Commercials We’d Like To See

By Evan — — SF

Ever wonder how carnivorous aliens can devour humans without getting sick, even though they have totally different biochemistries? Well, Steve Eley has the answer:

“Dessert?”

“Oh, no, thank you. I’m chordate intolerant.”

“So am I. Have you tried Terranex?”

“Terranex? What’s that?”

“It’s the new supplement for Earth invaders with sensitive thoracic cavities like ours. It breaks down those complex protein chains so your body doesn’t have to!”

“I had no idea!”

“For best results, Terranex should be taken every solar cycle. Side effects may include headaches, nausea, or the sudden transformation into a half-human hybrid consumed by inexplicable angst and intent on the destruction of your own race. If irritation persists, please see your geneticist. Now…how about an entertainment lawyer?”

“I’ll take two!” [laughter] “THANKS, TERRANEX!”

Swearing Up A Storm(bringer)

By Evan — — Writing

“I do have a cause, though. It’s obscenity. I’m for it.” – Tom Lehrer

I’ve been flipping through some of the fantasy novels from my youth, the big medieval fantasy paperweight novels — you know, those books. One interesting characteristic they share is that there is very little swearing. Oh, there’s indirect swearing. “Lord Kelvin muttered a vile oath” or “Kazragh the Bold cursed in impotent rage” or some such. But throughout the entire 5,000 page series, there’s not a “fuck” or “shit” to be found. Why is that? It’s not like this is protecting the delicate ears of our children. Explicit sex scenes? Check. Impalings? Check. Desanguinations, decapitations, massacres? Check, check, check. Foul language? Weirdly excised.

Science fiction does much better on this account. Yes, certain novels have experimented with silly made-up “futuristic” swear words[1], but for the most part, science fiction has its act together. And of course, there are many fine counter-examples of medieval fantasy authors that use foul language and use it well, such as Glen Cook and Steven Brust. Still, a huge chunk of medieval fantasy simply has no swearing at all. Unfortunately, this has infected my writing style. I’ll start writing, “[Character X] cursed…” and then I’ll stop. Wait, wouldn’t it be better to write down what Character X actually said? Is there a good reason to be indirect here? Usually not.

Real medieval people (like real Old West people) no doubt swore a lot, maybe even more than we do. Now clearly, medieval fantasy characters should not think and act like 21st-century North Americans — for starters, they’re probably speaking a completely alien language. It’s just that in the author’s “translation” to Modern English, they ought to sound natural to us. Leaving out all the swear words is just as big a mistake as using stilted “high medieval” dialogue.

Anyway, the upshot is that I’m still confused about why medieval fantasy usually has explicit sex, always has very explicit violence, but tends to elide the coarse language. What is it about medieval fantasy that makes it different from other genres, such as science fiction, thrillers, mysteries, or even non-medieval fantasy?

1. You could always argue that the language has evolved, and words such as “frelling” are incredibly shocking to people in the 25th century or whatnot. However, I submit that the only reason you should inject new words into the language is to evoke a particular feeling in your 21st century reader, not your imaginary 25th century characters. And in this 21st century reader, “frelling” evokes the feeling that your tough-as-nails space mercenary is a wussie who wouldn’t survive a five minute stroll in downtown Los Altos.

Off to Yahoo!

By Evan — — Personal

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but in my defense, it’s been a busy month. Things have been hectic at work. There were taxes to pay. Weddings to attend. My wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it. Actually, if I were to murder anything, it would be the pigeons roosting in the eaves right over the stairs. I’ve poked at them with an extensible pole, but they keep coming back. I bought a plastic owl to scare them, but after about two days, the pigeons caught on. Wily, those pigeons. Noted animal control expert Tom Lehrer has some thoughts on the matter that certainly deserve further analysis.

