Categories
Movies Reviews

I Saw the TV Glow

“I Saw the TV Glow” is about a TV show called The Pink Opaque. The show is about a pair of teenage psychics that fight monsters. Owen and Maddie watch the TV show. We get hints that there is something more, but there is nothing.

The movie is primarily about Owen. Owen has no hobbies or skills. His one interest is watching TV perhaps because Maddie watches TV.

One possibility is that Owen is a failed telepath. Maddie is another telepath. During a critical period of adolescence, Owen misses his chance at making a connection with another telepath. The trauma of this years later results in insanity.

Another possibility is that Owen has no special powers. He has no character. He makes no decisions. He is only confused by his circumstances, in a state of paralysis. Maddie is the same, maybe even less reliable. Possibly Maddie is mentally ill. Owen has gaps in his memory.

Years pass, Owen is defeated. Owen lives in the world of Mr. Melancholy. Mr. Melancholy won if he even existed. When we grow up the things we liked as kids look different to us. As an adult Owen rewatches The Pink Opaque and it was not like he remembered. It is sanitized, for children. Melancholy subtracts from the version of ourselves we are most worthy, proud. Everything that was important to Owen happened in the past with Maddie and she is gone. Time skips forward.

Categories
Fiction

The Red Shells

The Reds transported the Snakes of Europe to the shores of America. With their claw hands, they took £s as tax and exchanged for tea. The first snake Congress met.

“In our triangular trade of tea and mice for silver and cotton, we pay one tenth in tax to the Conch and one tenth in shipping fees to Barnacle Shipping a claw monopoly maintained by the Conch. A total of a fifth of our bounty.”

The mice holding snakes nodded in ascent. One of them spoke, “That’s one less field mouse for cotton, less one tenth the profit; and one tenth in trade for the necessary tools to cultivate the land; effects felt across all states and industries.”

“Although I find the practice of mice holding abominable, I am yoked to agreement,” a furnace dealer said: “I’ve shed not once this year for overwork.”

Meanwhile back in Britain, two crabs of the Conch court have tea. A painting from the Netherlands is hanged and various vases from the Orient are displayed.

Categories
Literature

Villiam’s Lapvona

Lapvona was an entertaining read.

Lapvona is a medieval village with rich dynamics. I’d even go so far as to say that the setting is a character in the story. This is illustrated through the actions of a lord and his priest. Yet the main character in the story is a deformed boy named Marek.

Villiam, lord of Lapvona, and Father Barnabas, the priest, rule over the serfs. There isn’t anything that makes Villiam a natural ruler in his appearance. The rule of his family goes back several generations. Villiam is defined by his greed; a body that consumes many times over a normal person. How does Villiam stay in power? He is completely amoral. He employs bandits to steal harvests, kill. This happens a lot in Lapvona. The serfs only see a powerful lord. They listen to Father Barnabas.

Why don’t the serfs rise up against Villiam? Villiam is able to defend himself. To the North is a strong military power. The Northerners are natural guards, tall and strong, yet subservient. Villiam employs them. Villiam is married to Dibra, a Northerner. It is a political marriage. Lapvonians are producers, they cultivate land, animals. Lapvona is a land of good soil. Northerners are muscle. There is trade.

The bandits are not developed quite as much as a people, but they are significant to Villiam’s line. Marek is the bastard of incestuous bandits and through a bizarre set of circumstances he becomes Villiam’s adopted son. I suspect abnormal family lines, secret children, drive other medieval or village narratives. I’ve read and seen other stories with unclear paternity in different village contexts. Sometimes it’s just a phrase or a suggestion of paternity. Other times it is the crux of the whole story. In Lapvona, paternity seems less important to the story. Villiam is more interested in having a line as a kind of possession, blood or not. In his house, he sees people more as playthings: a son is a role in a skit. A kind of seriousness about family lines is completely lacking in Villiam.

Just to clarify, children and animals, like baby lambs, are important to the story. There are patterns of care and neglect, and these are often shocking and barbarous to a modern sensibility. More normal characters are concerned about their kin, continuing a family line, like Jude, a shepherd.

