seamus2389

I listen to a podcast based around Jefferson (one of the guys pretends to be him, it's a type of educational role-playing called Chautauqua while the other asks "Jefferson" questions about whatever) and they are doing a 2 part discussion on the book. http://www.jeffersonhour.com/

Hearing that has gotten me even more excited for the movie. The way this is going it will either be my favourite or most hated movie of 2013.

Just finished volume 1 of Demoracy in American by Alexis De Toq and the man did have a good grasp on the US in the late 1700 and early 1800. The book is kinda famous cause he predicted the civil war but he figured the confederates would won cause the remaining states wouldn't care enough about the Union to die for it. Some of his thoughts on the future of religion in volume 2 also have proven to be false. However he concluded the first volume with this when comparing the US to Russia : "Their starting point is different, and their courses are not the same, yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe" Started reading Dicky Moe after reading Evidence of Things Unseen but not much to say Started the Citadel of the Autrach as well which is the final volume in Gene Wolfes book of the new sun series. The series is one of the most interesting works of SFF I have ever read. I struggle to figure out what it is I like about it beyond the fact that when I read this book it feels like a very different world from the one I live in. The world it takes place is very odd in a way alot of SFF isn't. Finished reading Blood Meridian and my only strong thought is that the books is almost a catalogue of the various kinds of violence present in the Wild/South West. The Judge reminds me of the Anton from No country as both are invincible beings of evil/violence but the Judge is more sociable than Anton either because he just is or in the time and place of the book that level of violence was more acceptable/present. The ending of it reminded me of the Half Made world which a fantasy book where the violence/chaos of the west and the progress/order bring brought by the train line at the end of Merdian are actual supernatural forces in the book.Just like Democracy is an interesting about the politics and society of the early US from a French man the Half made world is an interesting view of the "Wild West" by a Brit Ulyssess is still standing at 28% read on my kindle and after Dicky Moe I'll have another crack at it. Finally I read the 1890 novella the Great God Pan which is a early work of horror which clearly influenced Lovecraft in the same way the Gods of Pegana and the book of wonder did.

I had the opposite reaction, I have watched it about 10 times today. I didn't think much of the first trailer but watching this has me interested in it. I expect it to be style over substance but I've already seen a take on Gatsby that was literally true to the book, word for word. Also I love movies with a strong sense of style (even if the substance is lacking) which this trailer has. Not sure about Toby Maguire as Jack though but I think Da Caprio can pull off Gatsby and Joel Edgerton Tom.

Finished my 80 hour campaign as Sweden in Crusader Kings 2 of which a good 1-15 hours of having to re-load after playing for 5 hours and making game ending mistakes. My king is Emperor of Scandinavia, king of France, Bavaria, Jersulem and Lothogaria with some land in north Italy and South England. Best moment had to be getting a white peace with the Mongols instead of losing all of Finland to them and then taking Prussia from them. Started a playthough as Ireland but not real interest in continuing cause it seems kinda boring after playing a more central nation. Might play as one of the Spanish kingdoms and Byzantine cause I really like Byzantine. Started To the Moon and installed Pathalogic

I am about a 120 pages in and so far I am liking the book alot more that I expected. I set a goal of 20 pages a day but so far I find myself reading more than that from a combination of longish chapters where I keep wanting to spend time with Opal and Fos, they seem to fit perfectly together. "She'd been careful not disturb his artless clutter but she'd somehow managed to arrange herself and her belongings into balance with his half of the bargain. Its still felt like he lived there but she'd filled in blanks and blurred the edges with her modest frills" I also liked Opal's thoughts on the river (where they are living) and the ocean (where they began and always go back to) "The ocean, like the sky, was something man could never harness, never dam." "Unlike the rebel ocean, it's mankind's natural servant".

Really excited for this. Read the book for the first time earlier this year and have re-read it twice and flew to London to watch Gatz, the 8 hour play where they read every world. This podcast is the perfect excuse for me to read it again next year. Also if you love the book you should try and see the play if it ever plays near where you live. For me it was worth the flight to London, having to forgo a nights sleep and the 100 pound price for the delivery of the final monologue alone. http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/feb/08/gatz-great-gatsby-west-endl

Is there any other book podcasts worth listening to besides the bookworm ?

