Role versus Roll

Roll versus Role

As in Roll Playing Games versus Role Playing Games, at least in the style sense. Both are fun, and in my experience it's just where groups of folks settle into.

Where I've seen it, probably the key element is battle mats, grids, and figures. Theater of the mind type games tend to stay away from that level of detail, as it has a tendency to break the flow of play.

It's not an exclusive "they never do that", as the mats come out and the layouts are drawn up, but more of a tendency. Rule of cool hangs out here somewhere, as well.

I've also experienced here the roll-playing tendency to tinker with the rule sets. Blue and red box morphing into Advanced is the canonical pathway, also think of Rolemaster, Star Frontiers, Top Secret, Shadowrun, etc.

Which then eventually resulted in systems like World of Darkness, sort of the roll player's tinkering focused on getting a system that allowed and encouraged role players to come in and enjoy the pool.

I wonder how this plays out in story?

Let's see if this makes sense. Alien, the first movie, feels like it would be a Role player's movie. Ambience, setting, intense character focus.

At the same time, it's a locked-room mystery with very clear rules of engagement that are respected. Form follows function throughout.

Aliens, the second movie, feels like it should be the Roll player's movie. Jam pack the action, get moving, put cool guns and gizmos in the hands of the players and watch them go. Gonzo in the best way possible, and you can definitely see it when rule of cool is invoked, can't you?

But the role players steal the show. Bishop and Ripley especially, "back off and nuke 'em from orbit" too, it's like those moments in a good tight game where someone pulls off a one-liner that breaks the room.

What was built in the first movie, character wise, has carried over. Changed, of course, evolved and adapted, but inescapably linked.

Carpenter's The Thing and Big Trouble In Little China have a bit of this quality as well, and almost the same setup. Locked room versus gonzo, same actor and director for both, on the face of it a character focus versus a "never mind all that, let's get to the good stuff" extravaganza.

But the characters, and really it's the actors, we know that right? Everyone, James, Victor, Dennis, they're all in on this one, no seat belts, and those broad strokes become impressionistic fancy to get lost in.

These are films that, for me, work as synthesis of the duality. Are there other examples that break down on retrospect. Meaning, can I look to others and feel that, on the level we're talking about, they don't work anymore?

Road House and the first two Terminator movies come to mind, and for the same reason. The dreaded railroad syndrome.

Road House, the first one, feels in my memory like it was a set up, the GM wrote down all the set pieces and by god was going to hit every one. Because that's what was supposed to happen.

Which really just means, in this case, that a 1989 movie had to hit all the elements that made a 1980's movie "work" for the studios and producers of the time. The formula had to be set. That it worked at the time, for me comes down to Patrick, of course, but now I see it mostly as everyone having a good time, but with the seams showing.

The Terminator movies, well, that's Cameron all the way; it's when I look at all of his movies together that the rails become visible at every step. Sigourney, Kate, Linda, and yes Arnold save him from himself in the best examples; and I truly do love Jamie Lee and Arnold together. But they can only dance the rails, they can't make them go away entirely.

What about the other side of the coin then?

As much as I loved it then and now in my memory, Blade Runner. And the corollary, Total Recall and other Phillip Dick stories.

These all feel like an extend campaign where the GM could only get a couple folks together for any given night for weeks or months at a time. Everybody had a great time on any given night, but they were so separate from each other that, when you staple the pieces together, the corners overlap.

Nightmare on Elm Stree, Halloween, Friday the 13th, since they're built as series we have to take them as series: the player taking the bad guy role, and in a couple cases the other player who took on the surviving nemesis, were having so much fun that they dominated everything else.

To the point where the rest of the group stopped showing up after the first couple runs because there was no room for them in the game.

There's another type of interesting failure here as well: the one where the GM came up with what they think of as their best setup ever...

and all the players show up, don't have a clue what's going on, but they dig and give it their best shot anyway.

And as much as I love John Carpenter, this is where Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness live.

Aside: this the role side of the roll failure that is or can be a Lucas movie. With Lucas, it's more like all the players are there, they know exactly what they need to do, they're having a fantastic time, but the GM keeps handing them slips of paper with lines they're supposed to read.

So all the players read the lines and get back to doing what they're doing. Eveyrone has fun and delivers, with a running gag over what the GM's story is supposed to be doing.

