Pandora and the Asian Kung-Fu Generation

Pandora is currently my device of choice for music while I doodle, and sometimes (less often) when I write. It does a pretty good job of finding songs and artists which I like based on the artists I have plugged into it. A case in point: Asian Kung-Fu Generation. I'd seen some of their albums in Japan, and always thought the cover art was quite nice, but I never sought out the music. Pandora served up one of their songs, though, and it turns out I like them quite a bit. Might even buy something, eventually.

Arglgargle!

It is, to put it mildly, slightly annoying to work on a picture for two hours, finally be getting somewhere with it, and then have Photoshop Elements crash.

And I cut myself shaving this morning.

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So, here we are, at the end of August. I got about thirty-five hundred words done in the last two weeks. If I can get six or seven thousand done in September, the first draft will be done. That is, assuming I can fit the rest of the happening that is supposed to happen into six or seven thousand words. I'm feeling it might take a bit more than that. (You never know, though. It could take less.)

Am I rushing along to try and get to the end? I think I might be. I think maybe I should, because once I have a framework in place, I can begin the serious carpentry. I think I like that part. Then again, maybe that's just me forgetting what that part is like.

The Atomic Flying Car

Jumping off from Tim's comment on my We are The Sims? post, let's talk about singularity. I mean Singularity. This is the idea (according to my understanding) that, in the next fifty or a hundred years (or maybe longer, I guess), computers will become smarter than humans, humans will be integrated/uploaded to computers, and immortality and other weirdness will result.

I'm a bit skeptical about Singularity, at least on the relatively short scale of a hundred years. The argument has to do with the point made in my previous post about increasing computing power not leading to increasingly sophisticated software.

Mind you, our software today is more sophisticated than it used to be. There has been some progress made, and there are also market forces pushing us to try and make software more sophisticated. Still, I think if you look at what software could do ten or even twenty years ago, and compare to what it does now, the changes have mostly been the kind of thing that is enabled by hardware. 3D graphics is more sophisticated now, in terms of techniques, but the basic idea could have been (and was) implemented many years ago, and most of the improvement has come from simply being able to do more number crunching, faster. That's what most of it comes down to in software: more number crunching, faster. The principles behind the number crunching haven't really changed.

Even the internet, which supposedly changed everything, didn't really change the software that much. What the internet changed was how people used the software, and what sort of software they wanted.

So, to me, the idea that computers are really getting smarter is a bit suspect. They're doing more number crunching, faster. Being able to think is a different thing entirely.

"So?" you say, "We'll build thinking machines once we understand how thinking works and we have the computational power to do it." Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe understanding how thinking works is more difficult than we think. AI researchers have been banging their head against this problem for decades, and, frankly, progress is slow.

Maybe it's too difficult for humans to design a machine that thinks like a human. "But," you say, "We'll augment our intelligence with computers, until we're smart enough to design a thinking machine." Ah, but that assumes that the kind of augmentation computers can provide will help. I think it will help a little, but I'm not sure that it will solve the problem of designing complex systems. Until we have a machine that can actually think, all the thinking that goes into design has to pass through the bottleneck of a few square centimeters of wet, gray meat in the front of some human's head. Expanded external memories, instant recall and perfect arithmetic skills might not be enough when it comes to actually thinking and designing.

Maybe we will manage to design thinking machines, but they won't be all that better than us at thinking. Faster, possibly, and with the same perfect, instant memories and math skills, but perhaps not so much better at thinking. It's a possibility.

So, for Singularity, I'm skeptical. Maybe it will happen, but I think it might turn out to be the atomic flying car of the 21st century. In 2100, people might make jokes like the "Where's my jetpack?" jokes of today: "Where's my uploaded immortality?"

We are The Sims?

There was an article in the New York Times recently about the idea that we are living in a simulation, with the catchy assertion that it is actually likely we are living in a simulation. This is based on the idea that, soon-ish, we will have sufficient computing power available to simulate the brains of all the humans on Earth. From there, it follows that some of these simulations will be run, perhaps for entertainment, and, since there are more of them than there are "real" Earths, we are more likely to be a simulation than the real thing.

