The L&L Blog
I want to read about Rants and Miscellanea by All
Unexpectedly Catching Up with the GamerGate Controversy
I learned two new “G” words last night: GamerGate and Gawker. Perhaps I’ve been living under a rock, but until about 8pm yesterday evening, I’d heard of neither of them. Then, suddenly, according to the Twittersphere, we had come out in support of GamerGate - which was news to all of us. I’d therefore like to set the record straight.
Why I Hate Sky But Quite Like David
Grr, Sky! Grr, Cornwall! (The sky I am referring to is the corporation owned by devil-incarnate Rupert Murdoch*, by the way, and not the most excellent canopy, the brave overhanging firmament, the majestical roof fretted with… Not the actual sky, I mean.)
Stardust and Inciting Incidents
Just to warn those who read this blog purely for Scrivener-related news: this post is only tangential to Scrivener, as it’s about my own fumbling attempts at writing (for which I use Scrivener, obviously), so you can safely tune out if you don’t like reading self-indulgent prattle.
J.D. Salinger
(Note: Although I've moved most non-Scrivener related posts over to my Machine Dreams blog following a couple of users taking umbrage over my opinions on the objectively terrible Battlestar Galactica finale, I'm making an exception for this one. This is a re-post from the forums, and I feel it's justified purely because J.D. Salinger was one of the authors who made me want to write, and thus had a direct impact on the eventual development of Scrivener. Justification over.)
Dollhouse / Sarah Connor
Okay, so I have now sat through nine episodes of Dollhouse with good grace, trying to trust in the usually brilliant Joss Whedon. After all, he created the generally superb Buffy, the fun Angel (which actually managed to make the hitherto dull character of Angel likeable and played off David Boreanz's comic strengths, now used well in Bones), and the sublime Firefly. (Ah, Firefly and Serenity; I share xkcd's obsession with thee, even though I believe you were derivative of my beloved Farscape.) And it stars Faith my favourite Vampire Slayer and Helo (okay, so I try not to think about BSG too much since the appalling - hock, spit! - finale, but I'll always have a soft spot for Helo and Athena regardless of Ron Moore's tripe ending).
And yet here I am, nine episodes in, and Dollhouse shows no signs of... well, being any good. I hear Alan Tudyk is to appear in the last episodes of the season, so I'm holding on for that, but really, what I don't understand is this: how the hell did this get picked up for a second season by Fox while the excellent Sarah Connor Chronicles was cancelled? The first season of Sarah Connor walked all over Dollhouse with size five Terminator-ballerina boots, and more than earned my patience when I had to put up with a bit of a mediocre middle to the second season (more than pulling it back again for the end of the season). Dollhouse hasn't earned such patience; I'm merely giving it an extended chance because it comes after Firefly.
Does it get any better? It's difficult to care about "actives" who are essentially call girls, especially when all of the cast seem to be turning out to be actives. And yet an emotionless robot played by Summer Glau... Oy, Fox! Bring back TSCC!
And that is my Tuesday lament.
Chasing the Pigeon
The catalyst that lead to my moving certain posts over to a non-Lit'n'Lat blog was my rant about the Battlestar Galactica finale. One reader of that rant has just contacted me to say that he is sorry to see it go, though, as he liked the term "chasing the pigeon". I will thus proffer and elaborate on the term here.
There are already two great terms with similar meanings that have become widespread:
Welcome to Machine Dreams
Much of what is on this blog so far was originally over on lit-n-lat.blogspot.com. I have moved all of the stuff that was not pertinent to Scrivener or Literature & Latte over here, to this new blog, because a few readers found it perturbing to see a developer talk about topics that had nothing to do with development. So this is me being all professional. It is a new and curious feeling.
Life without walls
Windows: Life without walls.
"Turning off Windows Firewall might make your computer (and your network, if you have one) more vulnerable to damage from hackers and malicious software (such as worms)."
Please bring Midway Still back...
Best blog I've discovered this year (possibly the best blog ever):
http://becausemidwaystillarentcomingback.blogspot.com/
I loved Midway Still. I had one of their cool T-shirts - bright orange, with the Converse All Star logo saying "Midway Still" instead of "Converse All Star".
*Sigh.*
In praise of another Ethan Hawke film...
Okay, a little while ago I raved about Gattaca, one of my all-time favourite sci-fi films. But there are, of course, two Ethan Hawke films that blow even that out of the water (and no, I'm not talking about Dead Poets' Society)... Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. You can call me an old romantic (although I'd rather you left out the "old"), but these two films are just superb. I just re-watched Before Sunrise, which, when I saw it in my early twenties, quickly became one of my favourite films... And it still stands up as a great romantic film about two people who meet and like each other, who spend a night wandering around in the way you do with someone you like when you're young, and who then part. It captures that feeling of spending a sleepless night just talking to someone you like beautifully. When I heard they were making a sequel to a film I liked so much, the sort of film that doesn't exactly cry out for a sequel, I thought Richard Linklater must be insane. But how wrong I was. Before Sunset is even better. It's one of the most poignant films I've ever seen, taking up the lives of two characters you cared about in a realistic way. They have separate lives, partners and (for one of them) children