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Sunday, Nov 10, 2013 - 16:26 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

On The Face


Face To Face

Another weekend of "when are you going to become a professor and get others to mark papers for you" from my grandma, who has always severely underestimated the sheer effort involved in being a don (or at least a good one), going by my couple of stints as a teaching assistant. I have never managed to get her to understand that one doesn't suddenly stop having to program on this track, particularly at the entry level, and in any case I'm not one for managing, for now.

Couldn't miss the visit of Tracy Hickman (of Dragonlance fame), and I therefore shelled out for a Singapore Writers Festival pass, just for the panel discussion. Those who caught the fantasy bug from the novels would probably not know that his wife Laura also played a huge role in its creation, as Margaret Weis was Hickman's co-author for the books, but we'll get to that again. Anyhow, I was pondering whether it was proper to take a photo of the authors, but figured it was alright after they brandished a camera at the audience.


Cosy venue


Anyway, the backstory - Hickman was a Dungeons & Dragons player who figured he was spending too much of his college loans on D&D modules, and therefore figured, together with his wife, that they might as well write their own. Back then, the TSR roleplaying universe was basically just the world of Greyhawk - until a need to buy shoes for their kids drove Hickman to sell a couple of his game modules to TSR. They wound up hiring him, and other than Dragonlance, he also produced classics such as Pharaoh and Ravenloft, no doubt encouraged by Thursday afternoons being reserved for games (it's in the job description), and frequent office nerf wars.

[N.B. The bit on the shoes led me to think immediately of Piers Anthony, who supposedly spent a summer on campus without shoes as he was too poor to afford them. Might bare feet be an underrated source of inspiration for fantasy writers?]

The next big revelation was that Hickman had worked a lot of Indonesian into the magical incantations of Dragonlance (honestly, I didn't realise that), which came from his stint as a Mormon missionary. Frankly, that bit was slightly unexpected too, given how some of the faith are against Harry Potter (and of course, D&D) , but Hickman has apparently managed to reconcile his belief with his work by incorporating moral messages (if not without detractors), following the footsteps of Narnia and the like. Good on him and Mormonism then - hopefully they enjoy the 2% of Florida that they bought.

This brings us to how the kender came about. As with any good D&D campaign, Dragonlance needed thieves, but Hickman was bothered by the presence of sympathetic larceners (Thou shalt not steal is one of the commandments, after all). The solution, then, was to make the kender innocent childlike kleptomaniacs who simply have no concept of private property. Indeed, they were first named kinder (German for child, as in kindergarten), but the spelling was altered after American audiences got confused.


Burning stuff to cinders in service of Paladine is, however, acceptable
(Source: uncyclopedia.wikia.com)


[N.B. Which leads me to wonder about the possible symbolism of his early Pharaoh module, given how the Good Book had the king of Egypt marked down as the Hitler before Hitler. Be an early competitor, and they never let you live it down.]

Hickman candidly admitted that Dragonlance was merely supposed to be a stopgap while TSR figured out their Next Big Thing, but it turned out that they had too many dungeons and not quite enough dragons, and so it stuck. Other than the novels, which were a new thing then, its success meant that plenty of other tie-ins were planned (Hickman was extremely relieved that the needlepoint products didn't take off)

Sadly, the Hickmans do not retain any ownership in Dragonlance, having produced it under work-for-hire (which has long been a sticking point in the comics world as well), and in fact Hickman is eager to pen a new trilogy, but cannot due to lack of permission from current intellectual property owners Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast (though I wonder why, given that it'll be a guaranteed bestseller). He did give a sneak preview after much prodding, to much appreciative applause - Tanis and Flint arrive at the Inn of the Last Home to meet their old companions, as something very bad has happened... okay, so he didn't exactly give very much away.

In any case, he hasn't been idle - back in 2008, he produced the first science fiction film made in space, Apogee of Fear (won't be winning many Oscars for the acting, though). More recently, the Hickmans' Sojourner Tales Kickstarter has been quite the success (and I'm tempted to sign up now)

But back to the use of Indonesian. On the positive side, it made Hickman a mini-celebrity among crewmembers on his last cruise, as they bade the ang mo speak in their native language. On the less-positive side, he had to deal with a girl whose parents had named her Neraka, and wanted to know what it meant; unfortunately, Hickman had borrowed the Sanskrit word for hell. Then again, it wasn't really his fault, as the Knights of Neraka weren't exactly good guys in the story, so it's sort of like naming a kid Waffen, just because. If its any consolation, her friends probably were clueless too.

