| Freakiest busride ever |
[04 Jun 2009|08:31pm] |
So I left a little early from work today in order to go to my parent's place, pick up my voter card and go vote (voor Europa Ja). Almost wish I hadn't.
I got on line 18, put in my headphones and kind of spaced out until all of a sudden two guys started to get loud and started screaming at each other. Took headphones out to listen what was going on and by then one of them had already pulled out a screwdriver or some tool of sort and started to try and stab the first guy, who was standing no more than 2 feet away from me.
A full fight broke out, the bus stopped, people panicked and ran out, but I was kind of trapped in my seat with two people fighting in front of me, one of which seemed seriously intent on killing the other. Some people tried to intervene halfheartedly, but this was serious going so it didn't really work until they broke away from each other and left the bus, leaving me able to finally get the fuck out as well.
Of course outside they started again, the guy with the screwdriver charging in on the other and I really though there was going to be somebody lying bleeding on the ground then. After a few more punches and grazing stabs, the guy with the screwdriver took off.
3 minutes later the police arrived, followed by an ambulance. The guy that was left no sitting in the bus with a bloodied chest, although he didn't seem seriously injured, which was kind of miraculous seeing how incredibly pissed and violent the other guy was.
Anyway, the police cordoned of the area and not really looking forward to staying around much longer I took off on foot and took another bus at a later stop.
So all in all nobody was seriously hurt, but it was probably the most violent thing I have personally witnessed and it was right up in my face. To be honest it kind of freaked me out. Also, when this kind of thing goes on the 5 minutes it takes for the police to arrive seem really fucking long...
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| Book list of March |
[01 Apr 2009|11:14pm] |
A quiet month on the reading front as I've been pretty busy with other things, but still some interesting entries.
Alan Campbell - Scar Night - 5
A book I picked up on a whim as it seemed interesting: a steampunk/fantasy setting in a city suspended above an abyss in which a fallen god resides, waiting for the people of the city to give him enough souls to finally be able to take back heaven for him and humanity. Meanwhile in the city the last decendant of an actual race of angels tries to find out what is purpose is in this scheme, while another angel, driven mad over the centuries, tries to survive by killing the inhabitants of the city and using their blood to sustain herself.
It had potential with its brooding gothic atmosphere and allusions to christianity that were there but not quite all the way. In the end it became too simplistic, the promises of the setting not carrie dout til their final execution and the confrontations in the series leave much to be desired. It's biggest flaw however is the failure to characterize any of the main characters to a sufficient degree to actually care about them.
Terry Pratchett - Making Money - 7
Standard Terry Pratchett fare in the discworld series. Kind of a follow up to Going Postal. Entertaining with a nice economy parable, but nothing we haven't seem form him before.
Peter Watts - Starfish - 7.5
The first book of the writer of Blindsight, the execellent sf book I read last month. While still filled with good ideas, it is not as good as his later book. Part of it is that he's not quite as developed as an author, but also that almost all the characters are mentally unstable. This has a plot reason and works out really well eventually, but it makes it hard to relate to them. Becomes a lot better in the second half when some seemingly random plotlines are all pulled together into a fairly epic conclusion.
Peter Watts - Maelstrom - 7.5
The sequel to Starfish and continues with the same character and plots. Although better on the characterization front, it does not have as many cool plot twists as the first book, but it works out to about the same grade in the end.
I am now reading part three of this series, which seems to continue the trend. Overall I'd say it's worth reading for those who like their scifi gritty, dark and loaded with interesting ideas. It's available for free and legal download here: http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm
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| With apologies to Neil Gaiman... |
[03 Mar 2009|12:37am] |
Well, not so much actual apologies, because the Sandman comics (or graphic novels or however you want to call them) are not quite the same as the rest on the list in my previous post. The two parts of the Absolute Sandman we purchased collect the first half of the ten years that this comic ran into two leather bound tomes and it is an absolute blast to read.
Anyone who is familiar with Neil Gaiman's stuff knows he has a flair for crazy folk tales and myths and in the Sandman this all comes together in stories of that range from basic and straightforward to epic proportions. The create a sort of collage of the men called Morpheus, Dream, the Sandman and many other names, but who is basically the Lord of Dreams, one the 7 oldest creatures around called the Endless.
