The Library of Dresan

The New Site Is Live...

2010-07-02T03:07:00.000-07:00

...same bat domain, different bat fully qualified URL, different bat RSS feed. The Library of Dresan blog is now at http://www.dresan.com/index.php (actually, http://www.dresan.com/ should work). Please update your RSS feeds to: http://www.dresan.com/?feed=atom ...

-the Centaur

Further updates on WordPress

2010-06-26T18:28:00.001-07:00

I'm going to try a trick here to get the Library of Dresan RSS feed updated. If this works, you'll see this announcement that WordPress should be available shortly (by Sunday, I hope) at http://www.dresan.com/blog, and shortly after that at off the main site once I work some theme issues out. http://blog.dresan.com/ will be available indefinitely after that but will not be updated except for rare circumstances. I'll have the new site feed URL in a subsequent post.

Stopgap Publishing

2010-06-04T22:22:00.000-07:00

Blogger has discontinued FTP, so I am migrating to WordPress. (No, I have zero interest in remaining with Blogger when they have discontinued the feature that made me select them, and having spoken with the team, I'd love to say I respect their reasons, but ... well, if you don't have anything good to say (and, really, I most sincerely don't) then vote with your feet.)

In the meantime, because writing novels and spending time with my wife and cats has to take precedence over Webworks, I let the deadline to migrate lapse before my WordPress installation was ready. SO I can make any necessary announcements for those who read this blog via Reader or RSS feed, I have reluctantly ported the Library of Dresan to http://blog.dresan.com/ - don't get used to this; it is going away.

Further announcements forthcoming.
-the Centaur

The Dragon Writers

2010-04-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

The Dragon Writers, the alumni of Ann Crispin's 2002 Writer's Workshop at DragonCon, now have a group blog about our writing experiences. Oh, and you can get our logo on a t-shirt. Check them out...

It's finally happened...

2010-04-23T23:08:00.000-07:00

... in one of those instances which exposes really how shallow you are, I find myself gratified that it, indeed, has finally happened. What is it?

Professional recognition.

Since I was a child I always wanted to be a "real science fiction writer". For some reason, I got it in my head that this meant membership in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Not sure how that happened, but it did: the external approval of that group of strangers somehow came to matter to me. So I tried to join.

First I wrote a science fiction short story that got published in 1995 in The Leading Edge magazine, but when I checked I found that the Leading Edge was not eligible for SFWA.

Then I wrote an urban fantasy novel that got published in 2010 by Bell Bridge Books, but when I checked I found that Bell Bridge was not eligible for SFWA.

Then, I missed the deadline to register for Comic-Con this year, and decided, what the heck, I'll try to register as a professional. After all, I've written an urban fantasy novel, drawn its frontispiece, and even created a webcomic. And for years I've felt that comics are my future as a creator. So, what the heck, why not?

Ding:

Dear Comic-Con Creative Creative Professional Attendee,
Thank you for registering for Comic-Con International 2010: San Diego
Please take a few moments to review your registration information...

Well. Allrighty then.

Yes, it's shallow of me to base some part of my evaluation of my personal self worth on the approval of others. Yes, this shows a deep-seated insecurity that needs to be addressed by a deep increase in maturity. Yes, yes, yes, I'll work on that. But still ...

... it's finally happened.

Well, enough basking. Back to work on Blood Rock. But wait - it is indeed working.

Boo-yah.

-the Centaur

Your AI Just Wants To Have Fun

2010-03-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

Upcoming AAAI Workshop: AI and Fun:

Interactive entertainment (aka computer games) has become a dominant force in the entertainment sector of the global economy. The question that needs to be explored in depth: what is the role of artificial intelligence in the entertainment sector? If we accept the premise that artificial intelligence has a role in facilitating the entertainment and engagement of humans, then we are left with new questions...

Papers due March 29...

