The Games Behind Your Government's Next War

The YouTube channel People Make Games just released this piece presented by Quinn called, The Games Behind Your Government's Next War. I'm sharing because it is both entertaining, and educational.

My opinion, for what it's worth, know what you can control, and know what you can't.

It's fine to have ideals, hold oneself to a moral standard, or examine the ethics of what we do, but without an understanding of human nature, the evolutionary pressures that drive our behaviours. Arguably, everything we do is determined by a combination nature and nurture.

So, my take away... a renewal of enthusiasm to work on my wargame.

Second Half of the Year from Hell

I decided that this model of Object 295 needed some decals to make it pop.

Who would have thought a year ago that 2020 would be such a shambling wreck?

The last month or so has been getting on top of me. Dealing with people shouting in outrage at [insert description here] of whatever has pushed their emotional button.

Quite frankly, I no longer give a damn. Darwin will sort this out.

So, I've been quiet, taking the time to do things I enjoy, because that's usually the best strategy for dealing with emotions that are overwhelming one. Currently I'm painting combat armor suits. Practicing with my new wet palette different ways of making my miniatures look cool.

That's all for now. Stay safe, keep well.

Mecha Size Comparison: Real Robo

1/144th scale models by Takara. USMC Abrams MBT next to a Scopedog from A.T. VOTOMS.

Back here I did a post about the size of the combat armour I feature in my books.

Being a science fiction fan, for as long as I can remember, I've had a penchant for playing wargames with models. It's my hobby. One of the arguments against using walking armour suits is their size, which you can see from one perspective is a thing, but from another maybe not so much.

USMC Abrams MBT next to an Armored Trooper VOTOMS Scopedog.

If, and the if is important, one can accept humanoid tanks that can move like humans can, then there will be trade off between being compact and low slung like a tank versus mobile and able to change posture to take advantage of the terrain.

And that in a nutshell is what drives my stories.

Working out when and where mecha (a term used to describe walking vehicles in Japan, for any reader who is puzzled by the term) would make sense.

Wargaming

An elegant wargamer from a more civilized age.  Oh and I just found this too.

Says it all, though and now you know why I can't find the time to play as many games as I would like; that's a joke by the way, just in case you want to say that games don't take nine hours to play.

En Passant

I have been a bit distracted by a combination of work and life.  Last weekend was full on archery with Saturday mornings practice being followed a whole day of shooting on Monday, which can be read on my other blog when I post it up.

I was also very busy time at my job, which left me feeling drained.  So, after work on Wednesday, I walked over to Orcs Nest and bought the latest copy of Miniature Wargames & Battlegames magazine, and at the same time bought a Star Wars X-Wing Punisher miniature (Imperial super bomber), which was appropriate as it was May the Fourth.

I don't really do the Star Wars Day thing, mostly because I forget and in this case far too focused on work.

When I got home I read on Twitter that Gene Wolfe had equated the term Sci-Fi as equivalent to a racial slur beginning with the letter N.  I'm boggled by this, and you really couldn't make this shit up and have anyone believe you if you wrote it.  I'm not as old as Gene Wolfe, but I'm old enough to be older than a large portion of SF fandom and I can't see the point of getting wound up by the term Sci-Fi, which was coined by Forrest J Ackerman in 1954, which was before I was born, so it's been around a long, long time.

Some people get sniffy about using Sci-Fi and some even prefer to use the term Speculative Fiction over Science Fiction, but at the end of the day it's down to personal choice, and I don't think that anyone has a leg to stand on if they compare the term Sci-Fi with a racial slur; at best it's over egging the argument, at worst it's downright offensive.

Colour me miffed.

Thursday was shopping and today I just took it easy and opened my new Star Wars miniature and re-organized how I numbered both my Imperial and Rebel Forces.  These things are important you know!  Anyway, it was fun unpacking all the bits & pieces, fitting the flight dial together and sorting out all the tokens and packing them away in order for when I next get to play.

So another week with no writing done – well apart from doing blog entries and compiling stuff for another article for Galactic Journey's blog.

Work in Progress: 25th Feb 2015

Well here I am again writing a log of another weeks worth of writing and the progress I'm making in completing a publishable novel.  Yesterday I sent my Alpha reader the first absolutely brand spanking new chapter full of words she has never read before.  There's a bit of a standing joke in the flat that not only is the hero of my novel stuck reliving the same day over-and-over again, but that my Alpha reader is re-reading the same novel over-and-over again.

Oh how the long winter nights just fly by when you're having fun.

Looking at my running total for the week I see I've written a total of 4,361 words, just shy of double the number I wrote last week, and this brings the current running total for the novel to 87,266.  I note that yesterday I wrote 1,038 words to finish the new chapter.  I might well have written more this week if I hadn't felt so ghastly on Monday, having had some problems with my pain management over the weekend.  Still I had a great weekend in Brighton and got to go with my Godson and his sister to Brighton Modelworld.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Oh I forgot we also saw The LEGO Movie with the kids.  So yes it does get better than that, even if I thought the movie wasn't quite as good as it thought it was,  and did I mention we also played a game of Star Wars:X-Wing with the kids too?  Therefore we got to spend quality time with them.  So everything is awesome (warning dangerous earworm tune).

Catch you all on the bounce.

