Import blogger data.

_posts/media/2009-11-03-vendetta-redux-eve-online-and-mmo-bug.html

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Vendetta redux, Eve Online, and the MMO bug
+date: '2009-11-03T06:58:00.000-05:00'
+author: Anna Wiggins
+tags:
+- eve online
+- vendetta online
+- Gaming
+- mmo
+modified_time: '2013-10-22T11:19:50.855-04:00'
+blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209116010564764361.post-5151152868225534636
+blogger_orig_url: http://www.stringofbits.net/2009/11/vendetta-redux-eve-online-and-mmo-bug.html
+---
+
+So, I've been playing Vendetta Online for a while now, and the shiny factor is starting to fade.  My <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neophilia">neophilia</a> guarantees that I will like any sufficiently shiny thing for at least a couple weeks.  However, the game underneath the shiny is lacking, and it may be lacking in too many ways for me to justify playing it.<br/><br/>The biggest problem, by a long shot, is the player base.  60 players seems to be the absolute upper bound at any given time, at least while I've been playing.  This is abysmal for an MMOG; there are FPS games that support larger numbers of players at a time.  I might even be happy with this player base, if they did anything other than hang out in Sedina B8 PvPing.  It doesn't really feel like an MMO at this point, it has the feeling of a social dogfighting game.<br/><br/>A lot of noobs seem to appear, play for a few weeks, and vanish.  I can see why.  The player base seems a little cliquish, though not overly much.  But you get the feeling that Veterans will always be Veterans, reminiscing about the glory days, and noobs will always be noobs, struggling to make a few credits in the face of vastly more experienced and skilled pirates.  Of course, that's when you find pirates at all.  I've flown across have the game's universe trading and never been pirated.  Like I said in my previous post, it's a ghost galaxy.<br/><br/>The numerous buggy things and realism-breakers are a turn-off, too.  Capships in convoys don't carry any cargo, so they're worthless to both escorts (who get a "share of the profits" for their pay) and pirates.  The cargo is simply an unlimited stream of widgets moving back and forth across the universe, with no great purpose in life.  The convoy missions don't always work, either; I've had several simply fail to end, giving me nothing and forcing me to abort the mission.<br/><br/>There is not a lot of variety in missions.  After playing through the few available mission trees, the missions are all one of a few boilerplate missions.  Fly out, kill some stuff, you're done.  Take this here, bring that back.  Mine for lots of foo, get paid.  Nothing more elaborate than that, which is disappointing.<br/><br/>I'm not cancelling my subscription yet.  I'm giving the game a little more time to impress me.  But at the same time, I'm going to try out Eve Online.  You see, the MMO bug has hit me, and now I want a large, persistent universe full of people that I can fight with, trade with, and just generally game alongside.  The space theme is more appealing to me than fantasy MMOs have ever been (fantasy has been done to death, is what it comes down to).<br/><br/>As far as roleplaying backstory goes, the science in Eve is surprisingly non-squishy, with a lot of modern scifi concepts making an appearance: quantum entaglement-based FTL communication, consciousness hot-backups, etc.  Sure, the spectre of "jumpgates" (replace with "wormholes" at leisure) makes an appearance, but I can accept some foils for the sake of the story.<br/><br/>While I love twitch-based gameplay, I am a lot better at tactical/strategic combat.  I think on my feet pretty well, but my reflexes suck pretty hard.  I would probably find the combat in Eve more enjoyable, as a result.<br/><br/>If you ignore the combat layer, Eve has a lot of awesome features that would make VO great: player-owned systems, player-run economics (the materials you trade actually seem to come from a player at some point), and player-designed ships.  All of these could have an analogue in VO, and if features like these were present, I would probably enjoy VO a lot more.<br/><br/>Of course, there's also Jumpgate: Evolution.  It'll be interesting to check that out when it launches.  We'll see.

