Eggbox

Eggbox in Transit - soon to be settled again!

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Oh look, a bit fell off…

July 20, 2012 / / 0 Comments

So, I spend a few minutes this morning on my hands and knees, crawling around the floor looking for a bit of myself that had just fallen off.  Not a typical way to start they day, but, contrary to what you might think, it wasn’t a bad one either.

It was only a little bit, after all.

I’ve had a mole on my neck that’s been inflamed and painful for over a month now, and which was due to be removed in the very near future.  It doesn’t need to be removed any more, as it decided to make a bid for freedom all on its own this morning after my hair got tangled around it.

The only problem was that it made a bid for freedom whilst I was only half awake after my first good night’s sleep for a couple of weeks, and I didn’t see where it landed…so I had to get down and look for it before I trod on it and squeezed the tiny amount of blood it contained out onto the carpet.

But after all that, for the first time in several weeks, I don’t get a stab of pain every time I turn my head or move my shirt collar.  I think the mole had realised that the imminent minor surgery to get it removed was going to end it anyway, and it decided to go on its own terms rather than waiting for the inevitable.

I call that a win.

A user experience gripe… about users?!

July 18, 2012 / / 0 Comments

A Gripe About Users? You! Out of the UX club! Now!

To be clear, this is not really griping about users… but is instead a gripe about the way that businesses handle contact with users, and the way that they research and prioritize future work.  The users are merely the intermediary in this particular gripe.

To clarify further, I’m not talking about the kind of software that you’re generally familiar with, like MS Word, Google Chrome or Adobe Photoshop…  I’m talking about the kind of software that most of you will probably never see.  Enterprise software.  Software bought by businesses, rather than by people.  Software used by interchangeable cogs in corporate machines, rather than by people (or, given how the software works, that’s how it often seems).

So… what’s the gripe?

Well, I’m afraid I’m going to be a bit long-winded about explaining it, and start by explaining a couple of other things first.  Things that relate to how users complain, where they do so, and what happens as a result.

First, users complain when things don’t work or when things crash.  In these cases, users complain in the form of support requests or helpdesk tickets.  This results in bugs or defects (or whatever the company calls them) being raised in whatever tools are used for such things.  Usually there’s an urgency based on how quickly a fix would be needed and a severity based on what the impact of the problem is.  This is good and proper, and results in work to rectify the problems being scheduled and fixes released in some way.

Second, users complain when functionality they want just isn’t present.  In these cases, users complain in the form of an RFE  – a Request For Enhancement.  This will go through a process to see if enough users want it to justify the development time, and then it’ll be entered into an appropriate work scheduling tool, with a priority based on how many users want it and a “size” based on how many person-hours it’ll need.  This is good and proper, and results in work being done where there’s an appropriate amount of demand.

Thirdly, users complain when a piece of software works, but in an obtuse, counterintuitive, unresponsive or otherwise hostile manner.  In these cases, users respond by grumbling a bit and maybe swearing a little.  Or a lot.  Occasionally, they’ll raise a bug too, but it’ll get logged as low priority because, when it boils down to it, the user managed to get the job done.  Or they’ll raise an RFE… but it’s unlikely to get prioritized because the feature already exists.  As a result, pretty much nothing will get done.

What does this mean?

This all means that users learn how things work, and so stop bothering to complain about the painful stuff unless it’s the software equivalent of a leg falling off.  We never get to hear about pain, or about early symptoms… only about the moment that the patient fell over and died.

Obviously, this makes addressing the non-fatal problems a little more awkward.

Surely user testing is the answer?

Sure, it helps.  But only if the problems that are found can get prioritized and get some development time allocated to them.  What tends to happen is that the problems get identified, and then get logged as bugs or RFEs, which promptly get prioritized exactly as explained above.

If you do user testing, you create an expectation with those users that things will improve.  If you then don’t act on what you find, you’ve failed to deliver on an expectation, and that’s bad.

So how do you get anything done?

As you might have guessed, a large chunk of my professional life is spent around those third types of complaints.  So I’m pretty familiar with the “we agree it’s a complete dog, but we’ve got more important things to do than fix it” answer.  It can, on occasion, be a touch demoralizing.

So you have to find other ways to get work done.  Ways to sneak it in under the radar.  Like keeping a record of tweaks you want to make in a part of the UI and sneaking them in next time something else is being done in that area.  A bug in an area with ropey UI?  Fix the bug and tweak the UI at the same time – commit it all at once.  A bit of new development that requires some new UI?  Where’s the jump-off point that leads to it, and can we rework that jump-off point at the same time?  Can we push the work back up the navigation architecture to the layer above and sneak some extra changes in at the same time?

The problem with sneaking work in like this is with QA (Quality Assurance).  If you’re stretching development work beyond it’s original scope, you’re also stretching them – probably even further.  By taking slightly longer to develop something slightly better, you’re invariably squeezeing your testing time further and putting more load on that department.

A trivial change in the UI has to be tested in many environments, and with many different kinds of input – both good and bad. The load a UI change puts on a QA department can be exponentially greater than the load it puts on development.  If it’s extra work being squeezed in to improve the user experience… that’s work that QA may not have budgeted for, and so it makes things late and gives UX a bad reputation for delaying things.

What needs to change?

I think we need a new model for handling the third type of user complaint that I mentioned above, or we need to adjust the criteria for prioritizing them.  The problem is that we’ve spent so long conditioning users to an environment where it’s not worth complaining about mere pain – only about the aforementioned “limb dropping off”.  They’ve become so used to nothing being done about things being cumbersome and awkward that they’ll suffer in silence rather than complaining.

So two things need to change:

  1. As mentioned above, software companies need to make a viable route for handling “this works, but is like crawling through barbed wire” issues.
  2. Software companies need to then prioritize those issues and allocate development resources to them.

When those two things happen, UI developers and User Experience professionals may start to lose some of their reputation as interfering troublemakers.  Until then, we’ll probably have to keep sneaking work in under the radar, making everything late in the process like the meddling troublemakers we have to be.

I’m not vegan, but sometimes I feed them…

July 7, 2012 / / 0 Comments

…and when I do, I make a rather well regarded vegan chilli.  This can be modified to feed omnivores too, but I’ve generally found that to be an unnecessary complication, as the vegan version is (though I say so myself) pretty damned mighty.