Long ago, Jude loves Agata, but she is already pregnant and she bears a deformed son, Marek. Jude takes Marek as his adoptive son, but he resents him. Later, Marek becomes Villiam’s son.

Again through some rather bizarre circumstances, Jude becomes a father, but he is unable to be a normal father. It is about a decade since Jude and Agata were together and the baby is Agata’s and Jude’s this time around. Yet since Agata was a nun that fled to Villiam’s residence (and on the way is raped by Jude whose hut lies below the manor), Villiam claims that it is a divine birth in order to create religious tourism.

From this event also, like random raids from bandits discussed earlier, we see that secrecy and credulity are glue keeping the narrative of Lapvona together.

Categories
Anime

Isekai

Isekai operate on two levels. First, we have the experiences of a modern person. Second, new rules and experiences in the fantasy realm. The main character is nearly always rewarded from the new environment by experiences in the old world.

Isekais seem to argue that a competent Japanese office worker or student have the intelligence and drive (with a bonus) to make it in another world. These are worlds of adventure that lack today’s politics and bureaucratic structure.

Clearly, after some initial shock, main characters make the trade. It’s pretty rare that characters want to return to the old world, often it is not an option. Instead characters remake some part of the fantasy world in the image of the modern world; utopian politics; aesthetics. A dream world.

It is a world of remarkable freedom rather than imprisonment. There are exceptions to this rule and in those cases the main character does not get an overwhelming resurrection bonus: it is not complete fluff.

Categories
Literature

Tell the Machine Goodnight

Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams is about a device that gives accurate recommendations to obtain happiness. The device, called Apricity, creates some unusual scenarios.

Although Apricity does what it is marketed to do, it is not a complete solution. First, users must follow these recommendations. Apricity is a black box, so users are not able to understand why these recommendations are made. Following recommendations is a leap of faith. The average user needs to apply the recommendations and sense within themselves any changes.

Yet, many people question the premise of Apricity, its benefits. Some believe that taking advice from a machine is a fool’s errand. Others believe change is not possible in themselves.

Apricity is also expensive. The Apricity Corporation has a monopoly: The procedure is expensive, but the procedure itself is not costly.

In our current society, we are faced with many pieces of advice that promote happiness, yet they are not followed, for example:

  • Do not use your phone in bed.
  • Smile (as in smiling makes you happy)
  • Eat well
  • Exercise

Williams gives an interesting example of this phenomenon. A manager of the Apricity Corporation has taken his Apricity reading multiple times. It is always the same and he never follows the advice. He rejects advice because as a self-identified self-made man, the act of rejection makes him feel powerful. Thus, for him, power is a stronger reason than happiness.

Categories
Games

Clash of Clans

Confession

I’ve spent probably around $200 on Clash of Clans.

I started playing 2 years ago and I deleted the game recently.

Gameplay

Clash of Clans boils down to two things: build time & resources.

The reward of diligent play is building on an accelerated schedule. Of course, one can also spend money to build, by purchasing gems.

The trade-off is clear. I wait hours for a building to complete or I can spend gems and complete it instantly. I spend gems to accumulate the resources needed to build when I am short.

After playing a while, one realizes that it would be foolish to spend gems for resources. The rational side started to take over. The rush of instantly upgrading buildings balanced against my bank account. I’d come to a state of equilibrium.

Season Pass

If I’m grinding every month, I might as well buy a season pass to obtain spells & potions.

Everything takes a long time to build. Logging on does not speed up the process. It feels wrong to base one’s life around Clash of Clans. I consciously log on less to play more efficiently.

At the end of the season, the season bank empties. There are more resources than needed, and all the spells & potions are gone.

Thus, buying a new season pass presents itself as an affordable option to quickly spend resources, as long as you plan on grinding. If you buy a season pass early in the month, you can also take advantage of build time bonuses.

Final Thoughts

At one point, I told myself I’d get to a fully upgraded Town Hall 10 and stop. However, sometime after I completed this, I reopened the game. I upgraded to Town Hall 11, and gave myself the same task. After a month, I quit.

Categories
Literature

The Memory Police

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is about people living under a dictatorship called the Memory Police whose goal is to rid the world of unnecessary things.