And the brave Solamnic Knights? Originated from, of all things, ski bindings. Self-admittedly prosaic.

His dedication to world-building is beyond reproach, though, having modelled Krynn from the bottom-up, beginning with details such as climatic bands, tides and tectonic plates, from which features such as mountains and rivers are produced, and only after which civilizations are designed (largely propagating along the rivers), with a little help from software (one might try Dwarf Fortress for a free version)


A sprinkle of imagination required
(Source: dwarffortresswiki.org)


Towards the end of the session, Hickman was asked which character's death affected him the most, and his answer (after some deliberation) was the heroic sacrifice of Sturm Brightblade, white knight among white knights (now, what does that remind me of, scaffolding discounted?), with Flint Fireforge's rather less glorious passing also mentioned.

To make the point, Hickman recounted an old Norwegian "guy tale" of a king who, while standing on the battlements, sees that he is about to be hit by an arrow. I'm not sure if the time-stretching effect of impending death comes into play here, but the king realises that his death would rally his troops and thereby earn him immortality in song and story, and goes from fear to eagerness while the arrow is still in flight...

...and his wife steps in front of him and takes the arrow, robbing him of his crowning moment.

[N.B. In real life, martyrdom seems to be quite the attraction, which leads to opponents of killed personages trying to downplay that aspect - e.g. Arafat's possible polonium poisoning, and the controversy over the cause of death in the Bhutto assassination, to name but two cases]

My personal favourite of the series is, it goes without saying, Raistlin (with Astinus a close second) - always had a soft spot for mortals who challenge the gods; while most of them fail horribly, history tells us that every so often, some do succeed (this lesson, however, inevitably forgotten by adherents of the newborn god, who immediately pronounce him eternal)

As to why they stopped writing stories about the original cast, and moved on to the next generation, Hickman explains that it wouldn't do for too much to be revealed. He explains with the scenario of a tower in the distant mists - while one could visit it, something would be lost in its becoming real. Hickman then references Tolkien for another example: to him, the romance of Beren and Lúthien was so beautiful mostly as so little was known about it. Therefore, when it was explored in-depth later in The Silmarillion, much of the intrigue was lost.

[N.B. It seems that Mr. Hickman went one further than Tolkien in directly naming the prettiest character after his wife, instead of merely alluding to it. Works every time... well, mostly]

That was about it, and they proceeded to the book signings, when to my chagrin I realised that I hadn't expected that, and therefore hadn't brought any copies. Then again, I haven't actually read too much Dragonlance since secondary school.

It wasn't quite over as I got stopped for a survey after that, and after I mentioned that I was there mainly for Dragonlance, was asked if I preferred foreign authors.

To be honest, I haven't exactly been following the local literary scene, but then again - ask a moderately well-educated person here about Singaporean writers, and I gather that two to one it'll be Catherine Lim, given that her works had (once?) been on high school reading lists. Next up would probably be Russell Lee for the True Singapore Ghost Stories collection, and that's not even his true name!


Oh, there's at least one more (click to enlarge)
[N.B. The Prime Proof is also mentioned within]


One reason why this might be so, other than writing being a famously poorly-compensated profession (and good luck generating a bohemian SoHo with rents what they are), is that men (and women) of letters tend to be critical of the authorities (within reason), which doesn't really fly here.

Oh, and Mr. Kiasu is making a comeback after thirteen years, if with a small creatorship spat. Should be enough time for plenty of updated gags.


Let's Face It

With Mr. Ham back from one of his regular disappearances, it was only right that I play host to him (or so he said), and for good measure he brought the learned Esquire Pants O'Sue, distinguished attorney-at-law.

Me: Here's your tea and crumpets, as explicitly and quite egregiously requested. What have you two been up to?

Mr. Ham: *grabbing the plate* You wouldn't believe it if I told you, but it involved heavy vehicles.



