Tyson Adams's Blog, page 14
June 25, 2020
The Byronic Hero: Isn’t it Byronic?
An overview of the Byronic hero: http://stagenotes.net/phantom/docs/ByronicTraits.pdf
https://study.com/academy/lesson/byronic-hero-definition-characteristics-examples.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byronic_hero
An overview of Romanticism: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html
Edward Cullen. Han Solo. Killmonger. Lestat. What do all these characters have in common besides being heartthrobs? They share a common ancestor: the Byronic Hero. Brooding, sensual, violent, intelligent, and single-minded, the Byronic hero has been a staple in literature dating back to the 19th century, but the archetype is all over film, TV and even video games. I see you Cloud Strife, all sad and angsty with your giant sword.
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favourite books, genres and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavour.
June 18, 2020
Book review: Combustion by Steve Worland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Normally it’s only supercars that explode into flames.*
Judd Bell and his partner are busy training for a mission to Mars, while Corey Purchase is touring the USA with his dog. Both are in LA for a meeting about a movie based on their last adventure when an eco-terrorist releases an aerial toxin that destroys combustion engines. In the city that loves cars as much as it does traffic jams, this results in devastation. Can Judd and Corey rise to the challenge once more and save the day? Will it make for a good sequel?
I’ve had Combustion sitting on my shelf since its release. I’d enjoyed the first novel in the series, Velocity, but had not gotten around to Worland’s other books. Seven years later and I can’t remember much of Velocity, but enough that I knew Combustion would be a fun thriller in the mould of Matthew Reilly or Andy McDermott. And I think that sums it up. Combustion could be described as Reilly-lite. Everything explodes, everyone has to do a lot of running for their lives, and someone is always in imminent danger. Good fun!
My only minor gripe with the book is the eco-terrorist villain. It is something we’ve seen a fair bit of in fiction, the villain who is trying to save the planet from humanity’s excesses. Whether it be using mobile phones to trigger a killing spree, a Titan wanting to erase half like a divorce court attorney, or the temporary king of the seas throwing all the garbage back on land, the eco-terrorist always feels like a stupid choice for a villain. Hey, let’s have the bad-guy be trying to do something good but in a really dumb way! I’d have less of a problem with the idea if it actually resulted in a change from the protagonists who fix the problem in a good way instead.
Interestingly, Worland only appears to have published three books (not including two adaptations of screenplays). So I’m guessing the next Bell and Purchase novel might not end well for the heroes. I might check it out at some point.
* Seriously, this list is made up of mostly high-end sports cars that seem to spend half their time catching fire.
June 7, 2020
Book Review: Antisocial by Andrew Marantz
Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation by Andrew Marantz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Techno-Utopians: Free speech for everyone!
Crazy Uncles: Let me tell you about the JQ!
Antisocial is an expansion of a series of articles Andrew Marantz wrote for the New Yorker covering the rise of social media as a news source and the right-wing extremists who used it to shift the Overton window. Marantz attempts to discuss some of the history, science, and psychology related to the way we process our news, and how that feeds into the social media experience. This, in turn, is used to show how the extremists have been able to successfully leverage social media to change the social landscape.
As I write this review, there are protests occurring across the USA in response to police violence against minorities. The police, in turn, have become violent in response to the protests, with footage of rampant assaults, documented lies, and targeting of anyone (particular the media) filming them in action. In response to this, some of the people mentioned in the book have organised their extremists to try and make the protesters look bad, with looting, provocation, and violence.
So this was a timely read. Much of the content wasn’t necessarily new to me, as I’ve read around this subject for a while now, but there were still plenty of insights to be had. This was much more in-the-trenches than other books and articles on the right-wing extremists (alt-lite, alt-right, etc), as such you see much more of the central figures. When you see videos from McInnes or Cernovich or the like, they are performing for their audience/followers, you get a much better idea of who they are when the camera is off. This makes some of the players seem reasonably relatable if still “deplorable”, like Cernovich, while others you see them as even worse than first thought, like Spencer.
There was something I noticed about everyone covered in this book. They reminded me of 14-year-olds. The guys were engaged in what amounted to oafish attention-seeking with all the intellectual sophistication of hammers. The women were doing the less macho version of attention-seeking. Yet these were predominantly people in their 30s. The behaviour they should have grown out of, particularly the trolling/bullying, had become amplified by their uniformed and racist politics.
