Ian Sturrock

Sometimes it's alien seed pods

serpentstar — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 09:32:14 GMT

I was quite tired last night, so possibly not quite at my sharpest when I stood by the sink to clean my teeth. There was a slight sound from the sink, hard to identify, a bit like a pop.

I looked down and saw... well, it had to be an alien seed pod, growing from the inside of the sink. The root was irregularly shaped, like a little mound, the base of which spread out as though to cover a wide area to hold on as best it could, but the whole root was indistinct because of the creamy gelatinous substance covering it, as though it constantly exuded some kind of noxious gel to deter animals. The pod itself was brownish and wrinkled, and oval-shaped, with one tip of the oval emerging from the root, and the other slightly pointed and facing upwards, towards me, as though seeking my life-force.

Those were my first thoughts, all at once, as I glanced down at it. A seed-pod that had drifted from Yag the Accursed Planet, deep in the Outer Dark, and floated through the black night to land, somehow, in my sink. If left alive it would grow and eventually possess all of us in its vampirically vegetable thrall. Yet could I even fight it, now, without danger to myself, even with it being so small?

My next thoughts were that one of the almonds I'd been eating earlier must have fallen into my clothing, and dropped out when I removed my top to clean my teeth, and landed in a small puddle of toothpaste that a previous sink-user had dropped and not cleaned up. Whew.

Dolphin style mon

serpentstar — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 03:51:05 GMT

...you'd have 8 hours out of 24 with your brain fully awake, 8 hours with only the right hemisphere awake, and 8 hours with only the left hemisphere awake. Not only will this let you spend 12 waking (ish) hours with each partner, you can also tailor the shifts perfectly so as to get the most apposite brain half to hang out with each partner. If you're a chap, then your -- let's be technical and call it your hippy hemisphere -- your yoghurt-weaving, basket-dying, tie-smoking brain meats half can spend its waking hours jus' chillin' with your manic pixie dream girl, and your, I suppose, scientist math-hemisphere can spend its waking hours with your xkcd-reading implausibly bespectacled nerdy hipster geekette, playing D&D and alphabetising your SF collection. It will be perfect...

Input: Zelda LRP for kids

serpentstar — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 21:01:00 GMT

Kyle's 11th birthday celebration is happening tomorrow. I have around 16 hours to design a Zelda-themed LRP adventure (and, I suppose, game system) for him and his 6 or so friends. Crew is around 3-5 adults (don't know precisely how many yet).

Help!

Er, that is, I know little about Zelda. But lots about LRP! Surely it will even out?

Plan at the mo is:

Simple global hits system
You play either:

Warrior (6 hits, or 7 if you have armour; sword and shield, or 2 swords)
Ranger (5 hits; staff, or spear, or bow, plus sword; woodland lore skills)
Wizard (4 hits; sword; healing potion; 3 spells a day taken from charm, firebolt, or trip; magic lore skills)

Everyone is back up to full hits after every fight.

8-10 classic linear encounters, featuring

Bulblins (Orc-like, just fighters probably)
Gerudo (bandit women, vaguely Bedouin-style)
Zora (mermaid-like -- probably a helpful, talky encounter)
Armos (living statue/armour -- probably guards set up by an evil sorcerer)
Stalfos (skeletons -- again probably guards)

Any suggestions from Zelda fans as to the main antagonist (I'm thinking, from the wiki, that Onox or Vaati might be good)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_in_The_Legend_of_Zelda_series
Other thoughts?

Yesterday's Doctor Who (spoilery)

serpentstar — Sun, 15 May 2011 09:35:13 GMT

(This post mostly cribbed from a reply to greylock )

Amazing dialogue.

Superb acting.

Great hints at future plot arcs.

But...

The Tardis-jury-rig from the Doctor was implausible -- the dead Tardises had been utterly drained of power, as had Sexy, so how were they able to get the jury-rigged one running? Likewise, putting Sexy back into a dead Tardis control room, with *both* of them having been drained of all energy -- nah.

Conceptual villain ("I suck all the life/power out of your space ships from Beyond Time And Space) was OK but we've seen much the same thing several times in Blake's 7 / Farscape / Marvel comics etc.

"Possessed" corridors/planet-surface used to toy with humans as playthings -- straight out of Ellison's _I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream_.

So not *hugely* original, and not totally lacking in plot holes. But still good, and still lots of fun.

That 15 characters game thing

serpentstar — Sun, 08 May 2011 22:36:19 GMT

Here's the answers to that entry ( http://serpentstar.livejournal.com/320973.html ), since it seems to have died:

1) The Brain, of Pinky And The Brain (Guessed by Fox)
2) Solomon Kane (Guessed by mytholder)
3) Aeryn Sun (Guessed by Fox)
4) Omar (The Wire) (Guessed by oxfordgirl)
5) Medb (Slaine) (not guessed)
6) Gemma (Sons of Anarchy) (not guessed)
7) Zoe (Doctor Who) (not guessed)
8) Violent Marv (Sin City) (not guessed)
9) Druss the Legend (not guessed)
10) Capt. Jack Sparrow (Guessed by Fox)
11) Belit (Guessed by mytholder)
12) Flashman (Guessed by oxfordgirl)
13) Jirel of Joiry (not guessed)
14) Elizabeth (Pride & Prejudice / Pride & Prejudice & Zombies / Lost in Austen) (not guessed)
15) Severian (Guessed by oxfordgirl)

Fox and oxfordgirl are joint winners (3 each) with mytholder coming in 3rd place (2). Sorry if the others were too tricky. Geek harder next time please.