I’ve posted the recipe online before, but I don’t think I’ve ever made a dedicated blog post for it an pointed the whole world at it.  So I thought I’d change that.  The recipe is designed to serve around eight people, when served with rice or something similar.

But first, the history:  In the dim an distant past, cooking and eating chilli was a communal act for myself and a couple of friends…  and I’ve retained the ability and inclination to occasionally prepare chilli for the masses.  However, the main other human being involved in that ritual of spicy deliciousness has fled these shores for a point that’s about as far as you can get without leaving the planet…  and turned Vegan.  The pre-mixed spice blend that I used as a basis for my chilli had something non Vegan in it (milk or egg or somesuch), which was a problem.

The fact that I would no longer be able to provide her with a hearty meal of chilli should we ever be geographically colocated preyed upon my mind (foolish fact, there’s little nourishment there!.  So I did what any self-respecting technically minded designer would do…  I took it apart to see what made it tick.  I reverse engineered the original spice blend, modified it to be vegan-friendly and then cooked a chilli using that as the base.  I also recorded my personalised “tweaks” along the way and folded them in.  I say “tweaks” in inverted commas because those tweaks changed so much along the way that the dish I make bears little resemblance to what you’d get if you used the pre-packaged spice blend on it’s own.

So here’s the recipe for the vegan version of my traditional chilli.  I’m rather proud of it.  It comes in four sections – ingredients for the dry spice mix, ingredients for the wet or gooey bits that go with the dry spice mix and the “everything else” ingredients.  After the sets of ingredients come the actual instructions for how to assemble them into something resembling hot food!

The “Everything Else” ingredients

  • 4-5 cans beans (assorted, mainly kidney, some black beans) – these should be ready to cook with, so if they need soaking, soak them first.
  • 4 (large-ish) Sweet Potatoes (chopped into 1.5cm irregular cube-like lumps, or thereabouts)
  • 4 bell peppers (assorted colours)
  • 3 Onions (Chopped)
  • 3 cloves garlic (chopped) (or more.  I favour more if I’m cooking for myself.)
  • 2 cans chopped tomatoes (maybe 3 – have one spare)
  • 2 cans plum tomatoes
  • 1 can/tube tomato puree
  • “Some” Jalopenos or Chillis – chopped (these get added to taste along the way)
  • “Enough” Basmati rice

The Dry (ish) Spice Mix

  • 30g Cornflour
  • 5.25 tsp Onion Powder
  • 4.75 tsp Paprika
  • 1.75 tsp Salt
  • 3 tsp Garlic Powder
  • 2 tsp Sugar
  • 2.5 tsp Wheat Flour
  • 1.5 tsp Cumin
  • 2.5 tsp Oregano
  • 1 tsp Chilli Powder
  • 0.5 tsp Black Pepper

The wet or gooey bits of spice mix

  • 1.5 tsp Wine Vinegar / Balsamic
  • 30g Tomato Puree
  • 1.5 tsp Vegemite / Marmite (or more – I’ve been increasing the amount every time I make this!)
  • 8g Avocado (or a bit more)
  • Around 450ml water

How to make it:

  1. Chop stuff that needs chopping (That’s all the veggie bits)
  2. Prepare the mix and then set it aside:
    1. Combine dry chilli mix ingredients
    2. Mix into ~450ml water
    3. Mix in wet chilli mix ingredients
    4. set aside until (5)
  3. Mix the beans, separate a quarter of them to use in (4).
  4. Start frying the following on a high heat:
    • the sweet potato (fry this for a bit before adding the rest)
    • about 1/2 of the onion,
    • the separated 1/4 of the beans
  5. When the onions are softened, throw in the pre-prepared chilli mix from (2)
  6. Throw in about half of the tomatoes
  7. Gradually throw in everthing else.
  8. Keep on a high heat for a bit, then turn down and hold on low heat until deemed nearly ready.
  9. Cook enough rice for the people who are going to be eating chilli.
  10. Serve & Devour.  I tend to serve it with rice and a couple of rings of raw onion plonked on top.  I devour it with style and aplomb (and a fork).

So now you know, and now I have a place to point people at when I wish them to know about my awesome vegan chilli recipe that even non-vegans seem to like.

All Change, Second Iteration

July 2, 2012 /

Hey folks, I’ve just noticed that when I flood-filled all of my old entries onto the new blog yesterday, I accidentally flattened the “there’s been a change” post.  So it’s time for a new “there’s been a change” post.

My old blog platform, whilst pleasant enough for the most part, was a sledgehammer to crack a nut.  It was also broken by a routine upgrade, and attempts to fix it were not going well.  So I decided to ditch it and move to something simpler and easier to maintain.

So here we are!  New platform, old posts.  I’ll be working out the details of the look & feel when I get more spare time… but in the meantime it’s not too offensive, so it’s not a priority just yet.

My time at Sci-Fi London, part 4

May 8, 2012 / / 0 Comments

A Change of Plan

I had planned to only see two films on the final day of Sci-Fi London, both in the evening. But my plans for the daytime were scuppered by the weather, so I decided to add an extra item to my festival agenda and head in early. The pub quiz was tempting, as was an extra screening of Radio Free Albemuth… but the decision turned out to be quite easy in the end, because of one of my (very few) complaints about the festival.

Attempting to find out more about what the deal was with the quiz just left me at a page telling me to register my team. As a newcomer to the festival and the only one of my crowd to attend, I knew exactly nobody else at the festival. When the only option for a social event is to say who else you’re doing it with… and you don’t know anybody else, that’s a nice hefty barrier to participation. So I bought a ticket for Radio Free Albemuth instead. Not a great hardship, as it’s a film I’d wanted to see earlier in the week anyway.

This seems like a good time to bring up a small gripe about the festival, but first, I should clarify: I enjoyed the festival immensely. I just had the feeling I was missing something.

There was clearly a social side to the festival that just seemed totally opaque to me. I knew things were happening, but information about it all was remarkably absent… and there was remarkably little provision for folks who weren’t already involved in that side of the things to get involved. If you weren’t already a part of the in crowd, there didn’t really seem to be an on-ramp to change that. It’s difficult to mingle and socialise whilst watching films… and when not watching the films, everybody just seemed to vanish. Having a couple of places near to the cinema called out as “meet here between films” venues would help a great deal… the cinema foyer didn’t really cut it as a social venue much of the time, although I did spend a bit of time chatting with folks at the t-shirt stand later in the weekend!

