But it's so small
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Head games
I finally went ahead and posted the remake of the missing evil interlude for BCB. I finished it just a little before we went to Lamesa for turkey day, but it was so short I figured I'd let it simmer a bit.

Nothing came to mind. It's not bad, but I'm a little disappointed. I remember the original was about 1/3 longer, and it revealed just a bit less information. There's no way I can recreate the original - it's just plain gone. This one will have to 'fice.

Now I have to get unlazy and start editing the next post.

Look at me, posting on someone else's laptop
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Mixed bag
We had some trouble posting the past couple days. Apparently some sort of crazy static nonsense was going on with our phone line that had nothing to do with the house that just got fixed today. I'm assuming it wasn't on us because I didn't have to see anybody today. But all that is moot because I'm posting from the bro-in-law's machine.

I have several things to post actually. Or at least I think I do. The main thing I wanted to post has to do with the game. See, I've been doing this thing lately called the Evil Interlude. No, I didn't invent it - in fact, one of my gaming friends from waaaaaaay back came up with the concept. But anyway, what it all amounts to is that I periodically post an entry into BCB that only the lurkers can read. It reveals events going on with characters that the players have yet to interact with, or other events outside of what they see. The thing is, the first one of these that I posted ended up getting lost in a crash that happened on Rondak's. I'm at the point right now that I have to repost it, which means I need to remake it. I don't remember at all exactly how it came out originally, so I have to do it all off the top of my head again. I have it done already actually, I just haven't posted it.

Other than that not much of importance has really been going on. The hubby and I are in Lamesa right now for the holidays, which explains me using a foreign machine. I'm sure I'm neglecting something important, but I'll get to it later when we're home. I just figured I should post while I have a computer handy, since I was dumb and didn't post earlier. So now you know - my internet has been screwy lately.

Oh really...
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Various webshit

You are 40% Leo

I tried out the Virgo one, to see if it was the cusp factor screwing things up, but that one only netted a 58%. Figures...

Not quite getting it
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Brain candy
I'll probably get laughed at for defending The Matrix and chances are I'll deserve it, but reading criticism about the physics used in the movies at Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics kind of annoyed be because of lame real-world assumptions made by the critics. The thing about Matrix reality is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of physics - real, implied, computer generated, or otherwise.

Mind you, I am not defending the movies' other problems. I recognize that it isn't perfect. I don't care - I enjoyed the movie for its anime style and I rather enjoy brain candy. I am also not going to refute any criticism about the real world as portrayed, because I know it has glaring errors. I just want to put in my $.02 regarding complaints about how the hackers and agents get away with their crazy stunts while in a computer simulation. Anyone who has played Mage: the Ascension will understand exactly what I'm talking about.

ISMP says:

Everyone's connected to a sophisticated computer simulation of the late 20th century. Unfortunately, people are still restrained by the same old societal norms, petty rules, and laws of physics, that is except for a few enlightened hackers who've discovered reality, and are trying to free the rest of humanity. It's hard to argue with the physics of a movie like The Matrix. Considering the action takes place mostly in a computer simulation, flaws in physics can usually be dismissed as bad programming.

Okay. So any time something unreal happens it is the result of bad programming, or the side effects of someone reprogramming the Matrix. This is basically how these hackers and the agents who chase them manage to routinely ignore the physics of the Matrix. However, ISMP doesn't quite understand how this programming works. It's idea based, and not constrained to any causality based reality model.

For instance...

at the beginning of the movie Trinity (one of the hackers) jumps five feet off the ground and pauses in mid air before kicking a policeman just below his neck. The policeman is swept off his feet and translates straight backwards into another cop. The two continue translating until they slam into a wall. A kick this far above the policeman's center of gravity would have caused him to rotated backwards. The slightly downward direction of the kick would not have swept him off his feet. What's more, since Trinity was about half the cop's mass and the collision of her foot with him was largely elastic (it didn't stick to him) Trinity should have bounced backward to conserve momentum. Okay, okay, we are forced to admit that Trinity is one of the enlightened hackers who can bend a few laws of physics inside the simulation. But the cop was just a regular joe and should have rotated.