Bodyhacking update (already posted to Fbook around 3pm)

serpentstar — Wed, 04 May 2011 18:57:53 GMT

As I tuck in to a brunch of Viana smoked tofu (the tastiest straight-from-the-packet tofu -- best bet if you want tofu but don't have a really good and dedicated veggie cook handy) and mixed beansprouts, first food after an 18-hour fast, fresh from my afternoon nap (brief today, because I was hungry and had just unpacked a load of food from Suma, and probably dreaming of trying the Montezuma's spicy dark chocolate I just put in the cupboard), pondering when I need more caffeine (last cup of coffee, midday-ish; topped up caffeine levels with green tea an hour or so back, but coffee has a 3.5h half-life so I may need actual coffee soon, and there was some in that delivery)... I thought I'd just mention the current state of my bodyhacks:

Churchill-style biphasic sleep is absolutely sustainable, and I'm feeling better on it than any other style of sleep. Sleep 5-6 hours a night, plus a nap of up to 2 hours in the afternoon, *every* afternoon; but don't use alarm clocks. Advantages: (1) Less sleep needed than other methods, so productivity increases. (2) No afternoon slump in awareness and concentration due to tiredness; when it starts to hit, I just go for my nap. (3) Adaptable -- if I do a lot of working out, I end up with close to 8h a night, total, but when not working out so much, it's more like 6, with no particular adaptation period required (thanks largely to the "no alarm clock" thing). (4) Suits my body clock, which in sleep research terms is owl-like, i.e. I like to stay up late at night. (5) Also suits the ability to interact with others at normal human hours, as I wake up early too (typically sleeping from around 2am to 7am, +/- 1 hour on each time). (5) If I do a late morning or early afternoon workout, I can get some sleep soon after, letting my body repair itself very soon after working out, leading to much-reduced Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. There are 2 slight disadvantages so far: (1) I really need that afternoon nap, now, and very much notice if I don't get it, because I actually feel tired again for the first time in weeks. (2) Haven't precisely settled into a food routine that maps on to the sleep routine, yet, but sticking with Zone diet principles works fine with it overall.

Food -- still sticking pretty well to the Zone diet, around 3 years since starting it. I eat a fair bit more healthy fat (olives, nuts, etc.) than the weight-loss version of the Zone, so closer to Athlete Zone than anything else, moving towards a more strict Zone diet for a few weeks if I start to notice my stomach getting rounder than I want it to be. This is the case right now, largely due to that enforced time off exercise due to back/neck probs a month or so back. No worries -- will be suitably buff again by Odyssey. Still aiming for a high dose of dietary Omega-3, and a relatively low intake of Omega-6, for brain and heart health. (I know some of you Goldacre fans will scoff, but I think you and he are both wrong.)

Fasting -- still intermittently fasting (maybe about once every 10 days, for 14-20 hours). This is for long-term health reasons -- there's some evidence that intermittent fasting has some of the same life-extension benefits as longer-term calorific restriction, so I'll stick with it.

Drink -- caffeine is most effective when topped up hourly in small doses, but does fade gradually. I avoid high doses of it in the evenings, but otherwise it's coffee first thing, green tea with gingko an hour or so later, white tea with pomegranate an hour later, more coffee, green tea with mixed antioxidant berries & leaves, more white tea, more coffee... seems to work pretty well, for a fairly constant low-level potentiation of ionotropic responses and stimulation of the central vagus, you know. ;) And, yes, I'm sufficiently convinced of the probable health benefits, and lack of risk, of around 4-5 cups of green and white tea per day, to think 'em worthwhile. If nothing else, they're a great low-dose caffeine top-up.

Chairs -- avoiding them pretty well! I've moved my standard laptop position from sofa to spare bed, on the mezzanine, which is lovely and light, too. Once the lappy is fully charged, I take it downstairs and work standing, at a high table, till it runs out of charge. If I'm waiting for a web page to load or bit of software to fire up, I do a few squats in front of the screen.

Exercise -- dammit, 2 bank hols in a row meant no judo... I am well enough now that I could and should be working out again, but desperately short of time. :( Trying to squeeze in short, intense workouts, anyway.

That contest

serpentstar — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 09:14:18 GMT

Previous entry -- shall I just tell you all the missing answers, or would you like to ask more questions, or shall I give you some clues and you can guess again, or what?

Copy of _Cloud Atlas_ to the person(s) who get(s) most right, posted at my expense. ;)

serpentstar — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 12:15:46 GMT

mejoff has been doing one of these on his LJ, and I love it -- sort of somewhere between a very geeky 20 questions and freeform roleplaying game. So, here's mine (his is still ongoing, though, and I can certainly recommend adding to the discussion there too).

The Fifteen Character Meme. It goes like this:
1. I make a list of 15 fictional characters.
2. You post questions about entertaining situations they might get into (such as "6 and 7 walk into a pub. What do they order and where do they sit?" or "How do 4, 7 and 15 cope with a zombie apocalypse?").
3. I answer the questions.
4. You try to guess who the 15 characters are.
5. I update this post with a list of the ones you've guessed.

All right? Then let's play.