The character of Dream is a perfect fit to create stories that deal with the full range of human ideas and emotions, from dreaming you're a princess to the nightmarish landscapes of Hell and walways Neil Gaiman gives it a little twist, makes it a little different, puts it a little out of whack, creating something truly memorable. I am eagerly looking forward to reading the rest of the series... :)
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| Book list of the Month |
[02 Mar 2009|04:08pm] |
Glen Cook - Dreams of Steel: 7
Peter Watts - Blindsight: 9
Greg Bear - Darwin's Children: 6.5
Christopher Alexander - Notes on the synthesis of form: 7.5
R Scott Bakker - The Judging Eye: 7
Jonah Lehrer - How We Decide: 8
There it is, I read 6 books this february as it is a bit shorter than last month and I have been quite a lot busier than too...
Detailed reviews are beyond the cut:
( Read more... )
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| On Prose |
[26 Feb 2009|11:46pm] |
There are many factors that make a great book great. Aside from content a very important part of this is the medium and for writers this medium is prose. Also putting style methods and metaphors and such aside, I want to talk about something a little more ephemeral that I have found to be true in a lot of the novels I've read. Now most of those are fantasy novels or at least novels with elements of the fantastic in it, but I think this goes beyond that.
I have found there to be two sorts of prose, or at least two ways writers use prose. The first is basic and obvious, which is to give a description of the scene. The second way is a little harder to describe, but I'll give it a try. The second way not only uses prose to describe a scene, but also as an example of the theme of the scene, the chapter or even bigger the whole book. This is not just using clever metaphors or such, because those still exist just describe the scene, just in a different or unexpected way.
To give some fairly obvious examples: Will Christopher Baer's books Kiss me Judas, Penny Dreadful and Hell's Half Acre have a protagonist who seems to be continually confused and messed up. The lack of quotation marks adds to this effect by making it hard to distinguish between spoken language and thoughts or descriptions. However that is only the most basic of effects, created by a simple trick of the layout. There is more to it. The writing itself is fairly erratic when talking about this character, creating a sense of confusion in the reader. Not enough to destroy the plot lines, but enough to create a sense of what the character is going through in the reader in more than an informational way. More of a sort of gut feeling.
Marc Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves takes this to the extreme by redesigning the whole structure and meaning of a novel, using footnotes 10 pages long, many different fonts, upside down texts, lengthy enumerations of types of architectural objects and what not. Most of these are more layout tricks, but added together with the way the text describes the scene as well as examplifies the theme, one can get a clear sense of the strangeness that is going on in the lives of the characters, an uncanniness that is a house that is always changing and in fact bigger on the inside than on the outside.
Anyway, those are fairly obvious examples, but there are others to be found, also in more classical fantasy literature. Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books have it in the good parts, where the prose itself seems to profess its need to "love as thou wilt", the main theme of the books.
R Scott Bakker's books have it, dealing in his case with how believe shapes human experience, mostly related to religion, fate, redemption and damnation. Every deliberation of his characters, every description of a setting seems intent to bring these themes across, instead of just being a character defining description.
Steven Erikson does it to an amazing extent, but has so many themes he touches on that it can be hard to distinguish them most of the times. It just becomes a sublime experience to read his books and a joy to discuss them afterward.
Some cases of those who do not manage this: Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, C.S. Friedman and many many others. I feel it is an important part of the distinction between what is literature and what is not (I am not claiming any of the specific books mentioned are literature or not, that's another discussion altogether), because while those that merely describe can do so very well, but it will remain a description. Those whose prose can go beyond that touch upon a part of the human condition and can create the same experience inside the reader. When it does that I think it will cross into the boundary of literature, no matter what the genre is.
My final thoughts about this idea are on how much of a conscious effort his is on the part of the writer. Obviously the layout changes mentioned earlier have to be thought up, because they don't just happen. Also the prose itself and the themes of a book are something a writer will consider carefully. However you can't just go: "I'll have the character go to the grocery store now and while doing that the scene will also have to become an incarnation of the idea of freedom that comes from the mundane and everyday," because it just gets far too contrived.
A large part of it probably comes from good character and setting development, but in the end there has to be certain amount of gut feeling involved, of trial and error, of trying to experience the exact idea you want to bring about.
Anyway, enough rambling on this point. Time to go to bed. Maybe I'll have some more on this point when I review the books I read this month.