I loved the twist in Orsion part two, it floored me and totally knocked that particular story up an order of magnitude in my estimation. It is also the only story where the truth of it is shown to be not truth within the story itself. It reminds me alot of 1984 and it's kinda like Mitchell updated '84 to include that the problem of environment going to hell due to endless wasteful consumption to keep power structures. Like '84 it's not a realistic future cause it's meant to be a mirror on present. In comparing The pacific journal and after I fell they are mirrors of each other with the difference being the Journal being told from the point of view of the more advanced visitor while Sloosha is told from the point of the native Zach/Atuna. In both cases a more peaceful tribe is taken over by a more violent one with escape being to leave with a more advanced/different culture. I wonder if we read Meronym journal (anyone else see how her name is an anagram of memory just add an n) would it read like Adam with her changing her view of Zach when he saves her life like Atuna saved Adams or is she more enlightened. The soap in Sonmi reminds me of the role that tobacco in the 2nd half of journal with both being sold as part of a the religion called consumerism. Both stories have power structure's that depend on forced consumption of goods for the structure to maintain itself. Finally both have slavery in the guise of religion. Did anyone else find the change in spell'n kinda annoy'n ?I know Mitchell is just doing what other books in the that genre have done but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Henry pretty much quotes the title of guns, germs and steel being what is responsible for taking over the world but in Sloosha it's disease that nearly destroys the more advanced civilization. Journal, Sonmi and Sloosha are clearly connected in it's dealing with power structures specifically slavery. I found those three to have the tightest fit. I kinda want to say Half-life, Ordeal and Letters deals with writers/creators but it is a stretch. Does someone have a better connection between those 3? Half life connects into the power structure model except it ends better than the one before but in the end the world goes to hell in a handbasket anyway, a small tactical victory in a lost war. The ending of letters reminded me of the Sense of an Ending and the only real question according to Camus. A line among many reminds me the Sense of an Ending is "Memories are their own descendants masquerading as the ancestors of the present". It will be interesting to see if the podcast will compare the two books take on memory and it's malleability. If Sense does it on the personal sense than I would say Cloud Atlas does it in the historical sense. Overall the more I read what people here wrote about it and thinkwrite about it myself the more I apprecaite the care that Mtichell puts in to making these different/sepearte stories fit into this collective whole. I thinking I have been wondering is why Hawaii/Honolulu as the destination in Sonmi/Journal and the setting of Crossin. What about Hawaii/ the pacific in general has Mitchell so interested ? The frontier that "civilisation" was brought to? On a weird personal note the other 2 books clubs I am part of are all in the process of reading this book incl an SFF one which should make for interesting comment reading. Also Mitchell lives about 30 mins drive from where I live which is even weirder. Why him and Anne MccAffrey live here I don't know but it's kinda cool.

I am currently about half way through the book and Sloosha's Crossin' chapter Looking at the chapter breakdown the book is mirrored round the Sloosha's Crossin' story which is the only one that is a single chapter and looking at my kindle seems to be the longest. I wonder does this chapter change your view of the other stories or will reading all the stories in reverse in the second half do so ? This book reminds me of Ulysses (which I am even so slowly making my way through) in that Mitchell is switching between different writing styles and genres from chapter to chapter. Unlike Ulysses each chapter has a lot more plot/ momentum to so which is why I can read more than a few pages at a time. I found the each chapter up until Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After I read in greater and greater chunks I found the Pacific Jorunal to be the slowest to get through and I wonder is that because it is a a journal and it is observation of a man meant only to be read by himself while the letters are meant to be read by another (with soap story elements), half life is a thriller/ mystery novel which and Sonmi is an interview. Cavendish doesn't fall into either camps. My favorite chapter was Sonmi possibly because I read a lot of sci-fi and am really interested in all the ethical questions surronding AI. [spoilerI like how each chapter throws doubt about the truth of the others like ]finding out the Doctor is poisoning Adam, Sixsmith and the letter writer being lovers or Half life coming across as a badly written thriller/mystery

