daniel.zollinger

A Dream of #Deployless

2019-07-26T13:38:00.004+12:00

I recently read that Dark language post about incredibly quick deployments and got really excited. I likes me a good pipeline, but I’d rather not have one at all if I could possibly help it. I want to have the same experience of editing a file on a server and seeing the changes, but with modern controls and safety.

Now, Dark is still vapor-ware in the sense that it hasn’t been published, so unless I luck out and get an invite I’m not going to get to play with it for a while. But it inspired a hunger in me for a better experience.

I’m tired of deploy pipelines. I’m also tired of having to spend hours to get going with a language. Install a few binaries, add packages, realise you need to have multiple versions of the same language installed so add some kind of run-time switcher. Then configure a complex build process. I get exhausted thinking about it.

I wanted to work through the Elm in Action book but I definitely didn’t want to do anything beyond start programming. I decided to use Glitch, a collaborative online coding environment that sprung from Fog Creek.

I found someone had created a baseline Elm app in Glitch so I “remixed” it i.e. used it as the base for my own work. Now, I could have used the browser-based editor but I’d much rather use VS Code, my current fave editor. Turns out, Glitch has a new Code extension for this exact purpose. So I installed that and started typing.

The extension is still very early. It crashed every 10–15 minutes, which was annoying. On the other hand, it never once lost any of my code and it is quick to reload VS Code, so I can live with that.

One of Elm’s big features is that it allows no run-time exceptions. The compiler is very helpful and uses the Maybe and Result types to handle the sorts of things that end up in run-time failures. So I could have the elm compiler logs scrolling as I typed, and when I got it right and the project compiled, I knew it was going to work.

Meanwhile, Glitch has integrated Git in a feature they call Rewind. It’s pretty crude — it effectively takes snapshots every few minutes and turns them into Git commits. It’s supposed to be collaborator friendly but I personally need more documentation from my source control. That said, it was free and took zero setup. And source control is due a re-evaluation in terms of usability.

As I made changes in VS Code, I’d pop over to the running version at https://photogroove.glitch.me/ in another tab and refresh the page to see the changes.

It ain’t pretty, but it’s live

To recap, with the installation of a single extension, I was writing code in a language I hadn’t installed, in my preferred editor, watching it compile on the server, have its container restart, and refresh the page to see my changes.

Dark is planning to offer the killer feature that would make this work for a serious team project: integrated feature toggles. By my understanding, they automatically version new functions and types that you write and provide progressive deployment tooling similar to LaunchDarkly, directly from their editor.

I don’t think this future is going to be for every situation. Game development, AI, systems programming, native mobile development are all going to continue to do things status quo. But #deployless absolutely is the future for web apps and services. I can’t wait for it to happen.

We take safety seriously

2019-05-25T10:06:00.001+12:00

welcome the dreamers, the hurt, the weak
the poor, the isolated, the mad
he tangata, your huddled masses

he tangata - and smiling faces on shiny posters
We take safety seriously

Entry to this office is controlled
no helmets - no hoods - no sunglasses - no patches
we may ask you for proof of identification,
he tangata

We are here to help - we take safety seriously

three guards, numb with boredom
one operates the door switch
in case of zombies, I’m gonna hide out
in my local WINZ office.

he tangata
more news, daily of homeless in cars, motel debt
living on maraes, of Bennett playing her fucking games

someone arranged an in-car sleepover as a protest
should be fun for the middle class, concerned
we take safety seriously

“Oh yes it got terribly chilly, but we made do
with some wine and card games - it was fun
felt so good to be speaking up and helping each other, you know?”

he tangata
Welcome to Work & Income, NZ
We take safety, seriously

Godiva, Abjection

2019-05-25T10:04:00.003+12:00

So now

you are seen

hoist and ragged and

given

martyred to the people

You are seen

We know you

exposed – filaments, form

tendons, tied – more

your shame

excites the crowd

dogs (snap and foam)

Jezebel - who praised Ba’al

become Whore to Beelzebub

victors’ ancient slurs

quicken pulses still we

see

you

in silence and in secret

you are known, loved

and forgiven

draw the blinds and let lie

You Live Alone

2019-05-25T10:04:00.000+12:00

You live alone. One day you will come home from work, close the front door behind you, and know that there is someone in the house. You will walk down the hallway towards the lounge. You will know that the person is sitting on the couch, in the lounge, waiting for you. You will be completely certain that they are there, unseen face turned towards you. You will slowly, quietly, approach the open doorway. You will see (of course!) that the room is empty.

Later that evening, you will be preparing dinner. You will have fresh fish fillets on the bench, covered in flour. The butter in the pan will have just melted. As you reach for the fish to dip it in the egg to fry it in the pan, you will realise there is someone standing behind you, between you and the refrigerator. You will sense their eyes on you. You will stop, frozen in the moment, wanting to turn around but not wanting to move at all. Finally, you will turn, quickly, to where you know the person is standing. You will see (surprise!) that there is no-one there. You are alone.

