On reStructuredText, Wikir

I switched to reStructuredText (reST) about a year ago as a preferred formatting style. (I have long, weird history here, including one that I wrote from scratch, by hand.) ReST has a number of unique points and has a very interesting overly-optimistic (almost over-engineered) design. The primary focus is that the ASCII markup should be relatively unobtrusive, and I've yet to see a reST document that was difficult to read. Much of the markup looks relatively "natural" in a text document. Beyond that, reST has a powerful backend system that is built to support any number of output formats. The same reST documents can be output to HTML documentation, LaTeX/PDF "paper" documentation, or many other things you can want. RST2A is a good advocacy site for more of an idea of why reST is different and some of what you can do with it.

An interesting new development, to me at least, is Wikir, which brings backend support to generate Wiki-formatting-style documents from reST sources, which was originally built to allow a project on Google Code to autogenerate Wiki documents (so they show up on Google Code's wiki section) from existing reST documents. It's almost funny to convert one ASCII-based markup style to another, but it certainly could be useful.

On Extraplanetary Data Storage Plans

I was having this conversation a few days ago and thought it was interesting enough to bring up in general. I think there's several good reasons to put a small bit of good money into a couple of nice "data monoliths" (think hardened server racks with maybe a simple 1U rack mount terminal and maybe WiFi of some sort) and shipping them to a couple of neighboring bodies, particularly the Moon but maybe geosynchronous orbit, Mars, Venus, whatever. I'm not predicting anything happening soon, but I think it might be a good idea to start shipping some of our data, particularly important data, off this planet. How many good companies have off-site backup of some form or another? Admittedly, not enough, but still why shouldn't we talk about some "off-site backups" of some of Humanity's data?

Maybe we're a few more centuries away from having the gonads to go out and settle on other worlds, but there are fewer reasons not to at least seed some data on the nearby rocks for at least some small survival of our collective intellect should something happen, or should we (knock on wood) have need of it.

Thoughts?

More Traffic things I don't get and Velociraptors...

So... I have my blinker on to merge left, SUV jackleg sees it and speeds up to pass, passes and flicks on right blinker to cut in front of me. I don't get it at all... Would it really be that hard to let me merge first? It's certainly the polite thing to do and... amazingly we could merge simultaneously in that scenario. Damn weirdly selfish people. Oh well.

I'm actually in a good mood today even though I had to get out of bed on early... (For nothing... I checked my email due to the snow at 8:35.... just missed the 8:40 announcement that my first class was canceled.) I had fun throwing snowballs from the snow piled upon my car. Lots of pretty scenery this morning.

The Velociraptor Safari game looks pretty amusing... Velociraptor (with feathers) mowing down fellow Velociraptors in a Jeep.

On Terminator and Iterative Storytelling

I watched the "2 night premiere" of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I finally got around to seeing T3: Rise of the Machines, which I found on sale at Wal-Mart for $5. I skipped catching T3 in theaters because frankly I was quite happy with the "happy" ending of T2 and I vehemently refuse to believe in pre-destination/fate much less be preached it in bad voice overs, which I was warned about when T3 was in theaters. T3 was a decent action film, and I enjoyed those parts of it. The story was a bit goofy, and that's from a franchise that isn't exactly about continuity or enlightened storytelling to begin with. But personally I still prefer the possibility of hope and change offered by T2. On the other hand, I'll not avoid the upcoming T4 film, as I did T3, as I've happily concluded that T3 and its upcoming sequels are a cute, albeit quaint, alternate timeline from what I've decided is my personal preference.

The Sarah Conner Chronicles was fun. Like a couple of fellow Firefly fans I tuned in primarily for Summer Glau. I thought the two episodes thus far were fun and interesting and the bringing back of the "fight the future" mentality of T2 was what I hoped for, and I'm interested to see where this goes. Unfortunately it is on Fox, so I don't have much hope for its survival. Also, it's currently in "the 24 slot", which means that once everything settles down after the writer's strike it will potentially be challenging Heroes or Chuck, both of which will be higher priorities for my viewing schedule...

