Some more random links this morning. I question the authority of this writer if they think The Pirate Bay is somehow a deep, hidden part of the internet, but I’ll start with the funny article.

China sensors Garfield, Paris Hilton, and more in an attempt to block porn

The Dark Web/Deep Web/whatever you want to call it: cool in theory, terrible in reality

The Pirate Bay is fearless and evil and lol

How cute :3 He thinks torrenting is some secret little club.

Prom!

Two weeks later, I’ve realized I may as well post about prom and then repost the extra pictures whenever I get a hold of them. Woo. Speaking of yesterday’s post, you know how I said I go looking for books to buy? Went to a bigger bookstore today, spent $60. Got: Mortal Coils by Eric Nylund (twin children of Lucifer have to survive three temptations and three heroic trials, Max read it but his aunt’s dog ate it, so I bought my own copy), Slum Online by Hiroshi Sakurazaka (published by the same guys who translated Battle Royale and about a boring college kid playing an MMO and stuff? I’ll see when I read it), The Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (my brother says it’s good, from the 50 pages he read in the car), The Prodigal Mage by Karen Miller (first of a second trilogy in a series I liked to begin with, should be good - fantasy with a heavy cultural/political leaning, so there’s plenty of attention to detail), and finally The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (I’ve actually avoided knowing what this book is about, because I wanted to find out for myself - I’ve heard nothing but good things about this book, and I’ve finally decided to buy it). Moving on!

        Our house, unfortunately, was never really a looker. Gardening and other pretty things were never our strong points. So, when it came time to take pictures for prom… We borrowed the neighbour’s yard. They’re retired, and the husband spends practically all of his time cultivating his gardens. So it was pretty good for taking pictures. Before Brittany, my date, and her friend Lindsey got to our house, my mom got some pictures of me around their yard and a few around our house.

        When they arrived, we got some pictures in front of the house before moving on to the neighbour’s yard. First we got some pictures in front of a flower bed and near the flower bed. Then we got a picture with our moms, her mother being the one I don’t have my arm around. Then they got my boutaneer thing on me, and we crouched down in front of the flower bed because my mom thought it would look nice. Then we moved over to a little white gate thing they had and got some pictures there.

        It was starting to get kinda late, and she was going to get some pictures with the guy who got her hired because he was moving soon, so they started to got meet him before he got off work. Then my mom surprised Britt and Lindsey by asking them to turn around for a picture, and then we got a few more pictures in front of the house of the two of us.

        So I don’t have any pictures of us at prom, because nobody offered to take any or wanted any with us together (my friends aren’t into that, her friends only wanted pictures of her) so I’ve got nothing for that until I get the couple of pictures that did get taken from other people’s cameras. Still, to summarize: we made our own way there, I tried to make my way in through people because she was already inside, I finally get in, we hang around and talk before eating. Food comes in, turkey dinner, couple of things to be said by people, thanks given to the people who organized everything. During dinner we watch a 20 minute preview of our upcoming Grad Video, desert comes in, some more announcements. We wait outside for an hour while they clean everything up and get the dance ready, the niece of the woman we’re staying with (I only found this out later) gets a picture with me because her friend bet her that he was the only one wearing a bow tie.

        Dance starts, Britt and I hang around ‘cause neither of us can dance and we didn’t think we should slow dance together, Ms. Barrett was making her rounds because she was one of the people who spent many hours putting prom together for us, and I got a picture with her. Then we left at 10 (supper started at 7, ended at 8, dance started at 9) because Britt and Lindsey had plans, then I went home and went to bed.

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        Exciting, wasn’t it? Anyhow, I just thought I’d invite any of you reading this to get a hold of me somehow if you don’t already have a way to IM me. My contact info is at the very bottom of my actual tumblr page, but likely any of you that have a tumblr won’t see that, so my xfire is starvalddemelain and my e-mail address for msn is mapleleafdude[at]hotmail and I’m sure you can figure out the last bit. Unless you’re a spambot! I’m generally always available through both of those, so whichever you prefer is fine by me.

Guest post, courtesy of my wonderful friend Maxwell who typed up a great big seven-week exercise guide for you guys that takes up more space than I want to use here. And, really, if you want to exercise, you know to do whatever you can manage. When you can do more pushups than last week, you win. Yay for you!

