Gillen!

Save the Cougar!

gillen@livejournal.com — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:11:26 GMT

Hmm... never heard of her, but sounds like something I'd like.

gillen@livejournal.com — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:19:38 GMT

But bless their little hearts for saying that my exact opposite is J.K. Rowling. Flatterers!

Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?...

Mary Gentle (b. 1956)

17 High-Brow, 5 Violent, 3 Experimental and 21 Cynical!

Congratulations! You are High-Brow, Violent, Experimental and Cynical! These concepts are defined below.

Mary Gentle is a UK author whose work has received some acclaim. Her great break-through came with 1984 fantasy novel Golden Witchbreed, which depicts the travels of a UK envoy on a planet, Orthe, where the inhabitants have, by choice, abandoned a high-tech society for a seemingly less advanced way of life. Though nominally science fiction, the novel is generally called fantasy, partly because Orthe has the feel of a fantasy world. Nothing is what it first seems to be on Orthe, however, and the envoy's journey across the planet gradually reveals a vividly imagined alternate society, where nothing is ever over-simplified or, for that matter, easy. Gentle revisited Orthe in 1987, when the sequel Ancient Light was published.

Since then Gentle has written the White Crow sequence, starting with Rats and Gargoyles (1990), which has received some acclaim, not least from other writers; China Miéville, for example, put it on his list of "50 science fiction and fantasy novels socialists should read". She has also written Grunts! (1992), a novel set in a Tolkien-like fantasy world, but told from the point of view of the orcs, as well as several other books.

Gentle is not one to shun away from difficult issues in her works and is equally unafraid of discussing and depicting violence. Neither has she settled to writing the same kind of story over and over, and, while being at her best a great entertainer, she has the ability of twisting and bending fantasy environments and themes at her will, making unafraid a key-word of her career as a writer.

You are also a lot like Gene Wolfe.

If you want something more gentle (no pun intended), try Philip Pullman.

If you'd like a challenge, try your exact opposite, J K Rowling.

Your score

This is how to interpret your score: Your attitudes have been measured on four different scales, called 1) High-Brow vs. Low-Brow, 2) Violent vs. Peaceful, 3) Experimental vs. Traditional and 4) Cynical vs. Romantic. Imagine that when you were born, you were in a state of innocence, a tabula rasa who would have scored zero on each scale. Since then, a number of circumstances (including genetical, cultural and environmental factors) have pushed you towards either end of these scales. If you're at 45 or -45 you would be almost entirely cynical, low-brow or whatever. The closer to zero you are, the less extreme your attitude. However, you should always be more of either (eg more romantic than cynical). Please note that even though High-Brow, Violent, Experimental and Cynical have positive numbers (1 through 45) and their opposites negative numbers (-1 through -45), this doesn't mean that either quality is better. All attitudes have their positive and negative sides, as explained below.

High-Brow vs. Low-Brow

You received 17 points, making you more High-Brow than Low-Brow. Being high-browed in this context refers to being more fascinated with the sort of art that critics and scholars tend to favour, rather than the best-selling kind. At their best, high-brows are cultured, able to appreciate the finer nuances of literature and not content with simplifications. At their worst they are, well, snobs.

Violent vs. Peaceful

You received 5 points, making you more Violent than Peaceful. Please note that violent in this context does not mean that you, personally, are prone to violence. This scale is a measurement of a) if you are tolerant to violence in fiction and b) whether you see violence as a means that can be used to achieve a good end. If you are, and you do, then you are violent as defined here. At their best, violent people are the heroes who don't hesitate to stop the villain threatening innocents by means of a good kick. At their worst, they are the villains themselves.

Experimental vs Traditional

You received 3 points, making you more Experimental than Traditional. Your position on this scale indicates if you're more likely to seek out the new and unexpected or if you are more comfortable with the familiar, especially in regards to culture. Note that traditional as defined here does not equal conservative, in the political sense. At their best, experimental people are the ones who show humanity the way forward. At their worst, they provoke for the sake of provocation only.

Cynical vs Romantic

You received 21 points, making you more Cynical than Romantic. Your position on this scale indicates if you are more likely to be wary, suspicious and skeptical to people around you and the world at large, or if you are more likely to believe in grand schemes, happy endings and the basic goodness of humankind. It is by far the most vaguely defined scale, which is why you'll find the sentence "you are also a lot like x" above. If you feel that your position on this scale is wrong, then you are probably more like author x. At their best, cynical people are able to see through lies and spot crucial flaws in plans and schemes. At their worst, they are overly negative, bringing everybody else down.

