The Intersection of Math and Art

Say hello to the Harniss spiral, a design based on the Golden Ratio. Isn't it elegant? The first iteration would be a great pendant; with some small changes it would be a great design for a chain bracelet: a whole series of interlocking spirals. Unfortunately, those ideas are going to have to wait until I have more time/space/money to work with metal.

Trek Thursday: Return of the Archons

#41: Return of the Archons

In case you forgot: The Enterprise is investigating the disappearance of the starship Archon over Beta III. Turns out Beta III is being run by a computer named Landru and he assimilated the Archons into his collective consciousness party, like a prototype Borg. Kirk saves the day with some good old-fashioned logic.

This episode has a pretty solid opening. The lawgivers and their Grim Reaper style hoods are striking, and the "festival" is a really juicy mystery. What is it? Why do people have to participate? Is it a compulsory kind of participation that they can't help? Is it coerced, or maybe even voluntary?  Why are older people like Reger exempt? Never mind the weird unison with which the locals turn against Kirk and company, picking up their weapons at the same time and slowly advancing. They're a zombie horde without being zombies.

Moreover, this episode is a great example of set reuse (possible costume reuse?) done really well. They don't fuck around with anything like "oh it's an alternate Earth!" or "oh it's Space Nazis!"; rather, it comes across as an entirely believable alternate human civilization; the fact that everyone is SO FUCKING WEIRD makes the fact that they look like extras in a gangster film irrelevant. If anything, the understated costumes makes the Beta III locals even creepier because there is such a jar between what you expect a "regular" Earth human to do (as opposed to a green-skinned space babe in huts or tipi or whatever) and what they're doing.

You see, then, that this episode could have been great. I really cannot overstate how great the pacing is and how juicy the mystery is over basically the whole first act. But when it takes all that good stuff and just pisses it away in favor of Kirk out-braining a computer, it's so disappointing.

All of the questions the episode poses in the first half  never get answered in the second half. This episode is everything I hated about LOST, only in Star Trek. If the episode had stayed on track, it would have been one of the greatest ones, easily.

Stash-Busting Pi Stackables

After my "twine-and-button" period, I sat down and threw together some memory wire bracelets:

All are pi.

I love memory wire, and sometimes when I love something I put off doing it because I feel like I don't deserve to do something I like? I don't know. All I know is that these bracelets are the first memory wire stackables I've made in over a year.

I love these little guys. They are a great sort of "mix-and-match" (though if they're pi bracelets, does that make them "mix-and-math"?) item. Wear them alone, punch them up with a plain chain bracelet or metal bangle, or make them part of a huge, eclectic boho look.

Note that I would not recommend using only memory wire bangles for that look, unless you have exceptionally skinny forearms.

They're fun to wear and they're fun to make, too. In particular, they're great for cleaning out the dregs of a bead supply. That green bracelet, for example: I was working on it when one of the round, lighter beads fell. JV and I looked for a while but couldn't find it, so I shrugged and continued. What are the odds I'll need it? I thought.

Turned out that I needed it.

I refused to let my frustration get the best of me, I snipped the end of the memory wire, taped it up so nothing would slide off, and sifted through my bead box to see what else I could use up. I ended up making that blue and yellow one you see above, and while fishing the blue beads (they are fiber optic glass, by the way) out from the chaos of a box that didn't quite survive international transport, I found one single light green bead.

SATISFACTION. And also: cool story, bro.

I still have plenty more beads to clear out, though. I need to make room for more Czech glass beads in my life. Which color combo do you like best out of the above? What do you usually wear? Your answers will help me think outside my bead box and come up with combinations I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

Baby Steps in Crochet and Preparing for Alzheimer's

Crochet has always been "that thing that Lawyer Mom can do that I don't understand." Or it was, until now!

As a small child I wanted to be able to do the things that Mom could do, as most kids probably try to emulate their parents. I took to piano easily. Crochet? Not so much. I got as far as just doing endless, endless chain stitches but when it came to moving from that into an actual thing I just couldn't grasp the concept. I ended up turning an entire skein of Red Heart yarn (it was a "baby afghan" colored yarn, pink and blue and white) into one long chain stitch, and then using the resulting snake as some kind of extra heavy yarn and chain stitching that into oblivion. I have no idea what happened to that monstrosity or if I even finished it.

All of that is to say I finally figured out how to crochet. Kind of. So I present a project that 10-year-old me would have been proud of:

I'm not sure if this is a direction I want to take officially take with Kokoba. Not potholders, obviously; apparel is more labor-intensive but it's probably also a much better seller.