John on the other hand, for Darkness and Madness, just confused the hell out of his players from day one through the end.

Another aside: End of Days and Constantine were two that I absolutely adored when I saw them, I remember that. Here and now they almost feel like responses to Carpenter's films, like one of the players from John's games moved and told the story of those games to their new GM.

Who got excited and tried their hand at it. In some ways, both Days and Constantine work better, but they still stumble a bit in similar fashion.

The Golden Child too, though it's not a response film in the same way. As much fun as Eddie and Charles were having...

I have to wonder if it's the general subject. On some level, they're all a bit of "Rosemary's Baby, but what if the cultists were gun-toting martial artists rather than New York neighbors?"

Or see why HP Lovecraft's conspiracy theorist's approach to how the world ends doesn't hold up as well as you'd think it would on film. Not that that's a blanket statement, either, considering that Alien and The Thing (Carpenter's version) are, to me at least, the best film versions of a Lovecraftian story yet presented.

There is, to me, an ultimate version of all of these. The Disney Star Wars sequels.

Here, it's like a con game room, tournament style, where we've got multiple nights, a set of common campaign notes, but each table has complete free reign to do what they want.

Every table has a completely different game going on, wildly divergent from each other in tone and style and where they want to go with this, and there's some poor sap running around journaling each table to try and build something coherent out of the confusion.

The top of each movie feels like "Day 1 here's your notes, Day 2 here's what we came up with from how you all ran it, Day 3 oh my god you folks are fantastic here's where we think it's going next!" while someone who thought they were in charge is doing the "I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue" bit in the back room.

I probably should stop here.

No really. But I can't. Because, however much I started this mess with a game analogy, scanning back through and I find myself compelled to address the elephant in the room.

I've picked on Phillip and HP and Carpenter and James and George. Well, and I've praised them too, because whatever I may say about that some of these films don't feel the same, that's in the rearview mirror.

Every one I've named, and many more, have a warm place in my heart. These and more are all movies that I enjoyed.

So to where I'm going, so please don't anyone let go of that. It's just that, if we're really going to talk films made in our little corner of the world called "genre movies", we have to talk Stephen King.

Because let's face it, when you add up on your fingers and toes the number of movies made from one writer's vision, King's the king. And I won't distinguish film from TV or what have you because at this point it's just silly.

Really: other than Stoker and Shelley, in our little world it's all about Stephen. The stories my friend, it's the stories.

Carrie the film came out in 1976. As we speak, here in 2025 and running on 50 years later, the web bots tell me there are 15 of Stephen's titles currently in development.

Carrie. Salem's Lot. The Shining. Christine. Hell, if I'm reading the list correctly, every one of those 50 years and counting has had either a Stephen King movie/what have you released, or somebody was getting ready to send one out.

There's no way in hell I'm picking apart every one of those. We'd be here for months, and my interest and yours would flag long before we ran out of stuff to talk about.

That said, can we make any sense of this stew, as a body of work? I mean, given what we're talking about?

If we're talking about these films in game terms, what we're dealing with here is the GM who's ideas are so big and fun that they can always fill the table. And it goes on year after year, there's always something more to work with.

And it doesn't matter what style any of the players work in, there's something there they can enjoy. The Body? Shawshank? The Shining? And sure those are the tentpoles, but the character focus and the story work hand in hand.

It, Salem's Lot (I prefer the first one, the TV mini series), Needful Things: sandbox style, really.

The Stand wants to be a sandbox, but at some point the GM had to add rails because they'd have just wandered around for years otherwise (and Stephen admitted it because he saw it happening while he was writing it!).

Misery and Dolores Claiborne are Kathy's movies. The Gunslinger movies so far have been the GM's big ideas that no one can quite make sense of. Maximum Overdrive? Ok I'll leave that one alone, but Creepshow was lots of silly fun.

And, to continue another small theme, we've got a world here where the "best" Stephen King movie is the first two seasons of Stranger Things, at least where we set aside Stand By Me and Shawshank and The Shining.

Ok, aside: Stephen has his reasons, oft quoted, for not liking how Kubrick approached his work. That's fine, but I prefer the Kubrick movie by far to the TV series later released. I'll note that the director of Doctor Sleep appears to have felt similarly.

