Fluxx

[[Edit: This has been done before, unsuprisingly.]]

Hey, couldn't we make a game of super-fluxx with some note-cards?

Pure Fluxx

Players: Three+

Materials: A lot of identical note-cards.

Rules: At the beginning of each turn, the active player draws a card or writes up a card.

(Writing a card has to be approved by at the majority of other players, and puts it into their hand. Each card describe or adds some part of the game.

If the rule contradicts existing rules, the rules conflicted with are put into the discard pile.

A rule can change any part of the game.

If the application of the rules is disputed, they are voted upon by the players, majority interpretation wins.

If the rule allows one or more players to win, then all players must agree upon it.

If parts of the original rules are broken, the broken parts are written on a card and discarded.)

The active player may then play the card from his or her hand.

----

Starting terms:

--

Zones: Pre-defined areas where cards can exist. Individual and universal

Hand: A zone for each player. Any card in a hand is naturally only viewed by the player. The starting rules also have the active player play a card from his hand. Cards are "in hand"

Active: These are the rules, objects, etc., that are in play, and affect all players equally. They are placed in the middle between the players, and can be seen by all players. Cards are "active".

Control: These are the cards that, while active, have special effects relative to their "controller." While on the table and visible to all, they are put directly in front of a player. Cards are "under the control of [player name]"

Library: These are the cards that are hidden from all players in a face-down pile of cards somewhere reachable on the table. The committing the action "Draw a card" refers to putting the top card of the library into your hand without revealing it to everyone else. If someone tries to draw a card when the library is empty, the Recycle Bin is shuffled, and turned into the library. If the recycle bin is also empty, then the player writes up a new card instead.

Recycle bin: These are the cards that have been contradicted by other cards, or otherwise inactive. They are piled face-up, revealed to all players, somewhere not to be confused with the active cards.

--

Card types: These are different sorts of cards, and are handled differently, mechanically. Main types and sub-types.

Static: Maintype. Rules, and other cards that stay in play.

One-time: Maintype. Cards that have an effect, then leave play.

Responsive: Static or one-time cards that may be played whenever the conditions on them are true.

Goal: Cards that allow a player or players to win. Must be approved by all players when written.

--

Actions: Terms that cause a player to do something.

Play: Do what is written on the card being played. Short for a longer action.

Discard: Put the card being discarded into the discard pile.

----

Suggestions: Have fun, don't be a dick, have a meaningful game, use your rules to fix the game. And remember that games are to have fun.

The Prefect

Just finished reading The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds.

This is the third book of his that I have read, the previous two having been Galactic North and Chasm City. Both of those were great, so I decided to pick up another before heading off to Malaysia and Indonesia.

Similar to the other two books, the plot is convoluted and suspenseful, making full utilization of the hard-he-can-manage sci-fi concepts existing in Alastair's world. The Prefect is interesting, exciting, and somewhat gut-wrenching at times (I'm looking at you, Jane).

The Prefect is also escapes on of the most common problems with science fiction: Explaining things. (Fantasy can have this problem if the writer feels like it.)

You see, most characters who grew up in a world generally manage to have it make sense to them. Since we don't live in that world, things don't make sense to us. Therefore, some authors feel they should explain everything. This can be explaining everything, be Explaining Everything, or be EXPLAINING EVERYTHING. However, taking time to explain things causes problem for any sort of narrative: Short essays embedded in the story cause problems.

On the other side, hand-waving everything would really just be fantasy, not science-fiction.

Reynold tends towards giving a name and maybe a short summary, but then having his explanation only exist in what's relevant to the characters, what the characters think about, and what happens.

He also manages to steer clear of anything that expressedly violates the laws of physics, or at least only violate them on a scale that the technology of the setting would be able to reasonably circumvent them. Additionally, and just as important, everything has a relatively sensible and utilitarian design.

Which brings me to the setting. Alastair uses a single setting--Revelation Space--for his novels, and it is pretty darn complex. It's future history, starting in the foreseeable future (far enough to avoid science marching on, and continuing through the imaginable future to the end of the future (Stinking Greenfly...). Unlike the previous two books I read, The Prefect is set in the height of human civilization, on the hub of human civilization, on the orbital habitats utilized by the elite of society. This means that things get very, very exotic, especially due to the freedom loving nature of demarchist rule. Very interesting things are encounters.