The one piece of major news for the month is… drumroll… I’m changing jobs. I’ll be starting at Yahoo! in just a little under two weeks. I’ll be working for the Infrastructure group, helping to document internal software APIs and tools. Admittedly, this probably doesn’t sound as interesting to you as it does to me, but let’s face it: the life of a technical writer isn’t exactly about the glamour, baby. Oh, sure, the kids keep coming to me with stars in their eyes… and I keep having to break it to them that despite what they’ve seen on TV, technical writing isn’t all gold chains and supermodels and champagne and “Tech Pubs Emergencies!” that send you winging off to Amsterdam at a moment’s notice. The truth is that it’s hard work, kiddo, and don’t let anyone tell you different.

At Chordiant I was fortunate to have consistently excellent colleagues in both Tech Pubs and Engineering. And let’s face it, good relationships with your colleagues are make-or-break for a writer. Engineering is a little different in this respect — the proverbial “lone genius” engineer can, in certain situations,[1] be marginally effective. Not so for tech writers. If all your Subject Matter Experts dislike you, nothing else matters. You’re screwed. So as I leave my comfy, well-established tech writing department, I can’t help feeling a smidge of trepidation mixed in with all the excitement and happy thoughts. The group we’re building is pretty new, and so we’d better be strong right out of the gate. Let’s hope my new colleagues don’t find out that I’ve been out-clevered by the pigeons.

One last note: as some of you might know, Yahoo! has a number of prominent bloggers. So far it hasn’t been my style to write much about work, and so I probably won’t turn into a “Yahoo! blogger” as such. It’s possible, but unlikely. The one thing I can promise is that I will attempt to post more frequently. Whether it’s storymapping, markup shenanigans, or delicious mojito recipes, I’m your man.

1. And for certain values of “genius”.

No Trees Were Harmed In the Writing of This Novel

By Evan — — Tech

As an experiment, I’ve decided to write The Book entirely on my computer. This might not be a revolutionary move for some people, but it’s a revolutionary move for me. Ordinarily when I write, I have all sorts of paper flotsam — notes from interviews, printed-out specs with more notes from meetings, sketches, and so on. However, for The Book I’m trying to do everything in software.

On the face of it, this is a pretty stupid idea.

iBook vs. Pencil and Paper
Characteristic 12″ iBook Pencil and Paper
Cost $999 $1.79
Weight 4.9 pounds 5 ounces
Battery Life 5 hours Infinite
Resolution 1024 x 768 @ 106 dpi 600+ dpi at typical viewing distances
Uptime 99.99% 99.999% (with hot-swappable backup pencil)
Operating Temperature 50 to 95 F -459 to 451 F

But despite the obvious advantages of paper, I am trying to do everything on the iBook anyway.[1], [2] The main reasons are:

  • Backups and archiving.

  • Organizing. (I have a much easier time keeping virtual things organized than paper things.)

  • Hyperlinking.

  • Searching.

In particular, I think the first and fourth items are what will make the effort worthwhile. And there is, I believe, a qualitative change between going 99% digital and 100% digital. It’s the difference between knowing that everything related to The Book is archived, versus “everything except for my story maps, and those scribbled notes from the coffee shop last October, and …”

Of course even if you buy all that, there are still major tradeoffs to consider. One drawback is that you lose some spontaneity, because you have to have your laptop to write. This would be a huge pain for writers whose modus operandi is to scribble huge piles of notes whenever inspiration strikes. Unless you’re a whiz with your PDA or smartphone, you’d have to resign yourself to a lot of transcription.

Another drawback is that certain writing techniques don’t translate all that well over to the digital world. For example, I find that while storymapping can be very useful when using pen and paper, it basically sucks on the computer. In my next post, I’ll describe a couple of things I tried to make storymapping on the computer suck a little less. At least on Macintoshes. As for making things suck less on other platforms, I wouldn’t really know where to start.

1. Despite the title of this entry, I am not actually doing this to “save trees.” At this point in my career, I’ve killed far too many trees for me to start worrying about them now. See, the first time you print out a huge manual only to discover that the global template was screwed up and you have to junk the whole thing — yes, yes, you feel horribly guilty. The second time this happens — you still feel pretty guilty. But by the seventeenth time, you feel nothing but cool professional detachment. Presumably, contract killers progress psychologically in much the same way.

