Recent work - languages

Pictures! hopefully they are not absurdly large.  No idea; I'm on the tablets.  Anyway, as I have mentioned, I've been engrossed in transferring my notes from a rather rain-logged notebook to something a little more durable (and yet, not to a digital format, ironically).

As happens whenever I do this kind of thing (such as with essays), this has let me go over my ideas a second time more critically - to consider what is important, what is overbroad and extraneous, to revise and refine and develop.  So making progress!  Story is beginning to come together much better (somewhat less open ended), and possible plot twists are making themselves known!

But what it boils down to is a paper bound "wiki" - all the information and detail and reasons and so forth that I come up with, collected in one area.  I can even jump from page to page!  It's more organized now.

What you see in the last picture has been the most recent focus for the past few days (not pictured: three or four pages of discarded drafts) - a language subsystem.  It was inspired by something I read somewhere else (I wish I could remember where exactly now, to give credit where credit is due) but I've never quite bothered to formalize it.

what boils down to is a universal translation system for a foreseeable problem in interspecies communication; indeed, we have this problem here on Earth already, right here and right now.  Body Language (and other subtle communicators).  No one has a true Sarcasm Detector right?  The age old example would be the smile - it does not mean the same thing in all cultures, much less all contexts.  In some cultures it is a hostile gesture, a declaration of impending violence.  In others, a gesture of friendliness and welcome.  IIRC, the famous picture of Nixon stepping off a plane and signing "peace" with his fingers was, locally, equivalent to an offensive declaration to all viewers.  Kinda like flipping everyone off.

So what happens when you have aliens attempting cross species communications, if we have that problem within a single species on a single planet?  What happens if one alien is beaked, and wholly incapable of smiling?

What if the alien is a hive swarm, and incapable of demonstrating, much less comprehending, such individual expression?

What of species (for example, some octopii) that communicate through photo-chromatrophic signals (color changes and patterns)?

Thus the Emotional-Context Indicator system; imagine using hand signals to indicate whether you were or were not serious in making a statement (akin to Patrick Rothfuss' system in Wise Man's Fears, iirc)? Or to indicate deference to or agreement with another in making a comment?  How much better for eliminating misunderstanding!

Of course, I wouldn't put it past humans to misuse such a system for deception.  So it's not necessarily without it's flaws.  And of course, if you lack appropriate limbs for such signals, that's a problem too.  However, posit a wearable adornment of low level AI, capable of translating subtext via color gradients or shapes (and translating likewise back to the wearer, perhaps through holographic projection).

But not all emotional-context require signals, and in some cases it would be counterproductive (such as signalling that one was lying).  In case, I've imagine a tiered system, 1-10, indicating degree to which the resulting ECI is present in; and come up with quite a few.

I think I have more negatives than positives.... Well, that's Valentines Day for you.

Happy New Years!

Happy (belated) new years everyone!

New years is like, a two week long event here in Taiwan.  During which firecrackers.  Because.

Anyhow, I've (finally) begun transferring my notes to dedicated notebooks; previously, my notes for DE and Weavers were scattered across multiple notepads, a notebook, and a sketchbook.  Which can make things confusing.  In doing so, I've written a synopsis, and that helps tremendously in the organization and focus.  I can also see that, fundamentally, it's too broad and open ended... like a sandbox version of a book.  Which, while enormously interesting to me personally, I can see being both unsatisfying and confusing to others.

I've also been taking note on books that discuss the writing craft, and have thus far engaged in my standard MO - download, feel proud, and then forget about them entirely.  There's a certain irony in writing a book called "The Now Habit" (which I have) for procrastinators (which I am) because we are both precisely the people who need it (so I got it) and who wont read it (which I haven't yet; I think it's been a year. At least.).  There are, however, quite a lot of free and cheap ebooks on writing and I DO intend to read the ones I've grabbed (questionably the same could be said of The Now Habit... possibly I see it as a talisman).

It would be interesting if the acquisition of books meant an instant integration of the 'knowledge' within.  Ah well.

But part of the polarizing need for these books in me (get in mah brain belleh!) is that I am reading a wide range of SF lately for inspiration and learning/analysis... seeing how other authors approach certain topics (themes) as well as present those topics (methods/style).  And I'm seeing more and more of things I don't 'like' - internal inconsistency.  I think I've talked a little bit about this before - it bothers me when something is presented or touted in one fashion, but the behavior or action is altogether different (often due to a limitation in understanding on the author's part).

For example, an author uses a lot (indeed, too many) buzzwords to describe an AI - which subsequently talks and responds like a search engine.  Indeed, all those buzzwords amounted to what was basically Siri or Google Now.  Which is a technology that exists and does not need all the buzzwords or pseudo technology to function.  That is a glaring bit of discord; as Dan Brown wrote, "the best science fiction has its roots in science."  Buzzwords, as we should all know, are empty and devoid of meaning - they are flash without substance, and do little more than to cover up that void (and often poorly at that).

Another example of internal inconsistency - Pacific Rim.  I love this movie (how can you not love giant robots punching giant monsters in their giant faces?), but there are so many internal inconsistencies, it's a testament to how much we love giant robots punching giant monsters (did I mention it has giant robots punching giant monsters?) that we are willing to overlook the discrepancies.  Like, all the world, banding together to research, develop, and build, in 14 months giant, walking (no easy task) robots.  The technology required to do something like that is not simple.  And then to create a neural interface, a computer operating system, remote monitoring systems, and eventually some sort of digital-energy power plant is far and away high science-fiction.

But basically they are only good at awkwardly punching (which never actually harms any of the monsters).  Also, there is the super glaringly obvious weak spot of the everything vital being in the head, which is easily accessible and lightly armored, despite the ample abundance of heavily armored frame.

Somehow, the same technological advances didn't extend to effective weaponry; a plasma weapon which is so slow as to be useful only as a first strike weapon (in which capacity it is amazingly never used) built into a transforming hand is amazingly high tech, but we don't see anything else along that line - just various forms of punching and medieval weaponry (which is awesome, but doesn't make a lot of sense).  Also, despite all the technology and mind control, the robots communicate via manual walkie-talkie only.

It takes a lot of glitz and flash to distract a person from suspension of belief - if your media is visual, that might be easy enough, but when you require the active participation of a reader, that's a whole other story (no pun intended).

To me, it's important to start from a foundation of understanding the world your story takes place in.  Notwithstanding that to me, universe creation is fun, it allows you to explain and analyze your own story for internal consistency.  When I read about patrick rothfuss spending hours and having notes on the currency system in his world, which is something readers only tangentially experience in the story, that says there is a high degree of consideration for internal consistency of his world - which allows a story to make sense.  If the world is not internally consistent, how can the story be?

Surprisingly, that is something which is important to more than just story writing - you see it in things like video games, movies, political campaigning (i guess so far we are still dealing with fiction), religion (still fiction), law, economics (still fiction so far), and science (fiction?!).

Well, I guess in a way, reality is just a story.  If only we were better writers.