Me: That's not the tallest tale you've told... but the hamster in the video doesn't look like you at all.

Mr. Ham: That's Live Test Two. The incompetent engineers didn't set the steering wheel torque properly for the first test, when I was at the wheel. Pity, it was a fine truck too.

Me: And why does Esquire Pants have several pairs of dress trousers, some corduroys and a pair of jeans slung over his shoulder?

Esq. Pants: Uh, it's been a... highly productive day in the courtroom for me.

Me: I see. So what would you like to discuss, The State's Times?

Mr. Ham: Nah, that would be unsporting. I mean, they've resorted to lauding themselves for being the most-read local newspaper, when they're the only English broadsheet with general news coverage licensed to operate here. It's almost pitiful. *shakes head* So what else is there?

Me: Well, it's not gotten much press, but there's the dismissal of an attempt to block a US$4 billion loan to the International Monetary Fund. At the heart of the matter is a line in the Constitution that states "no guarantee or loan shall be given or raised by the Government except under the authority of any resolution of Parliament with which the President concurs", which sounds like it does preclude such an act, but as with the "shall be filled by election" fiasco, has been ruled to not mean what it sounds like it should mean.

Esq. Pants: Dear sir, there may be some confusion here. Despite superficial similarities, the language employed in crafting legal statements, hereafter known as "legalese", has next to no relation to the "English language" that functions adequately in all other spheres. *whispers* As much as it pains me to admit it, us lawyers don't actually comprehend it either.

Me: I kind of figured that. Anyhow, from the full judgment, three major points are involved:
  1. If the content of the case can in fact be reviewed
  2. If the argument against the loan is sound
  3. If the applicant has sufficient interest in the matter
And the answers are: yes, no and no.

The second point is where most of the interest lies, and as far as I can understand, the justifications in plain English are:
  1. In "no guarantee or loan shall be given or raised", "guarantee" goes with "given" and "loan" then with "raise", from an early draft of the sentence, instead of the more natural understanding of "no (guarantee or loan) shall be (given or raised)"
  2. The courts kept conspicuously quiet about it back in 1998 when the prospect of a loan to Indonesia was floated, so precedent is being followed here
  3. There are no explicit rules governing the giving of loans in other related Acts
  4. The first point is resupported with the maxim reddendo singular singulis
  5. Strictly speaking, a loan is an asset and not a liability, so it's ok!
...and Jeyaratnam's arguments can be summarised thus:
  1. Come on, we know that (guarantee or loan) and (given or raised) come together lah - if not, it could have instead easily been unambiguously written as "...no (guarantee shall be given), or (loan raised)...", instead of trying to sound atas and failing miserably
  2. A loan may, in fact, be a liability (with very good reason - see, for instance, the US mortgage crisis, where many loans were written off), and therefore one of this magnitude should rightly be cleared through formal procedures, even if not explicitly implied
Of course, reasonable intent and common sense doesn't always stand up very well in the legal system here, as other esteemed commentators have noted.

Your thoughts, Esquire Pants?

Esq. Pants: *squirms slightly* Well, ah, this is a... how shall I say it... delicate affair. Now, uh, strictly speaking, in my personal capacity only, mind, both sides have their merits. More tea please? Thank you. *sips tea slowly* How can I put it... let's say that this judgment was given instead:

"The removal of the word 'debt' and its then-pair 'incurred' from the originally proposed Article, to produce the final form, clearly indicates by ejusdem generis that 'guarantee' and 'loan' are intended to be considered as part of the same class of obligation. Furthermore, in keeping with the intended function of the office of the President as a gatekeeper of the nation's reserves, it is evident that such a loan must obviously fall under his purview. Therefore, where any ambiguity exists, any error made should remain on the side of conservatism, with the President and Parliament involved."

Would this not too sound quite proper indeed?

Me: I suppose so. But if so, why not this version then?

Esq. Pants: Ah. Tell me then - whose face is bigger, the government's, or some no-name opposition politician's?

*blows at surface of tea meaningfully* But in this case, it's for the best - at worst, your administration has been caught in a procedural oversight. I mean, if the loan indeed came before the P&P, do you really expect it to be rejected? I'm not sure if they ever say no, anyhow. In any case, this sort of guarantee is part of the cost of being a good citizen on the international stage. Nobody of note gets embarassed, what would have happened happened... yes, I would say it was a most satisfactory conclusion to the matter indeed.