I think I'm degressing.

The plot is complicated, but strong, and I approve. The characters are varied and interesting, and I approve*. The setting is gorgeous and well-thought, and I approve.

Really, I approve of the book all around. Very good for those folks who like sci-fi novels that avoid sacrificing being a novel for being sci-fi. Still good for everyone else.

*: The titular Prefect, Tom Dreyfus** is a bit of a canon sue. He is, as referenced by the characters in the story, pretty much the perfect Prefect. Not perfect in always victorious, or hopelessly overpowered, but perfect in a flawless-action sort of way. They do what they can while they can. However, I managed to completely overlook this until some stuff in the story went horribly wrong for the protagonists, and I saw the other characters taking the lead and messing up. When things got better (this is a highly relative term), I was too filled with satisfaction to care.

**: I could help but notice the last name from my historical knowledge. Seems unlikely that he would wind up with the same name. Demerits for contrived naming. On the other hand, it works well.

Empowered

I recently had the opportunity to read Empowered, which was not only surprisingly good, but better than I thought (I had heard good things about it). What I expected was, as TvTropes puts it, a "graphic novel series starring a Damsel in Distress-prone heroine named 'Empowered.' Contains heavy deconstruction of the Super Hero genre, with healthy doses of bondage, Fanservice, and comedy."

What I found was... well pretty much what the above says. The fanservice was a bit too pronounced for my taste, and Emp getting trussed up a lot early on wasn't all that sexy because... well, onto the unexpected.

The characters are great. While they all run off of assorted superhero sterotypes, all of them have unique, interesting, strong personalities. Some of them I sympathize with, and root for (Empowered, Ninjette, etc.). Some of them I look up to in awe and admiration (Mindf**k, Maid Man, etc.). Some of them I want to club with a hammer... repeatedly (Captain Havok, most of the jerkass supers, and sometimes Sista Spooky). One of them is terrifying and wrong and scary (and doesn't play by the rules).

This is why Emp getting tied up isn't all that sexy. She might be an idealistically beautiful woman wearing (well-placed) tatters of a skin-adhering body-suit, but it's hard to enjoy the fanservicey nature of her predicament when you care for Emp so much. Thus stripperific bondage =/= sexy. Instead stripperific bondage = feeling sorry for Emp. She's far too sympathetic and complex a character to objectify. Well, I'd rather not objectify her, anyway.

Anyway, concerning the characters, it is important to note that they are not one-sided. Aside from Captain Havok, who enjoys my vehement and eternal contempt, most of the other nasty characters have their own internal problems, and are just expressing them worse than the nicer characters, with their own emotional problems flaws. I can only think of a few characters who are simple, but I would not complain about their purity of essence (Go Maid Man!). Even the minions are hard to objectify.

Which brings me to the next point - the story of the novels doesn't really pertain that much to the actual action. Instead, most of the story deals with characters' feelings. Think Neon Genesis Evangelion, but without the constantly feeling horrible bit. Often the battles are skipped, with Empowered assumably losing and getting captured, and instead there is the emotional abuse from other characters, interaction with and responses from friends, etc.

With that in mind, the story is really about Empowered's personal growth... and boy is there a lot of it. Empowered starts out with freshly shattered dreams to go with a shattered self-esteem, and from there she struggles upwards, with the help of her friends. This is all managed well, with an exception to be noted later.

Empowered also has heavy, heavy Cerebus Syndrome. The first three volumes are fairly comedic, but then the fourth one has heavy drama, and by the end of the fifth one I was outright crying. A well-done romance has something to do with that.

Empowered also gets better. If I had just read the first volume, I would have thought Empowered was pretty decent for what it does, and leave it at that. Fortunately, I had a healthy list of recommendation, and I pushed onward. By the second volume, I was starting to enjoy the tale, and by the third I approved heartily. But the fourth and fifth volumes are why I'm spieling about it. I don't go and write here about just any little comic, you know.

Other things to note:

Mindf**k and Maid Man are new role models for me. Mindf**k gets to hang out with Nausicaa and other characters who influenced my development. Maid Man is an all around good guy.