Film 6 – Radio Free Albemuth

First, a confession: I’ve not read Philip K. Dick’s original book. I have read VALIS, which is a different variation on the story, but not Radio Free Albemuth itself. So this film was going to be both a bit familiar and a bit unfamiliar. I’m never entirely sure what to make of PKD’s work, but I found this film to be both enjoyable and engaging… and quite a bit easier to follow than VALIS.

The semi-autobiographical story follows Nick Brady (a fictional friend of PKD) as he deals with what he believes to be transmissions from an extraterrestrial origin, transmitted to him via a satellite in earth orbit, and setting him against the opressive political climate of a dystopian USA.

Apparently this film was shown at a previous Sci-Fi London as a test screening, and the version shown this year was the completed version, following changes made after those test screenings. Of course, not having seen the previous version, I can’t make a comparison… but given the quality of this version, I’m guessing it paid off.

So whilst I’d still like to have been to the quiz and got involved with the social side, I have no problem with having chosen to see Radio Free Albemuth instead.

Film 7 – Exit

I’m still not sure what to make of this australian film just yet. I know I liked it, but I think a lot of it is open to interpretation… and I’ve not finished forming my interpretation of it just yet. This won’t mean anything to non-gamers, but I got definite hints of Unknown Armies from it. It’s certainly a film about obsession and it certainly shows how obsession can damage people…

The general premise is that there’s a growing number of people who’ve come to believe that their city is a maze, and they’re stepping away from their normal lives to open as many doors as they can, hoping one of them will be the exit. They see their normal lives as just more dead ends in the maze, illusions to be overcome.

Exit is certainly a thought provoking and immersive film, though. Even without being 100% sure of what the final outcome of the film was (although I have theories), the film is still visually (and musically) impressive and I recommend it highly.

Film 8 – The Sound of My Voice

I’d been quite intrigued by this film since it leapt onto the programme at the last minute. It focusses on two would-be investigative journalists who attempt to join a secretive cult to infiltrate, document and expose it. The film opens as, after months of work, they are finally brought into the cult and meet Maggie, the cult’s charismatic messiah figure. What they weren’t expecting was for Maggie to claim to be from the future.

One of the things I really liked about this film was that it didn’t provide all the answers… it leaves a lot open, whilst also still providing a pretty solid conclusion.

Now, this is a film that’s virtually impossible to discuss without spoiling it, so I’ve hastily added a spoiler-block mechanism to my site. It might take a short while to get the kinks out – bear with me if this goes a bit astray.

First set of spoilers – concerning Maggie herself, her story and how some things could make more sense:

 

[spoiler]One of the things I was initially left a little cold by was when an investigative agency of some kind (I’ll run with FBI) gets involved… because, the way the film pans out doesn’t seem to fit with why and how they would have become involved. At one point, the lead FBI agent mentions that Maggie has held other identities, and has lead other cons, but escaped… and that in each case things have lead to a request that a child be brought to her.But then I realised that the “from the future” and “con artist” personas didn’t have to conflict. There’s no reason she couldn’t be both. After all, she herself says “I’m from the future, I’m not a saint“.

Another possibility that would make reasonable sense is that, as with the child she claims is her mother, the other children in other cities may well have been people she knew in the future.

All of the above could be true, without conflicting with her identity as a visitor from the future.[/spoiler]

 

Second set of spoilers – concerning outstanding questions about Abigail Pritchett:

[spoiler]This lot is very much a “things left relatively unexplained” kind of deal. I’m going to leave aside the film’s brief revelatory moment right at the very end (which I think was very nicely handled and excellently foreshadowed) and instead ask one question: What was the deal with Abigail. She’s shown as a strange child at the best of times – but the creepy weird structures she was obsessively making from her building blocks struck me as somehow important. The film never dwells on them, so she could just be an odd kid… but it struck me as too big a deal to not be relevant.[/spoiler]

Then there’s her bedtime injections. I got the impression that she was meant to be a child with some health problems, but injections between her toes? That seemed a bit odd to be left mostly unexplained.

(Frivolous edit: especially when the injections were delivered by none other than Dr. Thaddeus Venture himself [aka: James Urbaniak], another fictional character known for dubious parenting!)

So there you go, some spoilery questions and things I was pleased to be left wanting to know more about…

Festival Verdict?

I paid under £70 to see eight films and a pile of short films.  I’ll be going back, I think!

My time at Sci-Fi London, part 3

May 6, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Arrival

This time I cut my time even finer, and arrived with about 15 minutes to spare before the start of the shorts programme… only to find that it had changed screens and been delayed by an hour. Oh well. I sat and read for a little bit and had a brief chat with the person behind the t-shirt desk. I set an early high score on her “name the associated film” challenge by getting all but one of them. I only missed a single t-shirt movie connection – which was apparently Blade Runner related. I’ll have to rewatch the film and see where it comes up, because it’s one of my favourite films and I didn’t recognise it even when told. Oh no, what a hardship. I’ll have to watch Blade Runner again.

Blink of an Eye: Shorts Programme 1

I’ve seen two sets of “shorts previews” at Eastercons in the past, and have enjoyed both of them thoroughly. When I decided I was going to go along to see things at Sci-Fi London, I was determined to take in at least one of the three sets of shorts. Sadly, I only managed to fit one into my schedule… but I did manage to see a few more through the festival and in the previously mentioned previews at Eastercon. If I can remember and identify those, I’ll add comments on those afterwards.

Short: Decapoda Shock

I saw this one at Eastercon, and didn’t even slightly mind seeing it again. A glorious tale of human space explorer mutated into crab-man-thing, returning to earth, fighting conspiracies and winning the day… with a rather nice macabre sting at the end.

Short: The Attic

This one was rather sweet, and not in a cloying way. It’s a story of a man and his estranged young daughter finding each other through the power of music, as inspired by a Ziggy Stardust like figure who may or may not live in the attic. I liked it, but must admit that I found it a little sacharine at times.

