Month: April 2013

Young Linky

Quite enjoying having a new short chapter of “in move” pop up in my news feed every day at noon! I don’t remember writing most of what I read. Surprised by quite how much pashing has been going on in the first few chapters, too. But that’s teenage boys for you, just always pashing everything.

This new Kiwi webseries is really well done! Gets the editing right to maximise the comedy, something a lot of webseries struggle with. It’s by the woman behind the excellent, little-seen and poorly-trailered film “My Wedding & Other Secrets”, if that’s any additional recommendation?

Governments now answer to business, not voters. Mainstream parties grow ever harder to distinguish. Is democracy dead? Long article about the post-democracy era that I haven’t read, but @saniac recommends it and he knows his onions so here it is.

At UCLA, one class taught game theory by throwing out all the rules for how you run an exam. (via Joe Murphy)

At the Ruminator: On the death penalty and other brutal punishments

Little girls dressed as superheroes, turned into hero designs

Understanding cultural difference through the medium of McDonalds website designs

Michael Shannon reads the Deranged Sorority Girl email. More dramatic readings of this text, sure to become a staple in audition rooms all over Hollywood.

Fascinating. An internet guy gave up on the internet, and then a few years later came back – but came back in a really, really interesting way.

My buddy Stephen Fox unravels some of the context and meaning of terrorism and how we respond to it.

Star Wars in 60 seconds

Via Rachel B: it’s a chemical party!

Stories about Prince

Historians need to wake up as Yahoo destroys huge amounts of history

Radio Time Machine – a neat gadget – how has popular music changed from 1940 to today?

Complete video of Freaks & Geeks reunion at Paleyfest, 2011 – pleased to have found this!

And finally, via Robert W: old people wearing vegetation

ANZAC DAY – Felix’s War Diary

Some excerpts from the War Diaries of my great-grandfather Felix Rooney. This is close to the start of his surviving diary – he did keep a diary of Egypt, Gallipoli and early time in France but it was destroyed in the attack that injured him and sent him to England to recover. The surviving diary begins when he arrives at Codford Camp in England after this recovery period (Codford hosts many ANZAC graves, and the locals mark 25 April with a dawn ceremony every year). He arrives in camp October 27, 1916, and is assessed as class B3 – he falls into a routine of drilling and marching as his health and fitness improve.

Tuesday 5 [December]
Up 6-30AM. Washed and breakfast 7-30. Parade 8AM. Inspected by the general. Dinner 12 noon. Medical inspection 1-30PM. Some of us put on guard. I expect to go into signalling section to-morrow. I met an old mate here, Mac Brosnan. He is sergeant instructor to the signallers. So I will be all right while I am here, but I hope that won’t be long. I would sooner be back in France than chased around here at drill. It is devilish cold here now. Keen frost, and the doors of the hut are kept open all day long. Fire must not be lit until 5PM. 17th Reinforcements back from leave to-night. Draft expected to leave Friday.

Wednesday 6
Another freezer of a morning. taken out on parade and transferred to signallers under my old mate Sergt Brosnan. On telephone work this afternoon. The company are out on the march to-night but I am exempt. Going out for a stroll and home again to bed.

Thursday 7
Up bright and early. There is no chance of laying in here. Cold and frosty. Out on signalling. I don’t think I will be going with the draft which leaves in a few days. If not I may have Christmas here. I am having a good time with these sigs here as I am the only one here who has been on active service and they don’t interfere with me. Out on station work this afternoon. Came on light shower of sleet and misty. Usual nightly shave and off to bed. Had a letter from old Lizzie.

Friday 8th
Up usual time and out to drill. Just before dinner I got orders to go with the draft to France to-night. Went down and passed the doctor and went on parade where Bill Massy and Joe Ward inspected us. Busy packing up now. We leave somewhere about mid-night.

Saturday 9th
We paraded last night at 11PM and moved off at mid-night. The train left at 1AM. Raining all the time. Arrived Shorncliff 7AM and marched to camp where we had breakfast and lunch. Left there and marched into Folkestone where we went aboard the “Princess Louise” and left about 2PM. Arriving Boulogne abut 4PM. After waiting about an hour in the rain with full packs up we moved off to a rest camp for the night. Got there 6-30PM and later had some tea. I am going to turn in soon, as we will most likely continue our journey to-morrow. Weary and wet to the skin I am off to sleep, that is if I can, as it is on the boards and they are hard, and my greatcoat is wet.

Sunday 10th
Up, washed and shaved. Still raining. We are on the old bully beef now for tucker. Medicinal inspection 10AM. Raining of course. Fell in 3-30PM and marched off in the rain. Entrained 4-45 and reached Etaples Camp about 7PM. Were served out with rifles and bayonets. Had tea and blankets served out. Twelve men to a tent. Turned in and fairly comfortable only wet.