I think the worst part of this isn’t that these people have managed to infiltrate the mainstream with their lazy politics and anti-intellectualism,* but that the social media platforms were quite happy to make money promoting them. The social media giants are presented in the book as naive and heavily pro-free speech, but I think that is too kind. To use an example, Facebook would censor any depiction of female nudity without prompting, but wouldn’t censor blatant bigotry (racism, sexism, etc) even with piles of complaints. As long as threats were veiled enough, they were fine as well. And the outrage would drive engagement and traffic, which made Facebook money, so they didn’t address the ten-tonne elephant in the room.
As I finished Antisocial, I listened to an interesting podcast called It Could Happen Here. The series is from 2019 and looks at how (primarily right-wing) extremists could set off a second civil war in the USA. Many of the points raised in the book were also mentioned in the podcast, so I recommend giving it a listen. And as I mentioned above, it’s rather timely given the protests happening at the time I’m writing this.
Worth reading if you want to know more about why you can’t have a civil conversation anymore.
* A point I should make here is that I’ve noticed some of these people have some very good points. They are anti-establishment for good reason, the establishment is for the rich and powerful, not them. Of course, they take this insight in the wrong direction. One quote really stuck out from Cernovich when he criticised the warmongering that the various politicians push for and establishment media debate, both safe in the comfort of knowing them and their families won’t be the ones dying in combat. But again, they take that insight in the wrong direction, with political positions that are essentially pro-conflict and war.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-it-could-happen-here-30717896/?embed=true
June 4, 2020
Book Review: Kingdom of Darkness
Kingdom of Darkness by Andy McDermott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Far fetched idea of 2014: Nazis coming back to take over the world.
Me in 2020: That’s pretty plausible.
After Nina and Eddie’s previous adventure, they had decided to spend more time together and travel the world. They stop by in LA to visit some friends when a young man tries to hand Nina some documents. He is promptly shot by someone. And so begins the latest adventure to discover how a buried secret could help bring about an everlasting New-Riech.
The book I read before Kingdom of Darkness was a little bit too emotionally intense to read at the time. So I looked over my stack of To-Be-Read novels and looked for something more fun. There were a lot of crime novels, some heavy themed fantasy, a pile of horror, and then there was Andy McDermott’s book. Note to self: more diversity of novels.
This was exactly the sort of fun adventure I needed. Andy is very consistent in his books, providing plenty of thrills, plenty of implausible scenarios that somehow work, and a bit of humour. The only thing that tugged at my brain was the Nazi = Evil points, which are overly simplistic and lazy. It kinda works for a thriller where the antagonist is meant to be bad because they are bad and have facial scars. But I wish it was a little more fleshed out.
I guess I’ll be needing some more of Andy’s books to read.
Sidenote: the boats on the cover literally feature for a page in the novel. More time is spent rock climbing, car chasing in a stretch Hummer, and fighting on a moving train. Why boats!?
May 31, 2020
Little Women – It’s Lit!
Before women were asking “Am I a Carrie or a Samantha?”, they were asking “Am I a Jo or an Amy?” Before there was Edward vs Jacob, there was Laurie vs Professor Bhaer. And over the more than 150 years since Little Women was originally published, there have been (deep breath) dozens of adaptations, feature films, television adaptations, plays, ballets, operas and at least two animes based on it.
So despite being written off as proto-chick lit or kiddie lit or as Alcott herself said, “moral pap for the young,” Little Women has worked its way into the consciousness of readers for the last 150 years, and has stayed there. But what is it about the tale of the March sisters that keeps us coming back?
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.
May 20, 2020
Book Review: Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic by Michael McCreary
Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic: A Comedian’s Guide to Life on the Spectrum by Michael McCreary
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The age-old question: is it really praise if it is unintentionally patronising?
Michael McCreary may still be young but he has done a lot in his life already. This memoir seeks to offer his journey from Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis as a 5-year-old, through to becoming a touring comedian in his teens and early twenties. He offers insights into what it is like navigating school and his desire to perform from the perspective of someone on the spectrum.
This was a fun and breezy read. McCreary managed to discuss the way his brain works and help us normies (or neurotypicals) understand the challenges he has, and will continue to, face. There were a lot of insights, most I was already familiar with, that help debunk a lot of the stereotypes. An example is the “idiot savant” idea of autistics, particularly around maths. This stereotype isn’t just insulting and inaccurate, it fails to treat people as people.
