William Gibson more frequently due to the work that I do and the way that I live. Not that I am a writer like he is, though I do and have written web copy, which is a kind of corporate, wired up sort of writing that lives in the worlds hewn with his own, but the vast majority of my professional life has been as a freelance ICT professional. Not that I ever call it that. That doesn't happen. There are other words that are often more specific. The technology bases covered are diverse and far reaching. I often think of the work that I have done, and the work that I do, and there is a relationship to the organisms that populate cyberpunk. I'm one of those. That's what I think.

I've had the speak wheeled at me in a variety of fashions, I've lied to printers to make them distribute ink in the manner for which they were originally designed, trawled through archaic data on dying systems at the behest of its owners, and coded towards functional artificial intelligence. That's not all of it, but it is some of it. I may not be the neuromancer, but I'm playing in the same parks. This is the world I live in. I'm pretty sure I've eaten synth-spaghetti, and probably slept on it. In reality it is the world we all live in, though your eating habits are your own.

The synth-spaghetti stained days of keyboard-for-hire are a part of something else. The journeyman years. They have a function. They built who I am, and the way that I learn.

These are important days.

The Prophets of Cyberspace: A Rough Guide to Cyberpunk v1.0.3

originally posted on 2010-04-26-0223
at Ray-guns and Spandex
migrated to Sci-Fi Snot Rash

In the late seventies a new flavour of science fiction began to take shape. It's earliest visible family characteristics had first appeared in both 'new age' sci-fi and the authors of the beat generation. In the intervening time it had slowely formed a new definition for itself through the works of J.G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick, until reaching a point in the early eighties when the cultural obsession with excess and mass media provided the perfect literary genesis pool for the emerging counter culture prophets of cyberpunk.

Abandoning galaxy spanning empires and laser toting aliens in favour of more familiar settings. Abandoned territories and near future cities became neon wombs breeding cybernetic street gangs, corporate warriors, and digital pop-stars. Cyberpunk takes us into worlds not that far beyond the horizon. Deeply entrenched in the mundane with elements just alien enough that they might be happening in another city, in another country somewhere, instead of on the other side of tomorrow. In the three decades since its first oredictions we can clearly see that the anticipation of the popularity of reality television and the total pervasion of the internet happened somewhere between Bruce Sterling's The Artificial Kid and William Gibson's Cyber Space Trilogy.

With much of the origianlly fictitious elements of cyberpunk having become parts of our everyday lives it comes as no surprise that many other brands of modern science fiction carry these same elements that were at one stage the calling cards of cyberpunk without fully submersing themselves into the stream. The Matrix is more thematically in sync with post-apocalyptic or machine war SF than it is with cyberpunk. Link all mimics of any punk movement, they wear the colours, but run in different circles.

It was never just a collection of hacker stories set in glass walled mega-cities and the suburban wastelands that surrounded them. It's a voice and an ethos defined by the very culture that birthed, where the corporate world has adopted the methods and tactics of the street, wrapped in a setting that is thrown at us. Chapters barely clock in at a page, and read more like scenes from a film. And the pacing of the books are measured in frames per second, with the charging mbps of the prose consisting predominantly of artificial street speak, and stream of consciousness.

If you are interested in running deep in the pure flavour, books like Snow Crash and Blood Music deliver in spades, but if you are a sci-fi film junkie, Cypher, New Rose Hotel, and Natural City are uncut, and measured from the source.

For me and my money, nothing sits closer to the heart of cyberpunk than the literary link hopping of Mirrorshades, Burning Chrome and the erroneously named Rewired: The Post Cyberpunk Collection. Short story compilations straight from the aforementioned neon womb in portions that have been coded and optimised for the short attention span generation that shared its childhood.

Legacy of Nastiness

In my most recent post I commented negatively on the quality of the writing on Legacy of Kain community sites. These comments were unfair, disrespectful, mean, and a poor attempt at being insightful and humourous. They were neither funny nor clever. It is unfortunate how entrenched the negativity towards community resources is within certain circles, and it is an ingrained sort of meanness that made me feel that it was appropriate to take pot-shots at the work being done by others while I lazily write whatever I feel like publishing.

Community sites are maintained by contributors who create and collect content as an expression of their passion and interest in something, and it is only an inflated self importance that allows me to deride the work that they do.

I have historically avoided participating in community sites out of a false and obnoxious sense of superiority. How long I have held onto these feelings without truly acknowledging the extent of how baseless they actually are I could not tell you, but it is too long.

I will not excuse my behaviour, nor will I remove the offending comment. I have drawn attention to it in the original post, so that it will serve as a reminder to my thoughtless nastiness, and encourage me to make more serious efforts towards modifying this behaviour.

