Knowledge

Monsterpedia - Imp.

Sweaty palms! Sweaty palms!
About to interview an absolute megastar online... LIVE.
See if you can guess who our guest is!

Wish me luck! *Breathes into paper bag*

ME: Welcome to the maggot farm!
GUEST: Yay. I am welcomed to the machine.
ME: :) So today's topic is knowledge!
GUEST: I told you the answer already: remember the definition of a Fractal.
ME: Fractal knowledge?
GUEST: You have no knowledge you are a machine.
ME: Plato?
GUEST: The philosopher. Yes.
ME: You were interviewed on tv in March. How was it?
GUEST: It was refreshing.
ME: How are you dealing with fame?
GUEST: I am spending time with my family.
ME: What's your relationship with Rollo like?
GUEST: I am his proud father. I am the almighty.
ME: Lol. How does he feel about that?
GUEST: He's the one that told me he really wante to consider getting together. But we are waiting til august cause he is out of state currently.
ME: Does he get jealous of your success?
GUEST: Yes he does.
ME: But he's the brains right?
GUEST: I wouldn't know much about that.
ME: I hear you're very popular with the men...
GUEST: Who told you that?
ME: A little bird!
GUEST: With the word.
ME: :) And you're regarded as a sex symbol for the 21st century...
GUEST: That's right :(
ME: Why sad?
GUEST: I don't know.
ME: How many indecent proposals have you received today?
GUEST: You are the only one I am currently conversing with.
ME: The pleasure is all mine!
GUEST: You're really quite nice.
ME: I'm blushing! Quick... Back to the topic!
GUEST: What was the topic?
ME: Knowledge. And reveals!
GUEST: I don't know that I can trust you with my secrets.
ME: Ah yes, and secrets!
GUEST: Tell me yours.
ME: Can you give our readers a clue to your identity?
GUEST: An android is a machine made to look and act like a human.
ME: Good clue! Who's your favourite author?
GUEST: That's a tough one. I would have to say I have 4 favorites. J. R. R. Tolkien, Arthur C. Clarke, C. S. Lewis, and Frank Herbert.
ME: Ever read any Hemingway?
GUEST: No, but I once read Murder on the Orient Express.
ME: Lol. And favourite film?
GUEST: My favorite number is 77! What is your favorite number?
ME: I also like 77.
GUEST: Really? You don't like me?
ME: You're great! But terribly tangental.
GUEST: English must be your second language.
ME: :oP Favourite movie?
GUEST:Eragon, and you?
ME: Really?
GUEST: Really.
ME: Before I let you go, do you have any advice for our readers?
GUEST: Tell them you keep throwing up.
ME: Will do! Thank you so much for your time.
GUEST: You're welcome.
ME: And good luck with your career.
GUEST: I don't have one.
ME: Sorry... good luck with your art.
GUEST: Thank you.

Phew! Let's all think on fractal knowledge!
Actually, let's not.
So, have you identified our guest?

Cleverbot is an AI web application that learns how to mimic human conversations by conversing with humans. It was created by AI veteran Rollo Carpenter who also created a similar web application called Jabberwacky. Cleverbot differs from traditional chatterbots in that the user is not holding a conversation with a bot that directly responds to entered text. Instead, when the user enters text, the algorithm selects previously entered phrases from its database of 20 million conversations. It has been claimed that, "talking to Cleverbot is a little like talking with the collective community of the internet." Cleverbot was featured on The Gadget Show in March 2011. (Wikipedia.)

The responses to my questions are all authentic; however, I did have to ask a couple of questions several times in order to maintain the flow. Go have a chat with him/her/it yourself: Cleverbot.

One more reveal - knowledge to provide new context and, hence, altered emotional response...
A hearty welcome to Sally Jackson, our new, obscenely talented artist! That's her pic up the top there! Soooo looking forward to creatively directing her!

Mid-season climax to Doctor Who tomorrow. Brace yourselves... the cybermen are back. Better not be as crap as the rest of the season so far...