Author picture by the talented artist "Molosovsky". Visit http://www.flickr.com/people/25360041@N06/ for more!

Take Which fantasy writer are you? at HelloQuizzy

Anagrammed Movie Titles #38: The Men Who Stare At Goats

gillen@livejournal.com — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:14:23 GMT

I've got a bad feeling about this...

gillen@livejournal.com — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:24:01 GMT

If ever I were to start a movie studio (and had untold wads of cash to fight copyright claims...)

Ben Franklin: Founding Father and... Communist?

gillen@livejournal.com — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 10:23:34 GMT

The Remissness of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the People's Money out of their Pockets, tho' only to pay the Interest and Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money, justly due from the People, is their Creditors' Money, and no longer the Money of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell'd to pay by some Law.

All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.

Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris
25 December 1783

The Cat Piano... an excellent thing (well, the flick, not the Cat Piano itself)

gillen@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:57:10 GMT

I have been neglecting my LJ duties

gillen@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:52:30 GMT

Yes, I've been busy on Facebbok, but that's no reason I should let the good peeps here (especially those who for some bizarre and unknown reason have not Facebook-friended me) ;anguish in the cold.

I'm fixin' to make amends.

I'm awake

gillen@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:35:55 GMT

Who's with me?

Why hello thar!

gillen@livejournal.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:38:38 GMT

Where did you go, Gillen?

gillen@livejournal.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:29:36 GMT

Facebook, mostly. Sometimes you just gotta go where the party is.

I'm not closing up shop here, but it's about time that I acknowledge that LJ has become my second home.

To continue the feeding frenzy, just friend me, baby.

Happy May Day!

gillen@livejournal.com — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:26:31 GMT

So odd, the things my brain will object to

gillen@livejournal.com — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:08:48 GMT

Re Smallville:

A human-looking alien child grows up on Earth with fantastic powers attributed to effects of the color of sunlight that he's exposed to. These powers can be negated by exposure to radioactive rocks from his home planet, which are potentially lethal to him.

Okay. It could happen.

A newspaper reporter crashes through a skylight, falling 20' to a concrete floor in stiletto-heeled boots - and not only takes no damage from the fall but manages to kick someone in the head on the way down?

Oh, come on now!

We didn't start the flamewar

gillen@livejournal.com — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:41:26 GMT

The 'second-and-a-half' issue of Big Numbers

gillen@livejournal.com — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:21:08 GMT

glycon has posted scans of an unreleased draft copy of Issue #3 of Big Numbers by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz.

Although planned as a 12-issue storyline, only issues #1 and #2 were ever released before the project was abandoned in 1990. Not all the artwork appears to be Sienkiewicz'. Al Columbia had been slated to take over for him, so the assumption is that the rest is his.

is John Connor haunted by an old Hendrix tune?

gillen@livejournal.com — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:12:26 GMT

It just occured to me that you could now combine the Battlestar Galactica and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles storylines to form a single grand epic.

SkyNet the Cylon God? "You know It hates being called that."

the obligatory BSG Finale post

gillen@livejournal.com — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 07:48:40 GMT

My first thought was that it was a great finale, but really it had just seduced me with wish fulfillment and hat tips to the original series. Half an hour later, I was sitting there thinking, "But... no, waitaminute..."

1. Tory - You stupid bint. Don't you think you maaaaaybe should have told Galen about having killed Cally before y'all stuck your hands in the goo, rather than plea for general understanding and then pop it on him as a surprise? That said...

2. Galen - Tory was supposedly the love of his life back on Earth, yet it seemed kind of easy for him to break her neck over her having snuffed his simpering, cylon-hating ex-gf. That's cold, bro.

3. Cavil - Dude is all cynicism and strategy, but when one of the Five goes a little funny and kills another one he sees that as having been some attempt at betrayal and starts a firefight he can't possibly win? WTF?

4. Starbuck and the other "angels" - So what's the mechanics here? When some people die they become angels of the (Cylon?) god? And can sometimes project themselves back in time? And why doesn't Starbuck know what she is? And why, once she does, does she have to leave? And why doesn't she have the common decency to be a little less cryptic about it - at least to the folks who love her? Or, if she wanted to be nice, I'm sure Roslin would have felt a lot better if she knew that Starbuck was an angel sent back to make sure that everything happened the way it should. I mean, the crazy old biddy is dying. It's not like she'd go telling on you, hon. And what does "All Along the Watchtower" have to do with anything? And what was all that "Harbinger of Death" crap about? Seems to me she was the "Harbinger of Two Species' Survival".