Anonymous Commenting Disabled

2010-03-14T17:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry, commenters, but the signal-to-noise ratio of anonymous comments was approaching zero. :-( It was getting to the point I almost rejected some real though short comments because they were looking like the spam comments I was getting - I apologize if I dinged a real person by accident. But when you don't know who's sending a gift, you never know what's inside the wrapper.

-the Centaur

Pictured is my cousin Bryan Norman, receiving a joke gift of a mailbox at last Christmas's White Elephant gift exchange - though I dispute the Wikipedia article, I lived 38 years in the Southeastern United States and never heard it called a "Yankee swap" - always "White Elephant" or the less-politically-correct "Chinese Christmas".

Screenshots Cannot Do It Justice

2010-03-13T13:15:00.000-08:00

So, at GDC 2010, I saw Starcraft II in action for the first time.

Screenshots cannot do it justice.

You know, Starcraft has always had a kind of muddy, visually busy, hard-to-grok visual style which made it less impressive in screenshots than it is when playing the game with knowledge. Starcraft II takes this to a whole new level - it's still busy, but the tiny incomprehensible units are now clearly visible 3D models, and they're constantly engaged in animation which displays their personality or explains their shape or just makes them interesting to watch. And there's some new visual filigree which makes it easier to see what your actions in the game will take.

So if you're into Starcraft, don't bother torturing yourself with screenshots. Just get the game when it comes out.

-the Centaur

GDC 2010 Overview

2010-03-13T12:55:00.000-08:00

Every year I go to the Game Developers Conference to keep tabs on how artificial intelligence in games is developing. Each year I take copious notes. And each year I promise myself I'll blog my notes online, and yet I never do.

Until now.

GDC 2010 seems smaller than GDC 2008, but it doesn't feel wrong. In the past few years it's been held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, taking up the massive Moscone West building and the North and South halls. I say 2008 because 2010 feels about the size of 2009, but where 2009 felt outsized, this year they've ditched Moscone West, filling out North and South "just right" for a smaller, saner, but still vibrant conference.

The show floor is still massive, going on and on, filled with books and tools and technologies and games and career opportunities and just about anything you can imagine.

And I mean just about anything. Steve Weibe? Really? No offense, but that seems more of an E3 or Comicon thing. Of course, maybe he's super cool, but since I missed him at the booth it was just a bit jarring to see the machine there all by its lonesome.

The South Hall held the AI Summit and many interesting talks. I'll talk about the AI Summit, Starcraft, indie games, and future technologies (past and present) in a subsequent post.

But there is a whole other hall, where more talks are held. The AI Roundtables occurred here, as did talks on the Sims 3; I'll fold these into the above posts.

But the thing that strikes me about the North Hall (other than the giant black hole of cell reception and borked wifi) is the churn of people going to talks, coming from talks, talking about IP and licenses and techniques and advances. Here, simply because of its physical layout you really can see the industry's creative malestrom churning.

"I want YOU to make games." Indeed.

-the Centaur

Playing Hooky from GDC 2010

2010-03-12T16:37:00.000-08:00

Today I'm playing "hooky" from GDC 2010. I look forward to GDC every year, where I see friends, catch glimpses of new games, and learn more and more about artificial intelligence and games. But for various reasons (cost, cats) I don't have a hotel this year, and have been driving up to San Francisco from my house in the South Bay.

It's fun seeing the gang, especially the always engaging Neil Kirby, and fun watching the speakers, especially the entertaining R.A. Salvatore. But yesterday I spent four hours in the car - two there, two back - a grueling experience in the morning in which I not only missed breakfast, missed the Starcraft talk but almost missed the NEXT talk, and an equally grueling experience in the evening racing home to the Saint Stephen's in-the-Field Vestry meeting.

I'd have lot more time in my life if I didn't work two jobs - one by day at the Search Engine That Starts With A G, and one by night as a science fiction author - and so things pile up. By the time GDC rolled around I was already worn thin working and prepping my novel, and then after the drive up and back each day I was totally exhausted, so at the end of each day I'd just feed the cats and crash.

