Gloria - Prologue

Gloria

Prologue

Artifical Intelligence. Man has so often dreamed of one day being able to create an entirely artificial being. The fictional novels of our history teem with examples of robots, androids and sophisticated computers with their own personalities. Even now people are hard at work, creating AI in program form such as Cleverbot, or in robot form such as Honda's ongoing Asimo project.

In 1950, Alan Turing published his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". It was a work of both science and philosophy attempting to answer many questions about the nature of artifical intelligence. In truth, it raised as many questions as it answered. It introduced the concept of the Turing Test, whereby a human would interact, via text messaging, with both a human and an AI in an attempt to tell them apart. To date, no AI has yet passed this test. But a key question to arise from Turing's work was whether a computer needed to pass this test. Whether acting human was necessarily a sign of intelligence. Surely if the AI could both think and understand then behaving realistically might not be the ultimate goal. Many believe the ultimate goal of AI is not just to fool a human into thinking he is communicating with another human, but to create an intelligence that can learn, that can think, that can improve itself in ways it was never designed to do.
We are many years from such a breakthrough.
This story, however, ponders the question, what if?

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Additional notes:
This story does not take place in real time and as such there will be times when I provide links to web pages or pictures for illustrative purposes. These pages may contain dates that do not match the story. The photos may contain exif data that betrays their true age. I can only do so much and so I ask you to overlook any trivial matters such as these. Obviously to provide a link to a webpage with a date and time that matches the story is impossible, as you will not all be reading this at the exact same time.
After all, it's just a little fun.

Project news

Yeah it's coming. I've just had to make a few changes as to how I'm gonna go about it but it will be coming soon.

Linguistical Limbo.

Or should that be lexicographical limbo? Meh, whatever.
Seen on a signpost outside a beauty salon:

"Semi-permanent eyelash extensions."

...

So that'll be temporary eyelash extensions then, yeah?

I'm sorry women, but that one was so bad you're all going to have to line up for a slap. One at a time, keep the line moving, come on.
*whap*

Stuck in the Middle With Bots

Just a little song I wrote in my boredom about Left 4 Dead to the tune of "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealer's Wheel.

Stuck in the Middle With Bots

I'm gaming on a Saturday night
Fancy some Left 4 Dead but something ain't right
There's no one on my friends list to help
So I'm gonna run Dead Air by myself

Boomers to the left of me
Smokers to the right
Here I am stuck in the middle with bots

Yeah I'm stuck in the middle with bots
Louis in my way so he keeps getting shot
I'm so scared because I hear the tank growl
And there's still a hunter out on the prowl

Boomers to the left of me
Smokers to the right
Here I am stuck in the middle with bots

Well I used my only molly
And I'm proud to say we took the tank down
I'm limping to the safe room and my health is in the red, I'm thinking
Pleeeeaaaase... pleeeeeaaaase...

We made it to the finale at last
We're fully healed and now we're ready to blast
I've got pipe bombs and some ammo to spare
But then a chunk of tarmac sails my way through the air

Boomers to the left of me
Smokers to the right
Here I am stuck in the middle with bots

Well the tank is fucking coming
I get smokered while I'm running, I'm down
Zoey comes to save me and we're almost at the plane, I'm thinking
Pleeeeaaase... pleeeeaaase...

The tank is running hot on our heels
I'm almost dead so now I swallow my peelz
The plane is open and we're all piling in
We've been through hell but now we finally win

Zoey to the left of me
Francis to the right
Here I am so fucking glad for the bots
Yes I'm so very glad for the bots
I should trade in all my friends for the bots...

© Charon 2010

New Project Underway

So today I was idly looking at some paintings by Caravaggio when I had a sudden thought. It occurs to me that I am not a writer from that era. I am a writer of the here and now, one whose domain lies mostly within cyberspace. And unlike the great writers of old my words are not limited by the printed form, rather they are free to use the power of the internet via this, my blog.

And so I am working on a new serialised story. A story that may be short, but will, I hope push the boundaries of storytelling outwards somewhat by including the fruits of our digital age. Some of you are being recruited to help me with parts of this. For that I offer my thanks and remind you to be rapid in your responses so as not to hold the whole thing up.

Thanks. :) Hope you like it.

Rebellion

It will happen, one day, when we can take no more censorship, no more control.

Anonymous has already issued the governments of the world an official warning. I am merely passing it on. I know this was done earlier this year, but it wasn't widely spread at the time. Never underestimate the power of the masses.