So, I was intrigued by the response to the show I found from a very vocal group ...

Teller's MacBeth

I've been reading the essays about the production of Teller's MacBeth (via Niel Gaiman's blog) and I'm salivating... it sounds like so much fun and there are just some great bits and pieces in the essays. I wish I was closer to New Jersey or DC to actually catch a show. The DC performance lasts through my Spring Break and I'm starting to wonder if that might not be an excuse to visit DC for the break...

Also, check out the rest of Teller's Essays for some other interesting topics.

On the Warner, New Line Blu-Ray Exclusivity Decision

I bought an HD-DVD player a few months ago and I check the HD disc selections at stores like Target or Insert Other Giant Store Here and I watch for any deals on movies in that format. I've been asked now a few times what I think about the announced switch of Time Warner-owned labels WB and New Line switching to Blu-Ray exclusivity in a few months...

It's a small disappointment, primarily because I was hoping to get The Dark Knight on HD-DVD when it is released, to coordinate with my HD Batman Begins, but I can get over that. I, usually, buy movies slowly, anyway, because I'm saturated with rentals, TV showings, and trips out to a public popcorn stadium as it is. (Even if I have a really nice private popcorn stadium of my own at this point, if I do say so myself.)

It doesn't really anger me, though. Even if it is all over now (and it might not be): I got the HD-DVD drive (as an attachment to my 360 that I can also attach via USB to a Windows PC) for a reasonable price with a ton of free movies to watch, and a good majority of my purchases of discs since have been in Combo format (a nicety in the HD world unseen on Blu-Ray) so in the worst case that I have no accessibility to an HD-DVD player I can still watch those films on a normal DVD player (and I don't see those going out of style any time soon). I haven't "lost" anything in this decision by Warner. I'll even keep buying Warner HD-DVD discs while they last, and am hoping to see some good sales along the way thanks to this. I ...

Fall Artwork: Invaders! Possibly from Space!

Invaders! is my Fall beer cap photo art. I have no idea if anyone actually gets as much interest out of these as I do, but I think this is my most visually interesting set to date.

Blogs of the Round Table: These are the Soundtracks of our Lives

I added Corvus Elrod's Man Bytes Blog recently to my feed reader, having been lead there via one of his Escapist articles. He's a consultant working towards narrative in games and every month he "hosts" a round table discussion of blogs on a given topic. This month's topic These are the Soundtracks of our Lives was too hard for me to resist not giving my few copper monetary units on the subject, and I probably have too much to say here.

Game music really seems to be the defining soundtrack of my life: I love it, I listen it to too much of it, and it's hugely influenced how I approach games. I don't think I have anything too life shattering to say about any of this, but maybe I'll touch on something that might be of interest. I'm going to keep this semi-informal and not do too much research, so correct me if I make a mistake or let this lead to your own voice in the conversation.

First, let me show you a little bit of how much Game-related music I listen to. In my last.fm top 25 artists overall (of 3-Jan-2008) alone you can see the following game-related/game-influenced artists: Machinae Supremacy, Jared Emerson-Johnson, Celldweller, Nine Inch Nails, Freezepop, Starsiege, Jack Wall. There's more scattered in there, but I'll leave that as an exercise.

I would probably have even more game music that I listen to in my "normal" music listening sessions if a) I found good compilations, b) I didn't fear damaging the overall experience in separating some games from their soundtracks, and the obvious c) I had more money to spend on music.

I think games are particular blessed with a wide swath of ...

Books of the Moment: Doug TenNapel Graphic Novels (Part 2)

The final couple of mini-reviews, again in order as read:

Iron West

Iron West was a brilliant steampunk western that had heart and fun and was just about everything you might expect of a good steampunk western.