So this morning, I got up, earlier this time, in more than enough time to make the first talk ... and said, "screw it."

What a relieved feeling! Felt like the best decision that I'd made in a long time. I cleaned house, did laundry, played with the cats ... and then popped open the work laptop around the time I'd normally LEAVE for work and worked for a few hours. Yes, that's right ... I took a break from my vacation to work. Not that I want to, but there are things that need to get done that take a lot of "wall clock" time but not lots of programming time, so I answered some email, submitted a changelist, fired off a Mapreduce ...

... and then took a two hour nap on the futon in the library with a cat on my chest.

It was a pretty good day ... so far. And it isn't over yet.

-the Centaur

Pictured: the two-laptop setup I use to keep my work and writing life distinct (just change the cables to give a different computer the main monitor) and Gabby, my very most computer literate cat.

FROST MOON IS ON AMAZON

2010-03-02T23:21:00.000-08:00

http://amzn.com/0984325689 EOM

Reading from Liquid Fire on the Radio

2010-03-02T23:13:00.000-08:00

Reading from Liquid Fire tomorrow at 7 on KFJC radio's Unbedtime Stories with Ann Arbor ... sorry for the late notice!

The Last Hurrahs of Blogger FTP and Earthlink

2010-02-20T17:05:00.000-08:00

As some of you may noticed, posting to the Library was down for a while because my FTP provider changed its configuration silently. Blogger was able to publish to the old site without errors - but that old site was no longer being published to the web. This is one of the many reasons Blogger has decided to discontinue FTP. I've talked with the team and read over their documentation, and while there are some usage patterns that I can do for many of my blogs, I'll be transferring the Library of Dresan over to a new hosting provider and blogging provider. There will be some disruption for a while all the way down to my email addresses as I get my online life a little more under control. Please be patient while this goes on ... I'll keep posting via Blogger through maybe March until I get this sorted out.

People Who Don't Get It

2010-02-16T01:57:00.000-08:00

This cartoon illustrates a common misconception of The Left:

"We're fed up with Washington! The Government can't get anything done! It apparently takes a supermajority to pass anything! Let's make sure no-one has that!"

No, no, no, no, NO! For goodness sake, people, listen to what your opponents are saying instead of projecting your desires upon them. What the people who just voted a Republican into Ted Kennedy's seat are saying is this:

"We're fed up with Washington! The Government is doing things we don't like! Fortunately, it takes a supermajority to pass anything! Let's make sure the bad guys don't have that!"

Not that I think the Democrats are the bad guys - I voted for them - so let's just say that this is my creative way of making the point that it's pretty darn stupid to imagine that the people who voted out the Democrats are motivated by what Democratic voters want. If you need a reminder, in general, excluding social conservative and military issues, it's Democrats who want government action and Republicans who want to stop the government from acting.

Jesus Comes Through Again

2010-02-10T00:02:00.000-08:00

So I've been working my ass off on something at work for the past ... oh, I dunno, two weeks. That's not entirely true - I've actually been working on it since September, but the really nasty, push 90-hour-weeks two-or-three at a time have come in about four surges, two last year and two this year. Nothing I seem to do seems to push this forward, because it isn't a coding problem, it's a manipulate-large-sums-of-data-produced-by-massive-systems-to-generate-an-evaluation-for-a-feature-launch problem whose intermediate steps take anywhere from thirty minutes to eight hours and whose end-to-end steps can run from four hours to a whole week. So if you make a mistake early on in the process - and it's easy to do - it's no fun starting over. And if something else changes during your work on the process, guess what? You start over again, even if you did nothing wrong.