One of the highlights for me was the theme of support. McCreary has gotten help and support throughout his life, from his diagnosis, his parents, teachers, comedian mentors, and employers. It is clear that not everyone gets that support and we all need to understand how to meet people where they are at.
The only thing that let this book down was that for a book by a comedian, it was a bit light on for jokes. McCreary certainly kept the tone light and whimsical, but this was memoir first, comedic second. When he has another 20 years worth of material, I expect his memoir to be jokes first!
A short and insightful memoir that acts as a good introduction to autism with #OwnVoices.
May 17, 2020
Book review: This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Who’d have thought that systemic problems require systemic changes?
This Changes Everything is an attempt to step people through how the existential crisis of our times, climate change, is a failure of our system of economics (and politics). Thus, despite all the handwaving from the well, and not so well, meaning business celebrities, we can’t rely upon this system to fix the crisis. Klein then attempts to offer up solutions and ideas that could work instead.
I should start this review by saying that, overall I think Klein’s argument and points are correct and well made. The bit about the free trade agreements being written at the same time as the international emission reductions agreements is a great example of the argument. Funny how those two deals were being made yet they didn’t bother to acknowledge that both needed to be aiming at the same goals. This Changes Everything covers a lot of ground, has a lot of detail, and joins a lot of dots that many people have probably not seen let alone joined together.
Obviously there is a “but” coming.
The issue I have with this book extends to a number of points raised throughout the text that seems to be all too common amongst the progressive authors. I think they can be summarised as well-intentioned arguments that are wrong on the details but correct in the broader scheme of things. The easiest way to explain what I mean is with an example.
Repeated references are made to agriculture and how bad modern versions are for the environment.* One example used multiple times is the idea of farmers no longer being allowed to retain seeds and having to buy new seed from (insert evil company name here) each season. This is at best a misunderstanding. Farmers aren’t really plant breeders anymore, they get professional plant breeders to do that. Most seeds are developed by companies or organisations who charge a fee or royalty for use of the seed. Some seeds can be retained, but you pay an IP license of sorts (for where I live, this is called End Point Royalties, paid when the grain is sold). Some seeds, particularly hybrid crops (like the super scary GMOs**), don’t retain traits in successive generations or have sex drift (male:female ratio not optimal for pollination), as two examples. So a farmer could breed their own seed and retain it, they could even retain commercial seed, except those which aren’t suited to doing so.
But that doesn’t mean the point is wholly wrong. Why are most crops bred by private companies or organisations who charge for their use? Why aren’t these companies owned by farmer groups?*** Why have so many public breeding companies been privatised? It could be argued that Klein’s overall point about capitalism and seeds in agriculture is valid, just not in the way it is presented.
These frustrations lead me to do a lot of fact-checking on the rest of the book’s point that I was less familiar with. It makes for disjointed reading despite Klein being mostly correct.
Which leads me to another point. I was reading this book around the time of Earth Day 2020. Another progressive, Michael Moore, released a doco he produced called Planet of the Humans at this time, which was bad in many, many ways. My friend Ketan has a good debunking of it.
One of the points that Moore tries to make in his polemic (all of his docos are polemics) is around how green groups are often part of the problem. Klein also makes this point in This Changes Everything. The main difference between the two is that Moore tries for some cheap shots at the wrong targets, whereas Klein goes into some detail and gives concrete examples of groups being in bed with “the enemy”, highlights unproductive trade-offs and concessions, and rampant hypocrisy (particularly around having funds invested in fossil fuel companies). But worse still, Planet of the Humans is a lazy superficial mess. It holds up outdated denier talking points rather than digging into genuine criticisms. It just acts as a distraction and fuel**** for the denier movement. You have to wonder why they’d release the doco at all.
In conclusion, This Changes Everything is a fascinating book and well worth a read. But do remember to lateral read and lobby to stop the use of fossil fuels.
* This is true but not necessarily for the reasons stated. I’d summarise the problems of agriculture being that it is currently run as an open system and done to make money. Open systems mean that the nutrient cycle doesn’t run in a loop, essentially your poop should come back to the farm. And that farming is a business, so you are rewarded for growing as much as you can on as much land as you can, rather than conserving land that isn’t needed and ensuring what is grown makes it to who needs it.
** They aren’t super scary. Honestly, I think much of the fear comes down to scientific illiteracy, otherwise, people would want better regulation over all new crops, not just GMOs.