Short: Dr. Glamour

Another that I’d seen at Eastercon, this one is a glorious musical number that’s best described as one part steampunk, one part cthulhu, one part rocky horror. I must confess that, fun as it is, I much preferred the silent-movie style first part. Don’t get me wrong, the rest of it’s good and fun, but the first part (especially the moment that the male & female leads first really notice each other) is quite, quite glorious.

Short: This Is Not Real

I don’t really know what to make of this one, so I’ll just say it looked good and that I didn’t hate it. Then I’ll move on.

Short: Vessel

I saw this one at Eastercon too. It irked me a bit there, and it still irks me a bit now. It plays like it’s setting up for a “sting in the tail” kind of deal, to deliver a cautionary tale… and then there isn’t a sting. It feels like somebody forgot to add a story.

Short: Alchemy and Other Imperfections

I really, really liked this one… although I will admit that I’m making a deliberate choice to interpret parts of it (a memory that the female character is trying to remove from the male character) in a charitable way. If taken a different way, I’d find it more questionable. I prefer to be charitable in this instance… and either way, I can’t fault anything else about it.

Short: Robots of Brixton

I want to like this more than I do, but the references to the brixton race riots felt a little bit heavy handed to me. Either way, it’s an impressive piece of work… and I can’t fault it for having a message to it, and sometime heavy handed messages are needed. I also can’t fault the general production or the talent that went into it. It’s certainly powerful and memorable.

Short: Infinite Loop

Imagine Primer or Timecrimes, but instead of a time machine, use the bathroom of a student flat, and complicate the plot with a third flatmate who just wants a shower. Add a pot-plant as a handy macguffin and you’re golden. All good fun.

Short: Bobby Yeah

What. The. Shit. I repeat. What. The. Shit.

It’s like a creepy, psychosexual body-horror nightmare made of intestines and toenail clippings with an excellent dirty bass soundtrack. In fact, it’s not like that at all. It IS that.

There’s a trailer over here. It doesn’t do it justice. I want to get to another screening just to sit with my back to the screen and watch the audience reactions.

Other Shorts

As mentioned earlier, I caught a few other shorts.

Short: W.A.

This is entirely based on a very, very bad joke. It’s great if the audience are prepared to groan along with the joke at the end. When I saw it at eastercon they did, but this time they didn’t… which is a shame. (seen at eastercon and before a sci-fi london film)

Short: 8:31

Set in the last moments of light before the sun is due to go dark forever, effectively ending life on earth, a man and woman race to the hospital as she goes into labour. (seen at an eastercon preview)

Short: Blind Spot

I can say nothing here without spoiling it, but I found it excellent. Some of the physics in the background events slightly ropey, but that nitpick shouldn’t distract anybody. It’s just something that’s bugged me in so many films that now I can’t see it without it having a “gah!” moment. (seen before two sci-fi london films)

Short: How to kill your clone

A nice idea for a short, and it looked very good… but it felt muddled to me to the point of labouring it’s joke too much. As a short, I think it needed to be just a little bit shorter. (seen before a sci-fi london film)

Short: ERROR 0036

Automated call centres & helpdesk runarounds. We’ve all been there. I’ve certainly been there. I’ll even admit to having been on both sides of the call, although I always tried to be more helpful than the examples here. (seen at an eastercon preview)

Film 5 – The Last Push

The Last Push was the fifth film I saw at the festival, and it was on it’s second screening… which was packed.

First, a shout out for the lead actor. This film is essentially carried by one guy – Khary Payton – who’s more usually a voice actor for cartoon and video game work. He carries it very well indeed. It’s quite a subtle performance at times, as he’s playing somebody who’s generally fairly taciturn to begin with, and has the traditional astronaut calm about him.

Second, a shout out for the set. It’s perfect. It’s realistic, appropriate and claustrophobic whilst having just enough space to let the plot move. The rest of the cast, small though their roles were, were also universally excellent.

Third, the plot. It’s not really a spoiler to say that the exploratory mission to jupiter’s moons doesn’t go entirely as planned… but the way it doesn’t go to plan is excellent, thoroughly plausable and very nicely handled indeed.

In case you’ve not worked it out already, I loved it. So far, I’d call this my highlight of the festival… and it’s up against some stiff competition.

My time at Sci-Fi London, part 2

May 6, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Day Two

I didn’t turn up quite so ridiculously early for my second day at the festival, partly by design, partly because I travelled in to London with friends and partly because the trains were utterly screwed. Still, I grabbed a nice veggie thali at Govindas (I’m not veggie, but still like veggie food) and then hurried down to the venue for film #3

Film 3 – Sol

My first film of the day was Sol – based around the “Sol Invictus” challenge, in which several teams of academy students from various colonies get dumped (via “slipgate”) on a random unknown world with equipment to set up a camp and study the heavens. Their goal: be the first to locate sol and send a message requesting pickup. The winning team get to go on to join the ruling class. The implication is that it’s very much a dog-eat-dog kind of contest, and that some of the teams are not above just killing the others to ensure they win.

Of course, things don’t go entirely to plan. The film opens with an accident at the slipgate. Virtually none of the competitors (or their equipment) make it through – and it’s outright stated that they probably died en-route.

My guess going in was that this was going to be a bit “lord of the flies in space” – and I wasn’t far wrong, although things don’t get quite as bad as that. The locations are good, and the performances from the cast of twenty-somethings and younger, are at worst servicable and at best sho real promise, even if some of the cast don’t get a chance to show much range.

I only have one real complaints about the film, which was that it strayed rather too much from “show, don’t tell” for some of the local wildlife. I can entirely understand why (budget), but that’s largely because the way it was handled pretty much yelled out “we don’t have the budget to show this stuff, so we won’t”. I wouldn’t have wanted full on CGI gribbly things (I rarely want that), but I wouldn’t have minded a bit more than people running around panicking whilst weird noises happened. The chronicler (the person who’s role on the team was to record everything and provide a lot of the viewpoint) being told “nobody should have to see that” wasn’t an adequate cover.

Still, as it goes, it’s a pretty minor complaint. I found the film watchable and enjoyed seeing it. For a young cast and (I’m guessing) a young set of filmamkers, it’s something they should be proud of.