So what can you do? Work harder, work smarter, ask for help from those more experienced - and there are probably a dozen blogposts I could write on how I've improved my process during all this - but sometimes that's not enough. So you come in early, stay up late and stress your body out until you're so sick you have to call in and work from home because work-related stress is tearing up your guts so much you can't eat or sleep and you just want to GET this DONE. And still sometimes that's not enough - so you keep pushing harder.

Or, you can pray.

I'm not a "Bible believing" Christian. To me, that's almost an oxymoron - Jesus Christ was a real person and what the community of faith that he founded wrote down about him is a pale and often misleading substitute. But a Christian has to take the Bible as the first primary source about Jesus - Scripture is what we've got, and Tradition and Reason have to take it as it is. But even as Reason speaks quite loudly that we can't take Scripture literally as history ... it also speaks loudly to ask us why the Church that Jesus founded was inspired to collect those books in the first place. Just because the Israelites and the early Church didn't have modern standards of evidence, we still have to ask: what experiences did they have that prompted the writing of these books, and what lesson did the collators of the Bible want us to learn?

Turn to the Old Testament. During much of the latter half of Exodus through the Chronicles, the authors of the Bible depict the Israelites committing shocking acts of genocide against the native peoples of Caanan - as a friend of mine said, it would suck to have been an "-ite" in the days of Joshua. But did the Prince of Peace really want those stories recorded as an example of how Christians should behave? Not for the genocide, surely, and even in the Old Testament text when the Commander of the Armies of the Lord speaks to Joshua son of Nun, he does not take sides even as the Israelites are about to attack Jericho and destroy it. I think instead it's to demonstrate why we should put our faith in the Lord. Again and again through the Old Testament, the Israelites are shown failing on their own merits and succeeding when when they put their faith in the Lord: overcoming giants, huge armies, and even toppling the walls of Jericho. Whether or not the battle of Jericho happened as depicted in the Bible is beside the point - the meaning of the story is that people can tackle impossible odds if they put their faith in the Lord.

Case in point: my Jericho, that massive data collection problem that I've run rings around for months. I literally made myself sick last night staying up super late to get the evaluation done and, while I produced some approximate estimates, I still had many problems. I worked from home all day, again literally fading in and out of productivity and half-conscious stupor, until finally I'd done all I could do. I tossed my estimates "over the cube wall" via email, grabbed some dinner, and went to Writing Group. On the way home, slightly rested and refreshed, started thinking about the problem again. There were a few minor things to try but the very next step was starting over from scratch. I thought back about the power of prayer, about recent sermons I'd heard and readings I'd read, and I turned to Jesus (not theologically, I've already done that, I mean, once again, literally here, I think of him riding in the seat next to me in the car, or exercising on the next treadmill when I'm working out) and said: you can solve this, can't you? Because I can't do this on my own.

When I got back to my home office and opened my email, my feature had been approved for launch.

Nothing supernatural is required here, if you're not inclined to believe. I know that. I'd worked hard, reduced the data load of my feature, produced a new set of estimates, and even though this class of estimates had previously been deemed unsatisfactory, the new load was low enough for approval to be granted. You might think it was weird that the approval came on the heels of the prayer, but a proper skeptic, thinking it through, should say that there was nothing mysterious about it: even the timing of the prayer was only to be expected given how long I'd been working on it. (And even if you are NOT a skeptic you need to learn the mental discipline to realize that these things CAN just be coincidences, or you're going to go crazy and turn yourself into a nutcase seeing miracles where there aren't any). So ... was this simple response to a long period of hard work designed to produce that exact outcome an actual miracle? Not necessarily. Almost surely not.

Mmm-hmm. Suuure. You go on believing what you want. As for me? Thanks, Jesus, for coming through again.

-the Centaur

Has Blogger ALREADY Discontinued FTP?

2010-02-09T23:32:00.000-08:00

Or is my FTP flakey, proving the need for them to discontinue FTP?

Testy Testerton from Testtown, Testania. Test. Test.