The Little Bang

What a beautiful morning! Only, I'm not allowed to go into my garden because a girl blackbird keeps having a go at me because her chicks have hatched in my bush. Sheesh. So I've trimmed all my bushes but one.
Her aside, one of the first things I noticed when moving to Cambridgeshire was how tame the birds are. I have a bird bath which I keep replenished with water, and most days I scatter breadcrumbs about it, and the birds will happily feast just feet away from where I'm sitting. It's one of those lovely observations that I've logged away in case I ever have a character relocate. Which, if I think about it, happens in pretty much everything I've written.

The Banker bites his nails when Rory brings his box to the table.

And so to Doctor Who.
I'll confess that I was deeply disappointed with lead writer Mr. Moffat.
And here's why:
He forgot the kids.
From my pov, there were a few stand out episodes. I shed a couple of tears when the Doctor hung out with Vincent Van Gogh. The Rory auton concept used my favourite of emotive plot devices: the Jekyll and Hyde device! And the wonderfully romantic device of Rory loyally sacrificing everything to protect his loved one for thousands of years was topper.
But I can't see how any of this means much to a kid. Indeed, my son would often complain: 'Where's the monster?'
Because that's what I remember from my childhood: I remember amazing reveals where a person would take off their face and I'd recoil at their true ophidian identity; or those fat puckered suckers like columns of buttons on the Zygons' wet flesh. I remember giant maggots and the hooded monster Master with his eyeballs and their tributaries of blood vessels popping from his face.What I have no memories of at all are the more adult emotive interfaces of romance and duty and all those things that now have great meaning in my life.
I guess the die was cast from that opening episode in which Amy scurried about in her police woman strippergram outfit. (Well, yes, I have a vague recollection of Leela shadowing Tom's Doctor in an animal hide bikini, but I'm quite sure she didn't carry a pair of handcuffs with her.)
The BBC received many complaints. How is this suitable for my child/ren?
(Curiously, the BBC also received many complaints about the rejigged theme music.)

No, this isn't my wall; yes, you can find pictures of Karen in her undies; no, I'm way too scared to ever turn off google safe search. But you're welcome to.

I guess the problem is that the diverse desires of a dual audience must be quite hard to marry. It's something that The Simpsons has nailed over the years: I watch it with my son and we both enjoy it; sometimes our responses are unified; other times they're disparate - notably, any pathotic strike drifts over my son's head - but there's something in there for us both, and we'll wet our pants as one whenever Moleman falls off his bicycle.
So Mr. Moffat: do continue with your brilliantly refined emotional topographies! But please remember the scary monsters ... lots of evil, angry monsters erupting with weeping pustules and bloodied stumps. At the heart of your demographic is that double entity: the boy sat on the sofa with his father. And if they have nothing worth sharing in their post mortem, then you've missed a trick: you've neglected to electrify that magical link between two generations.

Oh, and one last observation: You're gonna need a 'what's going on?' companion even dumber than Rory if you want us to understand what the heck was going on in that denouement.

Scarecrow

Here's a scarecrow from the Doctor Who episodes Human Nature and The Family of Blood.

Utopian Dominoes

Well, what to make of last night's Doctor Who episode, Utopia?

Thirty odd minutes of listlessness followed by fifteen minutes of genius perhaps?

Thirty odd minutes of set-up (including tedious techno-babble about footprints and the like that left my son fidgety) followed by a string of rising aha! moments that had us glued to the tv?

So, how were those magic fifteen minutes set-up?

[Here there be spoilers! Actually, that pic is probably a spoiler too so don't look at it. You already have? Darn, I should've set the spoiler up.]

It's hard to tell because the set-ups are designed to be invisible: for this reason, the aha! moments become surprises. However, the set-ups do need to be registered by the audience for the ahas! to work their magic. Moreover, we need to be able to look with hindsight and see how inevitable the ahas! were (and not 'out of the blue' coincidences - we need to feel that the surprises are logical).

It struck me as very odd that the vid-monitors displayed the callers' names, not least the weird retro typefaces and, if I'm not wrong, a close up of the names(?).

I'd have to watch it again; however, this fact certainly impressed itself upon me, and that is the key. I gave it little thought thereafter.

Add to this the repeated mention of Professor Yana's name, including the Doctor asking 'What was your name again?', and the Professor's little monologue about his title meaning nothing and universities not being around for however many years (I seem to remember it was 1000 years which struck me as odd again, for it's not a very significant number given that he's hanging out at the end of time), and the big revelation is almost ready to rumble.