I finished re-reading the book today and just like Tony feeling remorse over the letter he wrote I am feeling some remorse over my earlier thoughts about the book. In the first part of the book there is a line about how history is what is written by the survivors no the victorious or defeated . The irony is that early in the book Tony critizes Adrian for not following up on why his parents split which is what the hero in literature would do. He just accepts what happened and goes on with his life. One thing that strikes me about Tony is that he doesn't seen to have any real friends so much as people he talks to. He doesn't stay friends with those he know as a kid, has a distant relationship with his daughter and the only person he talks to about anything of importance is his ex-wife. Tony talks about his survivability and I think part of that is never getting too close to others cause he might get hurt. Both his ex-wife and his girlfriend Annie hint at closer relationships and he ignores these hints. One of the top regrets people have on their deathbeds are not spending enough time with friends and I wonder if Tony's outlook on life be far more positive if he didn't see close relationships with others as a threat as opposed to a good thing. It reminds me of the idea of the two hedgehogs and how the closer they become the greater chance there is that the smallest mistake can cause great harm to the other. Tony never has to worry about this cause he avoids the risk in it. At one point Veronica asks him about their relationship and rather than speak his mind Tony asks what is he meant to say. He says at one point how he lived a life with no great highs and lows and I think that is cause he never risked getting too close to anyone for fear of what could go wrong. The final lines of the books says that there is Accumulation, Responsibility and beyond these great unrest. I think that we rarely see this unrest in others and/or express it ourselves cause we are afraid of how we will be viewed and a possible social idea that you shouldn't express such thouights . In a book filled with alot of memorable lines a few that stuck with me on reading are : The young want emotions to change their life while the old want emotions to support theirs and part of me wonders if books have the same function for people. In the second part Tony mentions how his daugher Susie prefers to assume he has certain feelings and to act according to them rather than trying to understand his feelings which is exaclty what Tony has done throughout the book. Every piece of evidence he gets he uses to reinforce his opinion of Veronica rather that seeing it as a challenge to it which is an established psychological bias we all have - more information doesn't change our opinion but enforces it. Re-reading this books reminds me of a section in Scott McCloud's the art of understanding comics where he says we can never know another persons mind and that art is something that allows that to happen as the creators thoughts are. This is a story about people either not being able since the events are beyond their knowing or not wanting to do so since it would change how they view the world/ themselves. I really liked the line about Veronicas bookshelf was an organics out growth of her mind while Tony's was more about trying to become a certain kind of reader. It reminds me of a line in the start of the Great Gatsby where Carrow says he was well read in college and plans to becomes again. In both cases the books are not about the narrorats are interested in so much as what they believe they should be interseted in to be though of as a well read person capable of intelligent dinner conversations where everyone says the same things about the same books. One thing I haven't seen discussion of is the title of the book. What does Barnes mean by the sense of an ending. At the end of the book Tony talks about how he feels he has come to the end not of his life but any chance to change his life. I keep thinking the use of sense implies that there is no actual ending and it comes down to the feeling of an end on the part of Tony concerning Veronica, Adrian and what happened between them.

Ya, I think it has to do with you not being able to play as a female character in ARMA 2 and the designer of Day Z said it will be fixed in the future.

I have spent about 30 hrs watching people play Day Z in particular these guys - http://www.youtube.com/show/dayzadventures Hearing a helicopter is one of the scariest sounds Day Z for me armed with an uzi and a Lee Enfield. Choosing a female avatar means you can't wear the camouflage or ghille suite and the direct chat face animation doesn't work but it would be interesting to see if players react differently to female avatars in terms of willingness to kill v leave alone/help. Chris point about how sexism in games will only change if Kotaku have an article every week reminds me of an interview with the woman who was the voice of Korra in the new Avatar series. She was asked what she thinks about the recent upsurge in female lead action movies and she said that she wasn't sure this was the beginning of a tread or a brief blip that would be have no lasting change. She had a line that a slow constant release of female lead media was better that a dump of every few years which would be forgotten. I do think for this stuff to change it can't be the occasional explosion every few months but needs to be something that is constantly addressed. So far this year there has been a constant stream of content dealing with this and not just on gaming sites - like the new York time article on the problems facing women who play games, in particular online - but I think it is too early to tell whether it will haven any long term effects. I do have hope because of new sites like the Borderhouse which deal specifically with issues like sexism, racism, anti-LGBT problems and also the fact that Kotaku has had a decent stream of articles dealing with this. I can't figure out is it due to Stephen Totaillo and new writers and/or the fact that one of the most important metrics for Kotaku articles are new readers which are now be reading Kotaku as it is now addressing sexism and various other problems that matter to them - a case of ethics combing well with money. This is something that has also gotten alot more attention in the SFF section of the web and I don't know is this a coincidence, there being a decent overlap in the two communities which is leading to a feedback loop between the two groups or symptoms of something larger. Finally does anyone remember an article from the last few weeks where the author talks about how developers, writers and players should deal with this so that change does occur versus the more likely reaction where things will stay the same. I was looking for it to post here but can't find it

Has anyone here played the DS game published by Platinum called Infinite space cause it was a like FLT except the combat was simpler but the number of ship systems like accounting, a gym and a mess hall which all had effects on your crew which was spread across multiple ships.