        Wide arm push-ups: Just what they sound like, spread your arms as far away from each other while maintaining the push-up position, and then do the push-ups. The farther apart, the harder it is. Just imagine your pinning that hot chick between you and your locker, except the chick is really fuzzy and smells like your carpet.

        Triangle Push-ups: These are hard. If you can do these no problem, then you need to add on a ton more push-up exercises. In order to perform this streneous task, one must first construct a triangle (pylon?) with their thumb and index finger, while in push-up position, with your hands lined roughly with your chest. Then begin hating your life.

        Spider-man Push-ups: They do not make you shoot web from your hands. They make you wish you didn’t follow that guide that you found on tumbl'r. To perform these, assume the position (and clear that dirty mind of yours |:) go down like a regular push-up, but bring your knee up to your elbow each time you go down. Of course you want to alternate knees each time, unless you want to become that soccer freak with that one ripped leg.

        Alligator Push-up: This push-up would make Steve Irwin proud, if he was alive that is. To perform this wonderful exercise doesn’t take much effort, but it is suggested that you focus more on speed because you just want to finish the damned exercise. You assume the regular push-up position, except you slide one arm down to about where you hip is, and slide the other one around where your head is. You should be slightly bent at an angle, kind of like a alligator if it was crawling, then you do your push up, and then slide your other hand down to your hip, and the other one above your head, and repeat until you finish.

        Kelly Keith Push-ups: Don’t ask who he is, for all I know of him is the fact that he is a machine and these push-ups are named after his iron-clad body. You must assume the push-up position, but when you do the push-ups, do them with your elbows tucked against your ribs. When you go down, your elbows should point towards your feet, and you will want to stop all this forever. Then repeat.

Some assorted stuff today. Again, I would have finally typed up my prom post, but I un-gave up on getting the other pictures I was missing because my english teacher said she’d want a copy of the picture I got with her, so that will come SOME DAY MAYBE OR MAYBE I SHOULD JUST MAKE A POST WITH WHAT I’VE GOT, I DON’T KNOW. I guess if I don’t do it tomorrow, it’ll be so late as to be useless. Two weeks late is a bit much. I’ve already got today’s post planned out, so oh well!

First is an interview with Polar Bear Club, which is cool because they discuss how they’ve been helped by the advertising power of the internet, rather than hurt by music piracy, but the real highlight for me is this story:

Your new album is coming out on Red Leader Records this month. Where did the name “Sometimes Things Just Disappear” come from?

We were in the studio and having a really tough time coming up with a memorable/cool/meaningful name that we could all agree on. Actually, pretty much the only thing we EVER agree on is that Taco Bell rules. So we were well in the midst of a competition amongst ourselves that we affectionately dubbed the “Taco Bell Challenge,” during which we all tried to eat one of every single item on the menu over the course over our studio time. As you could probably guess, no one finished and we were all pretty miserable for having tried. But one of the days when some of the guys went to order some tacos, they had a really huge order and were a little short on money, and they had a pretty awkward encounter with a really slick 17 year-old manager guy in a suit who turned out to be one of the best individuals any of us have ever encountered. Our old bass player, Greg, was trying to order his Mexican Pizza and was surprised at the price, and told the manager he was short…to which our hero replied, “you know what? Sometimes things just disappear…” and proceeded to take out a mysterious card and swipe it, giving Greg all of his food for free. Manager dude…if you read this, we love you, and sorry if this gets you fired.

I wish I could be slick 17-year old manager guy who’s comfortable enough with his job that he can do whatever the hell he wants. I do not wish to fail to have that job, however, and so I won’t go looking for it.

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        Next up is an article about how pirating books hurts the industry. In the middle, when she mentions what happens when a publishing house loses money, that scares me. Not having money means they can’t continue to make money, which basically means bad things in the future unless they get really lucky, and I don’t want that to happen to any of the series, authors, or publishers I really like.