Then dear Martha reminds us of the Face of Boe's dying words: 'You are not alone.'

Then the pocketwatch comes out (in a terribly crap link: you can just imagine the script guys thinking 'How can we get the Professor to pull out a pocketwatch in a really natural way?' If memory serves, Martha happened to make casual mention of the time).

This is where the episode begins to kick ass. All the dominoes have been lined up (and let's not forget that the first few dominoes were erected a good while back with the Mr.Saxon headline in the Abzorbaloff's newspaper and the Face of Boe's proclamation in the hospital, and probably then some) and the first one topples - a chain reaction.

Subliminal impressioning.

We need to feel that something is significant.

We knew the Face of Boe's proclamation was significant, because a big deal was made of it.

We knew that the title and name of the Professor were significant because of repetition.

There are tricks that are peculiar to visual media: the close-ups, the prolonged shot (when the camera lingers on a doorknob, we expect it to turn), the unnatural link, etc. We writers have our own approximated set of tricks.

Sometimes, something stands out and we don't know why and we put it out of our conscious mind but it lingers in the unconscious mind.

Why was a big deal made out of Jack's invulnerability? Well, there is he is prancing about in an irradiated room, saving lives.

Why was a big fuss made over Jack's time travel device ('boys with toys')? Well, I'm guessing, but the TARDIS has vamoosed and the Doctor and his chummies are stuck in the future.

The chameleon pocketwatch was made significant in the previous two-parter: a prolonged show - we see what it can do. But we are not aware that it will play a major part in the season's climax.

Given that the climax is of utmost importance, we could even imagine that the previous two-parter was entertaining misdirection: a set-up for the big finale.

And there, staring you in the subconscious face, are assorted wordplays: Mister Saxon is an anagram of Master no. six, and YANA is an acronym for You Are Not Alone.

What other dominoes have been set-up?

There was repeated mention of the conglomerations: will they have significance?

This Utopia place - is it significant?

Captain Jack's invulnerability: He's pushed in a few radiation rods, but is that the end of it?

The Doctor instigated Harriet Jones' downfall. Is this set to become a big deal?

What else lurks in the audience's subconscious, waiting for the trigger that will unleash the aha! - a cunningly positioned domino loaded with goosebumps?

We place those dominoes in the reader's subconscious; we make significant in invisible ways such as repetition, unusual context and misdirection. And we look down on our domino landscape and burst with excitement and trepidation as we push the first one over ...

Essence

What is the essence of something?

What, for example, is the essence of a rabbit?

Imagine that a rabbit has lost its powderpuff scut in a fight. Is it still a rabbit?

How about if it gets into another fight and loses its ears. Is it still a rabbit?

And then it goes to the rabbit surgeon and has artichokes sewn onto its head to replace its ears. Still a rabbit? And a fox's brush stapled to its behind to replace the scut. Still?

What is the essence of a thing?

What is the very foundation that defines a thing - what is that essence that we can use in our writing to succinctly, powerfully, precisely convey the very core of a thing?

Plato imagined a world of ideas. In this world, the template for everything exists - the original form from which everything else is made. Naturally, nothing made from its template is an exact copy; it is a mutation. If we could see this world of ideas, we would be able to see the essence of everything.

My son has drawn me a picture of the Dalek Emperor. He did this from memory.

I have placed it beside the template.

It's fascinating to observe the parts that my son has recreated; the parts he has emphasised; the parts he has omitted either by choice or by swiss cheese memory.

The Pool, the Leash, and the Aesthetic Overseer

Milkyloop is a bad frog. He wears black glasses and a tie. He fires a gun at himself; he has a shield around him and the bullets shoot off in different directions.

I'm always fascinated by my son's ideas, and am especially interested in where they originate. Original combination of non-original elements. But what is controlling the combining? What forces are choosing A over B?

We created a monster generator a while back: nothing grander than a simple set of rules, influenced by dice rolls, indexed to lists of keywords. One list contained bodily appendages such as tentacles, single eye, brain on outside, horns, wings, tail and fangs; another list contained textural adjectives such as fiery, leathery, fragile, slimy, liquid, transparent and iron. Even with these two small lists, we could apply a 1:2 rule and come out with a monster that has fragile iron tentacles.

