Intellectual Incest

I have come to understand my reluctance to extensively socialize with colleagues. Now, I often get invited to outings and chat with them a lot when I do turn up, but something has always bugged me about going out in this manner. Of course, there's the obvious implication that my going out has political undertones, in which cementing relationships that way does help cement one's position in an organization. That much always bugs me, but there's something else. That something else may well be what I call intellectual incest.

By intellectual incest I mean the very concept of going out with people you ordinarily spend a lot of time with, and by implication have been influenced by and are actively influencing you. The influences through social contact during working hours will invariably color discussions outside (apart from the obvious tendency of work talk) and basically wind up shrinking one's intellectual circle since one's exposure to outside disciplines is diminished as a result. In fact, it must be to one's advantage to engage social compatriots outside that work circle, to maximize one's overall exposure to reality in general.

I struggle with the incest thing, especially in an age where weak links abound and it really isn't as easy as it used to be to find people out there and spontaneously create links with them. Gone are the days of active random instant messaging and getting to know locals from different disciplines but similar interest. Most people may do that over Facebook interest groups, but in a sense that starts off on the wrong foot whereby the very presence of the Facebook (or other social media) accounts creates a greater intimacy than would be comfortable in comparison to a more anonymous medium like the IRC of old. I guess I will need to find my alternatives. Stagnation is certainly not a good thing at all.

In Time

Remember what I wrote a couple days back about the sequence of narrative creation, and how creating details before composing a proper narrative proves to be problematic? Well In Time is precisely that: A movie with an intriguing premise that winds up falling flat because it doesn't have a solid narrative to stand on.

Right, so here's the good stuff: In Time is about a world where time is both life and money. Run out of time/money, run out of life. You die. Ok that's the good part. It's an interesting concept, and something they could've taken quite far. After all, we're familiar with Blade Runner and how the replicants were so desperate to extend their lives.

The bad news? A sophisticated narrative never emerged. The movie turned from something that could've been a philosophical study in variable human mortality...into a flat Bonnie and Clyde heist fest where time turned out to be...money. Really they could've just made the movie about money and it'd be pretty much the same. The narrative itself is fraught with logical problems, and the attempts to create a convincing universe around the time/money/life concept fail simply because the explanations wind up looking rather implausible. In fact, they might've been better off not trying to explain the mechanics behind the whole system and focusing more on the narrative itself.

Much as it pains me to do so, I'd say the movie deserves 5.5/10. It'd be 4.5, but I liked the concept, and that's where the other point went to.

Detailing Narratives

I have come to realize that creating a narrative is a lot like creating a drawing: It is often less helpful to do the detailing first before having the grand structure planned out already. For example, it is often not very useful creating beautiful dragon scales before you're sure that you're actually drawing a dragon, nor is it useful to start writing about an intriguing mechanic by which the fictional society runs if the drama itself is not ready for action.

The thing I've found about detailing first is that first it crimps the narrative some. If the narrative didn't already exist, it'll start to be a process whereby the narrative becomes shaped and often distorted by the details. That's because the narrative is being forced to be consistent with the details. Worse yet, this tends to lead to the neglect of proper narrative design, which can result in stories that are logically plausible, yet are extremely flat in every other sense.

I think my view for now shall be that a narrative is best designed first, so that it flows and the grand structure is made known, after which the details can be dropped in so that they spice up what could have been an otherwise drab setting.

Childhood?

I was enroute to work today and as my lift passed one apartment, I saw a dad helping his kid to light a sparkler. It's a simple enough act, only that I'm seeing it while I'm going to work. On a morning that I wouldn't ordinarily see if I wasn't saddled with office hours. To be honest, that sucked.

Story time. First things first. I hate mornings. I do my best to deny their existence, and while I don't hate my work (I love it to pieces, in fact), I really hate having to get my butt to work before 5pm. And now on to childhoods. Well the thing is, I really don't remember all that much about my childhood. I do vaguely remember that sparklers are fun, and I did a lot of pyromaniacy things when I was a kid. The thing is, I feel like I miss the simpler days of my earlier childhood. That is, the not having a lot of weird things to worry about. Those who know about my problems also know that I only realized what was up a number of years back, and life's never really been the same since. Of course, it's improved a lot in the recent years, but it's certainly nowhere near as simple as it used to be.