Film 4 – Hell

I’d been lead to believe that Hell was going to be a nightmarishly bleak film… and I have to say that I don’t agree with that assessment. It was a harsh environment, with the sun having got brighter (hence the name – which is german for “bright”, and this is a german film) and the planet having got hotter and dryer, but I never got the impression that things were totally hopeless. There was always something else that could be done, or a problem that could be addressed. That said, that’s a disagreement with how the film was billed – I have very few disagreements with the film itself. In fact, I thought it was thoroughly excellent. I’m sure I’ll pick holes in it on a second viewing (and I want a second viewing), but I still really liked it.

The cast were universally excellent (although I’m sure that somebody who speaks german will tell me they sounded stilted and awkward – as an english speaker who can only kinda-sorta follow german I wouldn’t know!). The cinematography was stunning. The costuming and attention to detail in terms of setting and props was masterful.

But for a film billed for it’s bleakness, there was an awful lot of hope in it.

If you get a chance to track it down, do so.

My time at Sci-Fi London, part 1

May 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

What The Day Was About

Today I went to see some films. I’ll be going to see some more films tomorrow, and again on Sunday, and again on Monday. I’ll be seeing eight chunks of filmed science fictional entertainment in all. I don’t say “eight films” as one of those chunks is a series of shorts. I’d have liked to get to see more of the shorts, but my two different budgets limits (the “money” budget and the “hours spend in dark rooms” budget) wouldn’t really permit more.

I went in fairly early as I wanted to go and find the new (note: not actually new) location of Gosh Comics, and sure enough, I found it. Picked up a few more TPBs. I really do need to get rid of some that I soured on after buying the complete collection to make room (Y: The Last Man – good comics, but rubbed me up the wrong way).

Anyway. The main events – the films. I’m going to see these as part of the 11th Annual Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film (aka: Sci-Fi London). I like watching weird and wonderful SF films, and don’t often get the chance to do so. I’d had my appetite whetted a bit at Eastercon by a preview screening and a few of the shorts films, and decided I needed to get out and do something that was non-stressy… so booked for the previously mentioned eight slabs of film entertainment whilst the opportiunity was there. The festival’s been running all week, but the earlier films all either clashed with other things I was doing or were at times that were awkward to get to after work or get back from once they’d finished… So I just booked today off work and an treating it as a four day weekend.

Today I saw the first two of my eight. I was quite early for both because I figured that was better than being late, especially as the programme says “no late admissions” and that the times listed are start times. The routine seems to be to show a quick short before each film, then the festival director gives a brief intro, then they launch straight into the film.

Film 1 – Extracted

First up was “Extracted” – starring recent genre TV stalwart Sasha Roiz. I’m glad I picked this one to start with as I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had its UK premiere on Wednesday night, and this was the second showing. I almost didn’t pick this as one of my eight chunks, but changed my mind to include it (instead of one of the shorts programmes) at the last minute. I’m very glad I did. It’s a very well made and well put together psychological SF piece focussing on a man who’s developed a technology to step into and work through peoples memories to repair their past traumas, but who accepts funding from people who put it to other uses.

There’s nothing startlingly original about a “going into somebody’s memories to see if they’re guilty” plot, but this one handles it pretty well. It keeps it tight, and has some interesting and new twists along the way. I don’t want to say too much, but I doubt it’s much of a spoiler to say “things don’t go as planned”. I’d certainly recommend this one pretty widely – it’s not exactly a thrill-a-minute action ride (which is good – I’d have been bored if it was, probably) but it is well put together and a fine example of this particular trope.

The performances were of a universally high standard – unusual in low budget SF films, in my experience. Not just from the previously mentioned Sasha Roiz, but from everybody else as well.

The film kept the tension up and mostly managed to avoid dragging in the middle. I also, as somebody who works in software development, find the cause of what went wrong to have a certain resonance to it.

Recommended, and if I can ever find it, I’ll be picking up a DVD.

Film 2 – Cycle

The second film of the day was Cycle.

Beyond that, I have no idea.

No, seriously. I have no idea. It’s a 70s SF & psychedelia inspired / 80s synth soundtrack bleak weirdness headfuck. In motion captured CGI. With, amongst other things, a weirdly subdued party with disco lights. In spacesuits. At the end of the world. Maybe.

I think I can kind of see what it was trying to do, if I squint a bit and turn my head sideways. It was stylishly done, and the only thing that yanked me out of it occasionally was the delivery of the dialogue, which I suspect was largely delivered by the hungarian CGI designers and animators. It wasn’t badly delivered, but it was certainly oddly delivered. Then again, I think oddly off-kilter was clearly one of the design goals.

I’m not sure what to make of it yet. I might need to watch it again one day to try to parse it.

Either way, I don’t object to having paid to see it, so it’s not a failure. There was a lot of interesting stuff going on visually and the soundtrack was pretty mighty, so it’s got that too.

Still to come

Tomorrow I’ll be seeing Sol and Hell. On Sunday I’ll be seeing Blink of an Eye: Shorts #1 and The Last Push. On Monday, Exit and Sound of My Voice. They’ve also snuck an extra screening of Radio Free Albemuth in on Monday, which I had been interested in earlier in the week but unable to attend. If there are seats still available and my brain chemistry isn’t going to go all mad science as a result of too much time in the dark, I may get a ticket for that too. I’ve heard it’s very good.

Four days of SF at Eastercon, Part 2

April 10, 2012 / / 0 Comments

This blog post is a follow up to part 1, where my general attitude to the con is explained. This one covers the various con events that I went to…

Friday

George R R Martin Reading

I missed the Death of the internet (tweets at 11) panel, so milled about in the atrium for a while until the reading began and then ducked in for a George R R Martin reading. What I expected to be an oscure short story reading (saving the good stuff for later in the con) turned out to be two chapters from “The Winds of Winter”, the upcoming next book in “A Song of Ice and Fire”.

So I stayed glued to my seat for the whole time, listening intently. He has a remarkably mobile face, too… which is awesome when it comes to reading expressions to help separate a voice from background noise. It really helped!

Pushing the boundaries of genre

Next up was a panel on pushing the boundaries of Genre. This one was a bit dominated by one panelist – Sophia McDougall, but I didn’t mind… she was clearly nervous but managed to be eloquent and clear all the same. The panel held my attention for the duration, but I must confess that I can now recall very little of the actual content! That should be put down to my ailing brainpan rather than the lack of anything worth remembering.

