Category Archives: Reviews

I Tweep for Humanity

Alternate titles:

  • What a Tweerp
  • While My Guitar Gently Tweeps
  • That’s Twinge

Some of my favorite tweets weren’t my tweets at all, they were conversations between me and my best friend. We were both on Google Buzz–I think we might have been the only ones–so we were able to comment on each other’s posts privately. Here’s a few of our briefer exchanges:

Me: “Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.” -Rod Serling

BFF: But the acoustics are amazing!

Me: So are the sets!

The casting is good too, but the scripts are usually just embarrassing.

Me: Naaails to the left, duct taaape to the right–here I am, stuck in the middle with gluuue~

BFF: You’re describing how I mounted my computer monitor to the wall

To this day I’m not 100% sure he was joking.

Me: If mathematics is the study of pure logic and abstraction, then philosophy is the mathematics of language.

BFF: ?

Me: Could you please be more specific

BFF: ??!

…I have no idea what I was saying, either.

BFF: Anytime I say anything worth quoting, you should attribute it to Mark Twain instead.

Me: -Mark Twain

Like any good hacker, when Mr. Twain learns a new system his first instinct is to try to break it. Sometimes I call him the “anti-mnemonic” because this instinct kicks in without fail any time I’m trying to remember something (No, no, no, it’s “righty light-y, lefty heft-y!”), but he’s expressed the urge in other contexts, too. Such as, for example, lame jokes on Twitter:

Me: I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, there isn’t really any bad news.

BFF: …the bad news is, I was lying about there not really being any bad news.

The other bad news is, I’ve got one more for you. Don’t worry, I’ve saved the most self-indulgent best for last, complete with commentary:

Guess what? Chicken butt.

Ah yes, a classic. But wait, it gets “better!”

Guess why? Chicken pie.

Uh oh. I sense sleep deprivation…

Guess when? Chicken pen.

All right, I think we get it now.

Guess where? Chicken hair.

*sigh*

Guess who? Chicken poo.

I’m surprised I held out that long before resorting to poop, honestly.

Me: Guess how? Chicken cow.

BFF: You are such a menace on Twitter!

-Mark Twain

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Further Tweminiscing

Yesterday was my birthday! To celebrate, I’m going to take a break from all this boring old fiction and get back to something more self-indulgent exciting: tweets I wrote 15 years ago!

A lot of my old tweets were reposts of other people’s blogs, articles, and essays, or sometimes even just quotes. This one is special because the person I’m quoting is my dad:

“Home is where people get your jokes.” -Dan McCrimmon

Love you, dad ❤️

Some of my tweets reminded me of moments and ideas I’d nearly forgotten. Usually this was a good thing.

Watching an…interesting movie called “Tank Girl.” Confused, but in a good way. This must be how dogs feel.

Tank Girl is a cult classic, one of the earlier comic books to be adapted to film. Recommended. I still think “confused, but in a good way” probably is how dogs feel, but after I got stoned for the first time I decided that was a better approximation. (Watching Tank Girl while stoned would be like how dogs feel on the 4th of July.)

Some reminders were more mixed.

Last night I sewed a ripped seam in my pajamas; it was the most accomplished I’ve felt all semester. Why am I in school, again?

Honestly, sometimes I still feel like this is among my top ten achievements in life.

Re-reading papers I wrote in high school. Man, the old me was so awesome. What the hell happened?

Yeah…college did things to me.

Then there were the reminders of things that haven’t changed at all.

Times change, but people remain insane.

Sometimes the insanity is more…prominent…than others.

“Where is my watch?” *searches* “Hmm, that’s odd, I can’t find it any–oh. It’s on my wrist.” #22andgoingsenile

Still just as senile at 37. That’s…good? That’s a good thing, right?

Oh yeah, I was gonna eat dinner at some point. #oops

Oops.

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Younger Me Was A Twiit

I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately–y’know, catalouging all my life’s deepest regrets, just your ordinary early-onset midlife crisis–and I ended up going through some of my old Tweets. Here are a few gems I thought were embarrassing enough to be worth sharing.

I posted this sequence while reading Harry Potter #7 for the first time:

Neville Longbottom is a f***ing badass.

