fractalnavel

bengals - would you believe it ?  they actually played pretty well. (i beat jon to it ;-))

actually, just wanted to mention the guy interviewed by local channel 9 news that drove down from toledo:

reporter: “you drove all the way from toledo?”

guy: “yeah”

reporter: “and you went through indianapolis?”

guy: “yeah.  you mean i-75 goes all the way through?”

reporter: “yeah”

guy: (holding his head) “oh my goodness”

gotta love it ;-) 

warning - high geek content!

i have to admit, i blew the last six days playing geneforge and geneforge 2 demos, even pulled a couple of all nighters.  that wasn't that big a deal the first couple of days, but the last two days have been beautiful.  well, i got out briefly today, anyway.  [what happened to the fall hikes yesterday ?]  in any case, i'm done with that, had a lot of fun, ended (as usual) by looking for cheat codes, a game key crack (didn't look too hard, that would be inviting more lost time), and ended up finding that the game is very modifiable using text/script files, so i was able to create super-characters and just tromp around killing things, or doing whatever else i could think of.  but once you're god, things get less interesting, so i'm done.  i suspect that even these super-characters would have a hard time in the later stages of the game.

on the other hand, there's this one skill in geneforge 2 that is nearly a game breaker.  i think its design could use some refinement to prevent this.  it's the parry skill, in which a high enough level gives you not only very reliable defense, but also a small chance to riposte - ie, to deflect the enemy's blows back at him [in game terms].  i thought about that, and figured i could do something warped - make that one score as high as possible at the expense of nearly everything else.  a really high parry level means that half the blows are riposted - ! and the kicker is that they have the same force as the enemy throws at you, and for more powerful enemies, they beat themselves up, even when you normally couldn't touch them and would be destroyed in one blow !  i think a design improvement would have everything stay the same, except the riposte force should factor in the player's strength too (as in, a weak character should not be able to reflect back a strong blow out of proportion to its level [or, really, getting back to the real meaning of the word “riposte“ - it just would give the player a chance to hit whenever struck, which would equate to the same thing]).  using this technique i defeated monsters more than ten times as strong.

anyway, yeah, i guess there are better, and multiplayer, games like this out there, but i haven't done this in a while, and ran into by accident.  the decent sized free demos (like ¼ of the game!) were enough to keep plenty busy.

for various reasons not explained anywhere (maybe i'll try someday), i tried to find work in the antarctic for a few years.  never successfully, obviously.  i've kind of given up.  but friends and family still send the occasional antarctic item they run across, which i really appreciate as it keeps me in touch with that side of myself.

here's an item from my sister: Engineers in Antarctica.   this is a personal diary by some australian engineering professor who went to the pole last season to run some of the astronomy experiments.  some of the most interesting parts have less to do with the antarctic than with the (perceived) cultural differences between australia and the u.s.  and then there's the usual human interest and technical things. 

i haven't read it all, but what strikes me is that, while reading, one can adopt the perspective that this is the journal of a visitor to another planet, and it rings very true.  which makes it further interesting to compare with science fiction, as to accuracy of portrayed settings, etc.

fascinating.

i don't intend the planet analogy to be taken in the trivial sense that everyone has of the antarctic being so different.  i mean it in a very literal sense, as an example of how such things really would be in those circumstances, in all details.

on my own more personal note, i can see how unlikely it would have been for me to have ever passed the psych exam to work there.  not that i think i would have any problems, but it seems the exams are designed to select unassuming quiet types.  having met quite a number of these folks, at the job fairs and elsewhere, i can see where that would be a good thing.  the same selection criteria are essentially used for the astronaut corps, and (less strictly, apparently, due to observations of some people i know) for submarine work as well. [side question: is there a commercial use for submarines ?  not just civilian, for which research and rescue is an example, but commercial.  salvage ? other ?]  the same characteristics that help in isloated small groups also apply in any workplace.  they are not as critical due to the availability of external outlets, but probably more apt than one might at first assume because in most cases, you really are stuck with a small group isolated from many outside influences, which is often exacerbated by high intensity periods.

anyway, i'm not the quiet, keep your head low type.  a lot of my friends are, which if you think about it makes sense.  hmm.  i wonder if the same criteria is applied to management at the pole, or are differences intentionally introduced to make the whole situation, uh, manageable ?  i'd say clearly, it's the latter case.