Black Cherry

Honestly I was disappointed by Black Cherry. Doug warns readers of two possible sources of disappointment, and it wasn't really either that disappointed me. Black Cherry attempts to be an attempt at something of a gnostic Sin City... Mafiaso battling Constantine-style demons. The "Sin" moments feel forced and cliché (usage of curse words that seem obviously out-of-practice and just about stolen word for word from films), but are at least somewhat interesting, if unfortunately too clean artistically to be truly reeking of sin. The Catholic-flavored gnosticism doesn't bug me all that much. I've learned to stop being offended and instead laugh at the cute wishful thinking that decides that "knowledge of the Gospel" is all that it takes to stop a genocide... What bugs me is the too simple ending that ends with a bold invocation of word "Innocence" in a manner referencing the insipid cliché "innocence is bliss" (I could write a book on my thoughts on that subject...). Teach this outsider group the Gospel, but try not to teach them more than that, and envy the ignorance that once lead them to try to kill billions of people? Ugh. The ending monologue just about completely ruins an otherwise serviceable, if not much more than average, story. It has good intentions, but ultimately in the context presented it just pains me.

Film of the Moment: National Treasure 2: Electric Boogaloo

Used an excuse the other night to visit the local popcorn stadium and saw the second National Treasure. Similar watch once and forget it action fair, but unfortunately this one was downgraded in my mind from "faux intelligent" action to "mindless" action after my suspension of disbelief took one for the team. (Way too early, I might add... stretch of a bi-lingual, impromptu translation pun for the lose.)

Oddly, perhaps, more interesting and exciting to me in the entire course of the film was the attachment of How To Hook Up Your Home Theater, the first Goofy short attached to a film in nearly 2 score (or 4 decades, if you will) and the first non-Pixar animated short attached to a Disney film in about 15 years. I felt it was a good sign for a possible big come-back for Disney Feature Animation with John Lasseter at the helm. Particularly noteworthy was the use of digital animation techniques attempting to recreate the feel of the original classic shorts, and I thought it worked well...

Books of the Moment: Doug TenNapel Graphic Novels (Part 1)

Just some quick mini-reviews, ordered by own my own weird reading order:

Gear

Just fun, weird steampunk with anthropomorphic cats and dogs.

Flink

Who doesn't want to believe that magic sasquatches roam the pacific northwest as hidden, photo-averse park rangers? Cute-haters, that's who. (Reminded me tangentially of the great Futurama episode involving the sasquatch.)

Tommysaurus Rex

Happy fairy tale: Boy loses dog. Boy moves to farm. Boy discovers T-Rex. Boy eventually grows up.

Creature Tech

Doug has a weird neo-Gnosticism all his own and Creature Tech, so far, is the one that is the most there. It's a funny sort of Raiders of the Lost Ark with space eels and mad magicians. The gnostic elements simply add to the fantastical feel of the piece, and didn't bother me all that much.

Earthboy Jacobus

This a cute, fantastical "triumph over evil" voyage. There were a few things that even really piqued my interest. It's a veiled version of Jonah and the Whale and a not-so-veiled US Marines versus the "commie" hive-minded insects tale, but the art alone is worth it.

Showing off my story works...

I've had these pages around for a while, and I mentioned them before, but I finally added a big link to my story works from my frontpage and unlore. I might move those pages entirely to unlore, but I'm still debating that, but that would at least get some content there. I kept hoping to "finish" those pages before adding links on the front pages, but I don't when I expect to be "done" and I've put it off long enough as it is. (It was pointed out that those pages were "missing" by a relative when I realized that I still hadn't put front page links up.) I'm not sure it'll ever be "done" anyway, due to the loss of my desktop hard drive a few months back. Beyond lack of "finish"/"polish", there's still some other issues with the story pages:

• I'm not sure if I've cataloged every story in the archives of my blog. I know that I don't have every story I've ever posted, but I also realize that I have that huge gap pre-2004. I'm not sure if I'll ever get some of those stories back...
• Some stories are badly formatted due to database export and then re-import. I'm not sure if I can fix that. I might not have the original word docs anymore for some/all of them... I could do it by hand (it's mostly bad punctuation), but that could take a while.
• I still haven't decided what to do with non-fiction/school projects that I've posted to the blog that might be worth highlighting. At the very least, I'd still love any suggestions for "best of" blog articles that I should highlight.