If I were a girl, I would be crushing on Neville Longbottom.

Look at your man. Now look at me. Now back at your man, now back at me, now…back at your man. Sadly, your man is not Neville Longbottom.

He is totally pimp, is what I am saying.

I’m particularly amused that I wrote “if I were a girl” instead of “if I were gay.” In retrospect, I probably should have noticed something odd about that.

Here’s another one on a similar theme:

I’m perfectly comfortable with my heterosexuality, but if A**** Diaz ever came up to me and said “Will you marry me?” I would be like “HELL YES WHEN CAN I START”

This one is doubly funny because not only did the artist in question turn out to be a super hot girl, I also ended up marrying a guy.

Here’s a couple about sleep deprivation:

Today’s word of the day is: FARTCHKNACKER

(I didn’t get much sleep.)

That’s an understatement. Here’s another:

Dreamed I stayed up till 4 doing reading for class. Didn’t actually stay up till 4, but now I feel like I did and my reading still isn’t done.

I think that between them, those two tweets sum up the majority of my college experience.

Here’s an attempt I made at a 140-character poem, just after shaving my head for the first time:

Commit! the imagined is strongest becoming real. Unrequited acts are ghosts of shadows: a memory of warmth beside the moment before sunrise.

It’s not a great poem, but it’s a sentiment I could stand to be reminded of more often.

One more for now. I wrote this one while working a part-time construction gig over the summer:

Boy, I just love using my caulk to plug holes.

Sorry, that one’s still funny.

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Amber Smalltalk

How come nobody told me about this before?  Amber Smalltalk is a dialect of the Smalltalk programming language, which is what caught my attention.  I have been a fan of Smalltalk for years, but the image-based development environment proved a little too cumbersome and monolithic for my tastes.  Amber to the rescue!

Amber is a Smalltalk language for web development.  Now, as I understand it, there is already an excellent Smalltalk-based environment for web development called Seaside.  However, what sets Amber apart from other Smalltalk variants for the web is that it is client-based, and compiles directly to JavaScript.  This means, among other things, that you can go try Amber out right now using nothing but your browser!  It’s the perfect “gateway drug” for the wider Smalltalk world!  I find this especially appealing because it means I won’t have to learn JavaScript to do portable, client-based web programming!  Hurray!

After my initial “project” (modifying the “counter” example to count only by primes), I’ve started working on a web-based game.  It won’t be the much-anticipated port of my game “Press A to Win” (my apologies to both of you who were hoping it would be), instead it will be a game about numbers!  A game about finding numbers’ unique prime factorizations, specifically.  What?  Why are you looking at me like that?  Of course it’ll be fun!

Anyway, you should go check Amber out.  It’s great.  I’ll have something more for you to look at next week.  Until then, stay curious!

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Webcomic Roundup

I’ve already been over some of my favorite bloggers in the past, but you may have noticed that bloggers aren’t the only thing in my sidebar.  Although I enjoy all art forms, comics are a particular pleasure for me, and since webcomics are usually free I tend to read a lot of them.  Here are my favorites:

  • Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell might well be my favorite comic of all time, online or off.  It hits all my weak points: alternatively funny, serious, and touching, with a story featuring both technology and magic, told through expressive and well-rounded characters.  It’s smart, imaginative, and very well-written and drawn (though, like many of the comics on this list, its early pages are much rougher than its later ones).  Tom plans each page meticulously and has probably had the entire story planned out start-to-finish since the beginning–relevant plot details will regularly be foreshadowed many months or even years in advance.  In short, it’s excellent, and you should start reading it from the beginning right now.
  • Dresden Codak is the kind of comic that could only have existed on the internet.  Especially in his earlier stories, creator Aaron Diaz frequently makes various scientific references that will leave you feeling really stupid, then really smart after you’ve been to Wikipedia so you can get the joke.  His art and writing are both brilliant, a little surreal, and frequently esoteric.  The biggest downside of his comic is that it only updates about once every hundred years.  You can start reading it from the beginning here.
  • A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible–hm.  Well, basically, imagine Dresden Codak turned up to eleven.  Kind of.  Very surreal, very highbrow, frequently makes literary and/or philosophical references that will leave you feeling stupid and/or smart, occasionally flirts with continuity but doesn’t really make a habit of it.  Written by Dale Beran and drawn by David Hellman (who also did the art for Braid), it updates approximately once every thousand years.  You can read it from what I suppose is technically the beginning here.
  • El Goonish Shive by Dan Shive is something of a guilty pleasure of mine–it’s a fun, quirky story about a group of teenagers featuring magic, aliens, relationships, and frequent shapeshifting and gender-bending.  It’s funny and cute and I like it, okay? Stop looking at me like that.  The first comic is here (and yes, the art and writing do in fact get way better).
  • Oglaf (EXTREMELY NSFW, by the way) is, well…I’m just gonna quote the ‘warning’ page directly: “This comic started out as an attempt to make pornography.  It degenerated into sex comedy pretty much immediately.”  Yeah, that about sums the whole thing up.  Written by Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne, it’s fantasy-themed, frequently inappropriate, and always funny.  Make sure nobody’s watching over your shoulder, then start from the beginning here.
  • Lackadaisy is the tale of a group of charismatic bootleggers in prohibition-era St. Louis, told by the master of brilliant and hilarious facial expressions, Tracy J. Butler.  Oh, did I mention the bootleggers are anthropomorphic cats?  In addition to the main storyline (which you can read from the beginning here), her website features a number of vignettes, side stories and sketches that are often even more hilarious than the main comics.  This one about waffles is one of my particular favorites (don’t worry, it’s spoiler-free).
  • Cerintha is a fantasy webcomic set in an alternate universe shortly before the fall of Rome.  The art isn’t as impressive as many of the other comics on this list, but Cope (the author) keeps drawing me back with intricate plotlines and fun, interesting characters.  Be warned: although the comic is frequently funny, the overall tone of Cope’s stories (including his previous comic, Atavism) tends to be pretty fatalistic.  You can start reading Cerintha here.
  • Speaking of dark and humorous, The Perry Bible Fellowship has some of the darkest and humor-iest on the ‘net.  Nicholas Gurewitch masterfully juxtaposes cartoonish, childlike visuals with morbid, sexual, or just downright terrible stories.  You will laugh, and you will feel like a horrible person, and then you will click the ‘next’ button.  Go ahead, you monster.
  • Continuing to speak of dark and humorous, never forget Garfield Minus Garfield, the greatest existentialist-humor webcomic ever accidentally written.  I’ll let the comic’s description speak for itself: “Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.”  I have honestly never laughed harder than I have reading this comic.  Start here, then keep going until you can’t breathe.  Trust me, it’ll happen sooner or later.
  • Switching gears, Erstwhile is a comic that re-tells many of the lesser-known stories by the brothers Grimm.  Each story is adapted and illustrated by a different author–Gina Biggs, Louisa Roy, and Elle Skinner.  If you like fairy tales (especially the original versions), give them a look!  Their first story is The Farmer’s Clever Daughter.
  • Finally, there’s xkcd–a nerd classic.  If you haven’t heard of Randall Munroe’s comic yet, you should get out from under that rock you’ve been living beneath and go check it out.  Unlike most of the other comics on this list, there’s no real need to start from the beginning, since only a few of his storylines are continuous–it’s probably better to just hit the random button and go from there.  Enjoy!

How about you?  What are your favorite webcomics?  Let me know which ones I’ve missed in the comments!

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Blogger Roundup

It seems I don’t have anything interesting to say this week.  So here’s a list of writers who do!

