Saw this on the update for the big upgrade to Ran's board:

"Among the new features we'll be trying out? Voting posts up and down on quality, and offering positive or negative reputation on users."

How is that going to go over and is each boarder limited to one vote per person and per post? Otherwise couldn't someone with a grudge keep clicking dislike on an individual or their posts?

I have a friend who is a poet. His name is Morri Creech. We were roomates during college. He writes poems with fairly formal meter and rhyme schemes. I discovered this discussion from 2007 that talks about the debate between "Free-Verse" and "Neo-Formalism":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/11/why-no-one-wants-to-be-a-new-formalist/

Is this really an issue for the poetry world? I would think a good poem is a good poem whether it's free verse or a sonnet.

What really perplexes me is that some among the Free-verse advocates seem to want to read politics into the "neo-formalists" work. As though writing a sonnet is the equivilent to demanding a return to European imperialism or feudalism.

I'm not a huge reader of poetry. But I do enjoy a good poem from time to time. Could someone please explain to me why the method a poet uses crafts his/her work matters to the world? As long as the end product is enjoyable why does it matter. Am I looking at the sausage factory when I shouldn't?

Over the last several weeks my office has been upgrading its firewall. I'm only allowed access to social networking sites from home now. To those of you who know me from Ran's board I'm just giving a heads up. Last night I noticed that Westeros itself was being blocked by my work firewall. I suspect the board will soon follow which means my access to the board will be severely limited in the future. I've had a wonderful 6 year run there arguing, probably more than I should during working hours. I will miss the friends I've made there as I will not be able to lurk or post during work hours. I will try to keep up from other locations but, obviously, that will be difficult.

Therefore, If I disappear it will not be from a fit of anger or frustration but because I'm being denied access to that board. I wish everyone well and much happiness. I'll participate when I can and will be in Raleigh and then Reno come heck or high water. It has been my great honor to interact with all of you for the last six years.

Sincerely,

Ser Scot A Ellison

I read this back in the spring and I'm back to working on The Confusion.  He's an interesting writer.  I enjoy his prose but he has a tendency to wander in his storytelling.  I loved the opening chapters of Quicksilver.  It really hooked me.  Particularly the Character of Enoch the Red, who is so enigmatic.  What's his agenda.  He appears in a couple of other points in the book with Jack and Eliza but who he is and what he is never made clear.  I suppose that's my main complaint about his writing.  I enjoy reading him but the direction of the story generally is not easy to discern.  At first I thought it was to be a story about the conflict between Newton and Leibnetz over the discovery/creation of calculus with Daniel Waterhouse as the narrator and witness to the dispute.  Then we meet "Half-Cocked" Jack and Eliza.  The story seems to veer into the origins of European Capitalism.  Perhaps both are important.  

The Politics of this era are intertwined with both stories as the "Glorious Revolution" unfolds with the participation of all the characters.  Stephenson's depiction of Jack's insanity was particularly amusing on a number of occasions.  The singing priests he imagined right before being captured by the Duc d'Archacon tickled my ribs.  The final book in Quicksilver moved very nicely with more attention to plot and pacing than I found in the rest of the novel.  

The Confusion has so far lived up to its name. 

I was lucky to pick up the 2006 edition of the "Year's Best in Science Fiction".  I was delighted to learn it contains Paolo Bacigalupi's prelude to The Windup Girl, "Yellow Card Man."  I'm looking forward to reading it. 

I talked to my system administrator about unlocking LiveJournal.  He hadn't been asked to firewall it specifically.  He was told to firewall any "social networking" sites.  This one got caught in the net.  He said that if I got permission from one of the "Executive" board members for the firm he could unlock it.  I'm debating whether asking to unlock LiveJournal would be a good idea.  I usually post in the morning or right  before I leave so it's not overly disruptive to work,  but, as those of you know from my posting habits at Randland I can be somewhat over attached to my posting time.

Just an FYI.  My office is now blocking all "Social Networking" sites.  Therefore, my access to Livejournal is severely limited.  Which sucks.  I was really enjoying using this as a location to review books.  Hopefully, this is temporary.  We will see.  If not, y'all have fun.

Okay, I finished this one last week.  It took a while to digest. 

It's about a young man (17 at the start of the Novel) who suddenly discovers he's entitled to attend a very selective college.  A college that teaches magic.  Sounds derevative, well, it is and it's not.  The book in my opinion is an exploration of escapism and emptiness.  Quentin, the protagonist, always feels like an outcast never an insider.  He's constantly looking for the proverbial bird in the bush rather than accepting the bird in the hand. 

Quentin begins the novel with two fairly close friends of whom he is extremely jealous because the female of the couple has chosen his male friend rather than him.  Quentin gets into a school for magic then is frustrated because he's no long a big fish in a small pond, he's a small fish in a small pond.  Quentin complains he can't get the girl, until he does and squawnders that opportunity too.  This pattern repeats itself throughout the novel culminating in Quentin's adventure into the land of Fillory.  Fillory is a Narnia analog that Quentin has been obsessed with since he was young child.  The discovery of Fillory's reality seems, to Quentin, to be the fulfillment of all his fondest desires.  The place where he will really find himself, really belong.  The reality is quite different from Quentin's fantasy.