I do recall an inclination to try out Ms. McDougall’s work at some point when my reading mojo has returned, though. The author’s managed to sell me on it where the marketing had failed to do so.

Archery in fantasy TV and film

Next, I planned to go to “How mobile phone technology can enhance the con going experience”, but decided against it in the end. I thought it was too likely to be a case of “teaching eggwhite to suck eggs”… all too icky and incestuous for me. So I went to an archery talk instead.

This was an interesting one, and explained something I’d never been entirely clear about before – how the fletchings get past the bow when an arrow is loosed. Now I know, and (as demonstrated by a video clip) so does a certain CGI animation studio. My desire to see one of their upcoming films has grown even more.

Opening Ceremony

This actually kept things surprisingly brief, which was nice. I have a recollection of it taking longer and being a bit dull in the past, but went along in case of any interesting announcements. It turned out to be quite quick, introduced everyone and then turfed us all out to the atrium.

It Came From the 1970s

Alas, this panel was slightly spoiled for me by the moderator needing moderation himself. Whilst he was clearly knowledgeable, he didn’t seem overly keen on letting anybody else get a word in edgewise… when the moderator keeps cutting off the panelists and audience questions, that’s not a good sign. I’ll probably avoid panels he’s moderating in future, but will still attend ones where he’s a panelist because he clearly knows his stuff.

What is “I”?

Since I have a professional and personal interest in what “identity” means to people and how it gets represented, this one was quite interesting for me. Unfortunately, it stayed on the fairly metaphysical and neurological angles about where the “self” resides before I had to duck out early due to a room-mate having key issues and needing to get into our room. They’d said they’d touch on “identity” later, but if they did, it was after I’d had to flee into the night. Or the corridor, anyway.

Geoengineering to save the planet

I wasn’t sure what to make of this panel. There was interesting stuff in there, but it was too focussed on the “yay/boo” side of “we could try things but we might fuck it up” and the associated politics. The “should we?” and “political reasons not to” dominated. There was a lot of “what should we do?” rather than “what could we do?”. That holds less interest to me.

The SF video game canon

Or “Fans shouting out the names of games they like”. Actually, there was more to it than that, and the panel were consistently interesting, but when I look back at it, that’s how I’d have to characterise it. Naturally, I seconded a mention of the System Shock series – they thoroughly deserve to be in there.

Where have all the hippies gone?

The description for this panel made it sound like it was going to be quite a fun one, but it got derailed into deadly serious stuff about class struggle and disenfranchisement before the moderator had even arrived and never quite recovered. Which was a shame. The discussion was interesting and worthy (if argumentative) but I’d actually been quite looking forward to a light-hearted take on it. This actually happened on a lot of the lighter-sounding panels I went to… things that sounded fun got dragged down into deadly serious politics. That they can be dragged down like that means they’re relevant, but the fact that all of them seemed to be was actually a bit of a downer.

Saturday

Cory Doctorow reading

I’d planned on going to “The Ethics of AI”, but I decided I wasn’t awake enough for anything with “ethics” in the title… and I’d probably have just got annoyed by it anyway. As somebody who used to do R&D in an artificial intelligence field, that kind of thing happens a lot. To my mind, most of what leaps into people’s heads when they think of AI is what I’d just call “Intelligence”.

How pseudo do you like your medieval?

I’ll be honest… I have no recollection of this panel whatsoever. The only clues thatI was there at all are that a) I remember skipping out of it to sign up for the Masquerade and b) I have a photo from it.

Masquerade Signup

We were a bit 11th hour with this one, as there was some holdup or another that delayed Beth getting to the signup. She arrived just as the signup session was finishing. But then, so did about four other people… one of whom turned out to be somebody she kind-of knew… which lead to us chatting for a while. Having done that, we went and got the rest of the costume bits from the car and got them all sorted… then grabbed some food before returning to the con.

Mainstream Published SF

This was an interesting one. I grabbed a couple of book recommendations, not least of which was “The Gone Away World”, which seemed to come up in every other sentence. This continued referencing seemed to be the cause of growing embarrassment to the author (Nick Harkaway – http://www.nickharkaway.com/). I also heard the phrase “SF cooties” often enough that it seems to have become a thing.

Shorts from Sci-Fi London

I was in the mood for some video, and at a previous eastercon I’d been introduced to the wonderful “Le Menace Vient De L’Espace”… so I thought I’d go along for the shorts programme. I was very glad I did, and will be trying to catch some of them at Sci-Fi London at the BFI later in the year. In particular, I need to make sure certain friends see “Doctor Glamour”.

Masquerade-y bits & off into the evening

After the shorts, I took a break a very brief rest before heading over to the masquerade rehearsal. The rehearsal itself took a while to get going, and like most tech rehearsals, it was basically “you wait here until your turn, then you go on stage here, do your thing, then leave the stage here.”

There was a bit of a faff about a few bits and bobs whilst the rehearsal was going on, but otherwise it was uneventful except for letting us see who the other masquerade participants were. Most of the rehearsal was focussed on dealing with the chap who eventually won… because his costume was huge and slightly less than mobile. But it was also awesome, which made it entirely forgivable.

In general, I enjoyed the masquerade as a way to meet folks and found it a lot less stressful than I had expected. With hinds
ight, we probably should have spent 10-15 minutes in the atrium in costume afterwards, but after a couple of hours in those things we were both keen to get changed. I spent the rest of the evening hanging around in the atrium with a pint and a burger, chatting to Peter Westhead (who came 3rd, having made his own peascod breastplate!), Tim and Severine M. As a general shout-out, whilst we were backstage I spent a bit of time chatting with sacha (who, as GLADoS, had similarly restricted peripheral vision) and Nicky Barnard and the assorted workmanship judges.

The judges were keen to talk to us afterwards to congratulate us about our use of “mixed media” as well… Which struck me as a little odd, as I don’t think of things in that way… I just make stuff! Doesn’t matter what it’s made of. In my brain, a sewing machine is as much as power tool as a pillar drill and a soldering iron as much a precision tool as a paintbrush or needle and thread. The idea of treating them differently just doesn’t really occur to me.