Book Trailer for Frost Moon

2010-02-09T23:19:00.000-08:00

Amazing to see some of the concepts in the story brought to life ...

... and many of the "filler" images are actually going to create scenes in future books. :-)

-the Centaur
Crossposted on my Dakota Frost blog.

Hitler finds out he's being parodied

2010-02-03T00:51:00.000-08:00

And it's one of the parodies he's ranting about. Recursion again!

Compline: iPad Edition

2010-02-02T02:39:00.001-08:00

Well, evening has come and the day has passed, and I have tossed as many Mapreduces into the Great Cloud as the Great Cloud will take - time to go to bed. I leave you with these thoughts, overheard in the wild today:

Woman #1: And did you hear about the iPad?
Woman #2: Oh. My. God. That has to be the stupidest name.
Woman #1: I know. Don't they know what it sounds like?
Woman #2: I think their brains must have been off for the entire development process.
Woman #1: And what gets me, there was a Mad TV skit about the "iPad" like two years ago.
Woman #2: Don't they know people are making fun of it? Don't they care?
Woman #1: Maybe they think at least someone's talking about it.
Woman #2: I dunno. It seems so ... useless. Who's going to carry that?
Woman #1: It's like a giant iPod you can't talk on.
Woman #2: Might be good for some people. At $499, maybe for my nephew?

For the record, I know a lot of people interested in an iPad, I'm very impressed by the drawing features ... and I'm not going to get one as I do not buy closed platforms. (My Mac has a UNIX command line, thank you very much, and no dang App Store is needed to put software on this thing).

I'll be buying a Spring Design Alex to help my favorite bookstore Borders and my favorite phone OS Android ... assuming that Steve Jobs doesn't crush his enemies, drive their tablets before them, and hear the lamentations of their programmers.

Good night.
-the Centaur

Recursion, XKCD Style

2010-02-02T01:40:00.001-08:00

Ok, this is a good runner up for the best definition of recursion. Douglas Hofstadter would be proud.

I think I'm going to start collecting these.

-the Centaur

Comic from xkcd, used according to their "terms of service":

You are welcome to reprint occasional comics pretty much anywhere (presentations, papers, blogs with ads, etc). If you're not outright merchandizing, you're probably fine. Just be sure to attribute the comic to xkcd.com.

So attributed.

Hm. Does the xkcd terms of service apply to the xkcd terms of service? Is that a bit like a post about recursion referring to itself? How meta.

Dakota Frost Reloaded

2010-02-01T22:52:00.000-08:00

Dakota Frost in the ink, if not the flesh. Changes include a new face, facial tattoos fixed, left hand enlarged.

-the Centaur
P.S. And have I mentioned I really love my little "imagelink" program that automatically formats HTML inserts for images just the way I like them? Latest tweak is to copy it to ~/bin/ so I can run it anywhere I'm working at the command prompt.

This ... this is WORKING ...

2010-02-01T21:43:00.000-08:00

Oh ... oh my goodness. I'm working on a revised version of Dakota's face for the frontispiece of Frost Moon and ... and ... "working" is not just a metaphor. This is actual work. I'm sketching, and soon after that I will be writing again on Liquid Fire or Jeremiah Willstone. As part of real work, and not just some crazy hobby anymore.

Too cool.

-the Centaur
Pictured: the revised face of Dakota Frost for the frontispiece, pre-cleanup and compositing into the original drawing.

Sandi @ Kaleid (with Mark Damrel)

2010-02-01T02:01:00.000-08:00

My wife Sandi Billingsley has a new art show at Kaleid Gallery in downtown San Jose. She and Mark Damrel are the featured artists at Kaleid this month and their reception is this Friday at the First Friday Art Walk in San Jose, when many galleries get together to show and promote their latest works - see this announcement for what's showing this Friday.