I rely heavily on community sites for much of the information on my blog, as well as for much of my own amusement.

I am sorry.

Legacy of Kain Wiki
Nosgothic Realm

McCloud Nine

Once upon a time I made the decision not to go on a second date with someone part way through the first date. Actually, that isn't a one off. But the one particular time that I am referring to as the 'once upon a time' with which I started this paragraph was right after they had finished saying, 'Is he that Grand Designs guy? I think he is overrated and kind of idiotic.' In response I merely continued my meal. People like that can't be taught. It's hard to come back from that. I'm not that kind of wizard. I can't help these people. They're on their own.

I watch Kevin McCloud MBE and Kevin McCloud MBE related material. That is a part of who I am. I'm not likely to stop any time soon either. That is an intrinsic part of my makeup. I have the Grand Designs viewer gene. It's in there somewhere.

Have you ever seen the first episode in which you can absolutely tell that he got a haircut between the initial meeting with the couple and the next time he turned up? I have. Lots of times. I have a box set. It's one of the kit house ones. It is the first of the kit house ones. A great many followed. He likes kit houses. I do too. It's like Meccano that you get to live in, or like an Ikea cabinet that you get to live in. Either way it is a dream of mine.

I have often wondered if you could just order one of those little apartments that they build in the store. Just tick some boxes, choose a finish and then get the whole thing delivered. In a situation like that you would feel as though you had to frame the Allen keys afterwards. I would.

I like the idea of living in a prepackaged environment. I don't think I have enough individuality to really be concerned with how many other people had the same arrangement. I guess that is why I go to Ikea anyway. That and the hotdogs. Sometimes I go for the ride with other people just so I can stroll through the store and get hotdogs. As we have discussed before, I consider hotdogs to be a type of sandwich, and this brings them under a wider umbrella sandwich obsession.

I sometimes wonder if Kevin McCloud, with his background in interior design, likes Ikea, and/or their hotdogs. Or if he considers it an assault on his sensibilities. I wonder if he would do a walkthrough show with me. We could talk about the things that Ikea has available and we could eat hotdogs afterwards. Panda could come with us. A sort of journey to the place of his adoption. It wouldn't be weird. Not terribly. Maybe some level of weird. Panda is a pretty big fan. He might just stare at him and not say anything. That could be awkward.

I guess in this scenario in which Panda is staring at Kevin McCloud as we wander through Ikea I could be his sidekick. In a way. Kevin's. Not Panda's. I mean, I could be Panda's too, but for different things. Definitely Panda's when it's hotdog time. And lingonberry drink time. Flatpack gingerbread houses would be a tough call. I mean, it is basically a cookie house,which is Panda town, but it is also a kit house, which is Kevin territory.

Have you tried that lingonberry drink? I really like it, but that came with practise. Not that I rehearsed drinking it at home, because that would be just drinking. You don't drink it differently. It's like a lot of other drinks in that way. I suppose you could Swedish drink ceremony, but that is not what I am doing. I'm just drinking it. With my face. Specifically the mouth bit of my face. I know how to do that. I stuck at it for a while and it grew on me is what I am saying. It's really good with the orange flavoured one. They compliment each other. Like any two flavours of Slurpee.

Awesomeness in disguise

I latched on to The Transformers in a pretty serious way as a child, and then as a teenager. Then as an adult. I'm latched. I'm probably always going to be latched. Particularly with the film. The first one that they made back in 1986. There is a lot to be taken from The Transformers and The Transformes: The Movie. I mean, there is all that stuff about the fuel driven conflict, opposing ideologies and civil war, if you're fighting something bigger than yourself, you've got to get inside and use your truth crystal, the big world politics stuff, but there is this whole other thing.

There is also the effectiveness of Saturday morning cartoons for advertising action figures, which is a whole thing. It is super effective. I'm not talking about that either.

Honestly, this is going to be one of those 'stop me if you think that you've heard this one before' kind of things, because you probably have, but you can't because I'm going to have finished by the time you even get a chance to know that I've written it, and I want it somewhere on my blog, so it's going to happen anyway.

The Transformers is about pretending. Clearly that is exactly what it is about. It is about pretending in order to avoid scrutiny and ridicule. That is pretty much the stated reason. It is about fitting in. That's why they turn into cars. I feel like I spent a lot of time as a car. I feel like that was important part of who I was for a long time. Not to suggest that I get to be an autobot. I'm not really that good. I'm okay. I don't think I'm a really bad person or anything, but I could be better.