I can see a couple of arguments against this. First, if my life is a simulation being run for someone's entertainment, why isn't it more interesting? Either the "real" world is an astoundingly boring place, or somebody has a very unhealthy obsession with the minutae of everyday lives. Is he really watching when I pee?

Second objection: A useful simulation doesn't need to simulate every person on Earth to some arbitrary degree of realism. Especially for the purposes of entertainment, there doesn't seem to me to be any reason to throw huge amounts of computing power at simulating the day-to-day thoughts of billions of people who don't do anything all that interesting. Much simpler models will do.

Third objection: Having the raw computing power does not translate to being able to code the simulation. The task of capturing the behavior of a brain, and also simulating the reality around that brain to a level of fidelity necessary to properly stimulate the brain, is what I would call "non-trivial." As a computer programmer, my experience suggests that exponential increases in computer power do not, actually, lead to exponential increases in software sophistication. Whole brain/reality simulations on the scale that the article talks about are so difficult, I don't see it happening except for some very good reason, and I can't think of any such reason.

Those are my arguments. I don't think we're being simulated.

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Woohoo, past the 30k mark. That makes about 2000 words in two days.

...

OK, so actually that should be par for the course, but, for me, it's about two or three times regular speed, so I'm happy. 30k is also a nice round number. It means, hopefully, I am almost three-quarters there.

I note that in my ancient Twenty Thousand post, I estimated I might have the first draft done three months later, at the end of August, assuming about 8500 words a month. Here we are in mid-August, and I'm at 30k, so even that estimate (which I thought was a horribly long time then) was too optimistic. I may be able to finish the first draft by the end of October, and show it to people in time for Christmas. Damn slow work, this.

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Just about to begin on chapter twelve. Except, I don't really know what's going to happen in chapter twelve. I have a better idea of what might happen in chapter thirteen, but I feel like I need a little side story, some kind of intermission before the music starts again.

Hmm... we leave our heroes, variously sleeping in caves or tied up on motel room floors, and turn our attention to... something else.

Love of Light

OK, so now I'm going to dive in over my head and probably offend someone.

The other day I was going through my list of artists' sites, looking for things to trim. I visited Greg Horn's site (http://www.greghornjudge.com/), in particular his sequential interiors (click on the tiny tiny "Sequential/Storyboard" link in the crowded left-hand panel). Greg is a big-time professional. I obviously thought his work was worth a second look when I included him the first time. Also, he probably doesn't give a rat's ass what somebody like me thinks. Still, I was totally turned off. Sorry Greg.

The thing that bugged me, I think, was the way the pages looked like photo-shopped collages of bad actors on top of CG backgrounds. There was a certain amount of realism, but all so shiny and evenly lit, bubblegum bright and, somehow, flat. The character seemed superficial, and the panels overly busy (a lot like the website, actually).

Today, I was wandering around the net and visited the The Athenaeum, in particular the works of Jack Vettriano. Now, Jack isn't the greatest artist of all time or anything. He may be a bit formulaic. I'm also aware I'm comparing comic books to gallery art here, but Jack's pictures have negative spaces, they have presence, and they have love of light. The difference, to me, is huge.

So, there's not really much of a point. Maybe you agree, maybe you don't. Maybe I just want to remind myself what I like and why.

24K

Not 24 Karat, 24 thousand words. It has been a bit more than half a month since I last talked about this, and I seem to be keeping up my lethargic pace.

The story is progressing, but I'm not at all happy with the last few thousand words. This whole section will need a rewrite, probably several. There's too much bumbling around jumping off buildings and onto moving cars. Characters express no character. The set pieces don't flow, and the rhythm is non-existent. Very frustrating, but I think it's better to push on. If I can get to the end, then I'll have something to work with. I hope.

What do you do...

If your protagonist character gets into a conversation with the "bad guys", and they end up being pretty convincing and reasonable? Time to reconsider where your plot is going, maybe.

Shuffling Forward

21006 words. That makes pretty good progress, for me. I also scribbled away a little at the current Ran's Daughter illustration, finally getting something which isn't too horrible to contemplate posting. Now I just need to color it.

So, all in all, things are going well on the creative front.

I can't post an excerpt from last night's work, though, because it would either make no sense or be too revealing. I also can't post any artwork, because I'm embarrassed how slow my progress has been, and I want to have a sequence complete before I let others see it again.