Correct guesses:
1) The Brain
2) Solomon Kane
3) Aeryn Sun
4) Omar
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10) Jack Sparrow
11) Belit
12) Flashman
13)
14)
15) Severian

Bonus Clues: The era each character typically inhabits --
5) Estimates vary between around 10,000BC and 500BC. I'm inclined to go with 10,000 BC, for reasons of ice ages and land bridges. I have a feeling she has some capability to travel through time, though.
6) Early 21st century.
7) Early 21st century, originally, though she hooked up with time travellers for a while... and the early 21st century she inhabited was not quite our own, though it was intended to be our world by those who invented the character.
8) Late 20th century; again, though, this is not *quite* our world, since the city this character supposedly occupies is fictional; other than that detail the setting closely resembles the real Earth.
9) More-or-less a medieval setting, but very definitely not on Earth.
13) Medieval setting, supposedly on our Earth, but again the specific region it takes place in is fictional. This character has also been propelled to other worlds and times, though that is rare.
14) Born in the late 18th century; nothing much exciting happened to her till the early 19th though. Some fiction in some medium has her in the 21st.

First blog post at SKG

serpentstar — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:12:50 GMT

I will probably be doing more game-related bloggery there, at least for a while, rather than here. Depending on how much my cohorts Jon and Gar let me stray from Dragon Warriors, you may get to read stuff on general and specific game design, how much other RPGs suck, miniatures wargaming, and LRP. Or not.

Here's the first post there from me, looking back 26 years to when I first bought a Dragon Warriors book:

http://serpentking.com/?p=53

Press Release: Serpent King Games is new home for the Dragon Warriors RPG

serpentstar — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 23:47:34 GMT

Press Release

Serpent King Games is new home for the Dragon Warriors RPG

1st February 2011, United Kingdom

Dragon Warriors, the classic 1980s dark-fantasy RPG recently re-released by Magnum Opus Press, is moving to new British publishing company Serpent King Games.

From 1st April the game will no longer be available from Magnum Opus, which had published Dragon Warriors through Mongoose Publishing’s Flaming Cobra imprint.

Serpent King Games will keep the existing Dragon Warriors books available, and will publish new supplements for the game. The first new release will be the Dragon Warriors Players Book, in July 2011, with another two releases planned for the first year.

Serpent King Games is industry veterans Gareth Hanrahan (former Mongoose Publishing writer and lead designer on the new edition of Traveller and the Laundry RPG), Jon Hodgson (art director at Cubicle 7 and cover artist for Dragon Warriors), and Ian Sturrock (ex-Mongoose writer responsible for the Conan and Slaine RPGs, but who also worked on most of the recent Dragon Warriors books).

"I’ve worked with everybody at Serpent King over the last ten years, and they are fiercely talented," said James Wallis, director of Magnum Opus Press. "Dragon Warriors and the Lands of Legend are in the hands of amazing people who are going to take it in some very exciting directions."

Dragon Warriors is SKG's first project, but more great games are in the works. Check out www.serpentking.com for regular updates.

All rights in Dragon Warriors are the property of Fabled Lands LLP, and are used with permission by Serpent King Games Ltd.

For more information, contact info@serpentking.com

Quick update

serpentstar — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:07:03 GMT

Back to lecturing after the Xmas break. I have a fairly easy week on that score this week -- I'm largely going to recycle the World Design lecture material I wrote for UCLAN. In theory the game design students should be gearing up to have the first playable iterations of their games ready for coding, anyway, so I will probably spend a fair bit of time just assisting with any problem areas they may have spotted already.

I'm quite busy with a medium-sized RPG adventure, with a deadline of this Friday, so will probably not be checking LJ again this week. It's the sequel to Little Girl Lost, the William Blake-inspired adventure I wrote for Pelgrane Press's excellent The Esoterrorists RPG. I find the setting a lot of fun (sort of X-Files meets CSI, with a distinctly darker tone than either, and more consistency in the opposition, too); it lets me use a lot of real-world research & knowledge, so the first instalment had eco-activists, pagans, druids, Manchester hippies, occultists, and all the rest of the cast of characters from my not-so-troubled-but-huge-fun youth. The concluding part will be apocalyptic, and then post-apocalyptic, in nature: Fimbulvetr grips the land!

I just reviewed Cubicle Seven's release of the also superb De Profundis RPG, here, for Strange Things Are Happening. With a bit of luck, that should turn into a regular gig. Any game publishers or studios wanting to send me review copies of tabletop or video games that are suitable for Strange Things Are Happening should drop me a line (sturrock at gmail dot com) for my postal address. It needs to be material that's in keeping with that website, i.e. horror games of pretty much any type, or schlocky, trashy, pulpy, mondo craziness of any kind. At the moment, I'm not really up for reviewing PDF copies of games -- I spend enough time staring at a computer screen as it is.

And... it looks like the Tekumel d20 RPG, which I wrote nearly a decade ago for the now-defunct Guardians of Order, might finally see publication. More news as I have it, but I believe a short run of playest copies is being produced imminently.

London on foot

serpentstar — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:29:27 GMT

In the early 90s, when I ran an occult bookshop, I had a friend called Steve, aka Crystal Steve, who ran one of those Gaia-despoiling crystal shops, as well as selling jewellery.

Although Steve never got back to me about the £40 ring he sold me, that I returned to him for repair, I figure it was worth the lost £40, because he did give me two great tips, long before anyone else did:

1) Massive Attack: Protection, which I first heard in his shop, and heard again and again whenever I went into his shop for a week or two, and then heard most days in my home for the next year or so, sometimes more than once.