The setting is fairly interesting, in and of itself. There are Unwritten Rules to behavior, so nothing truly bad happens to Empowered (breaking the unwritten rules by, say, unnecessarily sexually molesting Emp would bring down the wrath of every superhero, which is a decent deterent same with killing her.). The whole way the world is adjusted to the existence of superheroes is rather interesting. A lot of characters, especially the unpowered ones and minions have interesting takes on the superheros and villains. There are a lot of little tidbits about how the world works, that are quite interesting. Emp finds out that all three superheros she is working with all became superheros after contracting super-natural STDs - she finds this coincidence weird, and then finds out that they first met at a super-natural STD support group. Some of the characters previously posed as Witless Minions, manipulating the system to steal their employer's valuables and blame it on the heroes.

Also interesting is the effect when certain characters break the Unwritten Rules. It's... impressive. And horrific.

I do have issue with a few things, though. Emp's boyfriend is perhaps not the best role model for building self-esteem. While he's a fine guy otherwise, in terms of boyfriendness... he deals with Emp's low self-esteem in a (fanservice-y) way I do not approve of (I'm much more part of the Mindf**k school of romance). Also related is his unrealistic sex with Emp - he apparently follows the hentai school of sex. I suppose part of this is that I gave up on the pornographic aspect of the series, and consequently find the carefully-placed speech bubbles more amusing.

Going on from there, I love the Caged Demonwolf's imagined rendition of Emp's sex with her boyfriend. Which one of the other characters uses for smut, apparently. Heck, the fact that Emp still reads yaoi superhero slash fanfiction (occasionally even starring her teammates) amuses me to no end.

Also, both Emp and her boyfriend are ridiculously/idealistically physically attractive. While the power of body-image issues are profound, I always find Emp's problems a bit strange. That said, they do live in a world where nearly everyone manages a ideal body-shape, with few exceptions, so I suppose it's not that strange? Dunno. I understand why Emp is a Hot Blonde, comercially speaking, and I can see Spookum's problem with her.

Anyway, it is a good series, assuming you are okay with everything-short-of-nudity and occasional objectifying shots. There's good content there. I recommend it.

Nil's Sinister Objectives

In no particular order:

1. Obliterate the subjective and the unknown.

2. Break the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

3. Create a synthetic life-form with conscious evolution to replace humanity.

The Shape of Things

So this evening I went out with Rachel to see a play. She needed to write a critical analysis of a play, and I thought it would be nice to go out with her to a play.

So. Play.

The play's name is "The Shape of Things." From here on out there are massive spoilers that pretty much ruin the play, so if you plan on seeing it, go see it. It's pretty good. And stop reading here.

The play starts out with a young lady stepping over the cord to get closer to a statue. The security guard asks there to step back over, and they have a conversation. She's apparently planning on spray-painting a penis on the statue, as the original penis was plastered over with fig leaves, due to complaints about the nudity. She's an art student.

He doesn't really try to stop her, and gets her phone number, and when his shift is up, he heads off and she presumably spraypaints on the statue.

They get together, and start dating. He starts losing weight for her, changes his hair. Two friends of his are introduced, another young lady and her fiancee, said fiancee being the guy's former roommate and best bud.

Over time, he changes more - stops biting his nails, starts wearing contact lenses instead of glasses, dresses differently, and has his nose modified. He keeps a diary of this all - the decreasing weight, and all various changes.

His best bud's fiancee has had a long-time crush on him, and with him getting cuter by the day, she winds up kissing him and going out to the woods (and then implied sex, apparently).

The young lady confesses kissing him to her fiancee, who talks with the guy's girlfriend, who kisses said fiancee to get back at the other two.

She brings up all of this when the young lady, herself, and the guy go get coffee at a Starbucks together. The young lady goes away almost in tears, and the guy is mad at her. He doesn't want to break up with her, and asks what she wants. She asks him to break all contact with them, giving them no explanation, if he wants to stay with her like he says. He agrees.

The next scene is them at the thesis presentation for the artist girl. The guy runs into his former best bud, and the other girl, who have broken up by this point. They all sit separately.

The Artist girl goes to present her thesis work, and it turns out her presentation, her "sculpture thingie" as she previously referred to it, is her boyfriend, who has proposed to her by this point. She has sculpted him from being pathetic and undesirable into being much "better" by society's standards, using the tools of persuasion and desire, though always leaving the choice up to him. She has improved him cosmetically, and modified all of his relationships. Her entire relationship with him over the semester was all a lie to sculpt him into a different person.