All wrong. Just because Trinity is kicking the cop doesn't mean she's translating any sort of kinetic force to the cop. Just because she has a program loaded into her brain that simulates real world martial arts techniques into the Matrix environment does not mean that real world physics are exchanged in the use of these techiques. Her intent was to kick the cop into the wall - hence, the cop is kicked into the wall. She wanted to float up in the air and remains stationary while the kick was enacted, and it was so. The martial arts is just window dressing. The mundane status of the cop would not force him to behave according to natural physics, rather his mundane status prevents him from defying her will.

When the characters are inside the Matrix fighting the machine's minions, it's like watching Saturday morning cartoons. There's lots of violence and exaggerated motion but no one gets hurt. On the other hand, every poor human slub who gets in the way is blown up, shot, or, at minimum, kicked in the face.

Yes, that's exactly right. Those poor humans are locked into the idea that the Matrix is reality, and are thus limited by the very physics that ISMP expects. The hackers and agents are above this and do as they please, for good or ill.

Since human bystanders in the matrix can morph into agents of the machines, the movie's heroes dispatch them without remorse or hesitation. It's all very stylish and cool. But wait, these bystanders are not just props. They are people who feel pain and die in the real world when killed in the Matrix. It seems like some moral ambivalence would be appropriate yet there's none to be found. That might be boring.

Sure it's sad that these innocent bystanders are being killed left-and-right by the hackers. However it's made clear in the first movie that unless one is very young, transitioning out of the Matrix is a painful, and often futile exercise. All those innocent bystanders are effectively dead anyway - and even worse, potential knives in the backs of the hackers. The hackers don't go out of their way to kill innocents, but they cannot let it cross their mind at any time that these people must be spared. They are the mushrooms in vast game of Centipede.

Neo is miles away but somehow detects the distress of his Lois and flies Superman-like at extreme velocity to save her. His velocity is so high that the turbulent shock wave behind him not only smashes windows but throws cars in the air as though they're caught in a horizontal tornado. Clearly, he's flying faster than a speeding bullet. He grabs Tinity just before she hits the ground and flies off without a pause.

We know a bullet can kill and presumably a fall from great height can also kill at least if the person is wounded and unable to control the landing. Yet being "caught" by a man of steel flying faster than the falling person or a handgun bullet produces no harm. Obviously, the rules have been broken but hey, it's Neo and he's D'One.

All that collateral damage (besides being purely for the wow factor) makes sense if you realize that Neo is pushing his power to the max to get to Trinity in time. He has no concern for his environment, because it isn't real anyway. But he is indeed violating the laws of physics as far as mundane perception in the Matrix is concerned. When the agents make radical changes strange effects, sometimes subtle, manifest as well.

However Trinity is real, so she is protected by that collateral damage because Neo wills it so. And as for any damage due to her being suddenly jerked out of the air by him flying at such incredible speed, the same rule applies.

In another scene, Trinity races down the freeway in a car loaded with Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim) as a pair of villainous albino twins (Adrian Rayment) give chase. One of the twins continuously sprays Trinity's car with bullets so that there's hardly a place on the car without a hole in it. Even the door posts are riddled. Yet, no one in the car is so much as scratched. Throughout the scene the albino has no trouble killing other motorists when they get in the way but can't hit a soul in the good guys' car even from a few meters distance. What's more, none of the bullets apparently penetrate the thin sheet metal in the car's body. Yes it could be simple luck, however, it certainly looks like the rules have once again been bent.

Why must it be luck? These characters are being protected by something that in most other movies would be silly. In gaming we call this the PC Shield - the players' characters are automatically protected from such casual damage because they belong to the players and having them die that way would be boring. However in the Matrix it makes sense - these hackers exist in a reality very similar to the characters in Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. They know the Matrix is not real, thus they are more real than anything in it and they can extend this state to anything within their sphere of influence. This isn't some magic aura that they emanate because they are important characters, it is part of being one of these super hackers. They have an operator hovering over their metaphorical shoulder who adjusts the code to their benefit at all times. The poor mortals around them do not, and thus the bullets hit home every time.

During the scene an agent jumps from one moving vehicle to the hood of another and crushes the whole front end of the car. This is typical of movie's exaggerated storytelling style. While the scene has a considerable coolness factor its physics are illogical. We say illogical rather than incorrect because the scene does take place inside the Matrix. Moreover, the scene only happens once and so does not represent a computer generated rule of physics. However, it's illogical for an agent to smash a car when it makes it impossible for him to catch the prey he's programmed to seek.