2) If you're in London and have a bit of time, walk around the place instead of getting the Tube. It doesn't take all that much longer, and it's a lot more fun.

So often, since then, if I was in London, it was for work, and at least somewhat urgent, or it was late at night, and at least somewhat scary. Last couple of times, though, I've done the walking thing, and he was so right.

This morning -- I got the overground train to London Bridge from where I'd been staying just outside London itself, then walked to Borough Market to pick up some amazing-looking charcuterie and sausages and anchovies from some of the organic free range delis and butchers there. (Naturally, since the weather outside has been at fridge temperatures all day, I figured I'd be OK to just keep it in my rucksack). When I first looked at the map, it seemed that Euston, where I had to go to get my train home, was way too far... till I really started looking at optimal routes, and realised that not only was it at most an hour or so's walk away, but that the optimal route went right past the Globe Theatre, *and* the Tate Modern gallery, *and* over the Millenium footbridge, *and* right through all the Gormenghastian baroque craziness of the Temple area, where the barristers have their weird secret society things... and that there didn't seem to be many busy roads en route either.

Cue another hour or so in the gallery, looking at the Poetry and Dream wing, which is a seriously good surrealist exhibition. Lots of great pieces there -- my favourite was Lightning With Stag In Its Glare:

Funniest moment came just outside the gallery, on the bridge. A woman, gazing intently at the tiny map on her iPhone, stopped me and asked me if I knew where the Tate Modern was. Had she paused to look directly ahead of her at the titanic edifice a few paces in front of her, which had the words "TATE MODERN" written in letters taller than her, she might not have needed to ask. Technology, eh...

Anyway. It was a lovely walk. If you're in London and have a bit of time, walk around the place instead of getting the Tube. And, I'm really not kidding about the sunscreen every day thing.

Workout

serpentstar — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 12:09:09 GMT

Repeat of the workout (and warmup) as of 30 October:

http://serpentstar.livejournal.com/317734.html

As many reps as possible of 1-hand 1-pood kettlebell swings, changing hands as necessary, in 4 minutes: 127. Big improvement on 90 (30 Oct). Still plenty of room for improvement. I've been doing more lifting and met-con stuff this last month or so, and logging it sometimes, but mostly on Fbook rather than here (lazy, lazy, even at updating).

serpentstar — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 01:03:41 GMT

I finally made a fish recipe Kyle will eat! Been trying to get him to eat oily fish for ages.

So --

Ian's Japanese-inspired Marinaded Tuna

(mostly 'cos Kyle is obsessed with Japan and Samurai right now)

Take some tuna steaks
Make a marinade of some olive oil, some Tamari sauce, some honey or Agave syrup, fresh herbs (I used chives because I have been growing some quite successfully in the garden wall, but I expect other stuff would work too), fresh black pepper, crumbled dried red chillis, diced garlic, and diced ginger (a little more spice than you would use if concerned that fish has a "delicate" flavour).
Marinade tuna steaks for 2 hours
Grill
(or, if you are American, you need a... Salamander, I believe!)

The Muties Song

serpentstar — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 13:55:42 GMT

We have no car stereo, as of Friday, due to the mechanics switching the battery off when they installed the new clutch (the old clutch was worn down to the rivets, which were themselves worn down), meaning we need a code because the stereo thinks it's been stolen. Thus my 4-hour drive to Suffolk on Friday was noiseless, other than occasional yells and rants from me, and the opportunity to practise both the folk songs I know, repeatedly. Since I was off to a Warhammer 40K-themed LRP event, I gave one of said songs new lyrics, with 40K theme (no challenge intended to GW's mighty intellectual property Empire, of course, though several of the themes in this particular song are at least as much inspired by GW's inspirations, i.e. the Dune series and 2000AD comics, as by GW's IP itself). Anyway -- here you go -- The Muties Song (tune link later).

The Muties Song

In Forty-thousand and Forty-Nine
On Dead Orc's Hill
A Tau-lovin' band they called the Muties came to defy the Emp'rer's will
They defied his Arbites
They defied his laws
They were tentacly abominations who claimed what wasn't theirs

We come in peace, they said
To dig and sow
We come to work the land in common, kept warm by the rad-waste's glow
A galaxy divided
We will make whole
So it can be a common treasury for all

This sin of property
We do disdain
We'll work together for the Greater Good, and not for private gain
By sword and bolter
Empire took this land
Now everywhere force fields rise up at their command

Governor makes the laws
Arbites chain us well
Ministorum dazzle us wi' heaven, or they damn us intae hell
We will not worship
The God they serve
Emp'rer of greed who feeds the norms while muties starve.

We work; we eat together
We've no chainswords
We will not bow to nobles, or pay rent to the lords
We are free freaks
Though we are poor
You Muties all stand up for glory, stand up now.