Old age, dementia, and Alzheimer's are things that worry me. As I might have mentioned in relation to my thoughts on 23andMe, I know I have a copy of the APOE4 gene, elevating my risk of contracting Alzheimer's. I say "elevating my risk" but truthfully the odds are still against it (the risk is like 13% instead of 7%). Even with Alzheimer's out of the picture there's always the possibility of dementia and there's no report for that on 23andMe.

Long story short, I worry about these things and what will happen to my brain and my mind as I age. There's no way to know until you're in the thick of things. Watching this TED talk (yes, a TED talk, I know, but this one is good except really they should have gotten her a podium or a chair or something) got me thinking about my hobbies and what is familiar to me. What are my hands used to doing?

Piano, for one. According to JV I even play in my sleep on occasion. But if I end up in a home or a care facility, I'm certainly not going to have room for a piano of my own.

Viking knit, for another. That is smaller, portable, silent (no chance of bothering a roommate or anyone else), but handling fine-gauge wire in old age might not go so well. Though, again, if 23andMe is to be believed, I'm at a reduced risk both for rheumatoid arthritis and macular degeneration: good news for working with small crafts!

Still, pliers and wire snips might not go over so well in a care facility. Plus, as I've discovered, it's much easier to find "fiber arts" supplies on a daily basis than it is jewelry. I can go to the varuhus (department store? I guess? it's more than a grocery store but less than something like Target or WalMart) in the first floor of our building and find a wide assortment of yarn (mostly acrylic, which will have yarn snobs poo-pooing, but you can find wool as well), crochet hooks, knitting needles, and patterns. Beads? Wire? Findings? Only available at a couple of craft stores and even then of a questionable quality.

I will keep this up, maybe until we're drowning in crappy little pot holders, but you need to learn to walk before you can run, amirite?

January Read Play Blog: What I'm Looking Forward to in 2015

Today is one of those times where 5 Fandom Friday and Read Play Blog overlap, but I'm skipping 5 Fandom Friday this week. Cons aren't really my scene, so I wouldn't really have any good answers!

Read Play Blog is a meme about video games and books, posted every 16th of the month. Bloggers are encouraged to answer a discussion question, and recommend a video game that is similar to a book they liked. Hosted by Happy Indulgence Books & Read Me Away.



Today's Read Play Blog question is: What games are you looking forward to in 2015?

Truth be told, none. At least in terms of new releases. I don't keep track of video game releases at all, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost is that after a 2+ year dry spell, I am way behind. Case in point: it's 2015 now (holy crap!!) and I still haven't finished Fallout 3, Ni no Kuni, or Demon's Souls. There's a long, long queue of games in JV's collection I need to get to—I don't have time for new releases!

The other, lesser reason is that I simply don't have the discretionary funds for new games right on release. Fortunately, thanks to the fact that I'm immensely far behind in the gaming world, this doesn't bug me as much as it might otherwise.

What I'm looking forward to hopefully being able to play for the first time in 2015 is a different story, though! There are two on the top of my list: Fez and Thomas Was Alone. And while I may have finally been a late convert to Steam, both of those games are unavailable on Linux! They are, at least, available on PS3, so when I clear up some space in my gaming queue I can add them to it.

I was not one of the people clamoring on the Internet for Fez after Phil Fish initially previewed it in 2007 or whenever. The name was familiar to me, in that sort of Internet osmosis way that anything tangentially related to what you're interested in eventually becomes familiar to you, but I didn't know anything about it except that people hated Fish. I didn't see any of the game in detail until JV and I watched Indie Game: The Movie, and I decided that it looked really lighthearted and fun and challenging.

I don't know how I came across Thomas Was Alone. I think it was a blog I follow, or maybe a video review JV was watching? But I live for that puzzle shit, and I love how understated and unique the whole look is. It takes a lot of creativity to make an entire game just out of a few shapes!

Recommendation

I mean, I already wrote a lot of words on this, but I think everyone should at least try Papers, Please, no matter what kind of genre preferences they have. That said, it's a game that I think dystopian aficionados in particular will enjoy. Are you a fan of 1984? Franz Kafka? This game is for you.

Currently Playing

But what currently has the bulk of my attention is this ridiculously ~super kawaii desu ne~~ visual novel game, Long Live the Queen. One of my friends called it "that anime murder sim" and gave me some friendly shit for spending so much time on it, but I can't help it! I have too many thoughts on it to go into detail here, except to say that it appeals to that inner optimizer I talked about with The Novelist. 

Trek Thursday: Patterns of Force

#42. Patterns of Force

In case you forgot: The infamous SPACE NAZIS episode! A Federation officer sent to "observe" has meddled in the development of a society and made them all Nazis, with a stand-in Jewish race to boot. The situation has spiraled well out of his control and it's up to Kirk and company to save the day.