_posts/media/2010-01-08-scratching-itch.html

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Scratching the itch
+date: '2010-01-08T07:06:00.000-05:00'
+author: Anna Wiggins
+tags:
+- eve online
+- vendetta online
+- thunderdome
+- Gaming
+modified_time: '2013-10-22T11:19:50.863-04:00'
+blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209116010564764361.post-7191442157918171530
+blogger_orig_url: http://www.stringofbits.net/2010/01/scratching-itch.html
+---
+
+I thought about titling this post "Eve and Vendetta in the THUNDERDOME", but sanity prevailed.  You win this round, sanity.<br/><br/>I played through the trial run of Eve Online.  It worked without much complaint in wine.  Let's look at the things I think are cool about Eve Online, and the problems and realizations that came from the trial.<br/><a name='more'></a><br/><br/>Okay, the star map.  I could spend hours just playing with the gorram star map.  Coloring systems by various data, playing with routes... the star map makes me feel like I'm in an Asimov novel.  This hits my geek spot so very very hard.<br/><br/>The scale of the game is immense.  4500 star systems.  Something to do in every one of them.  It's mind-boggling, and it's easy to feel lost in the vast cloud of stars.  Which is a good thing, for me.<br/><br/>The setting is really cool.  The whole concept of capsuleers - transhumanist sociopaths, small gods reigning death on lesser humans - is really cool.  The fact that you play as one is the surprising part.  And NPCs even make reference to the fact that your 'kind' have a reputation for callousness.  Very well executed.<br/><br/>In theory, I love the PvP/corporation/territorial battle aspects of Eve.  Player-run corporations can control star systems.  That's amazing.  In fact, it is the single coolest thing the game has to offer.  If VO could find a way to implement sector/system sovereignty, it would be a better game (I believe this is being worked on).<br/><br/>Eve has a  HUGE player base.  There are human players in pretty much every system I pass through.  However, while the player base is huge, I find myself rarely interacting with them.  Which is fine, in that it is realistic enough; I have no real reason to talk to these pilots at this time.  But it makes me realize that VO's absence of a huge player base isn't as much of a deal breaker as I thought.<br/><br/>I like that Eve's economy is thoroughly player-driven.  Vendetta feels contrived; sure, prices fluctuate as you move commodities from one port to another, but a station isn't relying on players for a shipment of actual, usable goods, like weapons and ships.  The economy in Eve is easily the most amazing thing I've ever seen in a video game.  The fact that it <strong>works</strong> is almost unbelievable.<br/><br/>Eve has some graphical and performance issues, and it isn't really any prettier than Vendetta Online on my hardware.  This is annoying, because Eve looks and runs better in Windows.  That's a HUGE point in Vendetta's favor; Linux compatibility is very important to me.<br/><br/>Combat in Eve can be boring at times.  Theoretically it's a more tactical approach, but PvE comes down to:<br/><ol><br/><li>Click enemy.</li><br/><li>Click "Lock"</li><br/><li>Press F1</li><br/><li>Wait until enemy is dead</li><br/></ol><br/><br/>You might need to toggle some shield hardeners or armor repair modules, or run away to repair/reload.  But that's about it for the entry-level PvE.  Now, granted, PvP is another deal altogether, and I'm sure the combat in PvE gets more nuanced.  The presence of tons of options (weapons, shields, add-ons, upgrades, 'rigs') is really cool, too, if a bit overwhelming.<br/><br/>In contrast, VO's combat is immediate, twitch-based, and immensely rewarding.  It is also a lot harder for me, but I relish the challenge.  In my two-week trial of Eve, I didn't lose a single ship.  In Vendetta, blowing up happens every day.  Of course, it isn't as big a deal either.<br/><br/>Vendetta's limited options with weapons and ships makes it easy to build a balanced, meaningful loadout.  It also has a really good variety of different ship types (light/medium/heavy fighter, transport, bomber) without having an overwhelming number of options.<br/><br/><br/>I think that, in the end, VO is more my style.  It is better suited to casual play.  It has a more open attitude (native Linux client, client plugins are encouraged, very open source-style release model).  The public chat channel makes the game's community very accessible; you can ask questions or just chat, and it makes the whole experience feel like hanging out on IRC (but with more explosions).<br/><br/>Eve Online has a lot of things that I want in a game, but it's not quite casual-friendly enough for me.  If Vendetta takes some cues from Eve in terms of the broader features, it will turn into a damned fine game.  As it is, it's enough fun to justify paying for it.