From the Lord High General
The order came
He sent Imperial Guard stormtroopers to wipe out the muties' claim
Immolate their hab-dome
Destroy their corn
They were eviscerated... only the vision lingers on

You freaks take courage
You norms take care
Planets were made as common treasuries for everyone to share
All things in common
All peoples one
We come in peace... the order came to cleanse and burn

To the tune of Dick Gaughan's "The Diggers Song / World Turned Upside Down" (from his astonishingly good "A Handful of Earth" album):

(Other people's) poems, one a day, in the runup to National Poetry Day

serpentstar — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 01:32:52 GMT

   CLEVELAND: THE RECTAL EYE VISIONS by d.a.levy (excerpt)

 
		 for allen ginsberg

manifesto fragment & poem for-the one-eyed children 

I DONT KNOW WHERE THESE WORDS COME FROM ANYMORE 
dreams of non-paranoid paranoia it will all work out in the end 
but i keep thinking ill be one of the dead/

did i put that into my head?

my conclusions are never related to the information devoured/or 
	                    i eat WORDS IDEAS VISIONS 
	                    in an attempt to grasp sumthing 
				                   CONCRETE 
	                    to communicate
			    (there is no music in this country 
			    all my thoughts turn into myths 
MY REALITY DOESNT HAVE A FUCKING THING TO DO WITH YR REALITY 
for instance, a chinese holy man just appeared on the curtains 
& what Antonin Artaud proved was "If you're really where its at" 
you can turn shock therapy into a psychedelic experience/ & if 
you overindulge you get friedbrains & that freaks up yr brain 
waves for a while.
	if you're ultra-cool you can control yr psychiatrist 
& he'll turn you on at regular intervals, on the other hand ONE 
mistaken ride on his brain waves & you may end up like him/ exce   pt he has the money & you don't. he can afford to let you pay him 
to maintain his myth & that is the real basis of your unreality, 
all you get is the pussy which you cant accept becuz you havent 
paid for it / the thang becomes unreal until you can buy yr way 
out of the mass myth
	 FOR THE POET words ARE THE FASTEST CURRENCY out of the 
State illusion...But it is still money that keeps him out of 
the State Institutions / Physically that is...THE POETS MYTH IS 
PORTABLE The Myth of Freedom is Portable...Pocket Ra is Portable

BEING TOLD YOU ARE LOCKED UP IS WORSE THAN BEING LOCKED UP
     WE ARE ALL LOCKED UP/ in credit cunt, behind the bars of the 
conservative alcoholic bank book, in advertising supermarket food 
prisons/ Our Bodies are Spirit Vaults..BREAK THE SEAL by osmosis 
along the dotted lines on the top of yr head FREEDOM FOR THE 
SPIRIT the bodies tomb doors are locked from the outside 
This is called Living In A World Of Ignorance
THE BEGINNING is learning to move about freely within yr own tomb 
dont look outside there is nothing but the wrathful cardboard 
deities of the T.V.Myth.
	                WHAT IS FREEDOM FOR THE SPIRIT?
its like driving a go cart in a parma supermarket & HELL/YAMA 
is being pursued by a Lawrence Welk smile at GREAT NORTHERN 
SHRIEK...THE SUPERMARKET SUTRA...& the small tantric sermons 
of the drive-in auto-mobile ashram-strobescopic flickerings of 
limp-sex films...a teeny bopper who is dry thinks she is a 
tantric Kwan-Yin trying to mother love & worshiping the motorcycle 
OSIRIS his phallus lost in the dawn - drive-in sex at the gas 
station GAS?    OIL?   GROPE? mechanical hands grope you in your 
auto as you are gassed & oiled & later annointed at the drive-in 
reading The Perfumed Garden by the light of the glove compartment 
					    I KEEP TELLING 
MYSELF, to take more drugs so i will be more coherent/ i keep 
telling myself to leap like a flame from my window//i am afraid 
to be the first assassination in Cleveland, everyone will think
it was the drugs (i rarely took) perhaps i should have...)



Allen/ the bell me&the dragon lady bought in detroit or the
toledo art museum hidden in the turquiose scarabs/ i gave it to 
you after you read at the AMASA STONE CHAPEL - chanted mantras- 
shot us full of light & the bell rings saying THUS i dont want 
to be paranoid but other than you, no one ever told me how to 
LOVE a Vacuum, Allen you may not be as holy as Jesus & the fat 
funk brahmans of India, but you are certainly among the most holy 
& sacred men in this desert..allen..i dont want to start a cult 
they do not sell meat tenderizer for the dawn cock & last night 
i skoffed several lifetimes of snatch as a yoga practice - 
turned on people just telling then how to function in the Love 
Underground - the catacombs of america are full of the songs of 
the skull sung in gothic bathrooms - i beleive there is merit in 
taking a good shit - THIS a first creative act is the first step 
to being reborn -- An act of love

(it came & swallowed all my words)

How did we fall
for the myth of Ulysses murdering 
	the ONE-EYED child 
when he sez he is NO MAN 
he wasnt kidding
	         Ulysses is an animal
a george orwell cartoon movie of the bullshit pig 
& the Babylonians & the Assyrians & our whole 
		disease culture is based on these 
		SWINE 
proud to murder those giants with One EYE/ 
THOSE ANGELS WITH THE EYE THAT FEELS
Were they the original gods
if i open the window in my head 
will they kill me?
how many survived    waiting     hiding 
centuries piled on centuries waiting
   for the Day of Love to arrive & instead 
they are greeted by the facist princes & 
                          the war lords 
Ulysses,hitler,mussolini,franco,stalin,johnson 
eisenhower, trujillo, batista etc etc etc the 
names always spell / IMPOTENT BRAIN WAVES & 
		     UNCONTROLLED DEATH

Music meme

serpentstar — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:55:43 GMT

15 albums that'll always stay with you, without thinking too hard (the 1st 15 that spring to mind in 15 min or less).

1) Iggy & the Stooges -- Raw Power. This is the perfect raw proto-punk rock album. Every song is about sex, death, or both, and delivered with passion and agony and ecstasy and madness.