Sunday

Occupy the metaverse

This panel bugged me a little, as it didn’t seem to really match the description in the program. Also, given the subject matter that dominated the first 15 minutes, I felt that the panel really needed a younger voice on it… but that’s not the fault of the panelists. There’s not a lot they can do about their age and social circumstances. Having said that, those first 15 minutes really did come across as “Young people! You’re doing it wrong!”, and I’d have liked to hear a bit more from the moderator himself on that one.

George RR Martin Interview

I lurked about being social for a while, and then went back into the main hall for the George R R Martin Guest of Honour Interview… which I found thoroughly enjoyable. As with his reading, he speaks well… and I quite like the interview format for guest of honour talks as it gives them a bit of structure.

Sci-Fi London sneak preview

I wasn’t feeling very awake, so I decided to go and do something different… and went to a super-sekrit preview screening of one of the films that’s getting a proper international preview at Sci-Fi London. To be honest, whilst I quite enjoyed the film I also found it a bit predictable and a little mawkish… but as a small indie film, I really couldn’t fault the cast or the production. It may have been better if I hadn’t guessed where it was going with it early on.

Cruel deeds and dreadful calamities

This was an annotated slideshow of illustrations and cover artwork from a victorian era (I think) publication called the “Illustrated Police News”, which is famous as basically containing virtually no news that wasn’t made up and being largely unrelated to the police in any way. Essentially, it was the start of tabloid journalism… but it’s character was quite different to what we have now. It was an entertaining slideshow, but I was surprised that it was in the main hall.

Taking Liberties with the Lady of the Lake

This one was a bit of a risk for me, as it had been billed as two things. First was a “Merlin TV Series” vs “Camelot TV series” panel, which held no interest to me. The second thing was a wider discussion around representation of myths in popular entertainment. The second was touched on a little, but alas the Merlin vs Camelot thing dominated.

Tall Technical Tales

I wasn’t sure about this, having stepped away from the science side of my education a long time ago to focus on the engineering and the creative… but I’m thoroughly glad that I went along. Highly entertaining anecdotes from all around, several of which reminded me of a series of blog posts I found a while back – which I’m going to assume that most of the panelists are already aware of, but if they’re not, they should be. There are other categories on the same blog that would be relevant too, but I can’t find them right now.

Multicultural Steampunk

I’d been looking forward to this one, as there have been many things that bug me about steampunk for a while… this touched on some of those, whilst mentioning and stepping past others (colonial india got a mention, as did the boxer rebellion). A couple didn’t come up at all, despite having some current day parallels that could be explored (the assortment of anglo-afghan wars, for example).

Monday

I never really woke up on Monday, alas, despite an early night on Sunday. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that when I’m tired, I’m basically useless, and Monday was like that. I was flagging a bit from the start, and so didn’t do much. However, I did do *some*.

Story arcs

This was a nice idea, but it did seem to devolve into another “shout out TV shows I like” panel. Without a working definition (which people would be free to disagree with, of course) of a story arc to frame the discussion, it rambled and meandered. Lots of times the “it’s got character story arcs” vs “character arcs aren’t story arcs” divide came up.

Coming from a LARP running background, my take is that plot progression and character progression are both aspects of story arc… but that the definition of an arc is that it goes up and then it comes down again. I don’t think you can have a complete story arc without a planned duration (the time axis) and without time spent bringing the threads together. Just throwing in more and more stuff doesn’t make an arc – you need to bring things together and tie them up as well. Oherwise you don’t have a complete arc.

Somebody mentioned that unresolved sexual tension (or “USTing”, as I’ve heard it referred to as) isn’t a story arc, but is instead story statis… and I think they nailed it. That’s adding to the rise of the arc, but by never resolving it, it doesn’t bring the arc back down again… it just leaves it hanging. I think that where the exemplars of story arc (The Shield, The Wire and Babylon 5) really score their points are on their respective downward story trajectories. They all bring things to a close and pull things together. You get payoffs down the line that make it all work out. Shows where they have no planned duration keep adding to the buildup, but always defer the payoffs… and often defer them for too long.

Bloody Provincials! (local fan groups)

I’m in a local fan group, so I felt I had to. Well, sort of in one, anyway… I’m more a sort of lingering carbuncle on the side of a local student SF society, but there’s a few of us carbuncles lingering there. The society doesn’t seem to mind too much… in fact, there were five such carbuncles (although two were still quite fresh) at this con!

I did come away with a few ideas that I’ll suggest to the society, though. I also came away with the idea of trying (once again) to visit The Tun – the london SF pub meet which infamously doesn’t happen in the pub of that name. There’s also another mob, to be found on facebook.

Can video games tell a good story?

Yes. Next question?

The part of this panel that stood a chance of keeping me awake in a dim, stuffy room was about that long. After that I decided I needed more light to remain conscious, so headed out to the atrium to talk to my sibling before he departed. The panel wasn’t bad, by the way – I was just fighting against fatigue.

Epic Legends of the Hierarchs (Writing a long series)

Interesting, but marred by not actually being able to see the speakers from the back of the room. It was my inability to stay focussed on this panel that lead to me fleeing to the atrium again for more daylight.

Fleeing!

The increased natural light helped, and woke me up enough that I felt safe enough to drive home. After a bit of family interaction with Gav, Cal and the ki
ds, it was time to call it a day. I waited in the bright and airy atrium for Chris and (eventually) Beth to reappear, and that was that. There were panels I’d have liked to go to later, but my brain was gone and I needed to go home and crash.

Thus ended this year’s Eastercon for me. Next time I go to an eastercon (or another con of similar size) I should finally be back to firing on all physical and mental cylinders, which will be good. I’m alredy looking forward to it!

Four days of SF at Eastercon, Part 1

April 10, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Pre-Convention Decisions

I’d decided, before attending this con, that I was going to do some things a bit differently this time around. I’d also decided that there was stuff I wasn’t going to let bother me. As it panned out, I did do some things a bit differently, but not all that I’d planned. I also, for the most part, managed to avoid being bothered by the potentially bothersome things.

On the “things to do differently” side of the fence, I’d planned on the following:

  • Be less of a slave to programme items.
  • Play it by ear instead of scheduling all of my time.
  • Get involved with more fannish things.
  • Don’t do tech.
  • Volunteer as a gopher or for the green room.