The book is competently written but in some ways unsatisfying.  I believe that is what Grossman was attempting to convey.  As it does appeal to readers of more traditional fantasy. 

Quentin's emptiness is reflected in the emptiness of his desires and pursuits.  Quentin is always looking for the better option he is never satisfied with what he has and is willing to throw away what he has in order to fulfill his never ending quest to capture this fleeting idea of "happiness".  Thus, while this book isn't my favorite I consider it well crafted in that I believe the author has successfully explored the idea I think he wanted to explore.

Interestingly, the book ends as though it could be followed with a sequal.  I hope there isn't one.  The end of the book rounds out Quentin's failure to see that wanting what you have is the key to happiness, not having what you want.  A sequal would damage that fullness of message. 

Okay, the new bed is in place.  However, my daughter's possesion of our old bed has not helped her sleep through the night.  *deep sigh*

For the record, I like my new bed it's very comfortable but for one problematic trait of the Tempurpedic bed.  It sleeps hot.  I love how the foam molds to your body, it is terribly relaxing.  But I think the foam molding to your body also makes for warmer sleep.  Particularly if you are a "hot sleeper" to begin with.  I'm starting the night with no covers at all then slowing adding covers as I cool off.  I'm a bit worried that next year in the very hot part of the summer this might be a problem.  Oh well, such is life.

(BTW any suggestions on more effective ways to get my daughter to sleep through the night without a crying fit would be greatly appriciated.)

I'm getting my first new bed in 15 years.  My old full sized bed is about to be replaced by a queen sized "temperpedic" bed. 

I'm very excited.

Current Mood: happy

This is an update from someone I know from High School on their facebook page:

"Hanover ok'd Blood & Chocolate for 6th-8th, age 11-15. It has partying, excessive alcohol use, sexual content, tension & inuendos, condoms, drug use & frequent profanity in the wild life of a girl/wolf. I called to alert the school ...and was told it IS appropriate for 12-15 year olds and that they are not children they are Young Adults and should decide for themselves to read or not. Anyone else see a problem here"

Why do people see censorship as okay?  Why do they want to determine what other's may and may not read?  Why do they see themselves as arbiters of what is "proper"?  I've confronted this individual and called them out on their support of censorship but they see nothing wrong with their position.  This person says they are protecting their children.  Well, sure, at the expense of all the other children who may also want access to that book.  If they are truly this concerned over a book perhaps they should instruct the school to not allow their child access to the library or remove their child from the school.  It is wholy inappropriate for them to determine what my child may or may not have access to in a school library.

I made the point to this individual that I read Lord Foul's Bane when I was eleven.  I even pointed out the wonderful moment early in the book where the main character raped a young girl.  I've managed to make it though my life having read such clearly adult content at a fairly early age.  Kids are capable of understanding more than we give them credit for.  My daughter is 6, do I want her reading LFB right now, no.  That said I wouldn't have a fit if I found her reading it and asking me about that book. 

Censorship really chaps my ass because it is the collective denying the individual the ability to decide for themselves what media they would like to have access to.

Current Mood: aggravated

I finished The Windup Girl last week.  The author Paolo Bacigalupi has crafted a realistic and very frightening vision of the near term future of the Earth.  We've run out of oil, agribusiness has taken genetic engineering to the the n'th degree and is using bioengineered contagions to force people to buy their products.  The only alternative is starving to death, nice people.  Very few nations have managed to mantain their independence from the "Calorie men" as the Agribusiness representatives are called.  Thailand among them.  The entire novel takes place in Bangkok which is barely protected from the rising oceans buy levies dikes and twelve coal fired pumps constantly pushing rising waters out of the city.

The title character is a genetically created "windup girl" named Emiko.  Her designers have made her readily identifiable with ticks and jerks built into her movements she's "heechy keechy".  The Windups are designed to be sterile and servile.  She's is horribly abused through the course of the novel the humans, with one exception, view windups as biological machines designed only to serve or as horrors to be destroyed on sight. 

Bacigalupi's world building is fantastic.  It is utterly engrossing and terrifyingly real.  I was aware that Agribusiness was making sterile crops and that some scientists fear normal crops will be rendered sterile if pollen from the sterile crops fertilizes normal crops.  The idea that these businesses would then take the next step and create plauges that destroy crops they haven't created chills me to the bone.  I have to imagine some souless corporate manager has thought of this as a way to boost profits.  They can claim it was bioterrorists who made the plauge.  It's all about the bottom line. 

Anderson Lake is the Calorie man on the scene for "AgriGen" in Bangkok.  He's under a thin cover and angling to get access to the Thai seed bank that has allowed the Thai's to maintain their independence from the Calorie Companies.  He's hard to understand.  He seem's to think getting access to the seed bank will somehow save the world but given his companies past actions that doesn't seem to be a very reasonable belief.

The ending of the novel leaves things wide open for a follow up.  I will read it with delight if and when it arrives.  Bacigalupi has done well for himself.