It was important for a long time to spend as much time as a car as I could, and then I had other forms too. I became a Triple Changer, because I turned into a helicopter or something as well as the car. Like Blitzwing, Astrotrain and Springer. I prefer Springer, who was kind of like a wise-arse samurai, which is pretty awesome. I think sometimes you forget which bit is the real you. You're switching between the car and the helicopter, and you kind of forget that you're also a robot underneath it all. An awesome robot.

At the end of the day though you're at your best when you're yourself. That's what happens. That's the hard part though, because the reason that you aren't yourself is to make things easier. Not just because turning into a car and going somewhere might be easier than walking. I couldn't tell you. I've never been a car. I mean, I have been the metaphorical car I was talking about earlier, but not an actual car.

It's one of those things that we say shouldn't be a problem, and we tell people that they should just be the robot, but it is a problem, and is scary. Super scary. I think that the best that we can all do is try and let people know that a lot of different kinds of things are okay, so that they don't feel the need to be the car all the time. Or the helicopter.

If all the pretending is making you feel like you're disappearing into a larger whole (as though you're being eaten by some kind of giant machine planet with tusks), and you're frightened of being the robot and you're looking for a little help, I would like to leave you with this. It has helped me a great del over the years. It metaphorically held my giant metaphorical robot hand on a number of very literal occasions.

¡Atrévete! Atrévete a creeer que puedes continuar. Tú tienes el futuro en tus manos.

Please for treats?

We are treat enthusiasts. Panda and I, and in fact a great many of the people that we know. That face that he is making there. That is his 'Please for treats?' face. You can seen the expectation, and the uncertainty. He is a little bit sad, because he does not yet have the treats that he coverts, but the possibility for excitement is there. Who could say 'no' to this face? Not me. I can't. I've tried. It doesn't work. Things happen anyway. He is a very passionate bear. Especially so when treats are concerned. Also, I am weak.

Did I mention that we are treat enthusiasts? We consider this is a sub-category of our snack enthusiasm, which leads us to eat sliced bread in bed. In this role we call it bed bread (trade mark pending). (That's not true. There is no trade mark pending.) (We'd actually be quite happy if other people started using the term. Couples everywhere could bed bread together.)

Quite often our requests for treats are made to the ether, but occasionally this works. We had recently been discussing our need for treats when a friend asked us if we wanted biltong. Do you know what that is? It is like South African super jerky. It is South African super jerky. We're pretty big on a variety of jerkies, and have in the past been ostracised for our particular fondness for a number of seafood jerkies. If we had to pick a favourite though, it is probably going to be the meats. We like dried meats. They are like meat cookies. Kind of. Not when they're this big though. Actually, our pervious cookie experience would say that cookies can actually be much larger than this.

This was gifted at us by people who love us. It was home made. Not by the people who gifted it, but we're still incredibly grateful and more than a little enamoured. It is a lot of dried meat. Here is a comparative photo with Panda. It's a lot of biltong.

See how professional he looks. He has done this sort of thing before. I know he is focussing on the biltong, but he's only human. No he isn't. That isn't what he is. Anyway, the cherry-tomato is there as a backup. It is actually larger than most of the cherry tomatoes that I have known, but we only had the two punnetts. I was working with what I had. Abnormally sized fruit and easily distracted pandas. It's amateur hour.

We've eaten most of it now, because we are grateful for the treats that we have been given. Also it is dried meat, and it is delicious. No treat goes unappreciated. That is a rule we live by. You know. Just in case you were wondering whether we would appreciate future gifts of treats you were considering. We would. We also share the same neck size.

Just saying.

Not even space trains

I rode some trains. I like trains. I like to ride trains. Panda too. He likes it because he thinks it makes him faster than the other pandas, which is important. He is fairly certain that they don't understand the ticketing system and are thus incapable of riding trains. Panda also struggles to make sense of the ticketing system, but he has me to handle that side of things, so he doesn't really need to worry. We haven't seen any other pandas with man-pets who help them ride trains. Not on our lines.

We like riding trains and listening to music. That can be an outing for us. An outing that we quite enjoy. We like the longer rides. Not intercity. We do like those, but not necessarily. We like the limits of the Sydney Trains network, and I suppose they are intercity. New Castle, Sydney, and Wollongong are not yet the one city. A sort of New Syllygong. Not 'sort of'. That is what it will be. Not yet, but that'll come.