On the “things to avoid being bothered by” front:

  • Attending and sharing a room with my ex-girlfriend, and the assumptions that would lead to from other congoers.
  • Nerves, shyness and introversion.
  • The inevitable mood-crashes as a result of lingering recovery issues (I’ll explain briefly later, for the uninitiated).
  • The inevitable brain-failures as a result of lingering recovery issues (See above).
  • My regrettable “out of touch-ness” with current SF literature (brief explanation later, etc…)

But just listing these doesn’t quite cut it, so I’ll explain in a bit more detail

Be less of a slave to programme items

Every time I’ve been to an Eastercon, I’ve seen all the awesome and on the programme and have ended up bouncing from one program item to the next. Which is all good, but it does have downsides. Everyone I know who’s been to a lot of cons says that it’s not the programme that makes the con, but the socialising that goes on around it and the catching up with folks you know from previous cons. If you’re in panels the whole time, you don’t get the chance to meet with anybody new or make the connections that everyone says the cons are about.

This is one that I managed, just about. I spent more time out of panels and chatting with folks, but still didn’t get much by way of an “I’ll speak to these people again” vibe, except for a few folks around the masquerade… more of which later!

Play it by ear instead of scheduling all of my time

I absolutely managed this one. I started out planning which programme items I’d be interested in, but in the end I made my decisions a lot based on where I was and what I felt like at the time. Did I miss some good panels? Absolutely. But did I go to some that I might not otherwise have thought of, and learn new things as a result? Certainly. I have developed a bit of a liking for a fairly random approach to these things as a result of going to a couple of BarCamps over the past few years. I’d like to go to more… in fact, I’d love it if there was an SF unconference I could go to, although I have no idea what I’d speak about. Then again, that’s half the fun of unconferences – nobody knows what to speak about and everybody’s winging it.

If I can stand up and hold a room’s attention for 20 minutes with some doodles and a stream of consciousness ramble about a topic I know passably well, then anybody can do it.

Get involved in more fannish things

First, I’d better explain what I mean by “fannish things”. There are a bunch of arcane conventions that SF fandom has built up over the years, and (as far as I can tell) the only way to get to grips with them is to throw yourself in. So I went to a few more panels where the people at the front were just other fans, talking about being fans or about topics they knew and understood. I’ve always been able to listen to people talking about things they know and are passionate about, and it usually doesn’t matter what the thing is – I just like seeing the passion and enthusiasm that comes with it.

As well as that, there are con staples that have been going on for years that I’ve generally not got involved with as they were “not my thing”. This time, though, I was there with my ex-girlfriend. We’d booked two years previously, whilst still together, and are still friends.

Beth is a bit of a costume nut, and I wanted to make sure she still enjoyed the con, despite any awkwardness. We’d agreed before that we’d take some costume that had originally been made for a LARP, but which had barely been used due to players killing the NPCs the costumes were for from a distance. For the few days before, Beth had been basically recreating most of the cloth parts of the costumes, and I’d been reworking a lot of the non-cloth bits and the electronics.

The plan was to wear it for an hour or two as “hall costume” on saturday night, which basically means wandering around in the costume… but it wasn’t exactly “walking around & socialising” gear. I can hardly breathe in mine. Neither of us can talk, and I can’t hear as it covers my ears with neoprene. Neither of us can sit down sensibly either. So we decided, at the eleventh hour, to do the masquerade instead. It was a bit panicky, as part of Beth’s costume kept breaking and I wasn’t sure if the batteries in mine would survive. Because we decided to enter at the last minute, we also didn’t have any “presentation” planned, and that’s one of the categories you get graded on if you’re going for prizes. I wasn’t actually after prizes, though, so I didn’t mind. We were well recieved all the same.

But, getting involved in the masquerade did lead to me actually meeting a few folks (helped by the fact that Beth kind of knew one of the other participants anyway) and having a few folks around to chat to when we bumped into them later on in the con.

I’m actually vaguely inclined to do such things again at future cons. In a fit of ignoring traditional gender roles, I can actually use a sewing machine pretty well and know a bit about how to put a costume together… as well as knowing my way around the use of workshop tools and electronics. The masquerade seems like it’s actually a pretty decent way to meet folks. If for no other reason than having to spend an hour or two backstage in an enclosed space with the rest of the participants!

Don’t do tech

This one isn’t actually a new one. I took this approach two years ago as well, and it served me pretty well. The first eastercon I went to, I was a tech volunteer. Because I actually know a fair bit about stage lighting, I ended up getting stuck in tech and spent a lot of time on the top of the tower at the back of the main hall. First, I find that kind of thing to be both fun and stressful. I was trying to avoid stress, so I had to avoid tech. Second, I found that whilst a tech volunteer, I missed too much of the rest of the con… and because everyone doing tech is so busy, I didn’t really get to know anybody else who was doing it.

Volunteer as a gopher / in the green room

I failed utterly at this one. No excuses – I just didn’t find the time. I didn’t let that failure bother me too much, though. Next time, maybe.

Things to not be bothered by…

I mostly managed these. Sharing a room with Beth turned out to not be too awkward, although I do get the feeling we were getting tarred with the “couple” brush a fair bit. Still, it’s not like I was there to pull (“going on the pull” is alien to me – it’s not how my brain works).

As for nerves, shyness and introversion… well, they were out in full force, but I think I did okay with them. I dealt with introversion by taking quiet time every once in a while to recharge and recover before I broke myself. I dealt with shyness by occasionally just deciding to go for it and talk to people anyway. I didnt do that very often, but I did do it… which is progress. As for nerves? Well, I’m not sure how I dealt with those… but I seem to have managed it. I even spoke up in a panel item or two.

The rest of the “things not to be bothered by” all go hand in hand, and re
late to my not being in a very good state at this time last year, and still only being about 80% recovered. To cut a long story short, about a year and a half ago, I suffered very badly from stress and an extreme case of chronic insomnia. Coupled with pre-existing (and finally diagnosed) Seasonal Affective Disorder and a particularly stressful time in my life, my body and brain basically declared “Enough! You are stopping now!” by effectively killing my ability to function as a human being for a couple of months. I’m mostly recovered, but a couple of symptoms remain:

First, I have no reserves. I go straight from wide awake and active to falling over and unable to string a sentence together. I do not pass go. I do not collect

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