  • Mattie Brice writes about videogames a lot.  Unlike most videogame journalists, however, her writing style is neither obsessively technical nor academically detached–she approaches all her writing with a fierce individualism and a strong commitment to broader perspective that is sorely lacking in videogames.  You won’t find stat breakdowns or frame rate counts in her reviews, and you won’t find excessive academic jargon in her critiques; instead, you’ll find thoughtful and articulate musings, analyses, and manifestos on how games relate to our wider culture, and how we can relate back.
  • Chris Bateman writes about videogames a lot too, but he also maintains an interest in a broad range of topics, especially the intersection between science and philosophy.  Though his tone is much more academic than Brice’s, he writes with a clarity and open-mindedness that is refreshing in academic works and in philosophical writing particularly.  I have yet to read a piece of his writing without at some point going “huh, that’s an interesting thought”–and unlike most philosophers, those thoughts frequently have actual applications!
  • Finally, Paul Graham is one of the most intelligent, readable, and influential people writing about computers today.  Though the subject matter of most of his essays focuses on his interests (computer programming and technology startups, mainly) nearly all of them can be read with no prior knowledge of the subject, and in every case he tries to tie the topic in to some broader theme of interest (e.g. effective communication, or the nature of beauty).  Though I don’t agree with everything he says (and since some of his older essays were written years ago, he probably doesn’t either), and he occasionally suffers from the naive short-sightedness endemic to all people of privilege, he invariably has something interesting to say and he almost always says it well.  If Brice is the heart and Bateman is the eyes, then Paul Graham is the head.

How about you?  Who are your favorite internet writers?

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Review: To the Moon

To the Moon is a very sweet and often sad story about two doctors—Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene—trying to grant the final wish of a dying man named Johnny. The game’s central plot device is a machine that allows Watts and Rosalene to traverse and modify Johnny’s memories, in an attempt to piece together his past and use that information to grant his last wish: a trip to the moon. Johnny himself doesn’t know why he wants to go to the moon, which makes finding out the game’s ultimate goal. As you make your way through his memories, a number of other mysterious objects and places show up again and again, prompting you to discover how all these elements fit together to form Johnny’s life. All of this information—the context that ties the whole story together—is provided exclusively through dialog and cutscenes. The game contains very few elements that could be called “game-like” at all. So why is it even a game in the first place?

Let’s start with To the Moon’s interactive elements that aren’t essential to the story.

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Easy Irony

Are you watching Feminist Frequency?  You should be.

I recently came across an episode of the show discussing the concept of “ironic sexism.”  What does that mean?  In a nutshell, it’s a way to justify the use of sexist (or racist, classist, etc.) tropes and stereotypes by making them so over-the-top, ridiculous, or obvious that they cross the line twice and become acceptable again.  The obvious problem with this technique is that what qualifies as “crossing the line twice” is extremely subjective–one person’s “over-the-top” might be another’s “too close to home”–but I think the bigger problem is that it’s just plain lazy writing and lazy thinking.  More often than not, this kind of technique is not an attempt to mock or deconstruct the offensive trope or stereotype, it’s simply an attempt to excuse its use without materially altering the nature of the trope.  In other words, there’s a not-so-fine line between a sexist parody and a parody of sexism: in the former, the overall content of the movie/show/ad might be over-the-top and ridiculous, but the actual offending trope is played straight or merely exaggerated.  In the latter, the stereotype itself is shown to be unrealistic, damaging, or untrue.  If this sounds harder, that’s because it is–taking the time and effort to think our preconceptions and biases through is very hard work, but it’s the only way to live fairly.

What do you think?  Is Sarkeesian right?  Where else have you seen “irony” used as an excuse for laziness, rather than a tool for critical thinking?

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On Intelligence: A Theory of Thinking

On Intelligence is a book written by Jeff Hawkins[1] on the nature of intelligence, both artificial and natural. It’s an expansion of and answer to an age-old question I’ve referred to before: how do we think? What does it mean to be intelligent? What is consciousness? Might it be possible to create an intelligent machine? And if we could–what would that mean for society? In this essay I’ll attempt to describe his theory, its motivations, and how it can be a powerful and useful tool in any field–even if you’re not very interested in AI.
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Lockhart’s Lament

I’ve mentioned this essay in one of my previous posts, but I think it’s worth calling special attention to. You should read this essay if:

  • You loathe mathematics
  • You adore mathematics
  • You’re indifferent to mathematics and don’t see what all the fuss is about either way

Lockhart uses a clear and witty style to describe what he considers the biggest problem with contemporary mathematics education: namely, the complete lack of mathematics. A lot of his points are equally applicable to all areas of education, not just math! It was a real eye-opener for me when I first read it, and I hope it will be for you, too.

P.S.: The original link appears to have been taken down, so I’ve replaced it with a different one. This is the link where I first found it.

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