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| Thoughts of the Day |
[17 Feb 2009|12:16pm] |
Having now studied architecture at my university for far longer than I care to admit, I have come to one singular conclusion that I have been mulling over for a while now. it's this:
Architecture is the single most powerful physical cultural force in existence. I'm not quite at the level where I will say it is the most powerful cultural force at all, because religion is quite the contender, but when it comes to physical manifestations of our culture, architecture is king.
Apart from our biology (which is not cultural obviously) I don't think anything shapes our daily lives as much as architecture does. It influences the way we behave, the way we think, the way we interact with others, the way we feel. With an ever increasing percentage of people living in urban conditions, I don't think architecture is going to get any less powerful until we manage to trump biology and architecture both by creating Matrix style virtual realities that are undistinguishable from reality.
So why hasn't architecture taken over the world yet in a way that religion has done for example? Mostly because architecture is more a tool than a goal. It doesn't provide answers, it doesn't provide guidance. It provides a way to extend our physical capabilities, a way to increase the safety of our surroundings, to increase our power over our surroundings, but it remains a tool.
So why hasn't architecture been used to take over the world the way religion has then?
Because architecture is not singular in its expression, it is in fact extremely varied in its expression in a way far stronger than even religions are despite the large amount of schisms and splinter groups of the latter.
Far from being singular in its expression, it is also very far removed from being singular in its reception. It is very unclear in bringing across any precise meaning. Architecture can work on the subconscious like few other cultural expressions can, but explicit messages are hard to convey.
Having seen however some prime examples of architecture and the way it affected me and other around me when I was in such a place, having seen architecture done right on a small scale there is a sort of sublime horror and exhilaration when I think of what could happen if a people could somehow create a sort of grand unification of architecture. Think as a whole culture, a whole species even, of a goal that can be made manifest in the public realm and pursue it with a single minded idea about architecture. The result would be both terrifying and overawing. Would it be tyrannical or liberating? I don't know, because it's hard to imagine such a situation, but it would be fascinating.
Closest to these situations, and perhaps one of the reasons it is still so strongly present in our cultural imagination, is ancient Rome. In that time ideas about building, about architecture, where very stratified, very rigid in how to express itself. There was not much space for the architecture to experiment, not much space for the client to change things to his preferences, but it brought about a city that two thousands years later still sparks the imagination with its grand temples, circuses and its Forum Romanum. Not because these building by themselves were so impressive (well, not only because), but because of their unity in the way of affecting people.
Anyway, just thought I'd share...
P.S. For those who don't believe how strongly architecture influences people:
How color influences our thinking and if just color can do that.
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/02/the_color_of_creativity.php
What happens when you design your building the wrong way. Sure, most of these are purely physical reactions, but notice also the personality changes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_building_syndrome
Architecture is weirdly placed in my opinion between the world of physics, human biology (most notably their modes of perception) and human culture. While we may know many things about physics and our cultures, theories about human modes of perception are still very much in development, because our brains are just so damn complicated. Taking cognitive science (which has a large stake in developing ideas about perception) and trying to connect the ideas in some way to architecture, seems extremely logical to me, but I'm just not quite sure yet how. I'll get back to you on that when we figure out our brains better, I guess...
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| Music business... |
[07 Feb 2009|02:28am] |
Slipknop -> confirmed for Graspop
Trivium -> confirmed for Graspop
Slipknow and Trivium -> touring with Coheed and Cambria for pretty much the firtd half of 2009.
Now if Coheed and Cambria would show up at Graspop that would be just FUCKING AWESOME. I know they're not typical Graspop fare, but still it would be so cool if they showed up. They playe done of the best live shows I have ever seen just because of their sheer talent in playing their nstrument...
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| Another post about books |
[05 Feb 2009|03:34pm] |
So I decided to keep a list of books I've read this year and kind of note done anything special and grade them while I was at it. This is the list of last month:
George RR Martin - Inside Straight: 8.5
Neil Stephenson - Interface: 7
C.S. Friedman - Feast of Souls: 6
George RR Martin - Deuces Down: 7
George RR Martin - Busted Flush: 7.5
George RR Martin - Wild Cards: 7.5
George RR Martin - Aces High: 8
George RR Martin - Jokers Wild: 9
Since I already talked about the wild cards books in the previous post I will only report on the non wild card books in this one.