Kubrick, Nicholson, and Duvall got the story on a fundamental level, and their work together delivered something special. From this far distant outsider's view, I read Stephen's view as being distinctly uncomfortable with finding that some of, perhaps many of the elements the writer viewed as important could be jettisoned so readily.

No one likes to be told that what they thought critical was set dressing after all.

But I also find it unfair to Kubrick, Jack, and Shelley. The history that forms so much of the book is there on screen as subtext and innuendo. It's in Shelley's eyes and posture throughout the leadup to the typewriter scene. Just as it's there in Jack's defensiveness.

And there was never going to be a chance to translate Danny's inner strength to the screen. The ages don't match up. Any more than Jake Lloyd could deliver what the fans, and originally George Lucas, were looking for from a young Anakin. Kubrick had to find another way of working.

Though... it's only a little unfair. However well Shelley worked with what she had, she was never quite given as much to work with as she could have been. There's more here, and we could I think discuss it relative to Rebecca's role in the TV series and how Wendy's character was viewed there.

But I think even in the novel, it's difficult to get past this: this is Jack and Danny's story, for the most part. Wendy isn't sidelined, exactly, but she's playing referee while the two main players tangle. This is a dynamic we tend to gloss over, that of the family itself. The idea of hero and villain, protagonist and antagonist, falls down when we're talking the three-cornered match at the dinner table.

I think for me, what's going on inside the story we see is the compressed series of time moments where Wendy's dynamic, the part of the story where she's active in her own path, are less in focus. Danny and Jack are on stage here and now; they respond to Wendy's actions before, and leave her actions yet to come that Doctor Sleep then concludes from, but we see it only just out of view, in retrospect.

In the book. In Kubrick's movie, of course, Wendy's story is at best hidden and barely glimpsed. For the TV series, whatever Stephen's personal mission was with respect to Wendy's character, the effect was blunted for me compared to the needs of the story itself.

And, as well, casting Rebecca de Mornay. Who I adore, and fits how Wendy is described in the original novel. But... inevitably, we're into appearance and what is considered beauty. At the time, no matter what the intentions were in regards to how Wendy's character was going to be viewed in the TV series, what the purpose was, unfortunately...

Unfortunately, casting Rebecca felt more like a rebuke of Shelley's role in the Kubrick move. For me at least; I can give a reason for it, if you'll forgive my digression?

Ok, when the book came out, I was almost 5. When Kubrick's movie came out, I was closing on 8 I think, when the movie came to the rental counter or cable, because that's when my father and I watched it.

And while my mother didn't necessarily have an issue with that, my stepmother did, but dad and I watched it anyway. And I remember distinctly Dad's comment that Shelley didn't look anything like the character in the book.

Which I had read, because again, neither at my father's house nor my mother's were any books within reach off limits.

Point being, I didn't then and don't now pay much attention to character description in a story. Water off a duck's back, thanks, I'll have my own view of the characters where needed.

Dad and I enjoyed the movie; I think for him, Shelley was just fine, it's just that Wendy's description in the book was strong enough that he had to adjust, that's all. And that momentary bump was sufficient so that, when the trailers and leadup to the TV series came along, and Dad and I were talking about watching it (no longer together, but even today we always discuss what we're listening to or watching), dad brought up Rebecca as matching the book's description of Wendy more directly.

Again, not as anything other than, "Shelley was very good but didn't look like I was imagining, Rebecca looks like we were told Wendy should". Similar to a friend telling you to go visit the museum, they've got a Rembrandt, and when you get there you find out it was really a Van Gogh. Both perfectly wonderful, but completely different, and jarring for only brief moments while you reset your expectations.

So, in my mind, I had this little bit of extra baggage on seeing Rebecca in that role, a little voice that held back out of this concern: I hope they didn't cast her just because of looks.

But that was always going to be an odd, asymmetric situation. Because Stephen's character was visually described in such a way as to be distinct from Kubrick's casting choice, and because Stephen was always going to tackle a reboot of The Shining in such a way that it was effectively rebuking Kubrick's movie, the whole dynamic was guaranteed to generate some amount of unease surrounding Wendy's role and casting choice.

For me, anyway. Loyalty to Shelley and Rebecca both, and a certain amount of discomfort with the inevitable way Hollywood could have pitted the two portrayals against each other.