        Then the part about the money she actually makes scares me, because it makes me terrified about the prospect of ever living off of my writing, which I never honestly planned to do, but it was nice to think I had the option! She says she “wrote rough drafts, then did edits (in one case, grueling edits), copy edits, and final pass edits. I wrote back copy and front copy, and acknowledgements and dedications. I maintained a website, I blogged, I did copious interviews, I ran contests, I travelled and spoke at whatever convention would have me. I Tweeted, and Facebooked, and paid for a launch party, swag, and postage for review copies and bookplates.” For $25,000. Three books, if you have never in your entire life read a book, is a lot of writing. Many authors I read release at most a book every year, though perhaps theirs are much longer than hers, and perhaps as well their niche is a much stronger one.

        I can’t imagine I would magically become a Steven Erikson or a Robert J. Sawyer overnight, and from some of the other things I read the day I found this about how brutal it is being an author who doesn’t sell hundreds of thousands of copies (have I posted that stuff? I don’t even know, man) I find myself no longer considering writing novels as a career. Writing as part of a greater project, where my work is part of a whole and I’ll still get paid relatively well if nobody buys the product, is still an option, but you can’t just stumble onto those jobs and unfortunately my chance to be Anthony Burch has already passed.

        Then there’s how getting paid an advance actually works. “For keep in mind that an advance is just that: an advance on royalties. So I won’t make another penny on my first three novels until I pay back my advance.” Got that? You get paid with a loan. Then, some day, if you become rich and famous, you get some actual money of your own. Until then, you will sweat blood and books for your masters. However, the internet, as shown by the Polar Bear Club interview, offers many wonderful opportunities for alternative means of success. Perhaps I could sell e-books of my novel to generous strangers until I make enough money to print them off out of my own pocket and make something of a profit. Perhaps I could give my books away and ask for donations. Maybe a major change to the publishing industry is looming on the horizon, waiting to be unleashed the day I get the freedom to write for a living. Who knows?

        The ordeal involved to become a famous author only gets worse, according to the rest of the post, but it’s all there if you want to read it. The main subject is, vaguely, piracy, and so my responses to what she’s said follows.

        I’m one of those people that will go into their local bookstore and actually look for books to buy. I’ve spent many hundreds of dollars on books, and I don’t regret any of it. I don’t expect much for my $15-30. I want, essentially, 2-4 hours worth of entertainment. It’s what I paid for. Generally, I get more than that. That’s awesome. I often buy random books and continue to read everything that author writes until I accidentally forget they exist. I bought The Sleeper Awakes by H.G. Wells because a couple of songs I have reference it, even though Project Gutenberg has it for free. In the future, I plan to read through the “1001 books to read before you die” and, if I can, own many of them. I also plan to have a somewhat impressive collection of books with which to intimidate future acquaintances.

        I have, however, pirated two series of books. One is the Haruhi Suzumiya books, only a few of which are translated officially, and I get the impression they’re not amazing anyway? I’d have a hard time tracking them down and a harder time reading them in public because they’re all fluffy looking. So I suffer through a terribly translated .pdf and it’s ok because I don’t know if I’d get $10-15 worth of neat out of them. The other thing I’ve downloaded is all of the Discworld books, all 30-something of them, and like the Haruhi books they’re pretty short and stuff. They’d probably run me like $10 each - nearly $400 - for like 100-200 pages each I think? Maybe 300, I don’t know.

        But I can get a trilogy of Drizz’t books for $30, which is easily 1000+ pages - i.e. a fair bit more value. If I were buying books, Discworld would be at the very bottom of my list. Like all the music I’ve pirated, I likely would never have paid any money for those things. I don’t need them, and in fact I haven’t read through any of the books I’ve downloaded. I don’t have an ebook reader, and I have a hard time sitting down to read a 200 page .pdf file in front of my monitor. So the fact that I downloaded those books just shows a slight interest on my part, and if it turns out that I’m wrong, and these books are books I would be proud to own and display - I will gladly go out and buy them, no matter how hard they are to find.

The Purpose of The Nethernet

Despite the cool things you can do with bombing people and showing them awesome and interesting sites using DP cards and Portals, I think Missions and puzzles are probably the greatest part of The Nethernet.