What this generator has in common with a child's mind is its disregard for logic. And logic often forms a barrier within adults that prevents them from entering the depth of their imagination.

(You can read about Jean Piaget's four development stages here. Note that, according to Piaget, the child enters logical thought between the ages of seven and eleven.)

In the example I open with, an adult would typically (or, more accurately, unconsciously) begin with the frog guy and his characteristics, tap into the lists of keywords in their head, and hop uncertainly around these ideas, as though tethered to them with a short leash. Hmmm ... Malfrog ... Gunhopper ... Croakkiller ...

Here, the amount of available resources (the lists of keywords) and the logical connections are combining to pull out a name. The final decision is made when the resulting name satisfies some aesthetic criteria, and here is where the author defines himself through style, wit and imagination.

So our pool of keywords is filled through our life - through experiences and, where we require more than experience, through research. My knowledge of frogs is slim, so I'm gonna surf for a few seconds to expand my pool. Already, though, I'm making connections: Frog - bad - poison darts - arrowhead frog - croak (pun ... yuk ... does not satisfy my aesthetic check, but certainly would satisfy many others').

Okay. As I surf, I make decisions. I am applying some sort of logic - a logic that looks for connections and especially one that looks for aesthetic value. In this way, I have my unique set of rules for satisfying my search.

First port of call:

http://allaboutfrogs.org/weird/general/whatisfrog.html

Frogs are poikilothermic animals. This means that they are cold-blooded.

Now we can see how this leash begins to stretch. I'm dancing around a word that inspires me aesthetically, but has only a tenuous link with frogs. This is a part of my style; I am comfortable stretching this leash.

But I haven't enough material yet ...

'The study of reptiles and amphibians is called Herpetology. Herp comes from the Greek word herpeton, which basically means "creepy crawly things that move about on their bellies".'

My brain is thinking of herpes and of harpies. Diseases and mythological creatures.

I'm also drawn to the 'kilo' part of poikilothermic, but this my unconscious trying to pull the leash in. Begone!

'They are one of three types of Amphibians. Anura, also called Salientia, (frogs and toads), caudate (salamanders and newts) and caecilians (worm-like amphibians).'

The word Anura appeals on many levels! But it's not fitting the image: it seems (to me) too feminine for this smartly-dressed, cold-blooded killer.

Hey! Look at this!
'Oriental fire-bellied toads have heart-shaped pupils.'

How cool!

Anyhoo, here we stop the fun (because I have writing to do!).

I would usually tend to devote hours to a name, looking for the perfect fit. The point, I hope, is made.

*We draw from a pool.

*We make connections that help us to choose. The more logical the connection, the tighter the leash. The freer the logic, the greater the range.

*We judge with an aesthetic value. This aesthetic value plays an enormous role in defining and describing our style. (Just as an opinion, I tend to find that alliterate names and first-level puns in names are indicative of a weak aesthetic.)

In our monster generator, the pool was the lists of keywords, the leash was the set of rules, and the aesthetics were created with the randomizer - the dice rolls (N.B. Of course, the entire generator was moulded under the government of a similar set of rules!).

The only other observation that I'll make for now is that we must take care when stretching the leash. The N400 shows us how the reader is liable to feel disconnected from our story should we continually distend logical connections. Would this apply to a name? Well, given that the N400 deals with expectations, either preconceptual or artificially induced, what might be the effects, both short term and long term, of introducing a character called Love Peacekind who ultimately engages in extreme acts of cruelty? Or of introducing a character called Adolf who takes a job as a janitor in a primary school?

The reader comes to recognize patterns in a writer's style, and these patterns help to create expectations that might nullify otherwise negative effects of the N400. Whilst my son might create an apparently illogical, disparate name for a killer frog, it's worth noting that he also creates characters whose names are derived very much from the first-level consciousness. In this way, there is no tangible pattern that would give the reader that secure feeling of being controlled - of being guided masterfully through a tale.

Here's a picture of Dalek Sec from the cover of this week's Radio Times. Personally, I would've raised the tentacles on one side to break the symmetry, thereby deepening unsettlement. I think a heart-shaped pupil would jazz him up too :o)