This is just like Neo's superflight damage. The agents are AI constructs, so they have an emotional component. Agent Smith demonstates this several times. The agent in question was bending the programming rules of the Matrix so strongly that an error resulted - the car got crushed in a really cool way. If the agent had really cared and wanted that car, then I'm sure he would have kept it intact - instead he let his zeal get the best of him. Hooray, nice thrill for the audience.

The freeway scene finally ends with Morpheus and the keymaker atop an eighteen-wheeler as it crashes into another one head-on, but don't worry, Neo comes at high velocity from afar and snatches them away just before they're engulfed in the crash's fiery explosion. Again, how can such a high velocity snatch produce no injury?

See - not quite getting it.

While analyzing romantic aspects is not our main purpose, we must say that there's more romance in a chemistry set than chemistry between Trinity and Neo. Something about mixing remorseless homicide with passion just doesn't click. Yes, we know that if humans in the matrix are not dispatched they can morph into agents, but it's not their fault. Furthermore, as we noted in our last review, they feel real pain as well as die physically when they die in the matrix. The film gives us the excitement of violence free from bitter realities or moral ambivalence that might spoil the fun.

No, it isn't their fault. But they are effectively nonentities, already dead at this point, so killing them because they can turn into agents at any time makes perfect sense. Yes, they can and do feel real pain, and they do die, just like all the enemies in a video game die when you kill them. But just like in the video game, with rare exceptions, they were already dead.

Although the Matrix series has some masterful parts and philosophical moments it is neither a masterpiece of philosophy nor of science fiction. It's simply a well-made cinematic comic book and unlike endless complicated explanations, this genre does indeed free it from the constraints of reality.

Yes, that is the reason fans of the series will forgive the really bad physics used in the real world. However, the reality model within the Matrix is still essentially consistent despite, or even because of the gratuitous flaunting of the rules of physics.

One of those things that's only funny to me apparently
Mood:  spacey
Topic: It's all about me
Remember when I said:

What's been your worst ever injury or illness?
You know, this one can be a whole story in itself: I fell on my head when I was a kid and had to be hospitalized

a few posts back? So here's the story.

You know when you act stupid or weird or whatever, and people give you that funny look and ask you "So, were you ever dropped on your head as a kid?" Why does nobody ever ask me this question? I mean, is it really that obvious? Yes, indeed I was. I don't know if it has anything to do with my current 'personality' or anything.

I was like 5 years old. I can't give an exact estimation, though I suppose I could be a good son and call home once in a while and just sort of slip this question in.

"Hey mom! How's it going? How are the girls? Uh huh... Say, do you remember that time I cracked my skull? How old was I?"

Anyway... So I was playing next door with 1 of my 2 best friends at the time. In keeping with my 'no real names' policy here on RandCom, we'll call her girlfriend because when you see it all nicely italicized you just have to hear it in your head in a RuPaul kind of voice. (Not that RuPaul has a single thing to do with this story, I just think it's funny.) Girlfriend's dad was a beekeeper (talk about freaky childhood memories!) who I don't remember at all well, and he had this huge pickup truck. He was home on this particular day, and girlfriend and I decided for some demented reason that climbing around on the pickup would be fun. I remember getting up on the cab, belly-down, because that's how a little kid would climb on something so unbelievably huge. Girlfriend kept pushing me forward to make room for her, and somehow through all of this I lost my grip and SMACK! went my precious little skull, right on their driveway.

If it's any surprise to you that I don't remember much after that, then maybe you should try a head injury for yourself. They're really fun. I do remember the various adult faces hovering over me, and I assume I was being carried or something at some point. They kept telling me not to go to sleep, which is precisely what I wanted to do. I also remember being scared to get an X-ray for some reason, and feeling the need to smile when they took it, because they told me it was like getting my picture taken. I don't imagine it made much of a difference.

It's my experience at the hospital at this time that colored my general distaste of hospitals for many years. It's not that anything really bad happened (that I remember, anyway), it was just freaky and weird to me and I always hated being around people I didn't know, especially away from home. I remember there was some other kid there named Adam (he had weird fingers), and we talked a couple times, I think. I also remember getting a board game with some sort of train theme. I vaguely remember seeing an IV tube that had somehow leaked a tiny drop of blood on the sheet, and being curious and freaked out about it.