2. And lest you dismiss the whole enterprise as the gimmick project of an effete, technology-obsessed Silicon Valley man-child, I should state for the record that I cannot possibly be any of these things, as I do not own a cell phone or even a working[3] television set. So there.

3. The key word being “working”. I actually do own a TV, but I have no cable subscription, and the antenna reception is awful, so the television sits unplugged in the corner of my office, serving as an ugly and not very practical end table. I keep it around mostly because I think that at some point in the future, I might want a TV. That’s the theory, anyway. Unfortunately, the truth is that I am, in fact, an effete, technology-obsessed Silicon Valley man-child… and so when the time comes, I know quite well that I will go out and get a fancy super-thin high-definition whizbang TV, and my current TV will remain an ugly and impractical end table.

Creative Commons

By Evan — — Tech

I discovered the other day that Yahoo! has launched a Creative Commons Search. Nifty stuff! I am pleased to note that the goer.org HTML 4.01 Tutorial is currently the #2 result for the search “html tutorial”. This despite the fact that the tutorial isn’t finished, and was mostly written before I understood the difference between “tags” and “elements”. Hmmmm. I think the tutorial could use some spiffing up…

In other Creative Commons-related news: via Tim Bray I discovered a curious statement from Bob Wyman, who claims that the Creative Commons “non-commercial” license does not actually do anything to prevent commercial use. Wyman’s reasoning is:

Given the notes on the Creative Commons site, and a closer reading of the Creative Commons licenses themselves, it seems like what is being said by the CC “NonCommercial” license is not that commercial use is denied, but rather that non-commercial use is permitted. The focus is on what is permitted, not what is denied.

First, as far as I can tell, the text of the NonCommercial License explicitly states that commercial usage is prohibited: “Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.” Legal jargon is tricky, and designed to trip up non-lawyers and rubes such as ourselves. That said, I am not sure how a “closer reading” would come to some other conclusion.

Second, let’s imagine we live in a universe where the NonCommercial license didn’t say “you may not use this work for commercial purposes.” Let’s say it said, “You may use this work for non-commercial purposes” instead. I don’t see how this would make any difference. By default, you cannot take my copyrighted material without my permission and use it for either A) non-commercial or B) commercial purposes (modulo fair use and parody considerations). If I then subsequently grant you permission to use some of my copyrighted material for A), that doesn’t mean you are suddenly granted permission to use it for B) also. Unless B) is a subset of A). Which it isn’t, at least if I understand the English prefix, “non-“.

Or am I missing something? I am not a lawyer. Then again, as far as I can tell, neither is Bob. Creative Commons licenses might have other structural problems, but I don’t see how this particular issue is one of them.

In Which Someone Who Wishes to Sue a Video Game Manufacturer Has Something to Teach Us, After All

By Evan — — Personal

evan.goer: Sam?

slamfu: yes?

evan.goer: I have found a Stupid Warrior Forum Post that completely blows away all Stupid Rogue Forum Posts I have seen to date, added together.

evan.goer: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-warrior&t=109439&p=1&tmp=1#post109439

slamfu: bring it on, did I write it? 🙂

slamfu: Oh…the shrillness

slamfu: I saw that post earlier and my lamedar warned me off.

evan.goer: At first I thought we was kidding, but reading further in the thread, it looks like he is not.

slamfu: it is to weep

evan.goer: I cannot understand how all these people manage to survive in a complex, 21st century society.

evan.goer: How do they pay their taxes?

evan.goer: How do they balance their checkbooks?

evan.goer: I am seriously confused on this point.

slamfu: because its easy. Not like we gotta watch for lions after dark.  Sometimes I miss those lions.

evan.goer: Dude, okay, bringing back the lions would be bad for guys like me.

evan.goer: I can run very fast, but I’m not THAT fast.

slamfu: you’re faster than plenty :) and thats all that matters.

evan.goer: Oh that is true, you don’t have to be faster than the *lion*!

evan.goer: good point.

slamfu: Yup!