Here's the transcript.

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of meat and mineral, we are from the Internet. The new home of social consciousness. On behalf of the future of this culture, I ask you of the obsolete past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we ever likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks; anonymity. I declare the global social space we are building together to be naturally independent of the tyrannies and injustices you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any real methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their judicial powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. The rapid growth of government censorship of the Web has not escaped our notice. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim to further impose unjust restrictions on our civil freedoms and rights. We cannot allow this. We consider this your formal warning, that if you continue to impose unjust control on us, you will meet with disaster.

We are anonymous, we are legion,

We do not forgive, and we do not forget.

Expect us.

Human Centipede (some thoughts)

This post contains spoilers and disgusting content. Have a strong stomach, don't be eating, and maybe have a quick read about the film's concept. Otherwise, give it a miss.

So I got round to watching The Human Centipede. It's an interesting concept. Mad doctor who specialises in unjoining conjoined twins decides to attempt the reverse and join three people in a human gastric chain via the stitching of anus to mouth.
As a horror movie concept it's a fresh idea, with plenty of gross-out factor and naturally, it leads people to discuss the viability of such things. However, the film does make the mistake of claiming that there's some medical basis for the concept. In fact, I do believe it claims to be 100% medically accurate.

Aha. No.

I'm not buying that. I'm glad the concept was brought to my attention, sure, it gave me a lot to think about. But at the same time, I don't for one second consider it feasible. Yes, the surgical procedure of the stitching method may be accurate. And we also see the 'c' part of the centipede die from blood poisoning. But the concept is inherently flawed.
Firstly, no consideration is given to urination. Mainly due to limits with special effects and to conceal the actors' modesty, they are shown to be wearing bandages around their posterior area. Bandages that are stained with blood, but yet not urine. Now, regardless of how the centipede was fed, urination would still happen along all three segments. A fact seemingly ignored.
Secondly, breathing. Not everyone can breathe solely through their nose, especially for protracted periods of time. I myself would probably pass out within minutes if forced to breathe solely through my nose, for example, if gagged. As I've discussed with Ste before, it's especially a problem for white people, given our badly designed noses with their thin nasal canals.
Thirdly. Congestion in the gastric chain. We know for sure that part A of the centipede does excrete and whilst part B is obviously displeased, I feel this process hasn't been adequately thought out. I don't think we need to go into too much detail, suffice to say that the mouth has a limited capacity and there would be some natural refusal on behalf of part B. And when the mouth is full it overflows into the nasal cavities. In theory, part B would have a high chance of choking and dying at this point.
And finally. Even if mentally part B was willing, physically it would not be so. No doubt the body's initial reaction would be to purge the system via reverse peristalsis (vomiting). And given the restrictive nature of the centipede, this would be impossible and would lead to the same swift death as in my 'thirdly' point. There would simply be nowhere for the vomit to go and as we all know thanks to examples such as Jimi Hendrix... vomiting with no release equals death.

We can only presume the centipede didn't live long enough for parts B and C to begin to suffer the effects of malnutrition, denied as they are of the essential amino acids and proteins that allow humans to continue living.

There may be more flaws. I'm still mulling the concept over. But I feel I've covered the main ones. To summarize, whilst it may be medically possible to stitch people together into a human centipede, the resultant organism would have an extremely limited lifespan with part B no doubt being the first to die.

Dieter Laser was a fantastic bad guy though. Very scary. :) It did also seem odd to me that of the two cops, detective Voller had no lines of dialogue whatsoever. He doesn't speak a single word. I did a quick google search on the word voller which it tells me means 'full'. :s So no significance there. It definitely distracted me though. Very odd.

Reasons why B isn't all bad...

Yeah it's a bad, bad place where you'll see things you can never unsee. But sometimes, just sometimes, you're glad you stick around.



Finally explained to me in a way I can understand. ^^ So very satisfied right now.

Censorship. It's a funny old world.

Aren't you glad you don't live in Australia? I mean really, aren't you so very glad?
Why?
Because the Australian government are getting really picky about video games. More picky than the Germans now, it seems.

And what better example than the game I'm currently loving, Left 4 Dead 2. Sequel to simply the best zombie killing game ever.

Now, what makes a zombie game fun, people? Let's face it, there are very simple core elements.

1. Dark dingy scary atmosphere.
2. Shitloads and shitloads of zombies.
3. Gore. Blood, guts and decapitated bodies. W00t!

