Ted Rabinowitz's Blog, page 7

Science Censorship

Disappeared by Pseudoscience Thugs?This is very, very disturbing.
Read the whole article.

Sweet Turing Test Jesus!

It's for you.What happens when two Chatbots start chatting?This.

The Best Writing Software Ever!

I've been asked a lot...a LOT...which writing software to use. Final Draft? Scrivener? Dramatica?
Obviously, a lot depends on what you're looking for. If you're a screenwriter, film or television, Final Draft is the industry standard. That's mostly because of its automatic formatting and the ease of file sharing: screenplay format is an epic pain in the ass, and it's hard to make it look professional unless you've been doing it for a while...or (of course) you have Final Draft.

Then there's Scrivener, which lets you write your manuscript but

And there's Dramatica, which is meant to help you structure your story (NOT format it) from the start, based on a particular theory of storytelling.

And there's bare-write software that blocks out all other software on your machine while you write, stopping you from being chronically distracted - although this feature is also available on Scrivener and other word-processing programs.

What do I use?

Word.

That's it. Nothing else.

This isn't because Word is a wonderful program. It's not. It offers a lot of features, but it will sometimes lack the feature you need the most, or hide it under layers of submenus (stylesheets, anyone?) It's also slow and clunky - if your document tops 500 pages, just watch as Word struggles with pagination and the Find function. And unlike Scrivener, Word won't help you organize your documents, meaning that as your manuscript grows, your folders will fill with subfolders and scraps of text and information that will lose you hours as you hunt for what you were sure you had to hand just a minute ago.

But Word is the common standard. It will crank out your MS in any format required by your agent, editor, or publisher. If you write more than one kind of document - speeches, proposals, brochures - it will give you those too.

And the most important thing of all: NONE of these programs, not Word, not Scrivener, not Google Docs, nothing, will write the story for you.

You have to do that. With your brain cells.

Sorry, camper.

It's Medieval Recipe Day - A Winter Stew

As per usual, we're taking a recipe from that 15th Century cookbook, Le Viandier (the James Prescott translation). It's winter, so let's try a meat pottage.
Meat Rosy (Pottage)

Crush unpeeled almonds and steep them in beef broth, wine, and verjuice (a sour grape vinegar).Strain it through a cheesecloth.Cook breasts of veal and chicken together with some good piece of beef and brown it in lard. Add fine cinnamon (not a lot), white Mecca ginger, and "Small Spices" like grains of paradise, cloves, and long pepper. For color, use turnsole or alkanets. Soak in warm water for three or four hours. Afterwards put it in your pot, and stir vigorously after the pottage has boiled until it's rose-colored.
Glossary:Turnsole = a dye from the plant chrozophora tinctoria.Alkanets = a red dye plantLong pepper = a pepper that's similar to, but hotter than, our standard black pepperVerjuice = the juice of unripe grapes or other sour fruit, used as we would use some flavored vinegars today
Since this was a pottage - a thick soup or stew - we can assume the meat was prepared with grains and vegetables.
And as always, if you try this...let me know how it turns out!

Why I Love Rick and Morty [NSFW]

It's stuff like this new trailer.

"Rogue One" Q&A Review

Q. Should I see Rogue One?
A. Yes. Yes, you should.

Q. Star Wars has burned me before. Like, three times AT LEAST. Is Rogue One really good, or is it just "good for Star Wars"?
A. It's good, period, full stop. It's the best Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back. Certainly better than The Force Awakens.

Q. Okay, neat. So, how many Jedi does it have? Is it true there's a Busby-Berkeley style light saber duel on a rickety bridge over an infinite canyon while flying droids buzz overhead and zap things?
A. Umm, no. That's not

Wait, wait, hear me out. I know everybody loves a good Jedi - the comfortable yet stylish robes, the mystic epigrams, the Force-chokes and saber duels - but let's admit it: The Jedi are played out. They have been for a long time, at least since Return. Why? Because we stopped learning anything new about them after Empire. For the next four movies - Return, Phantom, Clone Wars, and Sith, the Jedi remained unchanged: their philosophies, abilities, backstory, everything. There were no new developments, with the exception of one negative one (>cough< midichlorians >cough<). Of course they got stale.

In Rogue One, there are no Jedi. Although for what it's worth, there is, in the background, something more interesting - a priest of the Force who uses it to replace his sight. Kind of  the Force version of Daredevil. And the Force is explicitly religious. (The priest's mantra is "I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.") I like it. Let's see more of this: More ways of thinking about the Force, more ways of interacting with it.

Q. Let's circle back for a moment. You said this is BETTER than The Force Awakens? Dude, you be trippin'!
A. No, I do not be trippin'. The Force Awakens was what yo might call an obligatory movie. All of its story elements were there because they had to be: another Death Star. Another young Jedi in training. Another Vader (What was his Sith title? Darth Wannabe?) More light sabers. More planet killers. The story itself was built around those ancient, reused story elements, using the same approaches that have been used for years, instead of pursuing other, more interesting possibilities.