Bold Endeavors: Lessons from Polar and Space Exploration

i read this book (left) some years back where lessons learned from such environments are presented as clearly transferable and applicable to everyday life.  i think it's a great book in many respects.  not sure if i still have it around; it was a popular loaner - well, at least i tried to foist it off on a number of people ;-)  i think this is the one that made me aware of shackelton's saga, a few years before that seems to have become a pop culture thing.  i mention it because it covers psychological factors, among others, in such situations.

hmm; maybe he doesn't present the “everday life” aspect, but it seemed obvious to me.  anyway, beyond the ergonomics and psychology, beyond the practical application to one's home and work life, read it for the anecdotes from the frontiers of human exploration.

one of the amazon reviews mentions that this has become required reading for astronauts, which is believable.  speaking of which, the antarctic diary that is the original topic of this post mentions that her predecessor in the job was headed next for the astronaut corps (that's a path - antarctic to space - i had considered for myself; again, another story, another time). 

now, to veer off topic: this is the type of background i bring to topics like the current hype about “space”  trips being made available to paying customers, via virgin air, branson and the spaceship one crowd.  it's not that i'm cynical, it's that i have perspective.  but that leads to a long discussion about naivete v. pessimism v. optimism. v. realism., etc., etc., and i'm not going there.  for now.

the true real space trips were the recent space station stayovers.  a much different prospect than being tossed into the fringes of the atmosphere for a matter of seconds.  pay for that crap ? hardly.  so think:  how far away are we from an orbiting, untrained guest friendly, extended stay (days) facility ?  back at space camp (yeah, i went in '91) we had a lecture about station design from a human factors standpoint.  think of the the physical layout, the staffing, etc.  those guys who paid $20M for a week or two ?  they made out like bandits, what a deal.  the branson types want to sucker folks in for $250k per “six minute” ride, and that doesn't even get there.  you do the math.

but still, if it gets us towards a spacefaring way of life, what the hell.  but how long do you suppose it will be until it is as accessible as air travel ?  or even automobiles.  that is still a minority of the population.   on whose backs will the elite travel ?  which reminds me of an earlier post relating to this, lost in space.

what will really get us there, however, is some sort of commercial need for the presence of man off earth.  tourism ain't it.  if you consider the history when any new frontier was breached, with danger reasonably under control, it was merely a rich tourist's fancy that took anyone anywhere.  the nity-gritty stuff happened, usually decades or centuries later, when actual human need drove it - colonization for cultural or living room reasons, raw materials, other unique aspects.  air travel was a novelty until some pioneers took to carrying mail, etc.  war is a great driver of “need”.  but so far little of this applies to space for the foreseeable future, and that's not for lack of trying. 

the equations just haven't balanced yet.  something will have to make it significantly less costly, or a corresponding pressure of necessity will be required.  or some combination.  the threshhold may be so high that only some sort of catastrophe will make it happen (while at the same time making it less likely to happen).  and looping into the stratosphere for expensive rollercoaster rides is not “it”. 

now, if they can achieve orbit....  again, the question becomes “why?”.  we have gotten too good at remote tasks and communication for our own good.  why send a man when a robot will do ?  i wonder if a manned craft would have had a higher success rate on mars missions.

well, whatever happens, it's a bootstrap operation.  say you get a few tourists.  then you'll need someone to cater to their needs, and someone to cater to their needs, and so on.  but, to reverse the pyramid metaphor of that “lost in space” post, it would take quite a lot at the top to support the bottom (interesting interdependence). 

what do “we” get out of it, the rank and file ?  perhaps a chance to live the same workaday life in a different place, is all.  and probably with significant constraints, as well.  like the antarctic, perhaps the scientists will claim it as their own.  so far, that's been true.   bottom line is that we humans carry our baggage with us where ever we go, and that means sensory and conceptual as well as the obvious external things.  part of the adaptive process that we have evolved is that we get used to anything, and such accustomization will wear the novelty off of anything quickly.  it's a survival tactic that works, but it also says a lot about our fantasies of adventure, etc. - they will always be just that, they can never have any permanent reality, not to our personal experiences.  think of “reality“ shows, and pretty much any entertainment, in this context.

which explains why various agencies select for that characteristic in their field personnel in the first place.  astronauts as truck drivers ?  basically.  no offense to truck drivers.  i guess if you want excitement, join a war.  but we get used to that as well.

a final side note (this is meandering all over as it is), the silly speculation about “consciousness transfers” (human to machine) is debunked in yet another way by these considerations.  as if the many other ways were not already enough.  fun for scifi, though.  and doesn't preclude “consciousness” of any other sort.  but that's just sloppiness in definition in combination with mistaking emergent boundaries for “reality”.