All that said, Scatman's end is another story altogether. Scatman had, I think, just the right touch, especially in working with Danny (Lloyd, the actor, playing Danny Torrance, the character).

And then Kubrick did him wrong. While, though, holding to the rules of the game as they were understood at the time.

Consider: take away the status of The Shining as a novel, and its writer. Now consider Kubrick's film in isolation in the rules of the road in the 1970s.

Yeah: by the rules of the horror movie under those conditions, Dick Halloran doesn't get to the end of the film.

Futher, let's point out and acknowledge the complications associated with a black character. This is freighted territory.

But even then: Stephen had already stepped outside the usual boundaries by having Dick survive. And the book had been more than successful.

So I come back to that Kubrick did overstep and treat both Scatman and Dick Halloran badly.

At minimum that's a lesson in choosing your weapons appropriately. An axe of necessity doesn't really allow for "injured but still mobile enough to help" as in Stephen's story and the roque mallet.

Really though, I don't think Kubrick could let go of that the only murders in the story happened in the past, and while Wendy, Danny, and Dick paid a bloody toll, only Jack paid the ferryman's fee in the present day.

We get trapped in our expectations, I guess. I do think it more than a bit wild that it was Kubrick who chose the conventional, cliched path over King's more original path less traveled.

All that said, here we are back at the rules of the road bit I mentioned for Alien. Both Stephen and Kubrick present, basically, another locked room story. Both set out their rules, both recognize and give life and breathing room for incredible characters, and then both follow their rule sets to the end.

Both stories work in the functional sense, and in that creepy, brain stem level frisson that follows us ever after. Yeah, I think Kubrick completely chickened out, first in (for a famously detailed director!) ditching the roque mallet (come on, a croquet mallet would have done just fine) then in killing off Dick Halloran. But that doesn't mean I don't recognize and appreciate how the film version stands as its own thing.

I guess I just wish that Kubrick had more recognized Wendy and Dick's roles in the larger story.

So, before we move onto the homework assignments for next week....

just kidding. Have we said anything? To the degree any analysis of fiction says anything, I mean? I think so.

I mean, other than just what my personal film opinions lean to.

In that case, if there's anything here, maybe it's as simple as that how a writer or director (or audience, them too!) view a character and the world they inhabit matters. We're not looking at a diamond, or a setting.

We're looking at a ring. When setting and stone and all that work together, we move from form to function, and then hopefully on to memories for a lifetime.

And Jimmy Has Left Us

And Jimmy has left us

That this occurs as the most recent election and its consequences become clear is a prosaic accident.

That his person and personna highlight that the electorate just can't seem to hang with genuine people is... essentially American, I suppose. Consider that Truman hung on by the skin of his teeth. And that Bush Sr was kicked to the curb *by his own supporters* for the essential sin of attempting to balance the budget.

And now Joe suffers the wages of political sin. Of having cleaned up a mess which is now set to return fourfold.

We are not vouchsafed good grace on exit any more. Teddy Roosevelt demonstrated this, the once and future king simply perfected it for our fallen age. Jimmy suffered the essential inability to pass by without comment.

Which of course hastened his exit from office to begin with. That he shared initials with an animated conscience is... again, essentially American. And rewarded similarly.

The charity work should have been more than that Habitats for Humanity is recognized. But there are more should have beens. We now enter the age where more are employed in the renewable energy sector than in the oil and gas field. Such is Cassandra's fate.

I wonder now if we will have again someone in that office who can create, read, and build from an engineering drawing?

We've long since proven that those who have swung a hammer (or any other variety of idiot stick) for long enough to generate callouses need not apply.

How Your Correspondent Spent the Year So Far

How Your Correspondent Spent the Year So Far

Alternatively: Why so quiet?

The year began with a hangover. Normally, the holiday period at the day gig is quiet; everyone gears up for the new year by spending what vacation they've squirreled away. This year was different.

I had a couple of potential projects come up in that usually relaxing period. Then, the first few months of the year added to the pile. Every time I looked at my phone, it seems, another new project had landed on it.

Now, on the one hand, this is great. Job security is a thing, right? On the other hand, you start to look at the calendar, count up the hours and the days and wonder, hey, does anyone understand how much work these will take?