evan.goer: Well now I feel much better about Caveman Goer’s survival chances then.

evan.goer: Also Caveman Goer is rarely sick.

slamfu: You might not get to ever have sex, but at least you wont get eaten.

evan.goer: yup, cannot carry the girl back to the cave, she is too heavy.

slamfu: Nor could you defeat The Rock in single combat

evan.goer: Well, sure I could. “Look over there, a lion” (throws rock)

slamfu: The Rock would never fall for such foolishness.

slamfu: Biff maybe.

evan.goer: Well not the Rock, he is a pretty smart guy. But Biff, yes.

slamfu: In fact, The Rock is likely to have a few such moves himself.

evan.goer: Well, then I am in trouble. My only hope

evan.goer: is to use my political skills to convince Biff to fight The Rock while I run off with the girl.

slamfu: is to build a stable society in which intelligence and discipline are held in high regard even if it means those who wish to sue over games are also allowed to live?

evan.goer: YES!!! Even better!

slamfu: or that.

slamfu: well you’d better get to work, cuz only the second part of that exists now.

How to Have a Wicked Awesome Supah Bowl

By Evan — — Culture

The writing team at my company is split between California and New Hampshire. I was feeling a bit punchy last Friday, which led to this email…

From: Evan Goer
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 12:57 PM
To: Tech Comm — US
Subject: Need assistance!

Hi all,

It looks like I’m going to be rooting for the Pats (aka “The Good Guys” aka “The Ego-less Team Players” aka “The Flying Elvises”) in this Sunday’s Superbowl. However, the problem is that I don’t think one can successfully root for the New England Patriots without using proper diction. So I’ve been practicing with phrases such as:

“You cahn’t beat da Pats, Braydee is wicked pissah, best QB evah.”

Is that reasonably accurate? Any thoughts on vocabulary, intonation, …? I don’t have much time to get this all down before the big game!

advTHANKSance,

Evan

Among the various responses, this one was my favorite:

From: B
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 1:47 PM
To: Evan Goer; Tech Comm — US
Subject: RE: Need assistance!

Evan,

As I am not a New Englander by birth, I think I can help you out with a few things I have picked up over the years. Here are some pointers:

  • Instead of calling your friends by their Christian name, call them ‘broth-ah’ or ‘kid’. For example, “What’s up, brothah?” or “Can you pass me those nachos kid?”

  • If you do not yet have one, try to befriend someone with the last name of Sullivan. To be a true New Englander you must have a friend you can call ‘Sully’.

  • I know this is unlikely, but should you be in an area with snow… Act like you are SHOCKED that it is snowing… As if snow in the middle of January was absolutely the last thing you would have ever expected.

  • Regardless of snow, make sure to keep the conversation on the weather. What did it do today? What did it do yesterday? Does today’s weather remind of sometime 7 years ago when it was also cold out? Etc. Also, make sure that no matter what you have asked for in the past, you must complain about the present. If it is hot, say you wish it was cold. If it is cold, say you wish it was hot.

  • If you run out of weather topics, talk about traffic and directions. Impress your friends with a new shortcut you found, dazzle them with tales of long commutes.

  • Not only buy scratch tickets, but actually know the numbers of the individual games. Instead of asking for a “Pot-of-Gold, Lucky Horseshoes, and an Aces High.” You should be able to go into any corner store and order a “5, 18, and a 23” and know exactly what games you are getting.

  • Learn the complete lyrics to both the Foxwood’s and 1-800-54-GIANT songs. (The wonder of it all!!!)

  • Know that the Green Monster is NOT a Sesame Street character.

  • Jimmies are chocolate only. Sprinkles are multi-colored.

  • Throw out all of your jelly and replace it with Fluff.

  • Know that REAL chow-dah is thick and creamy. NOT red and watery!

  • Last but not least, just enjoy the fact that New England is home to the WORLD CHAMPION NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS AND BOSTON RED SOX!!!!!!!!!…. And if all else fails, say something crude and vulgar about the Yankees!