_posts/media/2010-02-24-heavy-rain.html

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Heavy Rain
+date: '2010-02-24T10:51:00.000-05:00'
+author: Anna Wiggins
+tags:
+- art
+- PS3
+- Heavy Rain
+- philosophy
+- Sony
+- Gaming
+modified_time: '2013-10-22T11:19:50.870-04:00'
+blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209116010564764361.post-2433324692047175848
+blogger_orig_url: http://www.stringofbits.net/2010/02/heavy-rain.html
+---
+
+So, Sony released a little game for the PS3 yesterday called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Rain">Heavy Rain</a>.  Having already played the demo, I ran out and nabbed a copy.  I got home, popped it in.  I thought I would play for a little while, just to see the intro, you know?<br/><a name='more'></a><br/>A very short while later, I heard this:  "Hey, you know it's almost 1 in the morning, right?"<br/><br/>It seemed strange that a character in the game sounded so much like my wife.  Also, my character had just looked at her watch, and it was way after 1.  And there wasn't anyone else in the room.<br/><br/>"Did you hear me?"<br/><br/>The surround sound on this game is great, too.  It sounds like that voice is coming from <strong>right behind me</strong>.  I turn my character around, but don't see anything.  Kinda creepy.<br/><br/>Then it dawns on me, and I press Start, and turn around.<br/><br/>This is the effect Heavy Rain has on me.  The story in this game is <strong>that</strong> gripping, compelling.  It propels you forward naturally, the pacing keeping you engaged without overwhelming.  This game has the highest production quality of any game I can recall playing.  I've seen the phrase <em>interactive movie</em> thrown around here and there over the years, but Heavy Rain turns that on its head; it is not a movie; it is doing things with storytelling that a movie can't do, for a number of reasons.  It's not a <em>visual novel</em> either, because it is far more than a series of cinematic sequences with decision points.  Rather, we have something entirely new here, and it is an ambitious and compelling idea.<br/><br/>I have been known to opine that a great piece of art is one that plays to the strengths of its medium.  A great novel uses the written word to convey something that can only be conveyed with writing.  Certain combinations of words have great effect on the reader, in a way that the same scene in a movie might miss entirely.  Literature has the advantage of narration; a voice that can drive the story in ways that are unique to the form, and great stories capitalize on this.<br/><br/>A great movie, on the other hand, uses the fact that it is a visual medium to convey powerful emotional content that would feel flat in writing.  Lighting, facial expression, and tone of voice can be evocative in a movie like they never could in writing. Plays have their own framework, and they are at their best when they exploit this fact.  Ditto music, painting, and other artistic forms.<br/><br/>Heavy Rain is the first game that I have encountered that takes this approach with a video game.  It is treating the game as a work of art, and not simply an entertaining way to kill time.  Sure, other games have stories and beautifully rendered scenery.  They have characters that portray emotion, sometimes.  But Heavy Rain uses the canvas of video games to tell a story in a unique way; you couldn't copy this story to movie or novel form without losing, or at least changing, something important.<br/><br/>Traditional games, even ones with great stories, are hampered by a number of problems.  One is the tendency for this pattern to emerge:<br/><br/>1. Plot (cutscene, dialogue tree, etc)<br/>2. Gameplay (random battles, shooting bad guys)<br/>3. Goto 1.<br/><br/>In Heavy Rain, the plot and gameplay are intertwined inextricably, and the gameplay doesn't devolve into the usual video game tropes of, well, killing Bad Guys.  It's more nuanced than that, and you observe a story unfolding in which your actions have real consequences, both minor and major, and in both the short and long term.<br/><br/>It's been obvious to me for a long time that video games could potentially be art, evoke a broad range of real human emotion in the player, and deal with deep themes without resorting to ham-fisted tropes or dulling the emotional experience with tons of unrelated gameplay between evocative scenes.  Heavy Rain is the first time I've seen this potential realized.

_posts/media/2011-06-03-obligatory-river-song-speculation-thread.html

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: Obligatory River Song speculation thread
+date: '2011-06-03T11:36:00.000-04:00'
+author: Anna Wiggins
+tags:
+- Media
+- fanwank
+- Timehead
+- Doctor Who
+- River Song
+modified_time: '2013-10-22T11:19:50.974-04:00'
+blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209116010564764361.post-5044762929828242117
+blogger_orig_url: http://www.stringofbits.net/2011/06/obligatory-river-song-speculation-thread.html
+---
+
+Since the previews for <em>A Good Man Goes to War</em> have promised that the Doctor will learn "who River Song really is", this may be my last chance to go on the record with some wild speculation about what the reveal will be.<br/><br/><strong>Spoilers!</strong><br/><br/><a name='more'></a><br/><br/>Let's start with the most popular fan theory: River Song is the Timehead. Certainly, this theory fits the available evidence well enough, and nothing directly contradicts it. It would add a selfish element to River's admonition to Amy that killing the Timehead would create a paradox.<br/><br/>There are only two problems with the theory. The first is that one of the pieces of evidence for the theory indirectly contradicts it. When the Doctor says that he suspects the Timehead "will find them", he is looking at River. Proponents of the theory say this is a pointed, knowing look. The problem is, if he already knows River is the Timehead, then "the day the Doctor finds out who she is" has already come. Granted, this is a somewhat weak complaint. River may not know that he knows, after all.<br/><br/>The other problem with this theory, in the words of Phil from the <a href="http://tardiseruditorum.blogspot.com">TARDIS Eruditorum</a>, is that Steven Moffat is cleverer than that. It is a somewhat obvious resolution from a man whose resolutions tend to be more surprising than that. So, at any rate, it would be somewhat disappointing if that were the extent of the reveal.<br/><br/>Phil's favored theory (and the only other theory that feels plausible to me) is that River Song is simply River Song, a particularly amazing woman the Doctor falls in love with. This would make the preview a clever bit of misdirection and hype-building, and while it would probably disappoint many fans, I think it would be a satisfying solution. And this leads me to what is, to me, a more interesting question than who River Song is: what is the context of her statement?<br/><br/>Is River going to directly tell the Doctor who she is, or are we dealing with a scene she has foreknowledge of? "This is the day..." scans (in the context of Doctor Who) like something a character might say if they had travelled back in time and were observing their own past. Showing such an encounter to, say, Amy and Rory would be a nice way to tell us more of River's story without waiting years for the Doctor to get there on his own.<br/><br/>Of course, this leads to another question: why go out of the way (both diegetically and from an audience perspective) to show us such a scene if there isn't something radically important about River's identity? This takes us back to the River-as-Timehead theory, which seems to have a whole lot of circumstantial evidence supporting it.<br/><br/>I'm not going to say that I actually buy in to the theory, but it is a somewhat interesting one. At any rate, it is a short wait; we'll find out tomorrow whether either of these theories are correct, or whether Moffat has yet another truly surprising reveal in store for us.<br/><br/>Edit: After I wrote this, I noticed Steven Moffat <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/steven_moffat/status/76715922584383488">said the following</a> on twitter:<br/><blockquote>yes, you will find out who River is tomorrow. Thing is though - was that what you were REALLY asking?</blockquote><br/>And, well, no, it isn't what we were asking. What we have really been asking is <em>who did River kill, and why?</em> So, River being the Timehead isn't a terribly interesting answer to any of that, and the only reason anyone started framing the question as "Who is River Song?" was that the trailer for Series 6 included Alex Kingston delivering the line "This is the day he finds out who I am". So, the real question is "will we find out who River killed?" Of course, the 'he' could feasibly not even be the Doctor. Intentionally misleading us is, after all, Moffat's <em>modus operandi</em>.