Let's back up. I spend my time at the intersection of science and engineering. I came from multi-discipline and to multi-discipline I go. I'm learning what it means to be a generalist. In many senses; development at several levels has entered the picture.

The research part is supposed to be a given. That's my baseline. It's also, I realize, the time that I need to protect, while still being available for the service aspect of the job.

The first five months of the year, I did my thing on more or less the usual schedule. One week on the road, one or two weeks at home. Since June though, it's been more of one month on the road, one month at home.

I say a month on the road, it's more complex than that. It's much more like being a touring musician, Monday through on the road, weekends at home. Then pile as much downtime at home as I can get for a month, rinse and repeat.

Some years ago, one of my mentors talked about daily practice. He meant it quite in the same sense as we both understood it as sometime musicians: there is a daily rhythm that needs to be there, of the practice of the work.

Out of rhythm, out of time, and shortly out of sorts on all kinds of axes. Personally, I'd love to be able to say "Hey, I learned that already" and not revisit it given all the other things I could be digging into.

I do myself and others a disservice when I think that way. So, in between and alongside, I've begun digging back into daily practice. I'm behind myself, but I can see a road ahead, or a trail, asking for footprints.

I also need to remind myself not to get a whole list of goals and dreams and things to add to my work. Otherwise I'll just bury myself in all of those pieces which I haven't been able to get to. There's enough of that already, no need to do it to myself.

One of the elements of generalization I'm working on is learning to be a novice again. The point, I remind myself, is not to be the expert. The point is to learn to talk to the experts, understand and collate and merge.

As ever, a work in progress.

They Might Be Giants

waiting for the show to begin, and marveling at how so many in line for this show look and sound so much like we all did, lo' those many years ago when we first caught TMBG.

it's a good crowd all 'round, sold out and ready to roll.

a few board issues later, a good night was had by all...

A Confusion So Common

A Confusion So Common

Brad Delong expresses a type of confusion that is so common that it has its own literature. Specifically, he's worried that he doesn't understand what practitioners mean when they write out things using some of the tools of quantum mechanics. In particular, some of the quick and dirty algebraic manipulations that practicing physical scientists throw around when using that most mysterious of objects, the wave function.

It's always a good idea to go back and look at what's going on under the hood. First, remember the first rule: to the best of our understanding, the fundamental particles are all both wave and particle. Photon, electron, all the others, to any degree that we can measure, all are both tiny little particles. And they are waves.

So, anything we do to describe these particles must carry the same fundamental duality. A wave function that describes such an object must carry both particle and wave information, simultaneously, if it is to do its mathematical job. Otherwise, it's not up to the task.

So what then is the mathematical object we write as |A)? |A), our potential wave function, is a complex function. That is, it is a function of complex numbers. As such, the object (A| is the complex conjugate to |A). If these were real numbers, (A| would be the inverse of |A).

Which leads to the next object. (A|A) is a single, real number. Often, depending on normalization convention, as implied by the inverse or complex conjugate, (A|A) = 1.

If |A) were a relatively simple function, that by itself would be enough. But because of the first rule, it's a little more dramatic than that. (A|A) means then something more complicated than simply multiplying |A) by its complex conjugate. What it means more fully is, multiply |A) by its complex conjugate, then integrate the result. If A is a function of space and time, we integrate over space and time to get 1.

If A is a function of momentum and frequency, then we integrate over momentum and frequency. But the operations involved are the same. Multiply, and then integrate.

Of course, the first rule means that this isn't the end. |A) is also a matrix. And (A| is then the conjugate transpose of |A). In which case, (A|A) means multiply the matrix A by its conjugate transpose, which gives a matrix, and then take the trace of that resulting matrix. The trace is then a single number, usually 1 due to normalization.

This goes even further. |A) is also a field, and an operator. But that comes later.

First, let's talk about H. H, the Hamiltonian, is, for the particles we know of at least, a special function (operator, matrix, field) of its own. In particular, H|A), which means to take the operator H and act upon the function A, gives the energy of the system as E|A).

More specifically, if (A|H|A) means operate H on A, multiply the resulting matrix by the complex conjugate of A, and then integrate, then the result is E, the average energy of our particle. Or, in matrix language, multiply the matrix H by the matrix A, multiply the result by the conjugate transpose of A, and then take the trace. The result is E, the energy of the particle. (A|H|A) = E.