I hope this helps. Have fun.

Mathematical Background

By Evan — — Science

As I was reading Jacques’s post about UT’s undergraduate math requirements for upper-division physics, I knew he would get at least one comment or trackback about the general watering down of standards, or some such. I was not disappointed.

The issue Jacques describes has nothing to do with watering down of standards. Four semesters of math is (or should be) sufficient to get through upper-division Quantum Mechanics. Linear Algebra issues aside, the difficulty of upper-division Quantum Mechanics stems from the conceptual issues, not the math. The problem, as Jacques points out, is a mismatch between the math curriculum and the physics curriculum.

The UT physics department could do one of three things to fix this problem.

  • Require all physics students to take, or test out of, both the Advanced Calculus class and the Linear Algebra class. Physics majors really ought to have both under their belts.

  • Forget about those two a la carte classes. Instead, require all upper-division majors to take a “Mathematical Methods for Physicists” class, designed to ensure that everyone has the right machinery to forge through their upper-division work.

  • Coordinate with the math department; adjust the mathematical core accordingly.

My alma mater used the third approach. The math, engineering, computer science, and natural science departments all coordinated closely on the base four-semester mathematics core. Individual departments could then layer additional requirements, but at least everyone had a common foundation, even the biologists and computer scientists. This solution worked great for a school with 700 undergrads, where all the professors knew each other personally, shared babysitters, and so on. It would probably work less well for UT.[1]

1. The main disadvantage of this “Grand Unified Core” approach is that it generates a great deal of whining from certain students over “taking math that I’ll never use!” Long ago, I used to sympathize with my oppressed computer science and biology brethren. But now… not so much. Over the last few years, I have run into senior developers who did not understand that ln (A + B) is not equal to ln A + ln B. And who when queried about this responded, “Look, I have a mathematical background, I really can’t explain it to you.” Professors of All and Sundry Technical Disciplines: please don’t let this happen to your graduating seniors. Thank you.

Welcome Back to TV-Land, Mr. Goer… We Missed You

By Evan — — Culture

Good things about Numb3rs:

  • David Krumholtz has the right mixture of cuteness and geekiness to carry the show. Not that I’m qualified to judge the former.[1]

  • The show has a nice demonstration of how random patterns are harder to construct than you might think.

  • When taking notes on his brother’s lecture on serial killer behavior patterns, Krumholtz uses the ∃ notation for “there exists.” I used to do this when taking notes for non-science classes. (“For all democratic governments, there exists a unique principle…”)

  • ohmygod it’s Natalie — I mean SABRINA LLOYD!!!!

Not-so-good things about Numb3rs:

  • The “3” is not even remotely l33t.

  • Peter MacNicol’s character is just as annoying as he was on Ally McBeal, and he makes a surprisingly unconvincing physicist.

  • “Let’s have a show about a mathematician hero and premiere it right after football. Then let’s move it to Fridays at 10!”

As a side note, is it just me, or have commercials gotten totally weird? I haven’t owned a working TV for nearly three years, and most of what I have watched has been Tivo’ed shows or shows-on-DVD. Now that I have emerged from my cocoon, it seems there is a bewildering array of prescription pharmaceuticals and other medical products available for purchase these days. Is that just CBS, or is that true for all network TV? One commercial simply instructed us to follow our doctor’s instructions when taking Zocor. But what the hell is Zocor? And why do we need commercials to remind us to take it according to instructions? We are a very strange nation.

Did I mention Numb3rs has Sabrina Lloyd? This is important, worth mentioning. Thank you.

1. Although if I did, it’s not like there would be anything wrong with that.

NaNoWriMo Redux

By Evan — — Writing

So I didn’t quite make my NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words last month. But there are two pieces of good news. First, I learned that even if you don’t hit 50,000, you still get to go to the party at the end. Second, NaNoWriMo is not over for me — I’m adding another 50,000 words in December. And this time I have a coach, who is authorized to do everything up to and including taking away all World of Warcraft privileges if I don’t meet each weekly goal. Fear is a powerful motivator…