The Neil Stephenson book is typically Neil Stephenson. In this case about a politician who get sa chip implanted that gives him direct feedback from his constituency about anything he does or says in the public media. Sometimes funny, sometimes insightful, always interesting, it is not quite the idea-pumping high of for example Anathem or Cryptonomicon. Also I'm starting to see obvious patterns to his characters. There's always the old straight talking no nonsense male in there for example, who is usually countered with a no nonsense straight talking woman, but she will be younger than he is. Anyway, enjoyable, but nothing remarkable: 7 for effort. :)
Feast of Souls by C.S. Friedman, the writer more commonly known for her in my opinion excellent Coldfire Trilogy, is unfortunately not up to the standards of her previous work. While having an interesting premise (magic drains your life force, the only way to use magic and survive is to drain the force of others), the characterization that I have come to expect from her because of characters like Gerald Tarrant and Damien Vryce seems absent in this start of a new trilogy. The story is not bad, but it's certainly not very good either. I would rank it higher than the likes of Terry Goodkind and such, as it does not actively annoy, but I must admit I think I will wait to buy the next books in the trilogy until I hit a (very) dry spell in my reading list. A 6 for this book. It passes, but only barely.
So all in all, January was a good reading month with some high grades out there, but then I did do some rereads in there, knowing that some of the books would still be good a second time around.
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| Sometimes you post once per 3 months... |
[28 Jan 2009|10:06pm] |
And sometimes twice in two days...
So this month I (re)read all the Wild Cards novels in my possession, which is a total of 6, bringing the total amount of books I have read this month up to 8, which is high even for me.
Anyway, the Wild Cards novels about an alien virus that kills 90% of those infected (called drawing the Black Queen), horribly mutates 9% (called Jokers) and gives 1% superpowers (called Aces) sound like a very corny comic book superheroes excuse, but it's actually quite nice. A collective of writers writes these stories and each have their own characters with their own powers and such, but with what must be copious amounts of editing I'm sure, the stories are usually brought together into a mosaic novel that tells a larger story than the individual ones.
Especially part 3 (Jokers Wild) of the original series written back in the 80's was wonderful that way as it describes the events on 1 day over the course of a 500 page novel and has several dramatic high points in it that are expertly woven together.
The newer series written by still a lot of the same series is also nice to read, because they take the old concept and updated it to modern times with terrorist threats, the internet and American Idol for superheroes and such, while still using the enormous amounts of background created in the earlier books.
All in all, they are worth (re)reading...
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| For a fistful of credits... |
[27 Jan 2009|11:36pm] |
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mood |
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 frustrated |
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I sooooooo had it with these essay questions that have to be done by tomorrow. A critical opinion on the design method of this guy that wrote a book on architecture? Really? MY critical opinion on it?
Here it is: I don't give a shit! That's my opinion. I will most likely never read anything by this guy again, never mention his works or books ever again. I just want my three credits for reading his book, do I really have to wail for 1000 more words to prove that I really did read his book?
Also, fuck of with your demand for making me pick 2 freely chosen designs as examples to illustrate my answers to your inane questions. Coming up with 10 different buildings that are actually somewhat relevant to what is being said is simply laborious and boring work, it is in no way interesting nor does it prove that I know a lot about architecture. It just proves I'm willing to leave my way through a lot of books, magazines and webpages trying to find some pictures.
Seriously, any idiot that has done comprehensive reading 101 can do this test. Or do a better job creating it, because there are about 10 really stupid obvious grammatical errors in the questions that just irk me every time I am forced to read them.
Anyway, it will get me 3 more credits. Just gotta keep my mind on that goal I guess. For a few credits more...
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| More radio music... |
[15 Oct 2008|02:06pm] |
King FM Top 1300 = love
So far I've heard Tool, Radiohead, Metallica, System of a Down, A Perefct Circle, Bush, Air, Iron Maiden, the Gathering and a whole lot more today...
