What if the government provided your vehicle?

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I saw this tweet from Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) a few days ago, then read the linked blog:

Recommended. The LA Times follows up here, pointing out that we’ve reached “Peak Freakonomics” where our two authors seem to have run out of innovative ways at looking at subjects and should probably try to find a new niche to market.

But I was thinking about Yglesias’s proposition: What if the government bought your cars for you? How would that work? So here’s a thought experiment for that:

First, no frills. No leather seats, no iPhone dock, no super-quiet engine. There’s nothing wrong with those sorts of luxuries, but taxpayers won’t swing for them, so they’re out. If you want a DVD player for your kids to watch a movie, you have to spring for that yourself.

Second, how much will you be using your vehicle? Look, the government will be happy to give you a car to transport you places, but does it need to be idle all night while you sleep? Do you need to have it sit on your corporate campus for nine hours while you’re at work?

It would probably be cheaper for the government to pay for a chauffeur who would drive you to work, then go drive other people who needed rides, then pick you up after your shift. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be the same chauffeur!

Third, what if it’s not a one-person vehicle? Why should the chauffeur drive you and you alone to your destination when there are probably quite a few people who work where you work, or who would like to shop at that mall? Single-occupancy vehicles are wasteful and cause traffic jams. The government could streamline things by carrying several people at once.

Larger vehicles would be called for, ones with the capacity to move lots of people around. Perhaps some sort of schedule could be devised (and routes established) to maximize the movement of users.

Fourth, what about free-loaders? Obviously, there are those who want a car just for the thrill of driving. Would the American taxpayer be willing to subsidize that sort of purely-pleasurable but unproductive pastime? Considering how they act when food-stamp recipients buy soda, I doubt it.

Perhaps some sort of small co-pay could be required to discourage joy riding. We could call it a “fare.”

And you know where that takes us? To public transportation, which is certainly not perfect but is still used by millions of people every day. How would the Freakonomics guys feel if we increased its funding? I wish my transit system had more dollars.

Because the government is never going to allow people to walk into a car dealership and pick out any car they like. It’s ridiculous to even offer that as a thought experiment. But if the government thinks it’s important for people to have access to a minimum standard of health care, they will work that out. And if the government thinks people should be able to move around a community without driving a car of their own, they’ll work that out, too.

It won’t be extravagant, but it might make your society run better.

The Full Trailer for DARK DUNGEONS!!!

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It’s not a satire of the original Jack Chick comic! It IS the Jack Chick comic brought to life!

Debbie and Marcie arrive at college unaware of the dangers of RPGing. They are soon indoctrinated into this dangerous lifestyle where they face the threat of learning real life magical powers, being invited to join a witches’ coven, and resisting the lure of Ms. Frost, a vile temptress of a GM. But what peril must the two friends face when they stumble across the Necronomicon and their fantasy game becomes a reality game? Find out in Dark Dungeons!

From the FAQ on their website:

Have people committed suicide due to RPGs?

No cases of RPG-related suicides have been proven in court. However, that does not mean that it doesn’t happen. For all we know, BIG-GAMING may just be very good at covering them up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies

BIG GAMING! Click through to learn more.

“Edit” is not synonymous with “fix”

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I just saw the umpteenth iteration of “If only this had been edited!” which I’m not linking to because why and also because it’s always and everywhere. You can’t swing a dead pixel without hitting some forum comment lamenting that There Are Errors Where There Shouldn’t Be.

So.

The verb “edit,” when it’s applied to text, does not mean “fix.” I don’t care what the dictionary says, it doesn’t. It means “change.”

Obviously, yes, we hope the changes we make will be improvements. We’re trying to fix things when they’re broken, correct inconsistencies, smooth out sentence structures, fix verb tenses, switch out that off-key word with a clearer one, whatever. Edits are an attempt at improving things.

However, sometimes an edit creates a conflict with something else in the text. Sometimes it’s just a flat out error. What’s more, as a reader we can’t tell if an error was added in the first draft and missed in revisions or if it was added on the very last pass through.

Hey, mistakes happen, even when you edit.

Godzilla and Ruination Pron

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Walking out of the latest version of GODZILLA, my son surprised me by saying it was one of his three favorite movies ever.

Now, when I was a kid, giant monster movies were my favorite thing in the whole wide world. I stayed in Saturday afternoons to watch all the giant monster movies, even the boring ones like Vs. The Sea Monster, the kiddie ones like Gamera Vs [Everything] and the shitty ones like Yonggary. I even sat through the musical number of Reptilicus. I didn’t know anyone else who liked them and I knew nothing about words like kaiju or whatever. I watched the movies. I watched the TV shows. I daydreamed about stomping through a city, smashing everything in sight.

But my kid has always had zero interest in this stuff. Does he care about a giant egg washing up on a beach, or miniature women who sing to colossal moths, or a burning flying saucer that turns out to be a spinning turtle? Hell no.

But he does love post-apocalyptic landscapes, and this was a movie for him.

Lots of people like looking at Ruination Pron. Me, too. The latest Godzilla movie is for us.

A lot has been made that the big G doesn’t show up until 60 minutes into the film (although you see glimpses in the first few minutes). What you do see is a lot of shit after it’s destroyed. Wrecked skyscrapers. Smashed cars. Collapsed towers. You even get glimpses of a Japanese town left to decay for 15 years. It’s like something out of a post-apocalyptic video game.