Sandi's art in this show is exploring themes of recycling through transformation:

Transfiguration is a collection of three dimensional art is an expression of Sandi Billingsley's faith that "we humans can live in luxury while being environmentally responsible." Transfiguration is essentially the art of changing the properties of an object. In this case it refers to the changing of garbage into art. This series is made entirely from rescued materials. The core is made of Styrofoam collected from shipping packages, friends and dumpsters. Sandi then applies a combination of old paint clothes, junk mail, phone books --- basically anything with natural fibers headed for the trash. Dipping these flexible materials in non-toxic glue gives them strength to hold interesting shapes. Finally, the piece is finished with "Aqua Brand" textures and paint which are non-toxic. The result is an environmentally friendly piece of art.

Mark's art in this show is exploring themes of fatherhood in adversity:

Relative Matter is a series of paintings by Mark Damrel inspired by the hardships he encountered on his journey into fatherhood. "Years went by with little to no hope. I started to get used to the fact that I would never have a family, and then it happened." In groupings of mixed media paintings on wood and paper, he explores the themes of childhood memories, despair, hope and joy.

Please drop in, check their art out, enjoy it, and buy something!

-the Centaur

The Process: Fiction Novels

2010-01-30T23:19:00.000-08:00

Recently I commented on Facebook that I was working with editors on Frost Moon and a friend asked:

"I've always been curious about this process. Generally speaking, what kind of changes are they asking you to make?"

Well, my writing process involves many, many drafts before it ever hits the editors, so the changes are generally minor. I write large chunks of everything I write in a writing group, reading sections aloud and making corrections before the first draft is ever finished. I then print out the first draft, read it myself, and make corrections to produce a second draft, which I give to trusted "beta readers". Some of my beta readers give me very detailed comments, almost copyediting, so the "gamma release" that I send to the publishers is pretty polished.

However, the editors have an eye for the market and audience, and will generally ask to tighten things up. At Bell Bridge Books, you work with an editor who first tackles theme, plot and logic - in Frost Moon, she asked me to reduce the emphasis on the romance in a few places, to improve the clarity of the action, and to clear out some of the deadwood; in response to these changes I send them a revised draft. For Frost Moon, the same editor then did a closer edit with some suggested changes right in the text using Microsoft Word's track changes feature, focusing on on general style to sand off the rough edges - intensifying some scenes while muting others to make them more realistic. I tweaked these changes, she approved them, and then I sent them a cleaned up copy with all formatting and Track Changes removed - a "final author's draft".

From then on the editing of the document is in the hands of the publisher, so they know what changes are happening to the text. This goes through several stages. First was a "line edit" where a new editor looks at the sentence structure for clarity. That's what we're doing now through an email exchange and I have to say it's been a pleasant and professional process. Next up is a "copy edit" where a third editor specifically looks for errors that the I and the other two editors have missed. In parallel with the whole editing process they're also putting together the bio, acknowledgments, cover art, cover text, frontispiece, etc., usually generating the materials themselves but occasionally asking me for input or text or images (like the author's headshot above). Finally there will be "galley proofs" where we all look at a quasi-finished document for anything that looks wrong.

And once we're all happy with that ... then that will be it.

-the Centaur

Pictured: me, in Atlanta Bread Company, as taken by Bolot Kerimbaev at the time of this post. This will most likely be my author's picture on the back of Frost Moon

I'm very depressed...

2010-01-30T11:46:00.000-08:00

... I researched the Blogger issue. Three, maybe four of the blogs I manage will work well with the new system.

This one, the one I post on the most, won't. And there's no good workaround yet, though I am looking into it.

*sigh*.

I'm pretty sure I *can* do this - keep the Library of Dresan site completely static HTML pages so that there's no software on it to hack - but the existing FTP blogging clients seem pretty niche. And using WordPress or MovableType in this mode will, as I understand it, require that I set up WordPress on my laptop or desktop and write some software to rewrite the files and FTP them up to the site. You know, the feature Blogger handled automatically for me.

*sigh*

-the Centaur