What was nice about last night was the way, on the way to one scene, I found something else happening that I hadn't anticipated. I love it when the characters start taking control.

Twenty Thousand

Last night I finally broke twenty thousand words on the first draft of that novella I'm working on. I say it's a novella, because I expect to get about thirty-five to forty thousand words out of it. So, 20k is about half way.

It has been a month since I regained my enthusiasm for writing this thing. The past month I have, by my standards, been racing ahead. In that month, I have gotten down roughly eighty-five hundred words.

Eighty-five hundred words. Of first draft. In a month. At this rate, finishing the first draft will take nearly three months more, and then I have to let it sit for a month or two, and then revise it, so, let's say five months. It's going to be October before I can even show this to anyone else.

Of course, right now it's not even in a state where I want to show it to anyone. I'm worried that there's not enough meat. It seems to be rushing, and I'm not sure the set-pieces are working. Right now I'm coming up on writing a scene I've wanted to write for months, but now I'm scared. I'm scared that I'm driving the story to this scene just because I like the scene. I'm scared that what I see in my mind's eye doesn't actually translate to words. I'm scared that the scene isn't going to work.

Mid-novella crisis. I should buy a sports car or something.

Linda ran off the edge of the building, carrying us, out into the hollow air. I looked down at the street four stories down, and felt every inch of that distance slap me in the face. We seemed to hang there for eternity. I heard somebody whimper. I think maybe it was me.

Stupid Excel™ Tricks

Why does Excel make it impossible to know what cell is selected when the window is not active? I can understand feedback so that users don't get confused about where input is going, but I'd like to be able to select a cell in a sheet and then do something in another window, using the selected cell as a convenient place holder. Convenient, that is, if it wasn't invisible.

What I Like (Art Version)

I think, maybe, if I show you what it is I really like as far as art goes you will have a better idea of what I'm reaching for, and how really terribly far away it seems sometimes. And if you're not interested, you can always come back later for more pictures of hotties.

First, I like realism. I like representative art. That is, art which attempts to create the visual impression of a real object or scene. I enjoy abstract art from time to time, as well as stylized art, but the stuff that I really love always seems to be that which looks real, or close to real. And yet, photographs are not nearly as appealing to me as paintings, in general. I like good photographs, and I understand the skill involved (having tried, halfheartedly, to take pictures myself from time to time), but paintings give me more. This is probably related to the next thing I'm going to talk about.

That next thing is... well, I don't know a good word for it. Looseness? Performance? Economy? In spite of loving to see a work that looks real at one level, I also love to see the brush strokes. In digital works this translates into things like Craig Mullins' pictures, which when inspected closely seem to be wild blobs of color, but when you pull back resolve themselves into wonderful, dramatically real images. I like painters who combine realism with this abandon, this apparent love of the brush stroke, painters like Gregory Manchess or Carol Marine.

I like dramatic compositions that play with splashes of color and light. But then again, who doesn't?

You may wonder, now, about the comic book artists that fill my list of bookmarks. Well, there are connections. Many of my favorites are realistic artists, in one way or another. Joshua Middleton gets me with his fine understanding of the human figure, among other things. Adam Hughes and Alex Ross both bring an almost photographic quality to some of their work. Even Phil Hale treats his often surreal subjects with an attention to realism. You'll also notice Alphonse Mucha and J. C. Leyendecker in my list, artists who stylized quite dramatically at times, but still maintained some essential connection to realism. This stylized realism, or in some way perfected realism, is another aspect of many of my favorite artists, and what I think attracts me to certain comic book artists as well as past art-deco masters and even certain illustrators from the middle of the 20th, like Rockwell or James R. Bingham (profiled (again) last week on Today's Inspiration).

Sometimes my likes pull me in seemingly opposite directions. One part of me wants to paint and render with rich colors in blobs and chunks, while another part longs for smooth clean lines, dramatic blacks, and smooth flats of the comics. Of course, all of this might seem moot when I really can't manage any aspect of that to my satisfaction. Still, it does seem to me sometimes that my internal debates may have made it even harder.

Anyway, we'll get back to the hotties shortly, or some pictures of tangerines or something.