My kid… well, he’s kinda sensitive. Seeing a car with a smashed fender makes him sad. Throwing out socks, even if they have holes in them, is like a betrayal. So, when there’s a smashed cityscape on the screen, it really affects him.

That’s why this is the movie for him. Yeah, there are some monster fights, most of which are pushed to the end of the film. Yeah, there are people running around, stumbling into the monsters’ paths through sheer coincidence. Yeah, there are female characters to be: a) a source of manpain b) helper to the exposition character or c) human symbol of everything our fighting boys are risking their lives for. Yeah, the cinematography is gorgeous.

But the real appeal of the film is the ruination. Bring your favorite urban explorer.

Vacation (with pics)

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Last week, we hopped a train down to San Jose to visit my wife’s uncle and visit him and his home city, Santa Cruz. It wasn’t long enough, and sleeping in coach on a train may be better than sleeping on a plane, but still: sleeping in a chair. (The train ride from Seattle to SJC was 24 hours, 20 minutes.)

So, it was not long enough. Few vacations ever are. However, my uncle has a beautiful little house with a pretty little garden (filled with drought-resistant plants, because California) and the beach was only literally a ten-minute walk away.

Pics behind the cut: Continue reading

AUDIOBOOKS!

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Hey, guys. Child of Fire is listed as Audible’s “Hidden Gem of the Week” and is available for only $4 right now. If you’re an audiobook fan (or know one) this is your chance to pick up a copy.

Also, there’s an audio copy of King Khan available. I’m listening to the free sample right now, and I’m flummoxed that more people haven’t tried this book.

Anyway, normal internetting will resume, now that I’m back from VACATION! Pics to come.

Randomness for Mother’s Day

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1) Map of boys names from around the world. I didn’t see one for girls.

2) Huge 3D printer built ten one-story buildings in one day out of construction waste and cement. The video is cool.

3) Sony wages a brutal 35 year war with record producer over their refusal to pay royalties.

4) New Zealand artists create 3D Sand pictures.

5) Movie Scripts Ranked by Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. Hey, the higher the reading level of the script, the more critically-lauded you’d expect it to be, right?

6) What are the most overrated and underrated movies?

7) How to tell if you’re reading a gothic, an infographic.

Cutting back on internet

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I have a whole bunch of work ahead of me and last night my roommate got mad at me when I referred to her as “my roommate” instead of “my wife.” Anyway, it seems that this would be a good time to cut back on my internetting. It’s not going to be a full fast, as I sometimes do, but I will be cutting way back. As usual, I’ll be checking my email at least once a day.

Wish my luck for my book productivity, and if anyone remembers my roommate’s name, please drop me a line.

DC Comics is screwing up its movie franchises for no good reason

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Who has asked me to chime in on the DC comics movies? Exactly no one, but it sometimes helps my creative process to talk about what other people ought to do, so here is the slate of movies DC should put into production, along with a little talk about why.

First: there are three ways to measure a comic book character: By how iconic they are, how powerful they are, and how much spandex they have.

Iconic is pretty obvious, I think. Does the general public, the folks who haven’t picked up a comic book since they were eight, recognize the character on sight? That’s a good thing, because you’re not going to make a successful movie if the only people who see it are comics nerds. If you’re going with a character who is not iconic, you’re going to need them to be intriguing at first glance (in the trailer).

Powerful is equally obvious. Superman is obviously the most powerful there is, but the more power they have, the bigger the threats need to be and the more removed it becomes from the casual moviegoer. Batman escaping from prison to deal with a nuke is a nice, low-level James-Bond type plot. Audiences connect better with that sort of story than “It will destroy the world!” type things.

Spandexy might not be terribly obvious, but I think it’s pretty clear. The more you show a superpowered person in comic book clothing, the harder it will be to sell that to general audiences. An iconic character counteracts this, because general audiences only recognize them by their duds, but for characters they haven’t heard of, a goofy spandex suit works against them. So, no one wants a Superman without his red and blues, but Animal Man can GTFO.

Marvel got around this by introducing a bunch of heroes without their spandex. Yeah, Spider-man wore them, but everyone recognizes Spider-man, but the X-Men got stuck into black leathers (because no one cares about Wolverine’s brown and yellow and Cyclop’s yellow trucks are laughable), the Hulk just wears purple pants, and Iron Man is wearing high-tech armor (painted like a sports car). The Iron Man thing worked really well, because he looks so much like spandex in the comics but in the movies he’s very much not. As for Captain America, his comic book suit was an object of derision in the movie.

So, I’m going to say that DC needs to go with some characters who are Iconic and some not, but the Iconic ones are the only ones we get spandex.

Okay, start with the obvious: Continue reading

Walk The Fire 2 Title Page

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One of the perqs of the Walk The Fire 2 Kickstarter is a signed “title page” from each of the authors. It’s just a sheet of paper with the name of the story, my name, and my signature (in a font other than Comic Sans).

Anyway, my design sense is sort of crap, so I turned it over to the closest designer I know: my 12-year-old son. This is what he came up with:

The gray circle prints up lighter than it shows here, but that’s to its advantage.

The kid did a fine job, I think.