2) Massive Attack -- Protection. Arguably Mezzanine is a better album, but Protection defined an era.

3) The Creatures -- A Bestiary Of. Contains most of my favourite Siouxsie craziness, including a couple of my favourite songs by any artist.

4) Tekno Acid Beat. This is actually a Psychick TV album, though not billed as such. Pretty much the first dark acid house album. Still quite amazing.

5) Mark Stewart & the Maffia -- Mark Stewart. Chaotic, existentialist, fuliginous dub from the post-punk proto-Bristol Sound genius. This is the aural equivalent of Camus's _Exile & The Kingdom_.

6) Michael Moorcock & the Deep Fix -- New World's Fair. Bleak, bitingly funny post-apocalyptic fairground psychedelic rock.

7) Imminent Starvation -- Nord. Mostly because it has Tentack One on it, but the whole album is damn fine. Imminent is pretty much the finest exponent of Power Noise.

8) Sheila Chandra -- The Zen Kiss. Amazing vocalist. Her Speaking In Tongues tracks are incredible, but Waiting is utterly, captivatingly beautiful.

9) Dick Gaughan -- A Handful Of Earth. Superb folk music, mostly traditional, but Gaughan has an especial interest in politically radical folksongs.

10) Doctor John, the Night Tripper -- Gris Gris. Still one of the most consistently fine voodoo rock albums.

11) KLF -- The White Room. Another epoch-defining album for anyone who was listening to music in the early 90s.

12) Nurse With Wound -- Large Ladies With Cake In The Oven. Mostly for Glory Hole, though this compilation is rather good throughout...

13) Alabama 3 -- Power In The Blood. Probably the most consistently brilliant album from the Brixton purveyors of Elvis-, Mao-, and smack-tinged sweet country acid house music.

14) David Bowie -- The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars. Five years till the End of the Earth, and the kids no longer want rock and roll...

15) Natural Born Killers soundtrack. The soundtrack to my favourite movie, put together by one of my favourite musicians, containing some of my favourite songs... kind of a no-brainer really.

serpentstar — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:41:04 GMT

More on the live roleplay vs tabletop benefits and drawbacks -- I think that the latest Odyssey design blog, again, is indicative of some of the leaps and bounds that the theory and practice of LRP gaming have taken, not necessarily ahead of RPGs, but perhaps in a different direction.

Bear in mind that it's a player-vs-player game.

serpentstar — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 07:46:01 GMT

From oxfordgirl 's blog:

'I find it hard to get into tabletop RPGs. Especially since I discovered and identified exactly the sort of high-immersion, character-driven adrenaline-junkie all-IC-all-the-time LARPing that really hits the spot for me, I've been wondering if the style simply... wasn't for me. A nice way to spend an evening, but on a par with "staying in and chilling out with a good book and a beer", rather than "sprinting full tilt through the forest with six rounds left in your shotgun and the stone-cold conviction that you're going to run out of ammo before the cultists run out of knives".'

...discuss, I guess. I've often felt the same way. I wonder if it makes working in the game industry trickier, or easier.

I will often enjoy a really good tabletop game, but not *much* more than I'll enjoy a good book and a beer.

Armoured calisthenics

serpentstar — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 10:36:32 GMT

This is me doing some push-ups, squats, star jumps, sit-ups and burpees, wearing late 15th century style medieval armour (full plate leg harness, full plate arm harness, gauntlets, riveted mail standard, steel brigandine on the torso, & a cotton & wool arming doublet underneath). The idea is to demonstrate that even heavy plate armour was designed to be form-fitting & mobile, so the wearer could perform a wide range of physical activity without significant impediment. (Also I am showing off a bit, naturally.)

First Conan movie pics

serpentstar — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:23:17 GMT

...are here.

Well -- certainly I agree with The Cimmerian's critique that Cimmeria, while misty enough, really isn't wooded enough (and doesn't look too hilly & mountainous either, TBH). That's a relatively minor detail though...

I initially thought Momoa could make for an OK Conan if he did the right exercise regime before starting, but it doesn't look like he did. He's a good height -- 6'4" -- but his muscles are wrong. I'm glad they didn't go for an Arnie-style bodybuilder, but Conan is described, even as a youth, as having "broad shoulders, massive chest and heavy arms".

Momoa doesn't look like a warrior. It's great that he doesn't look like a bodybuilder either -- but he looks like what he is, an actor with a bad personal trainer. His shoulders aren't broad enough, and his forearms are frankly puny, even allowing for his height. If you wield a sword or axe, professionally, you are going to get incredibly grip strength, and really quite big forearms to go with it. He needed to be prepping for the role by doing a load of pull-ups (for the shoulders) and high-rep, high-weight squats (for the massive chest) and grip work (which could include pull-ups, and deadlifts, but probably a load of combat athlete type stuff like sledgehammer work, hammer levering, etc.).

And -- also on the "actor, not warrior" front -- where the hell are his scars?

New Doctor Who, so far -- short reviews

serpentstar — Sun, 09 May 2010 10:03:29 GMT

Partly reposted from a comment on ed_fortune 's LJ.

The Eleventh Hour: genuinely scary. Amy makes a great companion. Matt Smith walked right into the Doctor role & made it his own, unexpectedly but very pleasantly. There are rather promising hints at a possible female incarnation in future.