H, the Hamiltonian, is the operator which measures the energy of system. Or, alternatively, if we perform an experiment on a particle and measure its energy in a given experimental setup, then H is the theoretic function that we seek which, when operating on a test function, gives the same E as our experiment did. In which case, we speak of H as defining the system. There are other details about H.

One of them is that H also generates the dynamic information of a system, not just its average energy. That object looks like exp(iHt), where exp is the exponential, i is the imaginary number (i.e. square root of -1), and t is time. Then exp(iHt)|A) is the dynamic represenation of |A); alternatively, exp(iHt) acting on |A) generates |A(t)), the propagation of A into the future (or the past).

Either way, the algebra involved always looks like some version of (A|H|A), the multiplication of two matrices, followed by multiplication by the complex conjugate and taking the trace.

Now, let's go back to H|A) = E|A). H is an operator. E is a diagonal matrix of scalar, real numbers.

Or, to put it another, equivalent way, |A) is the matrix which diagonalizes the Hamiltonian. Thus, the wave function is an operator in and of itself. This is where a detailed linear algebra book, one that goes all the way through orthogonality, similarity and unitary transformations, and so on, begins. This is also where practitioners can get funny looks when people ask "what is the wave function?" In practical terms, the wave function here is "all of space", or more particularly any of a broad class of functions which measure (or span) space in a particular way. This is a particular generalization of the way in which position means "any real number" in the equations of classical physics. To ask after the "nature" of a wave function is to ask after the "nature" of numbers. They're the same thing, just written and collected in slightly different ways as needed for the use.

This property of A has some interesting side effects: A can have a simple, easy to write down structure for small scale systems. But that structure can be drastically different at larger scale. So much so that "two-level model" is either a curse or a blessing depending on area of work. Or the time of day, phase of the moon, color of the wine...

All of this is really back to the first rule. Which is that we have to keep track of both particle and wave nature simultaneously. Specifically, we have to deal with functions like A(r,k). r here is position, k is wave number (momentum with certain conditions). All of the notation is a reminder that we must always be careful about when, and in what order, we do something like B(r,k)A(r,k), a multiplication that could be over r, or k, or both, followed by an integration. Or a sum. If you write it out in detail, with full notation, it's tedious, painful, and you're guaranteed to lose track the farther into the work that you go.

Eventually, if you try and do everything in full detail at every stage of derivation, you are guaranteed to screw it up. So first Heisenberg, then Dirac, came up with different shorthand methods. Which just confuses things, because any of the notations can be written as any of the others. And, more unfortunately, Schrodinger's detailed methods involve so many elements that the shorthand has become the common method of representation even when their use confuses everyone involved, expert and non-expert alike.

This is the point where, if you've heard of it, the "shut up and calculate" school of thought stops, more or less. And, for all intents and purposes, that's sufficient. Assuming I haven't just made your confusion worse, the thumbnail description above gives the nuts and bolts elements. For many problems, there's not really any need to go any further.

But there are problems for which this explanation isn't enough. Feynman, Dyson, Bohm, all of them useful and, for some very significant problems, essential to go any farther. Who knows yet whether or how Many-Worlds will lead further, but it's one of the current cases where folks have tackled the basics again. There's always something there to think about anew.

And get confused over. Duality all the way up and down.

Penrose vs. einstein

A few thoughts on the new toy theoreticians just received...

This one is probably lost already: it's Penrose because named after a person. It's einstein because ein stein, not Einstein. Even odds that the original namers didn't even notice the pun until 2 or three others read the paper. Some of us aren't allowed to name our discoveries without adult supervision...

The Penrose tilings require multiple shapes. The ein stein requires only 1. This is where the magic lives. It's also going to be the "huh? But what about..." moment for a lot of the innocent.

Local repeats here are not periodicities; rather, they are similar to tossing multiple heads in a row with a fair coin. This is an area where visual intuition clashes with an algebra.

So how is this useful? Oh my word. Give us all time, every theorist has a bag full of toy models and questions to sort through at the moment, checking fit. In my old world, glasses liquids gasses and plasmas should all be getting checked over like a teenager with a hand me down car and a bucket full of paint.