_posts/media/2011-07-22-puzzle-log-dante-shepherd-twitter-puzzle.html

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: 'Puzzle Log: Dante Shepherd''s twitter puzzle'
+date: '2011-07-22T12:00:00.000-04:00'
+author: Anna Wiggins
+tags:
+- Puzzles
+modified_time: '2013-10-22T11:19:51.467-04:00'
+blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209116010564764361.post-2959339115742070120
+blogger_orig_url: http://www.stringofbits.net/2011/07/puzzle-log-dante-shepherd-twitter-puzzle.html
+---
+
+Puzzling - that is, solving puzzles recreationally - is a hobby of mine. I enjoy it immensely, although I enjoy some puzzles much more than others. I enjoy the sorts of puzzles that involve both intuitive leaps and a combination of generalized and specialized knowledge. The sorts of puzzles that happen at the <a href="http://www.mit.edu/~puzzle/">MIT Mystery Hunt</a> are probably the best examples of puzzles I really enjoy (and, indeed, I had a lot of fun at my first Puzzle Hunt this year).<br/><br/>So, in the tradition of <a href="http://solvingpuzzles.tumblr.com/">Solving Really Hard Puzzles</a>, I've decided to post logs of some of my puzzling efforts here. These may only be of interest to a very few people; feel free to ignore them if this is not up your alley.<br/><br/>Today's puzzle is one that Dante Shepherd posted on twitter in <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/danteshepherd/status/94455810507280385">this tweet</a>. Puzzles that are simply an encoded string of characters always intrigue me, so I dived right in. It took me about half an hour to solve, and it was a lot of fun. I created a log of the process by simply periodically noting the time and writing down my thoughts, especially when I got somewhere new, such as the aha moment at 15:00. In the future, I may look for (or create) some software that will make logging a bit easier.<br/><br/>Also, here is the original puzzle, for the link-averse:<br/><br/>L 45, R 270 L 225, R 270 L 225, R 180, L 90, R 270 L 225, R 270 L 90, R 225 L 90, R 270 L 225, R 225 L 135.<br/><br/><strong>Spoiler Warning: if you want to solve this puzzle yourself, don't read my log. It contains spoilers for the intuitive leaps as well as the solution.</strong><br/><br/><strong>14:45</strong><br/>Okay, puzzle is gridded. What do we have here? These are obviously rotations; L and R for 'left' and 'right', and the numbers are all &lt; 360.<br/><br/><strong>14:50</strong><br/>Oh, they're all multiples of 45 degrees. So, they're all nice, even angles, and they are paired off.<br/><br/><strong>15:00</strong><br/>Aha! It's Semaphore. For the two that are missing part of the pair, I'm assuming the angle is 0. Let me just look up a semaphore chart...<br/><br/><strong>15:01</strong><br/>Oh crap. Is 0 at the top or bottom? Is L the sender's left or the receiver's left? Now I have to work out the coordinate system Dante used. At least we know that the low numbers map to the L side, and the high numbers map to the R side.<br/><br/><strong>15:10</strong><br/>Tried 3 coordinate systems - 0 at top with L == left arm, 0 at top with L == viewer's left, and 0 == right, coordinates going counter-clockwise (trig coordinates). All that's left for reasonable systems is 0 on the bottom.<br/><br/><strong>15:13</strong><br/>And solved. The solution is GOODFORYOU. It was the last coordinate system I tried, of course - moved 0 to the bottom, but got L and R backwards the first try.