Another Time, Another Place

Which is my way of paraphrasing "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away," and leading into our recent re-watching of all six Star Wars films.  I still remember seeing the original black posters with the words Star Wars on railway billboards and wondering what it was all about?  Then finding out more, and being enthralled by a display in a local record shop that had devoted an entire window to the John Williams Star Wars album with the tantalizing shots from the movie on the inside of the double album sleeve.  Then watching the opening scene for the first time and I was blown away, and I remember going to see the film 21 times.  I was obsessed.

Even back then, when I was a lot younger and certainly far more naive than I am now, I knew there were plot holes in the original movie that one can fly the Death Star through, but they weren't important in the bigger scheme of things, because Star Wars was an epic tale in the traditional story telling style; as discussed in the book The Seven Basic plots by Christopher Booker, which I cunningly reviewed in my last post here.

Lucas has been quoted as saying that the inspiration behind StarWars comes from reading Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces about the existence of a mono-myth that crosses all cultures.  This book treats traditional story telling from the perspective of comparative mythology, but Campbell like Booker uses discredited Freudian & Jungian theories, which I find troubling.  Also Campbell largely disregards the feminine in favour of the masculine narrative.

But enough of discussing that academic pontification, otherwise I'll drain all the fun out of one of my favourite movies.

We sat down and watched a movie a night and I found myself enjoying the prequels as much as the originals, which was slightly surprising given my previously held feelings on them.  However, on reflection I think that back in 1999, when The Phantom Menace came out, the expectation and hype meant that the no matter how good the film was it wasn't going to meet people's expectations.  Now time has passed it no longer feels disappointing to watch.  Yes I agree Jar-Jar sucks, but he's there for much the same reason the Ewoks were in Return of the Jedi, and I'm reminded of what I say to old die-hard Dr Who fans who complain about New Who – it's not for you, it's for the youngsters who have never seen it before.

So I still like The Empire Strikes Back most of all, but without A New Hope we would never have had it, so the first is probably still the best.  Then in order of enjoyment I think Revenge of the Sith, followed by Attack of the Clones, Return of the Jedi and then The Phantom Menace.  However it has to be said that The Phantom Menace is totally lush, and the extended Pod Race and the death of Qui-Gon Jinn at the end of what was the first epic light sabre battle ever means that just because I've listed it last doesn't means it hasn't got its good points.

Now there is another... trilogy.

You bet I'm stoked about the new film coming at Xmas, which is also a long time and very far away as I write this.  For me it's a fulfillment of the original promise made by Lucas that there would be nine films; a trilogy of trilogies.  So excited that not only did we re-watch the movies, but we've been playing a great little games called Star Wars: X-Wing where you get to pilot the fighters around one's dining room table while listening to the music and quoting lines from the movies.

And of course Randall Munroe of XKCD makes a good point.

Log 2014 Dec 7th: Catch Up

 

Last week we were in Cambridge at a Thanksgiving party hosted by our friends Kate & Malcolm, what with our own Thanksgiving meal excesses on the Thursday I seem to have been derailed in posting last weeks blog in a timely manner.

I have a lot to talk about, but this last week has been hectic with one thing and another, so all I'll mention in passing is that I gave a talk on cognitive behavioural therapy at Carshalton High School for Girls for the students in A2 psychology, which went down very well – tweets were sent out by the school too, and I received a lovely box of chocolates and a gift card from the students.  So I was well chuffed.  I later learnt that one of the students has decided to change her degree option to psychology too.

Over on my other blog you will see a post about the demo game I ran at Dragonmeet yesterday for which I spent most of the week painting miniatures to get them ready for the day.  Afterwards we went off to Ilford for another party with our long time friends Brian & Caroline, which was most excellent.

Blood Ties

A bit late writing this week due to spending Saturday demoing a game called Ogre at the London Dragonmeet games convention all day, and Sunday was taken by entertaining two dear friends who we have not seen in a while.  Last week I had an indulgent catch up with lots of reading and trying to put the internet to rights.  Along with getting lost on TV Tropes for three days researching story tropes.  That link carries a memetic warning; you will spend more hours there than you intend to.  Consider yourself warned.

This week we've been watching Blood Ties, which was based on Tanya Huff's Blood series that started with Blood Price.  Anyway, the TV show runs to twenty two episodes over two short seasons.  For reasons best known to the TV executives the third series was cancelled, probably because there wasn't enough sex.  It's one of those shows that we loved for the relationship between the characters and the dialogue sparkles when the three main characters are kicking against each other.

On the reading front I have been carrying on with Chris Moriarty's Spin State, which due to the above excuses I've still not finished.  So I will come back again to it when I have.

Writing Log 130421

Been a busy week for other stuff.  In this case going to the RAF museum at Hendon on Thursday, and Salute at the ExCeL Centre on Saturday, which has impacted on my writing this week.  Not just because of the time taken out from writing, but rather by how exhausted I felt after the long day walking around on Thursday.

Still mustn't grumble, could be worse.

So progress this week on Strike Dog was 6209 words for the week and a running total of 13,621.  Still way ahead of the situation I was in during the first draft of Bad Dog where after two weeks I had only written 7316 words in total.  I find it useful now to compare my progress, because I find my moods have been a bit down about my work.  This was especially bad on Friday when I was in so much pain from all the walking I did the day before.

However, on Saturday when I was at Salute, the South London Warlords annual wargames show, a couple of friends of mine were also complaining of being in pain.  Having them tell me this actually helped me to put things into perspective about my own pain.  Sometimes it is just so damn difficult to keep an objective perspective on something that is so subjective.

Anyway, pain is natures way of telling you that you are still alive.  The alternative, is as the say, worse.