Yet another example of Starfleet and the Federation doing more harm in the galaxy than good. You have to wonder: what is the net "moral worth" of Starfleet in this universe? Half the time Kirk and company are either solving problems someone else in the fleet has made; the other half they're making problems and then being nice enough to tidy up the lose ends in under an hour.

This is why the Prime Directive is so important you guys, otherwise we end up with Space Nazis.


 I appreciate that we're not in "parallel Earth" territory—someone from Earth deliberately interfered and made things this way, something about a strong and efficient government rescuing a people in economic and social shambles—but I mean...Nazis? I don't mind brutal totalitarian regimes in my science fiction, even with a good dollop of race hatred, but certainly a more elegant stand-in can be created than Seig Heils and swastikas? Sure this was written in a pre-Godwin environment, where the nightmares of the Holocaust were still brutally fresh, but what makes for good dramatic catharsis in the 60s doesn't always age well. Which is too bad, because with a little more understatement, this episode could have been one of the best in the entire series.

What I Played: The Novelist

It's begun, you guys. I've become addicted to PC gaming. Dammit, Steam!

Some games I can only play for a short while before I need a break (I've still only only gotten to one ending in Papers, Please despite owning it the longest), and some games I would gladly play ALL DAY.

But the game I want to talk about today is neither of those. Like all of the games I've bought and played so far on Steam, it's story-heavy, and not reliant on "playing" but rather choices: The Novelist.

You are a ghost. You haunt a rental house, and this summer the Kaplans are coming for a long summer getaway. Dan Kaplan, the father, is a novelist struggling with his sophomore book. It's put a strain on his marriage with Linda, herself an artist, and kept him distant from his son Tommy. Your job as the ghost is manage this family's dreams and relationships. Whether you destroy them or nurture them is up to you.

 You can learn about them by reading their thoughts, snooping in their correspondence, and investigating their memories. When you know what everyone wants, you influence the next day's actions by whispering suggestions to Dan at night.

On its surface, the game looks simple: it's only 9 chapters long and action is limited to the rental house. That's not really a whole lot of choices to make. But under the surface it's incredibly complex. There are over 100 different individual scenes creator Kent Hudson had to create, each reflecting not only the choice and compromise you made in this chapter, but also the previous chapters.

It's also the kind of thing that has a special appeal for me; as a writer and creative person in general, I can find it hard to balance my creativity and passions with other important things, like my relationship and my health. If you've ever done NaNoWriMo, Script Frenzy, or the 30 Characters in 30 Days challenge, you've experienced that tension yourself. I was curious about how the story would unfold and how much Dan Kaplan's life would mirror my own.

There are two modes: "story" (the family is incapable of noticing you, so you can move around as freely as you like) and "stealth" (the family is capable of noticing you, so you have to be sneaky and possess different light sources and stay out of their line of vision). I didn't want to have to stress about being seen in addition to collecting all the clues and making the right decisions on my first playthrough, so I chose story mode.

Ideally, you should play the game without metagaming or strategizing—the experience Hudson was going for. Unfortunately metagaming, strategizing, and optimizing is exactly what I like about gaming, and I didn't lose myself in the story so much as metagame it: "Just stagger it so that everyone has equal wins, compromises, and losses, and you'll get the best possible ending." I'm glad the game received such rave and enthusiastic reviews, but personally I was incapable of getting as immersed as other gamers and reviewers apparently did, so I probably didn't enjoy it as much.

Instead, what I did find quite arresting (and wanted to see more of) was the house's backstory. You get glimpses here and there—ghostly journal entries and correspondence from residents who lived there years ago appear at night—but the focus of the game is heavily tilted towards the Kaplans.

I only have two issues. First, there are no save slots; it's impossible to go back and undo a decision, so you either have to see the consequences of a bad or mistaken decision through to the end, or you have to start over from scratch. And, yes, I did make a decision by accident. It's my own damn fault, but it was frustrating that I had no means of undoing it. However, the game is so short that this is hardly an insurmountable obstacle.

Secondly, for such a simple game it seems quite resource-heavy. It has the longest load time of any of my other steam games, and it seems like my computer (quite new, though not built to be a ~gaming PC~) really strains to run it at times.

I don't know if I got the best possible ending, but I got a pretty good one. I'm not sure how much I want to go back and replay for other endings, because those other endings mean something going wrong for someone, whether it's Linda or Dan or Tommy. Since there's no in-game checklist of possible endings, I don't really have any desire to go back and get some of the worse ones "just because."

I appreciate the crazy level of thought, detail, and design that went into this game, though. If you don't check any of the other links in this entry, you need to read the last one, especially if you're interested in game design. I'll even include the link again for convenience's sake. This is like the Fred Astaire of games: a lot of work and sweat and focus to make a final product that looks easy and effortless.