Thus Machine Learning

Thus Machine Learning

Whence then the new way forward? I'm thinking what we're looking at is similar to when windowing operating systems came in, then the web, search engines, then yes finally Facebook and Twitter. What do all of these little twists and turns have in common?

Whatever else, each of these little steps gave people a way to interact with and through computers than they otherwise had. To use a computer prior to windowing OS's meant a blinking cursor that gave no information whatsoever. You had to ask someone to show you the way. Windows at least had a funny little pointer and some clicky responses. Same thing with the web versus the internet over telnet and BBS's. Yahoo and Google in turn made it possible to find more of these funny little visual objects.

Then Facebook and Twitter made it possible to talk to other people. Forums and blog comments, sure, but just like DOS and VAX and Unix all existed and were perfectly cromulent before Windows and MacOS...

Point being, machine learning systems give folks another route to interact with and via computer. It's already here: Siri, Google Home, they're useful as hell if you play with them. And of course I've hit the limits of what they'll let me get away with; if I find a way to trick the little beast into giving me voice access to its operating system, oh boy are we on our way. But I'll settle for what it has steadily grown more capable of.

The weird part being that, just as with all these other analogous steps, we'll see folks treating them as both bigger and smaller changes than they are. Bigger as in no, Francis, we're not any closer to Skynet today than yesterday; smaller as in discounting the flood of crap that's already being felt at short story markets. I've no doubt at all that there are plenty of quick-built autobooks on Amazon as we speak.

Some of these are better steps than you might think. If nothing else, form letters now might have a little personality. And yes this is a big help to folks who approach anything longer than a text message with anxiety (and that's far more people than care to admit it). Auto-complete a word-fragment or two at a time is distracting to me.

But I recognize well that there are many people for whom writing is a chore, at best. We're already living through a round of the "death of email", an accident of that text messages and tweets require a more terse approach. Yes it's somewhat of an irony that this will result in more email that doesn't get read or is misunderstood through clicking away halfway through the first paragraph, but what are you gonna do?

Visual artists may yet end up with something similar to Spotify and similar, some sort of clearing house approach with guaranteed pennies per month for access to train the latest and greatest art program. But there'll be pain to get there and no guarantees anyone would take the practical. Not to mention that there's apparently not even a hint of extending Discord or Getty Images to such a possibility. Just sue and pray.

Of writers I've my doubts that something similar could reach either proposal or acceptance. There's too large a gap between the haves and the have nots, and a waiting on my lottery ticket to pay off attitude among most of the have nots. Point being... nah, there's no point.

Will it stop you from writing? Or making art of any kind? That's the only answer that matters. Twenty years from now the kids will use it to create new forms of art. The current short story editors rejecting machine-written work out of hand are right to do so. Now.

Their successors will need to have different attitudes. Because the future writers certainly will. Can you imagine a radio station refusing to play music that has samples in it? That's where we're headed; I just wonder who's gonna blow up a stack of computers in Commiskey Park?

Actually, let me go ahead and say that point again: Sampling and re-mixing have been part of music for going on 60 years now (and yes it really did start with the Beatles, if only accidentally. The Who and then Pink Floyd circa Syd Barrett did it on purpose). If your playlist includes rap, contemporary music of pretty much all varieties, or electronic music of any era, you'd best be looking in the mirror before you dismiss machine-generated writing or visual art. Because it takes a lotta damn gall to hike up your skirt and start screaming now that they're coming for your art after musicians have been forced to accept the same phenomenon without recourse or acknowledgement from the rest of the art community. But I guess a little bit of hypocrisy goes a long way? Solidarity baby, at least for the write sort?

Of course I'm going to take that pot shot. The class snobbery at the heart of publishing (English language) is as viciously small-minded as it's ever been. Some few niches have been carved out for those who've taken advantage of the e-book opportunity; will they even now draw up the bridge behind them? Historically that's the way to bet. It's time to practice our sneers folks, it's always best to make sure the younger folks have ways to easily memorialize their elders. It's a sign of respect what what?

What about me? My biggest issue right now is that I'm struggling through a year of burnout and now recovery. The rise of machine learning is interesting for a variety of reasons; it means as little as to why I put my fingers to the keyboard as does programmed music for what I do with the guitars and other instruments sitting around the house, i.e. not a whole hell of a lot. Excepting inspiration of course, but that's a story of a different horse.