Anyway, I guess the important thing is that I'll always remember the times back in university when I had months long holidays (that's how holidays oughtta be) and I'll never be comparing work leave to that. It just won't measure up. I find it funny that some people would point out that well...work just doesn't work that way. You don't get months off at a go. Well technically you can spam unpaid leave, but generally the company would want you to leave pretty soon if you did that. The fact remains that the comparison will be apples to oranges, but whenever someone tells me that wow that was a long weekend, I just tell them...my long weekends are 3 months long. And I haven't had a good long weekend in ages.

Changes

My life has changed significantly for the better lately, and so has that of one of my friends. Basically, she's been given the opportunity to work in game development as a designer, and it really isn't something that's commonly offered so readily to a newbie. After some persuasion, she decided to take up the offer. I cannot be sure if she's of the right temperament to pull it off, but hey at least it's an opportunity to try her hand at the industry and to see if it suits her.

Looking back at my life over the last 5 years, I really do wonder at how my other friends have been doing in all that time. Some people invariably drop out of touch for a long time, and stay in contact only via the internet. I think it's a good time to meet up where possible, and see how things have changed for them.

The Thing

It's funny how I've not actually watched all that many movies back in my day. It's a fairly recent development, my watching of movies, since my company does hand out movie tickets every month or so. Otherwise, I really wouldn't have bothered. That said, this is the second movie I've watched this week with my friend, mainly 'coz I really could've done with something to do at night after work.

Anyway, The Thing is your average monster stalking kind of movie. The sort where an alien picks humans off one by one till precious few survivors remain. It's no spoiler, because everyone who is going to watch this probably already know that.

I'd say I liked the movie, because it makes the viewer consider exactly what the Thing is, and how it propagates. There's something to having aliens that can perfectly mimic humans. I suppose the story's got its logical issues and whatnot typical of cinema, but I rather do appreciate the trip. Probably at least in part due to the Inquisition style approach of burning anything that's suspicious or contaminated. I'd say the movie's somewhere around a 7.5/10

On a related but non-review note, is it a bad thing if I thought the tentacle creatures were rather kinky?

Johnny English: Reborn

Agent Bean returns! Well, everyone knows that JE is pretty much a spoof of Bond, and pretty much everything you expect to find in a reasonably serious secret agent movie. I'd say there is very little to discuss about the movie itself, because the premise and gags will be familiar to those who've seen Bean's antics, and the previous movie.

Some would say that the movie is predictable and silly. Me, I think that's kind of the point of the movie, and really, there are only so many ways you can deliver slapstick comedy. All I can say is that the movie kept me laughing through its entire length, which says something about my sense of humor and perhaps how funny the show actually is. Evaluating it on its merits and the intent of the production, I'd say that the show deserves a hearty 8/10.

Faith And The Financial Market

I've been reading House Of Cards lately, and it's the same story of over-leveraging. One would think that it's pretty obvious when a company's sunk into risky assets as collateral and has precious little stuff in its reserves. The funny thing here is that well...if everyone knows it already and they're still going for it, it seems to me that they're really just running on faith. And hot air.

If an economy is indeed heavily reliant on credit, it is obvious how a credit crunch can utterly devastate the economy. Yet it seems that leverage is the steroid of choice amongst financial institutions. It's hard to think of a better way to create a heck of a lot of stuff out of a small pool of assets. Arguably, it's the only crazy effective way available in your average capitalist economy.

Yet, humans will be humans. If faith were to be maintained regardless, runs on banks would not occur as often, and everyone can happily live in Oz with the magickal flying dollar bills. Obviously, this doesn't happen. Someone invariably loses heart out there and realizes that things are going south in one part of the economy, and starts figuring that liquidity is beginning to look like a good idea. Seeing a big player do that, others will start to take their cues and so on. The house of cards comes tumbling down.