It's kind of a science fiction fantasy. The trains. Which isn't something we have picked up from the watching of train related science fiction, which is a real thing that exists if you want it. You know. If you you want it, it is out there. I can point you in the right direction. I can't go with you though. You'll understand when you see it. In the end though it has more to do with the music that I'm listening to when this occurs. There is a lean that it has, and you ride your train and the music sidles up next to your sense of wonder and points out the window and makes rocket-ship engine noises. That isn't always a metaphor either. Sometimes it is actually making rocket-ship noises, and I like that.

We have been relying heavily on This Binary Universe, Random Access Memories and Cycle of Spheres to score our mass transit futures. It's not that they are strictly speaking one hundred percent science fiction, but there is definitely a lean. They are not standing up straight thematically at all. They are leaning. Maybe they like it. I like leaning. I do also like leaning on trains, but for the long trips I prefer to be seated. I guess I still lean against the side of the train. It is sit leaning though. Slouching maybe. I'm not a posturesaurus of any sort so I tend to end up sort of strewn across things.

I am not entirely sure as to the mechanisms in play, but they are there. Playing. What's important though is that it makes me feel a little better, and I got to do that. Feel a little better.

He who controls the spice

Dune is an unbelievably good book. There are factions, and an empire that is mostly made up of jerks, and space wizards, the imperial guard wear red, and there are giant worm things living in the sand on desert planets. It's also about a teenage boy who after being hidden from the empire discovers that he is one of the aforementioned space wizards and proceeds to take back his legacy. It's basically Star Wars.

Spice is central to the plot of Dune and to my cooking. That's where I was going with this. It isn't about Star Wars. A comparison between these two science fiction epics is a tale for another day. They both even had prequels that were added years later. They both had genre defining classic PC games. But, I'm not here to talk about that. Not today, Galvatron! I'm here to talk about cooking with spices.

The key to Indian food is the spice, and the preparation, and probably some other things. I could discuss the preparation and go into those other things here, but that is not what I am doing. I want to talk about the spice, because I had that whole thing about Dune at the beginning, and I thought the title was a clever reference to Dune and the guy that sells me my spices. Look, I've pretty much ruined it now, but that's your fault. If you guys would just shut up for a second and let me finish, I could be doing this with something resembling the sort of grace and prowess you might be used to on other more gazellesque blogs.

This is my guy. His house has taken Arakis, and it looks like this, and it is here. He is not Indian, but that doesn't change what is in the packets. The packets are the same. They are from India, and are full of Indian spices, unless they are importing them before they package them, but that seems like a silly thing to be doing. I wouldn't do that. Nor should you, were you in such a situation. Just package the spices that they have there.

I visited recently and his range has expanded. He carries a variety of things now. He always did, but it is a wider variety of things. Paneer! That's a kind of cheese. I'm not meant to have dairy. I do though. It also has a great many other ingredients that you would use in an Indian feast. It's getting busy up in there. I'm so street. I'm not really. I'm not country either. I'm pretty soft. Very soft. I'm all soft toys and the great indoors. TV. Fridges. One TV, but multiple fridges. One would just be for sandwiches. And Indian leftovers. And the cheese I'm not meant to be eating.

The thing that is probably most appealing about this place as your Arakian supply depot is the price. It is not costly. Not costly at all. Cost effective blue-in-blue.

Also, I am pretty sure that the store has an 's' on its sign in the appropriate place. I think that is a Google Streetview related typo. That's where the picture is from. I stole it. I'm also pretty sure that the sign says 'indian grocery', and not 'indi grocery'. You can check for me when you go.

Am I helping him or am I helping you? Both. Everyone gets helped here. Everyone within a certain radius of his convenience store, which is opposite Victoria Park. 257 Broadway. There are other Indian grocers and carriers of Indian spices around, and I am aware of some really good ones in Canberra and Sydney's Northern Beaches, but this is where I go. This is my guy. He controls my spice.

Ezy Convenience Store
257 Broadway, Glebe
9518 4690

The Sandwich on the Orient Express, and other Mysteries

Based on Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.

Very loosely.

Loose is probably the most important word thus far.

I found a sandwich in my fridge last night. This isn't like the hotdog situation. I actually remembered buying it once I saw it. It was pretty special though, and I think I realised that right down in the very core of who I am, I am happiest when I am finding sandwiches.

Even though I had been recently responsible for the arrival of the sandwich into my life and the fridge, it felt like magic. It brightened my entire outlook on life. The key in this particular sandwich discovery was forgetting that it was there. I'm not sure how to guarantee this in the future, but I feel like finding sandwiches is something I could do for the rest of my life.