The Beast Below: not entirely logically coherent, but it's basically proper SF, with big ideas -- which is always nice. Liz 10 makes a cool character. Dystopias do make for great fiction. Lovely to see Amy outsmarting the Doctor, and out-compassioning him, too.

Victory of the Daleks: frankly a bit half-hearted, but Churchill was excellent. I'm really not convinced by the Dalek Teletubbies look. Why make them all different colours, apparently at random? At least give one of them a handbag.

The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone: ah, no we get to some real meat! OK -- neither ep was *quite* as good as Blink. There. I've said it. However -- the two eps combined were among the best non-Blink Doctor Who we've seen so far. River Song's return was a delight, but then, Alex Kingston is one of my favourite actors -- I find her consistently amazing! She loves a good script, though, and Moffat provides, as usual. The clergy/soldiers were kinda neat -- somewhat Warhammer 40K Imperial Guard, which was a lovely touch in itself. The Angels... got slightly less scary than they'd been in Blink. Also -- crappy science alert -- I loved that their defence mechanism, as we knew from Blink, operates when the observer's interaction with the observed causes wave function collapse -- but that meant that they wouldn't have gone to stone form just because Amy was "moving like a person who could see". The perceptions of the observed object shouldn't affect the interaction of observed & observer. I know I shouldn't expect hard SF from Who, and that little niggle is TINY compared to the mounds of bullshit that RTD used to heap on our poor beleaguered suspensions of disbelief every episode, but if Moffat takes the time & effort to give us plausible science -- Blink -- it's a real shame when he later undermines that -- Flesh & Stone. Still -- really looking forward to more River.

Vampires of Venice: The ep as a whole was pretty weak. Ho-hum, excuse for some running about and cute vampire chicks in pretty frocks. But the character development of the 3 leads made that just about acceptable. I quite like Rory -- he is a lot smarter than Mickey, and more able to genuinely put the Doc in his place. I liked that the sonic screwdriver couldn't open a barred door. Makes logical sense. It should be a tool, not a magic wand. Good to see it being used mostly *as* a tool. Final scene -- why did she bother "stripping off" some clothes before jumping, when we know that the clothes aren't even there -- they're just created by the perception filter. Again, I know I shouldn't expect hard SF, but logical impossibilities like that should leap out at... somebody? Whoever is supposed to deal with continuity.

Overall -- by far the best season of New Doctor Who, so far. It'd take some really weak episodes to put a dent in that, and I don't think we'll see that any time soon. Go Team Moffat! (But please grab a science advisor.)

serpentstar — Thu, 06 May 2010 10:38:00 GMT

Just a brief, but carefully considered, "fuck you" to anyone who thinks it is somehow my duty to go out and vote today.

No politician is getting a mandate from me.

No politician is ever going to have any justification for saying that the ridiculous new laws they pass, the power they willingly give away to big business, the healthcare and social care budgets they cut, or the atrocities of the wars they start, were supported by me.

Fuck them all.

And, if you think I'm a bad person for refusing to give my support to any of them -- fuck you, too.

No offence.

Response from Susan Elan Jones

serpentstar — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:36:43 GMT

Here it is:

Dear Mr Sturrock,

Thank you very much for your email, and especially the detail you have gone into for what is for most of us 'non-techies' a complex area. I am quite happy for you to post my response on-line if you like.

Now, in terms of the Act, my understanding is that the main aims of the legislation was to ensure that we have a competitive digital communication infrastructure in the UK; we protect intellectual property; ensure the UK is at the leading edge of the global digital economy and also maintain plurality in regional news (something that, heaven knows, is particularly important to us here in Wales - I am sure I am not alone in having spent many years watching Granada and Central - in fact, anything other than rather blurred receptions of Welsh news!).

My understanding also is that this legislation is key to Labour’s policy of industrial activism and central to our strategy to secure future jobs - the UK’s digital economy sectors account for nearly £1 in every £10 that the economy produces each year.

So far, I suspect, so good - but then I suspect we touch on the more thorny issues. The copyright issue is one a few residents have written to me about. The view they have taken is that illicit file-sharing is costing the UK’s creative industries and creative talent hundreds of millions of pounds a year and that if we do nothing, it will be a blow to jobs and economic growth – and could also put at risk the films, computer games and music that people enjoy. Other correspondence I have had from some residents describe the proposals as proportionate as they will not criminalise file-sharers or create new criminal offences.

However, I am not without some concerns about the act and the hypoethtical case you make about a relative downloading something and then net access to be cut off is a concerning one. If that is a net result of the act, then I think it is a lesson in what happens where there is only limited opportunity for the Commons to debate the issue. Now arguably I suppose one could blame the Lords (which spent a long time discussing it) and say that had the bill’s progress been speedier through the House of Lords than there may have been sufficient Parliamentary time to discuss the bill further. However I don't really think that answer is good enough and it quite clearly does need some further examination.

My understanding is that the Bill will tackle the problem of infringement of copyright by placing obligations on internet service providers (ISPs) to work with copyright owners, notify infringing subscribers and enabling copyright owners to target legal action against the most persistent infringers. If this approach is not as effective as expected, then after at least a year after the code for the initial obligations comes into effect the government will have the power to order ISPs to take further action, which may include bandwidth capping and account suspension.

As you quite rightly point out, suspension is a serious issue, so the identification process will have to be as robust as possible and there will be an independent and easy route of appeal at every stage in the process. But the only measure identified that works for all content on all networks is suspension - however there will be a range of safeguards before any action is taken. These include a clear and effective appeal mechanism, including appeal to a First Tier Tribunal. No technical measure can be imposed on a subscriber until any appeal has fully run its course, but I will make sure I play my part in helping to monitor how this process works to ensure we do not penalise innocent users.