Monday 11th
Up at 6AM and oh but it is cold. Had a wash and breakfast. Another medical inspection. Alotted new tents. Still raining. Had a shave after tea. I suppose we will start drilling to-morrow. I hope we go up to the trenches soon and get amongst my mates again. This is a miserable time of the year to be here. Met a few old hands I knew. Turned in 9PM.

Felix returned to the trenches in late January.

Part 1, & Rumination

I Ruminated again: the 10 best things to tell computer support scammers.

And the first part of in move has gone live. I read it, too, for the first time in years – I’m going to read along as the sections go up and see how it plays. Verdict on the opening: not nearly as bad as I was expecting. There’s definitely some copyedits I’d do if I was treating it as a live project though! And I do appreciate how this relatively innocuous sequence & decision sets up an entire novel’s worth of angst. You can check it out here if you missed it. It’s a short opener – tomorrow’s update is about 4 times as long…

“in move” into creative commons

I’ve decided to release the first novel I wrote, in move, under Creative Commons.

It’s going to be serialised over here, appearing one chunk every weekday, posts going live at noon (starting tomorrow). When the whole thing’s up, I’ll release it as an epub as well.

in move came about simply because as a teenager I never read anything that felt remotely like my experience of life. So I decided to write it myself. It is, most pointedly, not a coming-of-age story where boys are tested, lose their innocence and become men. Instead it’s a relationship story, about the complex friendship between four people and how it is shaken by threat of change.

I’ve never taken “write what you know” too literally, but for this story I did a lot of that. It’s set in 1993 at a single-sex boy’s school in Lower Hutt, and the four friends in their final year of school join the school’s basketball team. But it isn’t autobiographical; lots of bits and pieces are grabbed from life, for sure, but the main characters and their stories are entirely original creations.

I first started scribbling character notes and ideas while I was the same age as the main characters. I worked away on it, on and off, for a few years after leaving school (particularly in the early days of the JAAM writing group), and eventually completed a first draft. A bit later I went back to it and stripped it back by almost half the length, and then finally, after going to and returning from the UK, I pulled a final edit and tried to do something with it. It received nice-ish “thanks for your first novel” rejections; lit publishers suggested it was really YA fiction, while YA publishers hinted that it was paced and framed too much like “adult” lit for their lists. Either way it never sparked enough enthusiasm for any publisher to want to take a financial risk on it, and, you know, fair enough!

But I do think it’s a good story, and I have a lot of affection for it. Maybe some of you will enjoy reading it too?

Follow along over here: http://inmove1993.blogspot.co.nz/

Ruminator Linky

The Ruminator is a new groupblog that launched about a week ago and is just figuring out its voice as its many writers make their first posts. I’m a contributor, and my first post is up. It’s about how, when music shops and bookshops close down, there’s some additional consequences:

One by one, these stores are closing up for good. As they close I wonder if there is something at work here beyond the normal swell and fade of commerce and retail, something with an impact that reaches beyond “retail therapy” and the ding of a cash register. I can’t shake the feeling that this is a change that matters, and that what we are losing here will reduce us, irrevocably. [Read the rest]

There’s plenty of other Ruminating writers there, too. Go check ’em out.

25 fictional detectives & their #1 moves (mash, you’ll wanna see this…)

David Simon brings the ruckus on the US senate’s failure to pass even massively-watered-down gun regulations.

Do not touch, a crowd-sourced music video. Fun! (via Sammyh)

Not much money at all can buy you a fake Facebook girlfriend

The dangers of thinking like an economist

Law & order’s fakest websites

Alison Brie does memes:

Conan O’Brien hosts an 80-minute chat with writers from the golden age of The Simpsons. Marvellous! Had this on while cooking dinner over two nights, enjoyed every minute.

This image should NOT be seen by the whole world (via Hugh Dingwall)

The myth of Margaret Thatcher
 and What we talk about when we talk about Thatcher

Riverbend, the Iraqi blogger who was posting regularly in the buildup to the invasion, and after, has made a new post after years of silence, marking the 10th anniversary of the war’s beginning.

Star Wars characters modelling fur for Vogue in 1977

There’s a GREAT clip circulating of Patton Oswalt improvising the plot of a new Star Wars movie (part of a Parks & Recreation story apparently) – I watched it, it was awesome, but the one I watched is no longer there and I can’t find another with permission to view from NZ. Google “Star Wars Filibuster” and try your luck, it’s well worth a look.

Oh my god! They killed Sean Bean!

Perhaps the definitive analysis of those bloody eagles not flying to Mordor

My buddy Dan’s story “Waking The Taniwha” has been published at Wily Writers (guest editor: Richard Dansky) and I still haven’t listened to it but it’s been up a while now so I’m linking to it anyway.

And finally, via my sister Beth… absolute worst pictures of men and cats

Marriage Equality!