        Here’s the basic set-up: a Mission is created by any player, usually a Pathmaker, who has something to show or teach people. It’s created by linking a number of Lightposts together, and I don’t believe there’s a maximum limit… You leave a message about the page connected to the Lightpost, explaining briefly why you brought them there. You click a button to go to the next post, or back to see one you just visited. You can stash puzzle crates to make people research the site you’ve led them to, and later (level 7 as a Pathmaker) you can create Puzzle Posts that require the player to answer a question correctly in order to proceed through the mission. I don’t think you should overuse them, but you can use them to highlight an important point. Out of a ten-part mission, make the last a Puzzle Post and ask something to check if they really paid attention.

        You can teach someone how to play a game, or their class, correctly - show them the game’s homepage, then the game’s page for that class, then maybe a post/guide on gamefaqs and some youtube videos of high-level PvP with helpful notes in it. You can show someone your top ten ultra-deathcore bands, although those missions never did very well because the people who made them were just advertising their favourite bands rather than trying to make an awesome mission.

        You could also tell a story with a Mission. Write up a story, use the Lightposts to guide them from page to page - don’t give them the option to change pages on the site, and don’t name it page1.html and page2.html. Add puzzle posts to make a point, add puzzle crates so they research interesting things you’ve mentioned.

        Some people will roleplay their Nethernet characters, and there’s a lot of cool things you can do with that too. You can be a vacant minded Seer, gleefully hopping through portals at the first site of a glowing blue vortex. Or you can be a righteous Vigilante, out for revenge. Maybe you’re a wise Pathmaker, eager to share your knowledge with others. I had an idea once where I’d make a number of puppet accounts and stage a big story on The Nethernet’s forums and through the game itself. I was going to make cryptic posts and riddles with various accounts, and use puzzle crates and more to lead (or confuse) people. I didn’t have the time back then, though, so maybe some day soon…

        Here’s the introduction mission for the game, to give you an idea of how to create a decent mission. Careful about switching tabs or taking Portals or otherwise losing track of the mission, because unfortunately the game isn’t perfect about picking up on these things… There are a number of missions created as part of a contest to teach the game to newer players showing the dos and don'ts of different classes, and those are also good to give you an idea of what you can do with the game.

        Remember the metaphorical reason behind using Lightposts for missions: you’re lighting a path through the dark reaches of the internet, illuminating a safe path to guide and enlighten.

        Edit: Start from here for a cool chain of Portals that recites the poem about the Jabberwocky from Alice in Wonderland.

We read a couple of articles about “deliberate practice” in Sociology today, which I’ll link to as a formality, except they’re in french so they’re probably no good to you. They’re interesting because it’s a bit of philosophy as well as a how-to guide for success. Essentially, the articles are a study of how great people become great, with a nod towards education in Ancient Greece. Deliberate practice is my own direct translation, so it doesn’t sound very natural in english, but if you’ve got a better term, feel free to suggest it. It’s a philosophy of self-improvement based on a desire to improve, much like education was for the Ancient Greeks. The improvement is guided by a strong mentor, voluntary, extremely intense, and requires constant effort. The core requirements for deliberate learning, based on a study of successful people, are:

• A mentor figure to guide you, as well as provide a long term goal: surpassing them
• Constructive criticism and correction to prevent future errors
• Constant effort and regular practice
• Not wasting your time
• Often draconian choices and sacrifices for the sake of improvement
• Changing your life, no matter how extremely, for the sake of success
• Self-evaluation to correct errors and look for ways to improve
• Enjoying the effort required, as well as the results it provides

This isn’t a definite list, merely an example of various people and a list of their common characteristics. Note the bold requirement, as it is essentially the key. If someone forces you through all of those things, and you don’t have any personal desire to produce extraordinary results, you simply won’t be able to maintain the strategy in the long term.

Looking at this list, I would actually say Ms. Barrett (my english teacher) has served as a mentor figure for me. I haven’t surpassed her (my average is ~90%, hers was 97% 0.0) but I know I’ve improved and grown a lot. This just means that the mentor figure doesn’t need to be a coach or otherwise regular influence, so it’s probably the vaguest requirement. I suppose you could serve as your own mentor.

Note, however, that nearly all of the characteristics are personal. No one can make you a better writer, or make you work out and eat well, or otherwise improve your life or hone your skills. The impetus to overcome your limitations must come from within.