Just finished the Witcher whose final few boss battles proved to be easier than expected especially with some of the potions/weapons and armour they give you towards the end of the game. I took me about 65 hours and part of me wants to re-start on hard just to see how much more important potions etc are for random encounters and not just story related fights. Definitely a game where talking is a far better option than killing which reminds me of a cut scene where Geralts says he gets more joy from lifting a curse than killing a monster. Also a game where a neutral path is totally valid and doesn't punish you for not taking sides. At the start I was going to back the elves till I saw the consequences of an earlier decision and decided that both sides main goal was kill everyone who doesn't agree with you. A rare example of me actually caring about a choice in a game not because of how it would effect my game play but how it affected my thoughts. Now onto STALKER and Hitman Blood Money

What are the best casters to follow if I want to go into Lol and SC2 watching. I mostly watch DW2: Retribution and some Men of War but I am interested in checking out the big 2?

I liked it but felt I have read all this before bar one thing in books like Steven Erikson's Malazan books of the Fallen and psychology studies. Like Speedy I wonder is it my young age that is part of the reason for kinda shrugging shoulders at it and not just the feeling of nothing new under the sun in regards to what the book explores. That one thing that I haven't thought of reading the book was what Chris posted on the goodreads on the lack of information we have about others, the things that effect them and the asymmetry of said events is something I didn't think of but is something I will be now. This thing I never would have thought of it why I am so excited about the book club. Some of the stuff the author touched on (remorse and realism as justification for certain choices) are coincidentally relevant to certain decisions I've made these past few weeks, especially the thoughts on what remorse is.

I have two games I would like to see One would be based upon the battles in Steven Erikson's Malazan because his take on how you fight battles with mages and pretty powerful explosions using roman style legions are something I would love to play. In particular there is one battle where because the enemy had an advantage in terms of magic the entire army was broken in platoons to both avoid large losses but also to hunt down the mages and harass the enemy who had no cavalry. That idea was nothing I saw in fantasy books/games. It's equivalent would be in Men of War where you have to do the same to avoid getting destroyed by artillery but I want magic and alchemic explosives fired from crossbows instead of T-34s and 88s. My other game would be one based on the struggle for Irish independence and the civil war resulting from the signing of the treaty with Britain that didn't go far enough for some of the people leading the struggle . I want it to focus on the small scale raids under Collins (something like Jagged Alliance 2 from what I have heard of the game) and also the politics of getting to British to leave Ireland. The thing about the military side was that we never had to ability for an all out rebellion (see Easter rising 1916) and could only harass and eventually the British decided keeping Ireland wasn't worth the cost of dealing with this. Maybe you would have to work on the the Treaty and it could be better/worse than the one that was signed depending on your actions of if it wasn't what De Valera and crew wanted you had to chose a side in the civil war - pro or anti-treaty and try and win.

What do you mean by the entire learning process? Are you talking about learning to play game or just learning in general if it is the latter case can you elaborate cause the area of learning and how to improve is something I am interested in.

I just read an article in my college newspaper where the writer talks about how the pokemon cartoon taught young players like me the basics of the game beofre I ever knew it existed. Because of this I understood things like evolution, the different elemets and how one beats another without having to read the manual This is kinda equivalent to the idea of youtube vidoes doing a better job than manuals at teaching new players board games rules. Maybe companies should say check out this youtube video, you could scan a QR code. I would argue it takes you away from the game as less than having to read manual as it would probably take less time and everyone can see what to do instead of having to pass round the manual I haven't played many board games so maybe this has already been done but what if board games had an initial tutorial missions/scenarios which you play as a way to learn the mechanics Really enjoyed the panel, hopefully if it's running again next year I can see it in person and it has me really looking forward to playing crusader kings 2 and getting an ipad

Been listening since near the end of the original podcast and back with it rise from the ashes. These days mostly play PC with DS/PSP for JRPGS - mostly Atlus games.