5. Lee - Let's give up technology and live like the savages? Really? That's your plan, to set your own civilization back 150,000 years and hope it all works out? Fuck you, asshole. Also, why bother making sure everyone knows where everyone else is living if you're just going to trash all the tech that might help you get around?

6. Cylons - Speaking of plans... "and they have a plan", remember? So what exactly was it? Kill all the humans? That was your big plan?

7. Angel Baltar and Angel Six - "It" doesn't like being called God? You both spent the entire series calling "It" God.

GAH!

[edit: upon review, it wasn't Cavil who started the firefight - but he didn't do anything to stop it. And since the asteroid would still have hit the bird carrying the nukes, the truce was doomed from the start, whether Tory's secret came out or not.]

What Would the Overfiend Drink?

gillen@livejournal.com — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:53:32 GMT

Tentacle Grape soda

"You either know what the joke here is, or you're a very lucky person living a happy, healthy life."
- Alex Zalben, Nerve.com

Verses vs Verses: The Global Financial Crisis

gillen@livejournal.com — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:14:48 GMT

The following debate is to be had only with snippets of song lyrics. Cite artist and title in the subject line of your comment but provide no other context. No entire songs please. A verse or two at most.

The G20 convened this past week in Sussex to discuss what is to be done about the global financial crisis. There was a loose consensus that government should do more to pump funds into the banking system and work to increase trade and staunch the loss of jobs. Should they be doing more? Less? Will a more-concerted global strategy along the same lines as what the US has already been doing be effective or not?

Discuss.

My Beatified Laundrette?

gillen@livejournal.com — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:42:07 GMT

The Vatican, apparently having decided that it just hadn't offended enough people lately, celebrated International Women’s Day this Sunday with a headline article in its newspaper, l’Osservatore Romano, championing the washing machine as the greatest instrument of women's liberation in the 20th century.

Titled The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women - Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax, the article opines, "What in the 20th century did more to liberate Western women? The debate is heated. Some say the pill, some say abortion rights and some the right to work outside the home. Some, however, dare to go further: the washing machine."

In support of her claim, the author dredges up a quote from Betty Friedan, who in 1963 described "the sublime mystique to being able to change the bed sheets twice a week instead of once".

The article goes on to outline the development of the mechanical laundry washer from the 1700s to present, ending with the observation that it has been the development of household conveniences more than any other factor in the modern era which has allowed the development of, "the image of the super woman, smiling, made-up and radiant among the appliances of her house."

Public reaction to l’Osservatore Romano's "tribute" has been chilly at best.

While this is certainly not a new argument, the last time it was seriously advanced was well over 50 years ago.

Marvel vs DC / Wolverine & Rorschach

gillen@livejournal.com — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:35:21 GMT

It's on America's tortured brow that Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow

gillen@livejournal.com — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:56:01 GMT

YES!

The obscenity that was the US version of Life on Mars has been cancelled.

Writers are scrambling to work the actual series ending into this season's finale.

The proof is in the puddingheads

gillen@livejournal.com — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:26:08 GMT

Which falls faster? The Dow Jones or a stockbroker taking a swan dive from the 28th floor?

gillen@livejournal.com — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:10:20 GMT

Reality is at 2 to the power of 6,893.60 against... and falling. Please do not be alarmed by anything you may see or hear around you. You are bound to feel some initial ill effects. We will be restoring normality just as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway. Thank you.

All The News That Fits, We Print

gillen@livejournal.com — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:38:57 GMT

This just in from my Aunt Carol:

Finding it hard to keep up with world events? Is the Google newsfeed just a little too scattered for your tastes? Check out The Newseum, an interactive world map of newspapers. Just mouse-over any world city to see the front page of today's paper. Click and it will open up in legible size and give you options to go to the website or export to PDF.

Very, very cool.

Also, Tehran's daily newspaper is apparently called the Jam-e-Jam.

humanime - Summer Glau

gillen@livejournal.com — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 12:52:32 GMT

I came across a challenge to create photomanip anime versions of celebrities and started mucking about...

Oddly, I think the anime Glau looks more like Summer then Summer does. Which I guess means it's a success. I may have to do more of these.