He is outraged, and comes to her after the presentation, and they have an argument over the morality of her actions. To her, everything he did was his own choice - he had chosen to lose weight, he had chosen to abandon his friends for her. To him, he thought that she was completely and horribly unethical, in the deceit of the relationship. But in her eyes, the relationship was real - for him. And the choices he had made, he had made honestly, though perhaps a bit misinformed.

He asks of anything was true, and she says that none of it was true. As she leaves, she tells him that one time, while they were sleeping together, one of the things she had said was true (they both know, though the audience doesn't). He goes to the videos of them in bed (part of the exhibition), and finds the part, playing it over and over, biting his nails and munching on the cookies provided at the exhibit, crying as the lights dim and the play ends.

A number of things concerning this. First, the lady considers what she is doing as amoral. Not moral, not immoral, but rather because she was doing art, the normal rules don't apply. Adam, the guy, when he finds out, finds it morally abhorrent.

Second, the question of subjectivity. It's mentioned quite a bit in the play, and comes up quite large in the conclusion, as the art lady and the guy have been living very different versions of life, and have very different views on things. Was his relationship true? - It certainly had effects on his life.

Third, there is a question of value - what is better, and what is worse, and how it matters. the art lady is apparently quite aware how subjective her changes for the "better" are. But, as she notes rather bitterly during the presentation, as he became better-looking and more self-confident, he also started having more questionable behavior. Getting it on with his best friend's fiancee being a major case in point here. Additionally, at the end of the play, the main character says that he liked who he was, even if he wasn't as "good" then as now. His friend, somewhat earlier in the play, remarks on how his friend is acting more like him, and how the ying-yang of the two doesn't work anymore - he liked the guy for being wildly different from himself.

This provoked interesting conversations after the play, of course, but that's for a different time.

I found it very good, provoking me both emotionally and intellectually.

The government probably isn't listening to your cellphone.

So I recently (in my informatics class) ran across the amount of data that was sent via cell-phones last year (2008). Roughly 15 exabytes.

What is an exabyte? 1000 (or 1024, depending on interpretation) petabytes.

What is a petabyte? 1000 (or 1024, depending on interpretation) terabytes.

What is a terabyte? 1000 (or 1024, depending on interpretation) gigabytes... which is still a billion bytes, each of which is eight bits.

For scale: If they finally convert the library of congress scans into text, the entire Library of Congress (today) would fit on roughly 10 terabytes. Which puts the amount of information conveyed over cell-phones to be one hundred thousand Libraries of Congress.

So can the government go through all that? Sure. Can they go through it in any meaningful way?

Hell no.

NEEDS MORE PIG CANNON!

So I went and saw District 9. I recommend it for everyone. It is not perfect, but it is very, very good in several distinct areas.

Social commentary: One way to put District 9 is "Apartheid with Aliens." It doesn't stop here, though - what happens in the movie are a series of situations that happen in many parts of the world. As a Global Studies major, I recognized a lot of the interactions between slum dwellers and the government. Or them and the people exploiting them. Very much a universal message, though most people do their best to ignore slums and/or xenophobia. The whole first third of the movie is paradise for this. Some of the things that happens are truly horrific. I didn't see anything that humans haven't done to other humans.

Carnage/hilarity/crazy-cool: It's a very, very sobering movie, but sometimes... people explode. Or there is the pig cannon (that must become a meme). And there are so many Really Cool Things...

Characterization/character change: Wikus is, perhaps, one of the most interesting characters I have watched. Very interesting choice for a main character. Over the course of the story, there is much character change/rejection-of-change, and even if most of the character change (or lack of change) is Wikus based... it's still great. Not all the characters change, but some a very intense. A particular man who stays seated, for instance.

Paradigm-changing: Most aliens visiting earth have shiney technology, advanced intellect, and tend to generally have halos. District 9 aliens... not so much. You'll have to see it.

Suspenseful: In hindsight, the movie makes a lot of sense. But during the movie, there's a lot of mystery, and I really had no idea where it was going. Stuff goes down, and it puts people on the edge of their seats, straining to watch what happens next. So please avoid plot summaries, please avoid TvTropes - watch the movie first. Like as soon as you can.

So watch District 9. It's a good movie for people who are not children. If you live in the new BHC, talk to me about it - I plan on watching it again in theaters.