Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Obeying the laws of Thermodynamics

For my first official bloglet I have only one thought in my head.

Why is it my grandmothers house always conspires to be colder inside than it is out?
I have heard people blame the thick concrete foundation (we dont build our houses out of wood like those sissy American houses). I personally put a little bit of blame on these "patio doors" as I can feel the cold bleeding the heat from the room there.

But still, outside there is frost on the ground and I get the feeling I'd be warmer out there. When I get my physics degree, I'm coming back to experiment on this house.

That and steal that beanbag I've had my eye on for almost two decades.

Bots.

Who falls for this anymore?

Take anyone who has been online (Yahoo specifically) more than ohhh a month and I am sure they've had a porn bot im them randomly.
My problem is, who falls for that nonsense? Who talks to a little script thing (always with bad spelling) that is trying to pretend to be not a bot and very very horny? It's daft.

I am sure the ad industry would get more mileage out of hiring a bunch of webmonkeys to sit online and actively chat to people and entice them to the site. It's like on Ebportal a ways back when it worked. Dejavu was someone who posted and chatted a bit. For no reason she mentions in the inevitable forum "Post your pic thread" that she has nudie photos on her own forum site, but you have to sign up.

One can only imagine it was innundated with horny gaming geeks vying for a glimpse of nipple and giving out their email address in the process. Ah well, if it works right?
Take a hint from the cam whores all ye who run bots, most people arent stupid enough to fall for the bot, but I'd bet there is alot of click traffic to be made in seducing geeks.

I'm sure that wasnt the point I wanted to make when I came in here. Still here's the im.

[23:45] slhutomaximo: hi... anyyone there?
[23:46] bahrae: dont say "Oh you're there....hi"
[23:46] slhutomaximo: oh your there :) ho...
[23:46] bahrae: ok thats a new bot response
[23:46] slhutomaximo: bott? whats that? some kinda insult or something?
[23:46] slhutomaximo: a/s/l (age sex locatioh)?
[23:47] bahrae: thats standard at least. and that. Good bot. Quickly jump to the bit where you pretend you're alive and horny
[23:47] slhutomaximo: oh you mean one of those auto talk things or something right.. lol. well if you were in my apartment right now id llift up my skirt for you and i think youd be convinced real quick
[23:47] slhutomaximo: im 27/f/USA. was lookin at your profile. thought you might like to chat.
[23:47] slhutomaximo: so whaat have you been up to bahrae?
[23:47] bahrae: And thus I have my blog for tonight. But wait, we all know there is a blush emote coming
[23:48] slhutomaximo: cool. i was just hangin out watching tv.. i was getting kinda horny :) (*blushes)
[23:48] bahrae: victory! Damn bots.

On the box tonight

I just watched Battlestar Galactica.

This is nothing unusal. I watched the original, I watched the miniseries launch and followed the reimagined new series ever since. Of course I do have a bit of bad luck with always travelling right around the time new episodes put in an appearance, but thats another matter entirely.

Dark sci fi is nothing terribly new. It's been around for quite some time. Occasionally it works, othertimes not so much.

The problem I have at the moment is America's current obsession with "reality" tv and its inability to cope with complex ideas.

Take the recent bunch of "alien" shows. We've got Threshold, Invasion and Surface.

The premise? Bad storm. Aliens come to Earth. Bad things ensue.
All bleedin three of them. Ok the aliens in question are slightly different. Threshold has an Oddessy 5 feel (the aliens are among us). Surface is well limited to the water. Invasion I havent really bothered with.

Having looked at all three and polled my sci-fi and physics friends.....Threshold wins out. It's smart, makes you think, has a nicely convoluted plot line while still having straight forward aspects for the casual viewer.
Naturally it was cancelled. America cant be having with smart teeeeveee.

So the question remains, how is it Battlestar Galactica gets away with its trinity?
Smart, dark, sci-fi.

It doesnt. Look at any praise for it, what is the one word that keeps coming up? Drama.
It seems to survive in the American tv market, you either have to transcend the genre and become something else, or be dumb.
You cannot be both smart and sci-fi. Ohhh no thats not what they want.

Lost is another show that runs on the same idea. It has many plot lines, it has mystery and it has a huge following. Because it is billed as a drama and not the sci-fi fantasy it really is.

I really do despair for sci fi in this instance. It can't be itself and be cutting edge. America demands it's simple, or in some form that they can delude themselves into beleiving it isnt sci fi.

If we can have smart television, why cant we have smart television with spaceships?

Starting out

I personally have a tendancy to use my MSN Space as a blog. It's handy for me seeing as I use MSN 7 and so on. Mostly its a nice mobile favourites page with the linking and a handy photo albumn.

As for actual literary merit? Well everyone knows I talk nonsense.

Still perhaps I can change that. At any rate Ill be reposting some of my favoured entries from that site to here and also seeing if I have the slightest glimmer of blog ability here.

Doubtful but then again, who cares?

Without further ado, I'm Jonathan and I will be ranting here.
http://spaces.msn.com/members/OrtusSapienta