So there you go. Dropped on my head as a kid. Maybe that's why my fekkin' gaydar is broken.

I'm what?
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Various webshit

YOU ARE BASIL

What herb are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

So much for Blogger
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Head games
Briar County Blues just had a very brief liason with Blogger - brief because Blogger has the most irritating interface I've ever had the misfortune of having to deal with. It simply refused to cooperate with me in any way - it insisted on posting a big fat block of profile, which was intended to only be seen if someone clicked a 'show me the fekking profile' link, it constantly reformatted my introductory post instead of just letting me do the damn HTML myself, the help - oh no, we're not even touching that one.

So no, Blogger will not be the forum for me posting the Briar County archives. But silly me - if I'd only opened my eyes I'd have seen that I can just have another blog here on good ol' Tripod. Gee, how convenient. So now I gotta get it set up, and soon there will be a link to it. Aren't ya just excited?

The many facets of my insanity
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Self-referential topic
There is a typo a few posts down. You have no idea the psychotic mental acrobatics I'm going through letting it continue to exist. When I posted it the spell checker on this thing didn't feel like cooperating, so I just said nevermind and posted it anyway. I wouldn't have noticed it at all, except when I did my copy/paste to the WSC and my email spell checker caught it.

Yes, it has been bugging me ever since.

But here's the worst part - the thing that's really keeping me from fixing it. It's not the obvious and sane answer: that it isn't important to have everything perfect. It's not the semi-obvious answer that I'm just too lazy to fix it. No, that would be too... well sane. No, the reason I haven't fixed it yet is because I hate the notification after the post that it had been fixed at a date later than its posting. Thus the error would be fixed, yet still recorded for posterity. Madness!

Have you found it yet? No, there isn't a prize for finding it.

It's all about Me-Me-Me-Meme!
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Various webshit
Stolen from GreasyBiker's LiveJournal. No, you don't want to read it.

What scar are you most proud of?
Ummm... I don't really notice any scars

What's your favorite condiment?
BBQ sauce generally

Do you have freckles?
A couple of them, scattered about

What's your preferred method of cooking?
With heat

What shoes are you wearing?
None right now, but I usually wear lace-up work boots

Who was the first person you ever French kissed?
Ew! I'm sure if I did at any point the memory was scarred from my brain

What's your preferred breed of dog?
Not really a dog person, but I think rottweilers are pretty zippy

Where were you were born?
Fort Dix, NJ

What color underwear are you wearing?
I'm in my jammies, so none right now (like you really wanted to know that)

Where are your keys right now?
Where they always are, hanging on a hook in my bedroom

What's your opinion of airline food?
Yes

What cosmetic surgery you would consider?
I want my penis to be a functioning lava lamp like any red-blooded American male

When did you last get laid?
A few hours ago

Where's the most interesting place you've had sex?
On a side road on the way home from the airport

What's been your worst ever injury or illness?
You know, this one can be a whole story in itself: I fell on my head when I was a kid and had to be hospitalized

Can you can sing well?
No, and yet I still do it when the mood takes me

What would your Olympic event be?
Sitting on the couch, not watching the Olympics

Name someone you admire.
I would, but said person already has a name and might object to me forcing another one on them

Which country would be hardest for you to locate on a map?
Most of them, I suck at geographical stuff

Which part of the Sunday paper do you read first?
Well, we don't get one, but when it was available, it was the comics section

What languages do you speak?
English and gibberish

In what religion you were raised?
A vague scattering of Protestant stuff that didn't stick well

Can you can draw well?
No

What's your favorite photograph?
Yes

Not so mild irkage
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Self-referential topic
WTF did I do now? The blog is giving me a big pile of unnecessary bullshit. The previous post didn't show, so I had to copy/paste it from the WSC copy/paste. Then, when I hit the post button it didn't cooperate. So of course I hit the bitch 'post' button about a dozen times, which resulted in nothing. That is, until I double checked to see if it was posting it despite it not going to the 'yes, thank you, we did indeed post your entry, have a nice day' page. It posted, like 5 times. So I had to delete the extra posts, which was just a big pain.

Something screwy is going on, and I don't have any patience for it. Hell, this bitching about it post is probably going to take about a hundred poundings on the 'post' button to get it to actually post.

I fucking hate technology sometimes.