The Memory Police are able to reach into people’s hearts and take away memories of objects. These objects are then destroyed and the people do not care because those objects do not have meaning. These events are called disappearances.

Each disappearance is a total shift in society. If a person’s livelihood is disappeared, they have something left that remains useful to society.

The Memory Police do not face strong resistance as their disappearances begin with specialized professions and luxury objects.

At the time of a disappearance is a sense of loss generally, but also a natural acceptance as if the changes in society are normal or habitual.

Categories
Philosophy

Internet Pitfalls

It is admirable to live in a narrow band. Ideally, we read and repeat what we have read without embellishment. If we have a goal, we can achieve it. A goal does not spiral. It does not reach too far outside itself. The internet is a place where we learn and understand, instead of waste time.

In the novel War with the Newts by Karel Čapek, the newt, Boleslav Jablonský, self-names himself after learning Czech. Jablonský studied Czech by himself and strikes a lively conversation, his first real conversation, with a group of tourists. Although fictional, here is a lesson in patience.

The internet is anything but narrow. A visit to an aggregator rewards us with links, more sources of information than any person can process. There is no guide to the flood of information.

Even in the case that sources of information are good, we succumb to decision paralysis. It is not possible to order the information beforehand and so we must cope with overload.

Categories
Fiction

The Alternative Childhood History of a Salt Magnate

M lived in a log cabin. “Crash!” A tree fell through the roof. The winter was hard.

He had a small toy of a horse, made of wood, which he used to calm himself. He put it down for a second and a beaver stole it away.

As his father did repairs, he heard the gnawing echoes.

He moved to the city. One day, as it rained, he spied a girl in a yellow raincoat. Thinking of what to say, he approached her. But as the gouts of rain fell between them, a beaver dashed out of the rain. “Ach!” she screamed and ran away.

He entered the salt business which is how he made his fortune and opened an arboretum.

The mission of an arboretum is to conserve trees; as such beavers are unwelcome visitors. They are caught & released far afield.

Categories
Fiction

Chess Prison

I was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tampering with computers. The robot judge allowed me to choose where I would serve my sentence. I got to go to Chess Prison. Each cell has a computer screen where you get to play chess against a computer. The rules of the prison stated that we were allowed no communication with the outside. If you beat the computer, you got to go free. This was not a normal computer setup. The screen was built into the wall and it would always show the current position. When it was time to sleep the screen would dim. Each cell also contained a chess set. The library was only chess books. There were simul chess rules. Every prisoner was playing black against the computer that played white. We talked about our games, all of us inmates over meals. There were no rules against communication between inmates because it didn’t matter. The computer was unbeatable by humans.

There has to be an engine out there that can beat this computer. I once thought for 1 month on a move to no avail.

One of the stronger players here looks over the moves of the other players. We’ve reasoned that if all of us are playing well then statistically one of us might beat the Computer. Also, maybe, just maybe, the computer will divide its resources between all of us: if we are all playing well, it will become an overloaded queen, instead of a queen that can take all the pawns.

It’s not only chess here. There is a gym. A lot of us despite our failings take inordinate pride in our bodies. It is something that the Computer doesn’t have. We are not sure where the super computer is located on the premises. With all the brainpower we’ve dedicated to the problem, we think it is deep underground.

Inexplicably, I found a hacksaw blade lying around. When we were all asleep, a robot must have been doing something or another and it replaced the blade of its hacksaw and left the old one lying around. Thank you cosmic ray. Instead of playing chess, I’ve been wedging the blade between the wall and screen, in order to separate the screen from its holding. Maybe I’ll find something behind there.

I’ve managed to separate the screen which has fallen through the back of the wall. There is a hollow. I can look down and it is dark. There is a small space which the cables pass through from below. If I follow the cables back I’ll get to the computer. I manage to squeeze my body in. It is tight. I shimmy my way down.

Other cables bundle together. I’m a child again climbing down rope. I’ve stood upon the cluster. There was a door leading out. I must find the settings. Here they are. I set the difficulty to master level and cover-up my tampering. I climb back up. I replace the screen. My conscience is clear. Surely we will start winning now.