_posts/media/2011-09-06-doctor-who-night-terrors.html

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: 'Doctor Who: Night Terrors'
+date: '2011-09-06T12:00:00.000-04:00'
+author: Anna Wiggins
+tags:
+- Media
+- Doctor Who
+modified_time: '2013-10-22T11:19:51.542-04:00'
+blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209116010564764361.post-534640537291397085
+blogger_orig_url: http://www.stringofbits.net/2011/09/doctor-who-night-terrors.html
+---
+
+As usual with these posts, <strong>Spoiler Warning</strong>.<br/><br/>Oh, Mark Gatiss, you've done it again. You got my hopes up, and then dashed them against the rocky shore of poor plotting.<br/><br/>Let's start with a recap of Gatiss' contributions to (televised) Doctor Who: The Unquiet Dead, The Idiot's Lantern, Victory of the Daleks, and now Night Terrors. So, out of his previous contributions we have one very, very good (and fairly creepy) episode, one that is, for my money, an absolute dud, and one that is a fairly clever idea with a weak execution. Although, to be fair, a Dalek asking "WOULD YOU CARE FOR SOME TEA?" might be one of the greatest single moments in Doctor Who history, and if Victory of the Daleks was conceived around that image, then I forgive it for everything else.<br/><br/>Looking at his track record, I get the impression that Gatiss is at his best when he tries to write creepy stories. The problem is that, with Night Terrors, he is <em>trying</em> to write a creepy story. But try as it might, this story absolutely fails to be creepy. The wooden dolls just aren't compellingly scary, and the dollhouse doesn't have the atmosphere of 'creepy haunted house' that it needs to make them so. The only time the dolls are ever creepy is the first time we see one - that is, when it is inanimate and standing alone in a closet. The monster is less scary when we can look it in the face, and the longer we hear creepy noises and get suggestions of scary things, the more suspense and tension is built. Here, though, Gatiss fails to build suspense for the monster, so its reveal feels about as frightening as the Slitheen in Aliens of London. Even the build-up to the Silurian reveal in The Hungry Earth was creepier than this episode.<br/><br/>With scary out the window, let's look at the rest of the episode. This is the first episode since The Doctor's Wife that isn't heavily invested in the story arc (even if we didn't know how tied to the story The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People was, in retrospect we have to count them as fundamentally 'part of the ongoing arc' episodes), so I had high hopes for a nice, self-contained, Doctor-to-the-rescue story.<br/><br/>And the opening let me keep hoping. Gatiss writes the Doctor brilliantly. The sequence in which the Doctor and company wander about the tenement has some fantastic dialogue. And every scene with the Doctor interacting with George and Alex is brilliant as well.<br/><br/>But these scenes are interspersed with the dollhouse. And the way the dollhouse is used destroys the pacing and tension of the episode. At the end of the episode, it felt like not very much had happened, and what had happened was inconsequential. The big runaround gets resolved, essentially, by actors coming on stage at the last minute. It's trying to be a clever twist, but it ends up being an anticlimax.<br/><br/>And the story arc tie-in at the end felt a bit weak, too. I mean, we get some creepy child-like singing that is, presumably, supposed to evoke the monsters that were just defeated. But even if we set aside the fact that they are, y'know, <em>defeated</em>, they have absolutely no apparent reason to know or care about the Doctor's death. They're figments of an alien child's imagination. It felt like that was added just for the sake of having some reminder of the overall story arc. Whether that was added by Moffat or Gatiss, it is a weak bit of storytelling.<br/><br/>One thing it does do is tell us that the storyline surrounding the Doctor's death will probably be dealt with in series 6, and not carried over to series 7. At least, assuming Moffat is following the contemporary format of series-spanning story arcs; dropping repeated hints about the same plot element almost always means that element will be dealt with in the series finale. Unless, of course, the series finale ends on a cliffhanger. But Doctor Who is uniquely ill-suited to the Dallas-style inter-series cliffhanger, because the Christmas Specials interrupt the dramatic tension period.<br/><br/>There is one other thing I do want to praise about the episode, though: George has a dollhouse, and no one thinks this is odd, or makes disparaging remarks about it. That struck me as a nice nod to gender-neutral parenting.<br/><br/>Next week, we have The Girl Who Waited, which I will admit now I'm not looking forward to, given that the plot appears to be 'Amy is captured and'. After A Good Man Goes To War, I had really hoped we would be able to stop putting the girl in the fridge quite so often. But it looks like the writers still can't seem to work that out of their system, so here we go again...