I hope this email goes some way to dealing with the main issues you have raised.

With best wishes

Susan

Open letter to my prospective Labour candidate, Susan Elan Jones

serpentstar — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 09:55:51 GMT

Dear Susan

Thanks for your swift reply (and apologies for taking a while to get back in touch, myself -- I've been busy).

You're interested in my concerns about the Digital Economy Bill.

First, some background -- I've used the internet for work, usually self-employed work, for the past 13 years. For the past 10 years, about 90% of any work I've done has involved extensive, daily internet use, working from home. I work as a writer, editor, designer, & researcher. I work with hundreds of people who are in similarly creative fields -- writers, artists, designers, small publishers, small software houses, etc. Many of them work from home, too, using internet cafes or free wi-fi facilities as backups to their home net connection.

So, clearly there are concerns about the draconian possibilities outlined in the DEB regarding the closing down, without trial or even evidence, of people's net connection, just on the say-so of big business interests. This could also, of course, apply to the many libraries, free wi-fi bars & cafes, etc. All it takes is a record industry representative claiming that they believe a person's net connection has been used to download copyrighted material, and that person could have their net access cut off.

Now, of course, it's likely that in many or even most cases they'd be right -- that person's net access had indeed been used to download copyrighted material. However, the lack of a requirement for a fair trial or even the presentation of evidence is clearly a major concern here. It's not so much that I and others think that the big business interests that this Bill empowers are somehow inherently malevolent and will take delight in closing down people's net access; it's just that we don't want to take the risk, which seems reasonable. I have a lot of faith in human nature, but not enough to suggest that we, for example, replace the current system of an accountable police force & trial by jury, with privately run police forces who can dispense "justice" at their whim.

Even when a person or business's net access has been used to download copyright material, in many cases, closing their net access down will punish far more people than the guilty party. If a neighbour or passer-by is able to hack my Wi-Fi & use my net connection to download the latest Lady Gaga album illegally, should I be punished? Likewise -- though my son is currently only 9, and not yet technically savvy enough, and hopefully never unethical enough, to download his favourite movies illegally -- should I really be punished with the loss of my means of earning a living, solely because of his or his friends' actions? Without a burden of proof? Without trial? Without appeal?

I'm very glad to hear you also opposed the Iraq War. You'll doubtless be aware of the recent publication by the Wikileaks website of footage of US helicopter crews in Iraq gunning down innocent unarmed people, including Reuters staff and children, and laughing and joking about it. Did you realise that the Digital Economy Bill gives the government the power to block access to Wikileaks, or indeed any other website, to all UK people, again without the need for evidence, if it is believed that the website in question might at some point be used in connection with the distribution of copyrighted material? Wikileaks, in fact, exists primarily to distribute copyrighted material, and quite rightly too -- the US government attempted to prevent them from distributing the film from those helicopters, but Wikileaks recognised that in this case, telling the world about the murder of innocents was more important than worrying about which US government body owned the copyright on the footage. The Digital Economy Bill doesn't worry about such things as the greater good, or the possibility (currently recognised in the wider body of British law) of committing a crime to prevent a greater crime from being committed.

I mentioned earlier that I know, work with, & do business with several hundred creators of intellectual property -- supposedly the people the Digital Economy Bill was created to protect. I don't know any of them who approve of the Bill, and in fact the majority of them are among the 20,000+ people who wrote to their MPs to oppose it. This Bill has been brought in by a few big businesses, not by the actual creators of intellectual property. It gives big business another tool with which to harass & persecute ordinary people; a somewhat cheaper tool than the usual means of pursuing them through the court system. If Labour want to protect the livelihoods of the actual creatives, the writers and artists and musicians and programmers, you need to give us more tools to ensure we get a fair deal from the big businesses we often deal with -- not empower the big businesses even further.

I would suggest you take a look at Tom Watson's Digital Pledges:

http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2010/04/my-digital-pledges/

If you want to ensure that Britain remains at the forefront of intellectual property creation -- purportedly the aim of the Bill -- you would do well to consider signing up to a similar pledge & doing all within your power to get the Bill repealed if Labour returns to office. If you're willing to make such a public pledge, I will very gladly give you my vote in the upcoming election.

I'm in the process of posting this to my blog, too, and will be linking to the blog post from my Facebook account, so you will get around 700 other people reading it. You'd be very welcome to reply directly to the blog post as well as to me, if you want to respond to any of their comments, or ensure they read your reply too -- alternatively, I will very happily post your reply to my blog myself, if that's acceptable to you.

(I do, of course, need to get your permission before I can make your response public, as any letter or email written by you is copyright to you, and I don't want to have my internet access taken away by reposting it without your permission. More importantly, though, it wouldn't be ethical for me to do so without permission, so I won't. Odd, isn't it, how somehow people do the right thing anyway, without the need for yet another nanny-state law to enforce obedience? It'd be lovely if you also opposed Labour's other rather random nanny-state nonsense, like the excessive anti-terrorist legislation which has so far been used predominantly to harass ordinary people like photographers, but that's not strictly necessary to get my vote; just sign up to the Tom Watson pledge or something similar.)

Here's a link to the blog post:

Kind regards

--
Ian Sturrock