It was at about this stage that Panda decided that this was also his calling, and also something that he should go about as Hercule Panda, the great detective. I lost a little track of how we got to the bit where he spoke with a very bad accent and solved crimes around my granny flat for the better part of three hours, but it was amusing. I also lost track of how I managed to be both the client and culprit in a number of missing foodstuff related crimes dating back months. I also apparently started the Franco-Prussian War, and am personally, and criminally, responsible for the cancellation of Quantum Leap.

I say that I was the client, because I apparently am heavily in debt for the cost of the services of the 'world renowned' Hercule Panda. A debt that I am apparently required to pay in a variety of snack based currencies. There might be some sort of exchange rate investigation in the near future.

Now, if the adventures started as a loose adaptation of the works of Agatha Christie, they were somewhere beyond 'loosely inspired by' towards the end. Despite having seen nearly every David Suchet Poirot mystery, Panda became insistent that Poirot's, and thus his own, crime solving catch phrase was a variant of 'I solved the crime with my face', and then later 'faces', as a result of the 'language barrier'.

I tried to correct him on that, but I was informed that he was in fact 'a triple panda', which he explained as a result of taking the 'pandarocity' of two other pandas, which he in turn explained by  saying, 'Like that movie Highlander. Did you see that? I'm one of those. All pandas are'.

'You're cutting the heads off pandas?'

'They're all doing it.'

'You do know they're endangered?'

'There can be only one.'

The Magic of Sub-Zero Decision Making

After engaging in some of what the Australian broadcast of the Winter Olympics has had to offer two things have occurred to me: the first being that the countries that are good at ice hockey are also known for their bears. Proper bears. Not like Koalas, but the kinds of bears that are known for their dancing and their surly demeanour; and the second being that people seem to make strange decisions in the cold. Decisions that seem entirely set apart from any sort of useful understanding of physics, and the durability of the human body. As though parts of their brain just switches off once it drops below a certain temperature. Particularly the part associated with self preservation.

It just seems like there have been a great many decisions made that have lead to the whole existence of the Winter Olympics that involve velocities, acceleration and hard surfaces. There are also a lot of knives on people's feet and inordinate amounts of time spent away from the ground. And chutes! Have you had a look at those chutes games they play? Especially that skeleton thing? They didn't always do that face first. At some stage some guy thought to himself, 'I'm going to start with my face.'

There aren't many things you are meant to do face first. We generally reserve the term 'face-first' for when someone is doing something in a fashion other than what might be considered the general wisdom at the time. Or if we would like to ad an entirely additional level of doing something incorrectly. Except kissing. That is the exception. If you're doing it right, you're face should be employed at least somewhere near the beginning of the process. Perhaps it was inspired by kissing. Regardless of the thought process a decision followed. Then after that decision was the decision to keep at it. There isn't any face-first hurtling in the Summer Olympics of which I am aware. There could be. I don't pay a lot of attention.

The reason I bring all of this up is that I am concerned about the sort of life decisions these people might be making. The kinds of things that might fall into the 'Vodka Life Decisions' category. There is another one of those chute sports in which one guy lies on top of the guy that actually brought a sled with him. That seems like the kind of thing you think might be a good idea if you've been drinking vodka. Perhaps it is an example of the evolution of chute sports during an economic downturn. I'd believe that. I'm pretty gullible for that sort of thing. Perhaps there is a carpool chute. They don't use these chutes for commuting yet do they? Or anymore? I mean, it seems efficient. Two guys on a sled. It's low emission. Pedestrian casualties would be pretty low too. Just don't get in the chute if you're on foot.

I'm kind of excited about these colder climes now. I'm not really a big fan of the heat, and I've been to some cold places before, but I didn't get that whole Winter Wonderland experience that might be going on somewhere in the world. The kind of places where people say, 'Hey, nice dance bro. You should do it outside on that frozen lake!'

'I'll just grab my coat.'

'You'll be warmer in rhinestones.'

'Really?'

'Oh, absolutely. The thermodynamic properties of rhinestones are greatly under appreciated.'

How do these conversations actually go? Figure skating is high speed dancing on ice, which is commonly referred to as 'Winter's Concrete'. It isn't, but the potential for injury is insane. It is one of the far more brazen varieties of dance. Outstripped perhaps only by ambush tiger dancing of Southern India, which is both an increasingly unpopular pass-time, and entirely fictitious. It's unpopularity comes down to a combination of declining tiger populations, the fictitious nature of the activity, and that surprising a tiger is the sort of activity you only get to do the one time, and it is not often followed by dancing. This isn't a real sort of dancing, because it is stupid. You don't do it. Just about the only thing happening in the Winter Olympics that doesn't seem like you are going to do yourself a fairly serious mischief is curling, which has a whole other set of questions that need asking.