_posts/media/2012-09-07-doctor-who-asylum-of-daleks.html

@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: 'Doctor Who: Asylum of the Daleks'
+date: '2012-09-07T19:49:00.000-04:00'
+author: Anna Wiggins
+tags:
+- Media
+- Oswin
+- Doctor Who
+- Daleks
+modified_time: '2013-10-22T11:19:51.998-04:00'
+blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209116010564764361.post-740397282858051190
+blogger_orig_url: http://www.stringofbits.net/2012/09/doctor-who-asylum-of-daleks.html
+---
+
+<strong>Spoiler Warning</strong>, though I should really stop giving these on Doctor Who posts. Really, you should know better anyway.<br/><br/>Shortly after I heard the title of <em>Asylum of the Daleks</em>, it occurred to me that 'Asylum' could mean two different things: a place to keep those deemed unfit, or a request for aid and protection. Since the first definition is more common, I assumed the reference would actually be to the latter. In high Moffat fashion, however, we get both instead.<br/><br/>But on to the actual episode. This was some very tight storytelling, with a lot of impressive, complex narrative going on under the surface. We have two misdirects that are central to the story. The first one is that Amy is used as a peril monkey - except that she isn't really in peril, the Doctor just lets her and Rory think that to keep them safe. This is a nice blending of the 7th-Doctor-esque manipulation we've seen throughout the Moffat era (what I have come to think of as "The Doctor's Odinic side"), and the caring, compassionate role that the Doctor has cultivated to varying degrees throughout the new series.<br/><br/>And then we have Oswin. Jenna-Louise Coleman gave a solid performance, and I'm eager to see more of her. Her surprise appearance in this episode was brilliant, and the reveal at the end of the episode was, while almost predictable (it was pretty obvious that they were focusing on the danger to Amy and overtly not mentioning that the same danger should have converted Oswin months ago. The unexpected part was that she was an outright Dalek instead of a puppet). It lets us know the general sweep of the narrative arc for (presumably) the second half of season 7. It will inevitably add emotional weight to her story, in the same way Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead added weight to River Song's saga.<br/><br/>If anything, my concern is one of 'Moffat has done this story / used this trick already'. We've already seen the companion story that starts with the companion's death. I'm pretty confident, though, that the other details of the story will be sufficiently unique to carry it. And of course all of this presupposes that Oswin is the companion, as opposed to a different character also played by Jenna-Louise Coleman (unlikely, but not a move entirely out of character given the way Moffat interacts with viewers through paratextual tricks - see the coat 'goof' from Flesh and Stone).<br/><br/>And either way, the question remains of how Oswin came to forget about the Doctor. Obviously there is a thematic if not actually narrative connection between her erasing the daleks' knowledge of the Doctor and her own memory. I'm really hoping for a narrative connection - something along the lines of "Oswin was actually a trap for the Doctor from the future that she created by erasing the daleks' memories". That is, after all, the sort of timey-wimey  storytelling that the current era often plays with, and it has a nice poetical flair to it.<br/><br/>As for the daleks themselves, they shine here. The story plays up the iconography of the daleks until it is working almost in more of a lyrical register than a narrative one, using imagery that plays actively with their totemic nature. Surrounding the Doctor with tens of thousands of his greatest foe, only to have them say 'save us'. Likewise, the lyrical repetition of "eggs... eggs... eggs" first by a broken dalek and then by Oswin, is vivid and powerful. And the daleks actively invoke the iconography of the Doctor in turn, with lines like "The Doctor must have companions" and, of course, with the required season-opening 'Doctor who?' line chanted by them in unison.<br/><br/>Also notable is that the daleks are pretty much guaranteed to return during season 7. Moffat seems intent on making up for their absence in season 6.<br/><br/>Not much else to say on this one, except of course: DEPLOY SPECIAL WEAPONS DALEK