That's not true of Rogue One. Yes, Vader and the Death Star are there, but they take a back seat to other villains, heroes, and settings. Ben Mendelsohn as Krennic is deliciously bad, even when he's being shit upon by Darth Vader. The finale isn't one more run against the Death Star. The protagonists aren't squeaky clean and virtuous - this movie clearly, defiantly belongs to the "Han Shot First" school of Star Wars ethics. The plot is simple and clear from start to finish. The fact that Rogue One doesn't have to provide fan service like the main movies freed up the filmmakers to tell a different kind of story: grittier, darker, more surprising. Better.

Q. Cool. So it's a flawless masterpiece! I'm going to buy my ticket right-
A. Hold on there, cowboy. I didn't say it was flawless.

First of all, this is a dark flick. DON'T go to it if you're looking for something that will send you out of the theater with a heart full of wonder. The movie's end is meaningful and dramatic, but it is definitely not happy. That's not what the movie's about. (Remember the line the entire story is based on: "Many Bothans died to bring us this information.")

Also, this is more of a military action flick set in the Star Wars universe than it is a Star Wars movie. You will get a story that moves forward fast. You will get a lot of action. You will get an occasional chuckle. And it IS visually exciting. But if you're looking for something that will blow your mind, this is not that movie. The visuals will be familiar to anyone who has seen Star Wars before.

And if you like aliens, this isn't for you. Most of the characters are human. Frankly, after Jar-Jar Binks, I find that a relief. No more cartoonish, CGI grotesques that are just stereotypes in alienface.

Finally (and this my biggest criticism) Rogue One deals with a lot of characters, and moves at a breakneck pace. The emphasis is on action over character development. The actors do solid work, but we don't have much time to bond with their characters and see their arcs. You want to know more about these characters, but you never will. And that's kind of the point.

So there it is - there are worse ways to spend your time and money than Rogue One.

Io, Saturnalia!

Before December 25 was Christmas, it was the end of the Roman festival of Saturnalia. The Romans celebrated from the 17th to the 23th, and later to the 25th, which was Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, "The Birthday of the Unconquered Sun God."

Saturnalia celebrated the Golden Age of Man under the rule of the god Saturn, who taught them the arts of agriculture and ushered in a golden age of peace and prosperity. On Saturnalia gambling was

Unlike many Roman festivals, Saturnalia was celebrated throughout the Empire, not just in the city of Rome itself.

Saturn.
Sol Invictus.
Santa Claus.

Io, Saturnalia!

We're Back!

We're Back Like Charles IIHey, gang -

It's been a while since my last post. The election, writing assignments, and a nasty little back problem all did their bit to make blogging a low priority.

But that's in the past, and here we are. Some exciting news: I've past the midpoint of my newest novel, Conjure Man. A bargain has been struck. Mysterious happenings have raised eyebrows.  A black site has been escaped. A devastating secret has been revealed. And things are going to get even hairier from this point on.

What comes next?

But this book is worth it. It's urban fantasy, kind of, but it stretches the genre. I'm proud to say that Conjure Man avoids one of the biggest UF tropes: the wainscot. This is the conceit that there's a secret magic world that exists alongside and underneath our own, one that silly mundanes can't perceive or refuse to acknowledge. The wainscot has been around forever. You've encountered it in the two Harrys - Potter and Dresden - not to mention The Sandman, Hellboy, and virtually every single frickin' vampire story since Anne Rice. (HBO's True Blood is the welcome exception.) Anyway, there's no wainscot in Conjure Man. Everybody knows magic exists, and everybody wants a taste.

Which is not to say Hero's Army, the sequel to The Wrong Sword, isn't progressing as well, because it is.

Fun, huh?

So, This Sucks

How much, we won't know yet.
It is beyond sad that America's best hope for its next president is his incompetence and inability to focus. Aside from his personal vindictiveness, the worst things will probably come from the court of sycophants and second raters who surround him.
To my friends who are women, immigrants, LGBTQ, Black, Latino, Jewish: Try not to assume that every straight White male in America voted for Trump. I know it's hard.
To my friends talking about leaving the country: Do you really think you can fly away from this?
And to my friends who didn't vote for Clinton: Your vote mattered. We will all have to live with the consequences, but the weight is something you'll carry by yourselves.

What It's Like To Volunteer - Elections 2016

So if you were considering volunteering or donating for the first time, here's what it's like:

Right now, the volunteer opportunities are mostly GOTV - Get Out The Vote - canvassing, phone banks, etc.

I participated in a phone bank. I was given four pages of registered voters in a swing state. I called them all on my cell. It took two hours. Most of the time I got voicemail. Sometimes I got an inactive number. Twice I got hang-ups, and twice I got strong supporters of Hillary Clinton who were glad to hear from me. And then I was done.

This isn't rocket science, and it isn't hard, but it is important.

So go for it.