Third reading passed! We watched the NZ Parliament TV as MPs gave speeches, mostly powerfully and emotionally supportive, and we mocked the elevator music as the votes were cast, and then we cheered as the count came back. And I personally cheered as the whole Parliament & gallery broke into song, Pokarekare Ana…

While on the other side of the world, Margaret Thatcher’s funeral.

Huge congratulations to all my friends whose lives just changed in a tangible way. It’s about bloody time. I kiss you all. Yay!

Aeroplane Linky

I’m setting this one to go live at the departure time of our flight – we’re doing a weekend in the South Island for a wedding. It’ll be the Wee Beastie’s first time on a plane. She’s pretty good at spotting them in the sky and is I think equal parts excited and intimidated by the prospect of being inside one of these noisy machines. Here’s hoping that excitement prevails.

Anyway, here’s some linky for your Friday. Raiding the earliest stuff in my linky folder, 2010 and 2011 links…

Every anime opening ever made

Inflatable bag monsters (via Leon)

Limericks using abbreviated names of US states

Public domain super heroes

A simple model of cults of personality

Lego minifig art: cool photos, one-panel gags; the Little Artists, including a take on Hirst’s shark

A map of voices, using the story of Mr Tickle

Writers no-one reads (via Draw)

Hitchcock & Me – blogger reviewed everything Hitchcock did. That was in 2011, still going with a more general Hitchcock brief – there’s been a lot of Hitchcock happening lately, most recently the new show Bates Motel.

Colour idioms in different languages. Fascinating!

A 2006 essay tearing up the myth of the almighty MBA. One of the classic texts in the crowded (and still vibrant) arena of MBA-hate.

The craziest running race I’ve ever heard about. Beautiful, memorable article that I can’t believe I haven’t linky’d before now.

Okay, a few more recent links for those who like their internets freshly baked:

Russ Meyer meets Star Wars, in action figure form (via Andrew Watters)

Open-access academic journals are bringing with them some very dodgy operators

Ant Comics (via Andrew Salmond) – marvellous, just marvellous. There’s about a whole book’s worth of stuff here to read through.

The zombies bit you. You have a baby in your care. What do you do? An Aussie short film being widely circulated because it’s good.

The Apollo 11 lunar landing as it went down – marvellous, just marvellous. Wear headphones to track the separate audio channels.

How far is it to Mars?

The entire archive of Starlog magazine for free download at the Internet Archive.

And finally… in 2011, one blog did something amazing: ZARDOZ WEEK

37 Linky

I turned, if my calculations are correct, 37 this week. In my brain it feels like a perfectly balanced age, because 3+7=10. Throughout the coming year I will expect everything I do to be quickly matched by a complementary response.

Star Wars! Fan film of a lightsaber fight. Neat stuff, nicely done. Lens flares! (via Craig Oxbrow)

Explore gender bias in music playlists (via Nick Tipping)

A script for countering telemarketers. (this is old – I think I first saw it a full decade ago – but still good)

25 minority characters that Hollywood whitewashed – man, old Hollywood sure was racist, huh! It’s great that things have – oh wait. I’ve just reached the second half of the list. (via Sonal)

5 things about ubiquitous computing that make me nervous

Little girls dressed up as superheroes will never stop being awesome. Ballerina Hulk is the best ever.

Fully-dressed superheroines – this isn’t a new idea but these images have been massively discussed this week.

Hogwarts: the next generation

Was the Harlem Shake truly a viral phenomenon, or a corporate one? Is there even a difference any more? Forbes has some interesting comments to make.

Huey Lewis does American Psycho doing Huey Lewis This made me LAUGH. And it disturbed me. So that’s a win for them.

Some folks have made a viable random comic generator. I enjoyed clicking through for a while. It works because they’re really strict about the structure – first panel is always a setup, second is always a twist, third is always a resolution.

The Shadowy Residents of 1 Hyde Park (via mundens) – an interesting exploration of the super-super-rich. Curiously it has a very boring opening, while hiding a killer hook a few paras further down – The really curious aspect of One Hyde Park can be appreciated only at night. Walk past the complex then and you notice nearly every window is dark. As John Arlidge wrote in The Sunday Times, “It’s dark. Not just a bit dark—darker, say, than the surrounding buildings—but black dark. Only the odd light is on. . . . Seems like nobody’s home.”

The Guardian does a lovely infographic of 50 years of Doctor Who

Apparently Paul McCartney asked Delia Derbyshire to do a version of ‘Yesterday’?

Conspiracists ahoy – check out the fascinating multilayered links between Rosemary’s Baby, The Beatles White Album, and the Sharon Tate murder…

Oh, I missed this completely! The Edinburgh Book Sculptress made an encore appearance late last year.

Movie supercut of breaking the fourth wall

Game of Thrones cheat sheet for those starting s3

And finally, via theremina, Des Hommes Et Des Chatons