_posts/media/2012-09-21-doctor-who-dinosaurs-on-spaceship.html

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: 'Doctor Who: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship'
+date: '2012-09-21T13:00:00.000-04:00'
+author: Anna Wiggins
+tags:
+- Dinosaurs
+- Silurians
+- Amy Pond
+- Media
+- Doctor Who
+- Feminism
+modified_time: '2013-10-22T11:19:52.016-04:00'
+blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209116010564764361.post-1140725858248588875
+blogger_orig_url: http://www.stringofbits.net/2012/09/doctor-who-dinosaurs-on-spaceship.html
+---
+
+Customary <strong>Spoiler Warning</strong>.<br/><br/>It was pretty clear going in that this episode was going to be a fairly light-hearted comedy romp. The episode title is a <em>Snakes on a Plane</em> parody. The trailers made it clear we were in for 'fun' and not 'epic storytelling'. I mean, more broadly, there are dinosaurs. It is hard not to just sit back and smile when there are dinosaurs.<br/><br/>And we got that light-hearted whimsical story, but we also got a lot of interesting complexity - there's a lot packed into this episode both structurally and narratively. The first thing that struck me was the exposition - the episode drops us into the action in minutes. It is frenetic, it doesn't stop to explain itself, and it is perfectly comprehensible - it trusts the audience to keep up, and channels the exposition into character moments over the course of the episode. This is very efficient storytelling, and it works great for a story as active as this one is.<br/><br/>And the character moments are numerous. Both the historical support characters and Brian are given chances to establish themselves as characters. Amy gets a few stand-out moments as well, particularly the explicit commentary on her role-reversal ("I will <strong>not</strong> have flirting companions!"). And Rory gets to actually be a nurse for a moment, instead of just having the occasional vague allusion to it.<br/><br/>The imagery in the story is a delightful romp that seems to have taken the approach 'how many ideas can we juxtapose at one time.' We have an Egyptian queen, a big game hunter, dinosaurs, Silurians (well, briefly), and an amoral space merchant who is basically the unseen silent protagonist of every <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trader">Star Trader</a> descendant. And a futuristic space defense agency with a penchant for firing missiles.<br/><br/>So, a lot of the story is high adventure and fun, including 'shoot the raptors with stun guns' and 'ride the triceratops' action pieces that are exactly the length they need to be. And yet for all the running around and having fun, the story drops into a very serious dramatic register for the climax. Notably, the Doctor doesn't quite save the day here - he shows up too late. The Silurians are already dead. And so he foregoes his usual 'give the bad guys a chance to do the right thing' speech. In this story, amoral slave-trading mass-murderers have already crossed the line, and do not deserve mercy.<br/><br/>But let's leave that thread alone for now (my next post will have more to say on the subject of mercy, I imagine). Because one of Amy's lines in this episode caught my attention, and I want to talk about it:<br/><br/><blockquote><br/>Riddell: Know what I want more than anything else? <br/>Amy: Lessons in gender politics?<br/></blockquote><br/><br/><br/>And, well, my first instinct is to bite back several snarky responses. But a Feminist critique of Amy Pond's character has <a href="http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/08/04/the-girl-who-waited-why-i-hate-amy-pond/">already been done</a>, and I have commented on it <a href="http://stringofbits.net/2011/09/13/doctor-who-the-girl-who-waited/">once</a> or <a href="http://stringofbits.net/2011/09/19/doctor-who-the-god-complex/">twice</a> as well. And while I don't agree with Lindsay in every particular, it isn't a radical observation that Doctor Who, particularly in the last few years, has had a mixed record on Feminist issues, and Amy Pond is at the center of a lot of the show's more recent problems.<br/><br/>This episode makes some clear efforts to rectify that, with both Amy and the Doctor getting dialogue that reinforces Amy as capable of taking care of herself. It has mixed results. Sure, lines like "I'm easily worth two men" and the Doctor's suggestion that Brian is 'a Pond' are clever. But equally, the likes of "I'm Rory's queen... don't tell him I said that" starts to edge into <a href="http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=341">straw feminist</a> territory. Because obviously, women are Too Controlling and that Threatens the Manhood of their partners. Better rein in that <em>feistiness</em>, girls.<br/><br/>More broadly, a lot of the dialogue Amy gets (both in this episode and in others) that attempts to be overtly Feminist comes off poorly. At best, it often sounds a little flat. At worst, it sounds like a man with a large amount of unacknowledged privilege trying to write feminism. Which I strongly suspect is the case. It is notable the number of women to write an episode of Doctor Who in the Matt Smith era can be counted on one closed fist. And the Davies era wasn't much better: the total number of episodes written by women during his tenure can be counted on one hand (at least it gets to be open this time).<br/><br/>So in terms of writing, Doctor Who is still very much a boy's club, and it shows. But at least the episode was fun. And the line about gender politics was genuinely good.