Makes work so much more fun... :)
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| On the making of music... |
[02 Oct 2008|11:54pm] |
So I've been practising a lot on my crappy old guitar of late. The band (No Articles) has decided to practise two new song, which are Creep by Radiohead and Primo Victoria by Sabaton, but I'm also messing around with making my own song (not doing all that great atm) as well as having downloaded the tabs to a bunch of other songs I just like to see how hard they are to play. Songs like:
Against me! - White People for Peace
Johnny Cash - Hurt
Kings of Leon - Sex is on Fire (alarmingly simple and catchy this one, can't get it out of my head now)
It is good to see that in general I seem to be getting much better at quickly picking up a song and the different grips of the chords. I must say that ever since I started learning some more of the music theory this ha sbeen an ever increasingly faster process. I'm talking about how major and minor chords are built up, scales, that sort of stuff. Very basic music stuff, but stuff I never learned because age 26 was the first time I really started to play any instrument at all. I just wasn't that interested in making music for a long time and I have never really been stimulated to do so by my family either...
I must say that I am very glad I did so in the end though, because learning to play the guitar is frustratingly fingerbreakingly hard sometimes, but so totally worth it once you start improvising on Wild Thing with the whole band and you crap out some kind of cool raggae/punk version that has everybody in stitches. Of all the things I did over the last year, practising to play the guitar is probably the best thing I did...
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| Of Wednesdays and Radio Stations |
[18 Jun 2008|09:52am] |
Wednesday is usually the day that I am all alone at the office, also known as "play Kink FM however loud you want it day"...
Except that Kink FM seems to be out of commission today and my mp3 player only has about an hour of power left, which I'm saving for the way home... :(
Stupid radio...
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| In other news... |
[13 May 2008|11:25am] |
This is happening to my faculty right now...
In other words my faculty is burning badly. Now I didn't have any important stuff there and it seems everybody got outsafely (I am at work at the moment in Amsterdam), but it's still kind of unreal and I wonder what kind of effect this is going to have on the university and courses as a whole and such...
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| Jeeps... |
[09 May 2008|02:13pm] |
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I just drove my boss'1960's army jeep. It's old, has 3 gears, has a tendency to drift while breaking and is devoid of anything called convenience, but it was still pretty awesome to drive through the city in the sun with the wind blowing in my face... :D
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| Lack of sleep is bad for my sense motive skill... |
[01 Apr 2008|01:50pm] |
I've fallen for about 4 different April Fools tricks on the internet today.
First of all there is: comic 1, comic 2 and comic 3 that switched around their comics for today and had me confused for about 30 seconds.
Second is webcomic called The Phoenix Requiem, a fantasy comic about a man who is found alone in the woods, wounded and nobody knows who he is. In this comic the artist makes it seem like he is actually Doctor Who. This had me going until I read the forum on that webcomic...
Third: A supposedly new Tool album that is reviewed here. Should have known better with this one of course, but I still had that "yay a new Tool album!" cheer in my heart for about a minute...
Fourth: The website ENWorld related to all things D&D announces that it will no longer support any new versions of D&D, but will now be called Diaglio's Original Dungeons & Dragons page. Okay, this one didn't have my so much going as that it was just weird to see the quasi fake old artwork on the frontpage.
By the way, to those who like their D&D some more. Wizards of the Coast comes with some Errata for D&D 3.5 here. See if you can find all the references to for example Firefly, Hitchhiker's Guide, WoW, Stephen Colbert and more...
Anyway, I really need some more "sense motive skill" today, because the interwebs is confuzzling me today... :S
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| Of PSPs and Patapons... |
[14 Mar 2008|07:18pm] |
So yesterday I managed to buy a second hand PSP from a game store. It still looked brand new and the game store owner actually wanted to give it to his girlfriend, but she didn't really want a PSP. So instead I bought it for 119 euros, whereas a new PSP would have cost 169 euros, so I'd say that was a pretty good deal.
Anyway, no console is worth anything without good games and in that area the PSP has been lacking the first few years it was out. Now, hoever, it has something called Patapon. Patapon is one of the quirky Japanese games that combines weirdness with absolute cuteness, addictiveness and great gameplay. So what kind of game is it, you ask? Just have a look right here
A rhythm-strategy-platformer where you control a small army of eyes with arms and feet and weapons by beating a certain pattern on a drum, which will orderyour patapons to attack, march, defend, etc. The original concept, the cute characters and surprisingly deep strategy part make this a great game.
Just be ready to be singing pata pata pata pon for the next few weeks, shouldyou everd ecide to play it... :)
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