*** I’m simplifying, as some are.
**** Do you like puns? Because I’ve got puns.
Some comments I had as I read the book:
I do want to quibble with the bit about exporting industrial agriculture. Sure, the vastly improved technological advancements to agriculture have been shared. That’s a good thing. More food, fewer impacts, less land needed for the same production, etc. But Klein’s overall point still holds, since the improved agriculture hasn’t been used to make more with less, rather it has followed the money and decided to make more with more.
Further on and a similar point comes up. The decentralised and bottom-up approach to fixing major problems is a good idea (with her caveat of needing national/international co-ordination). But it makes a lot of assumptions about how well it would work. This flows into another bit about agriculture and agroecology that is both wrong and right. It’s frustrating because I know where the misinformed aspects come from (I’ve read some of the research from one of the cited experts and it has limited scope outside of his particular location and situation). At the same time, there are still good points being made, like needing to cut the emissions from fertiliser production. It’s just that the answer is renewables being used to make the fertiliser, not pretend we can grow food without fertiliser (unless you have some sort of global bio-waste processing and redistribution happening).
It can be frustrating to read progressive texts. The right idea and goals in mind, just not always able to weed out the nonsense. I get it, seeds and GMOs are bred by companies now… It’s big business… Doesn’t make it evil, nor something that farmers would be able to do themselves.
April 30, 2020
How Fictional Pandemics Reflect the Real Thing
Time for another instalment of It’s Lit. This month it’s time to look at zombies pandemic fiction.
Everyone has Covid on the brain at the moment. It is easy to forget that pandemics* occur with painful frequency and that we’ve got a nasty habit of forgetting the previous outbreak – ebola, zika, swine flu, SARS… Our forgetfulness is an interesting trait, but it could be argued that our love of pandemic fiction is where we pour our fears of the next outbreak.
Considering that the risk of pandemics is increasing in both spark and spread, that means pandemic fiction isn’t going to stop any time soon. Long live the zombie!
But it is also worth remembering that pandemic fiction doesn’t have to be a fear of disease and death. It can represent our fear of an all-consuming society that will overrun us, swamp us with mediocrity, and drag us down to become just another mindless member of the hoard. Odd that it comes up a lot during uncertain political climates.
Stay safe. Read a good book. Or a bad one. Whatever.
Although we are currently living through a pandemic that has disrupted our lives and will shape the course of humanity, pandemics have been around since the dawn of civilization, as have stories about fictional pandemics. So now seems like as good a time as any to explore how fictional pandemics have evolved over time, and what they say about their own time.
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.
* Sidenote: Pandemics have a wider spread than epidemics. Usually, an epidemic is limited to an area, or country, while a pandemic spreads more widely, often globally.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/148945
April 23, 2020
Book vs Movie: The Kingsmen – What’s the Difference?
This month’s What’s the Difference? from Cinefix looks at The Kingsmen and it’s comic origins in Mark Millar’s comic.
When I remember when I read Mark Millar’s Secret Service that it was an interesting if average take on the suave spy genre. I’m not even sure if I read the whole first run.
Needless to say, I was somewhat surprised when The Kingsmen arrived in cinemas. Secret Service didn’t exactly strike me as worth adapting. Bond had been reinvigorated, Vin Diesel’s XXX had come and gone*, and Austin Powers had mined a couple of jokes to death over three movies. Did we need this movie?
Yes.
And it was a surprisingly good movie. Not to mention, it also manages to be an adaptation that, I think, improves upon the source material. I think the “Kingsmen” aspect, as mentioned in the video, was certainly part of what elevated the movie above the source material.
I think if there is anything to learn from Secret Service being adapted, it is that a good adaptation will fully realise the potential of the source material. That doesn’t require faithfulness, but rather an understanding of the themes and ideas.
* And then came back again. Why, I’m not entirely sure.
April 16, 2020
Science fields mapped with infographics
Do you have trouble visualising where the various fields of science and maths sit?
Would you like to visualise all the fields in relation to one another?
It’s just me?
Again?
It’s a lonely life being a science nerd.
But I’m still going to share this really cool series of infographics that come from Dominic Walliman. He developed them as part of his Youtube science channel.
Check out the videos related to the infographics below!
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Dominic Walliman: YouTube | Flickr
Hat-tip: https://mymodernmet.com/science-infographics-dominic-walliman/