More worrying perhaps is the glossed-over third point in the judgment, which says that even if the arguments against the loan were totally valid, the case would still not have gone forward because the appellant was adjudicated not to have sufficient interest; this begs the question of who, then, has the right to raise issues of possible financial mismanagement by the authorities, and the answer appears to be: no-one.

Say, you wouldn't have more crumpets in reserve, would you?


Men Without Faces


Alamak, he wants to play. Ok, we see who pwn who first!
(Source: Yahoo! News)


Barely a day after the Prime Minister vowed to catch the Anonymous hackers who have been threatening to break into government websites, his own page, together with the President's, got hit. The IDA is blaming Google (who, it has to be said, is maybe going overboard in trying to shore up Google+ using Youtube's popularity), while shutting down sites for prolonged maintenance; hopefully it's for real this time round, after either the Messiah successfully peformed DNS poisoning on their servers, or they did it to themselves. Either way, it doesn't look very good.

As to whether the Messiah will in fact be arrested, I would say that it depends on whether he continues to make appearances and attacks. Saying that, there are far less complicated (and wholly legal) methods of executing denial-of-service assaults.

Now, a teeny primer on the Domain Name System (DNS) - resources on the Internet are known not by their names (e.g. http://blog.glys.com), but by a string of numbers (e.g. http://103.9.103.126). As humans prefer the former, a way to translate it into the latter is required, and in practice this is done by dedicated DNS name servers that receive periodic updates (which is why, when moving hosts, changes may not be reflected instantly)

So what keeps a server from being fed bad DNS data? As we have seen, nothing much - the Internet operates to a large degree on trust, and it can be very hard to detect misdirections without additional provisions. That said, the willingness of people to obey instructions on Internet-downloaded content has restored my faith in human nature more than once - it is amazing how many individuals who are careful in meatspace interactions will blissfully click "OK" to questionable side-apps, when requested to do so during the installation of Desktop Dancing Girls XI, and then wonder why their PC has slowed to a crawl.

Which brings us back to Bitcoins, where I've been holding off on a response on Krugman's comment to an NYU colleague for far too long.

To begin with, we could note that the assertion that Bitcoin transactions are designed to be anonymous and untraceable can be misleading to the unwary. Bitcoin is, on the contrary, perfectly traceable by design - if I, using wallet number 1G2KdaieN, transfer a Bitcoin to wallet 1ZjFjeEn9, the whole world knows that 1G2KdaieN gave one Bitcoin to 1ZjFjeEn9, for the simple reason that if anybody didn't know that, I could then pay him the same Bitcoin (which I am no longer supposed to have), and he would be none the wiser.

It is more true that Bitcoin may be anonymous - but this property can be quite unreliable in practice, and is very vulnerable to real-life surveillance. All it takes is one connection to be made, for all future transactions to be compromised. For example, if someone is monitoring 1ZjFjeEn9, and sees me enter his store at a particular time and buy an item, he could tie 1G2KdaieN to me, and thereby instantly figure out my entire transaction history.

In theory, this could be defeated by continually creating new wallets and shifting funds between them, but given the inconvenience involved in doing it properly, I suspect that it won't be too much of a hindrance, especially if Bitcoin gets really popular (Bitcoin ATMs are already being used in Canada), without going into possible transaction fees.

Krugman then conflates Bitcoin users with goldbugs, in that both groups are driven by mistrust in the overproduction of government-backed fiat, which he notes is curious as Bitcoins are in a way the ultimate fiat. I have to agree, and as covered in the original discussion, am surprised that no serious competitor has sprung up yet, especially as mining gets tougher - to me, Bitcoin's biggest deficiency is its front-loaded finiteness, which I expect will greatly discourage growth in the face of systems that maintain mining as an indefinitely viable activity, which brings us to how a digital currency's protocol might be updated. Tyranny of the masses works, of course.

So, will Bitcoin and other digital monies upstage conventional currencies in the foreseeable future? For all the hoopla, I doubt it - there are too many weaknesses - but as an irresponsible speculative bet, I guess there are worse options.



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