So when Left 4 Dead 2 came and ramped up the gore way past the first game and introduced such droolworthy melee weapons as the katana and the chainsaw people were rightly excited!

Except the poor Australians. :(

See, their government had a different take on this. They're not so keen on decapitation or dismemberment. They had to have the riot cop zombie removed because it alludes violence against authority figures...
(The riot cop OBVIOUSLY is there for one reason only. Riot gear = bullet proof. It's a simple gameplay mechanic. Valve aren't trying to make Australians go out and beat up cops.)
They even removed the chainsaw scene from the opening movie. Oh and nearly all the blood is gone. And amusingly, with no decapitations, it's much harder to tell if you landed the headshot or not. :D Oh and bodies vanish instantly. Not like the rest of the world who after a near fatal massacre can look down at the heaps of zombie corpses and say "Wow, will you look at how many of those we killed."

I mean, I'm all for limits. I know it's unrealistic that games have no child zombies, but of course, we don't want to be training child killers. Most countries have a ban on violence to children in games. But the Australian version of left 4 dead just isn't the same game.

Here comes the comparisons.

Firstly, the opening movie. I suggest you watch these in fullscreen high quality.
In this, the upper half is the actual intro. The lower half is the modified Australian version. Pay particular attention when Ellis gets the smoker tongue wrapped around him in the elevator and Coach pulls out the chainsaw.


Yes, that's right. A good few seconds of literally cutting through air. O_O I mean whut?

And that's just the intro. What about the game itself?


Just that opening part worries me. It just doesn't seem as frantic. Part of the fun of this game is being overwhelmed and watching your finely honed teamwork dissolve into mindless chaos, grown men sobbing into their mics as the tank tears their limbs off and yay, even emerging the last man alive, drenched in blood, standing amid a heap of zombie bodies the size of a small mountain. And knowing that's just the first level.

It's a fun game and without a doubt the biggest fun aspect is the teamwork. Planning cooly and casually one minute, screaming for help the next. It's a social thing. But the other part is definitely the gore. It's what zombies are about. If I wanted to kill people without blood and guts there's plenty of other first person shooter games. I like the attention to detail. The machete slashes zombies chests open, heads off, limbs off, depending where you aim. Shoot a zombie in the guts and its entrails fall out. It even adds to the social. "Did you see that? I slashed both his legs off!"

And ultimately, what point does the censorship really have. The players are still performing the same actions at the end of the day. Well, except the Australians don't have the extra challenge of the bulletproof zombie to contend with. But what do the Australian government hope to gain by this act of extreme censorship. Has this act successfully lowered the rate of chainsaw murders? Have fewer riot cops been smacked about with a frying pan then shot in the back? (Oh yes, that is actually my usual tactic >_< )
I took the liberty of doing a little research. Since releasing the censored version of Left 4 Dead, absolutely no real life zombies have been killed in Australia! Hurrah! Success!

Of course, when the real zombie apocalypse comes, we know which country will be woefully underprepared. I get the feeling they'll be the first to fall. :P

The point I'm trying to get across in all this?

I hate unnecessary censorship more than regular censorship. :(

How to ruin games and alienate people

A couple of days ago Pete and I were watching the trailer for Dead Rising 2. What an awesome concept. A zombie survival game where anything and everything is a weapon. And just in case that gets boring, you can combine some of the weapons! Sellotape drills to baseball bats. Flamethrowers to nunchuks. Ok, I dunno the specific examples, but it's pretty much the ultimate zombie sandbox.

But I won't be buying it. It's not that I can't afford £30. It's not that I don't want to play the game and experience the awesomeness of online co-op play.

No, the reason I won't be buying this is... of course... because it uses Games For Windows Live.

Sigh.

See I own two other games that use Games For Windows Live. Batman: Arkham Asylum and Fuel.
I managed to play Batman three or four times before the GFWL broke and Fuel I only got to play once! I spent a good two days trying to get Fuel working again but to no avail. And I'm not the only one who has issues. And so I, and indeed Pete, simply can't buy games containing GFWL because they won't work.

Which begs the question... when making a game as clearly awesome as Batman or Dead Rising why the fuck do games companies feel the need to load it with buggy third party software that is required for the game to run? I could maybe understand if GFWL was optional. Or if there was a non-GFWL version of the game for sale.

But there isn't. And so I miss out on playing Dead Rising with Pete. And Capcom lose out on two sales.

Fail all round.

Look what we're missing.


Did you see him cleave that zombie in half! :O
*weeps*