_posts/media/2012-10-18-doctor-who-power-of-three.html

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: 'Doctor Who: The Power of Three'
+date: '2012-10-18T06:00:00.000-04:00'
+author: Anna Wiggins
+tags:
+- Media
+- Doctor Who
+modified_time: '2013-10-22T11:19:52.039-04:00'
+blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209116010564764361.post-2908703869957411894
+blogger_orig_url: http://www.stringofbits.net/2012/10/doctor-who-power-of-three.html
+---
+
+What The Power of Three is trying to do is clever - hide a drama about the relationship between the Ponds and the Doctor inside a straightforward episode of Doctor Who (in this case, it happens to be in the 'aliens invade earth' genre of Doctor Who stories). Unfortunately, that drama never really gets time to find itself; instead, the episode spends a bit too long developing the alien invasion story, and not long enough exploring the drama.<br/><br/>Using UNIT may have been a mistake in this direction, too. Kate Stewart is immediately likable, and Jemma Redgrave shines in the role. But this is part of the problem - the Doctor and Kate shine on camera, and this is a further distraction from what is trying to be the emotional core of the episode. Especially since bringing up the Lethbridge-Stewart family brushes against the topic of the Brigadier, and less diegetically, Nicholas Courtney.<br/><br/>So the episode feels unfocused, but there's a lot of potential. And fittingly, one episode from the Ponds' departure, the theme this episode explores echoes all the way back to their introduction in The Eleventh Hour. Since I wasn't writing this blog series back then, let me summarize: The Eleventh Hour is explicitly about the status of Doctor Who as a fairy tale, and more specifically about running away (or being abducted, since they are the same thing when it comes to fairies) to Fairyland. Or to Neverland, if you prefer. The episode goes so far as to have the episode comment that Amelia's name would fit in in a fairy tale.<br/><br/>And now the show is approaching the end of this fairy tale, where the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Circumnavigated-Fairyland-Ship-Making/dp/0312649614/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0">girl has circumnavigated Fairyland</a>, and having met many people and done many deeds, will return to the normal world with its slower pace and duller colors and safety and, basically, grow up. And in this particular fairy tale, governed by the rules of Doctor Who companions, this return is as inevitable as the running away.<br/><br/>But The Power of Three doesn't explore this inevitability. Instead, it asks whether running away to Fairyland is good, and whether coming back is necessary. And it comes down solidly on the side of the fairies. This is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Worlds_(Torchwood)">Small Worlds</a> from the perspective of the fairy child and the fairies.<br/><br/><a href="http://tardiseruditorum.blogspot.com/">Phil Sandifer</a> mentioned once that the fairies in Small Worlds are coded as evil, but I think the episode works, intentionally or not, as a study in extreme cultural relativism. Of course the fairies look evil. They steal our children. From their perspective, though, they are simply protecting their own, and helping them fulfill their destinies. And they are, in many ways, indistinguishable from The Doctor.<br/><br/>In The Eleventh Hour, we have a fairy (or a goblin, or a trickster), and the girl who runs away to Fairyland with him. And the concept of childhood is explicitly invoked:<br/><br/><blockquote><br/><strong>The Doctor:</strong> So, coming?<br/><strong>Amy:</strong> No.<br/><strong>The Doctor:</strong> You wanted to come 14 years ago.<br/><strong>Amy:</strong> I grew up.<br/><strong>The Doctor:</strong> Don't worry. I'll soon fix that.<br/></blockquote><br/><br/><br/>So, the story of Amy Pond begins with the assertion that childhood is good, and that the bargains of fairies can be worth the cost. The Power of Three, then, asks whether the bargain paid off and, perhaps more importantly, whether it is okay not to grow up.<br/><br/>And the conclusion the narrative reaches is a strong and resounding yes. Through the Doctor, through the telling of stories, we can all run away to Fairyland and remain children forever.<br/><br/>Except we know that the end of this tale is looming. Which forces us to consider this question: what force could possibly overrule the will of a fairy and his two fairy children, the will of the very narrative itself?

_posts/media/2012-10-25-an-adventure-in-transliteration.html

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: An adventure in transliteration
+date: '2012-10-25T18:42:00.000-04:00'
+author: Anna Wiggins
+tags:
+- translation
+- Cirth
+- The Hobbit
+- linguistics
+- conlang
+- runes
+- Denny's
+- language
+- Tolkien
+modified_time: '2013-10-22T11:19:52.048-04:00'
+blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209116010564764361.post-4889133135357775040
+blogger_orig_url: http://www.stringofbits.net/2012/10/an-adventure-in-transliteration.html
+---
+
+So, Denny's new Middle Earth-themed menu / Hobbit tie-in has resulted in the following billboard:<br/><br/><a href="http://stringofbits.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/dennys_billboard.jpg"><img src="http://stringofbits.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/dennys_billboard.jpg" alt="" title="dennys_billboard" width="480" height="359" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-796" /></a><br/><br/>It is written in Cirth, Tolkien's version of runes. It is a bit hard to read, and seems to mix and match a bit between the Angerthas Daeron and the Angerthas Moria.<br/><br/>My first attempt at a rough transcription rendered this:<br/><br/><blockquote>dh* brekfast richū ov mid*l erth awökw</blockquote><br/><br/>Looking at this, that second character (the first one I've marked with an asterisk) may have been intended as an 'e'. Either way, it definitely doesn't look like any of Tolkien's languages, but rather like an attempt at transcribing English into the Cirth. In which case, and assuming the first word really is 'the', they were clever for using the cirth for 'dh' instead of 'th'. Good phonetic transliterating there.<br/><br/>My next thought was that it meant something like "Wake up to the richest breakfast in Middle Earth" in an odd pidgin of English, unless I had transliterated very badly or they had. Eventually I realized I had made several errors, and corrected them based on some further study of some of Tolkien's Cirth inscriptions (the sounds of letters vary by language and time, because Tolkien was adamant about his constructed languages seeming organic, and the writers of this billboard were seemingly inconsistent), and got:<br/><br/><blockquote>dhe brekfast richz ov middl erth awät</blockquote><br/><br/>Which is a really decent phonetic transcription of <strong>"The breakfast riches of Middle Earth await"</strong>.<br/><br/>There seems to be a notion running around that the sign reads "Middle Earth is coming to America's Diner". It may be a tiny, silly bit of misinformation, but I will correct it if I can!<br/><br/>Edit: Looks like the good people over at theonering.net <a href="http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/10/23/63765-breaking-news-dennys-americas-diner-becomes-middle-earths-diner/">already translated this</a>, and confirm my translation. So it's good to know I'm not way off base.