It will be late at night. You will have watched a movie. You will have brushed your teeth and washed your face. You will have switched off the lights in the rest of the house and retired to your bedroom. You will be reading by the light of the bedside lamp. You will be tired and you will let your attention wander and you will find that your eyes have closed. You will be about to open your eyes again, to continue your novel, when you will notice that there is someone in the room with you. You will sense them, close by. You will not be able to hear them, even though you find that you are holding your breath. You will reassure yourself that you are imagining things, but you will know that you are not. You will slowly, deliberately, open your eyes. You will see who it is that’s been waiting for you. You will not be alone.

A Small Favour

2019-05-25T10:02:00.004+12:00

She asked me for a favour - it was a little thing, really. One of my little things. A finger. My pinkie, to be precise. And because it was a little thing, and because I loved her, and because I wanted her to be happy, and maybe a little bit because I thought it was hot, I agreed.

I didn't miss it much. I didn't ask where she kept it. When I asked her why she wanted it, she said that she wanted a piece of me, and I was satisfied.

Then, she wanted another one. A toe. The outer one. I was a little hesitant, but by that time I was a little scared in our relationship, I didn't want her to leave, and so I said 'yes'. I didn't miss it much.

But father, I'm writing to you now using just my thumb and index finger to hold my pen. I have no other fingers, no, nor toes. I'm afraid she will ask me for these last two. And if she does, I'm afraid I will give them to her. And I think I will miss these very much indeed.

Your loving son,
Carlos

Peace and Quiet

2019-05-25T10:00:00.002+12:00

Woke up Monday morning
there was nothing I could do
Curled myself into a ball and
closed my eyes, thinking of you

By midday the phone was ringing:
Boss's number; killed the sound
Left it there, vibrating gently
by the window, on the ground

And I thought
what really happens if you give up life for good?
I think I'm gonna lie here till I feel just like I should.

That night my flatmates came home
from their jobs; I heard them laugh
When they'd all gone off to sleep
I ate some food and took a bath.

Wondered briefly what would happen
if I never left this place
Then just lay, eyes on the ceiling
picturing your angry face.

Woke again to sounds of knocking
They were banging on the door
Luckily I'd thought to lock it,
Wedged the drawer to be sure

I guess they'll keep on trying
Won't they just leave me alone?
Don't want to see them through the window
or to hear them on the phone.

There's only one person I'm missing
And I know you won't return
So I'm gonna burn my life until
there's nothing left to burn

What really happens if you give up life for good?
I think I'm gonna lie here till I feel just like I should.

Violet Card Parable

2019-05-25T09:59:00.003+12:00

I know I need a Violet Card. With a Violet Card I qualify for additional support while I wait in the long line. This is important, especially if you don’t have family who can come and bring you food while you wait in the long line. I ask my friend and she shakes her head in pity at me. No, she says, you have to collect a form for a Violet Card from the Department directly. Actually, I’m not sure if they call it a Violet Card anymore. I can’t remember, she says, I heard they changed it. Don’t go to the Department office in Central, she tells me, they do Blue Cards, Violet Cards and Green Cards too so the lines are longer. She’s heard that you have to be there queuing before it opens if you want to be seen at the Department office in Central. East is better, she says.

So here I am, at the Department office in East. Out the front, two guards stand in front of the bright yellow sign. They look bored. Things have changed since last year, since an incident at the Department office in South. More guards, these days.

I walk in, down the stairs. There’s a faint buzzing in my head, from the air conditioning. I see the end of a queue, but I don’t know for sure it’s my queue, that it’s the queue I need to stand in. It goes around a corner.

I walk past the people in the queue, around the corner. At the far end of the hallway I can see a door through to a waiting room. A guard stands besides the door. I walk towards him. He shakes his head, nods at the queue. I’m close enough now to see that they are waiting to collect a ticket from a ticket dispenser. There are three along the wall, but only one seems to be working. I think I know what I need to do, now: I need a ticket so that I can wait in the waiting room.

I turn around and walk back to the end of the line. The people standing in line stare at me, apathetically, before returning their gazes to their phones. I imagine that they resented me walking past them. I imagine they wondered who I thought I was. I imagine they feel cheered by the presence of someone else, further behind them. I imagine they tell themselves “At least I’m not at the back of the line anymore”.

I pull out my phone, instinctively, and tap at it, bored already. I stare at the backs of people’s heads, at the beige walls, up at the ceiling. I tap my fingers against my legs until the man standing in front of me shifts his weight to the other leg and I imagine he is standing, annoyed, wanting me to be quiet but not wanting to turn around and tell me that. I try and be quiet, but my breathing sounds loud to me.

The line advances, slowly. A person joins the queue behind me, and then another. I round the corner. Now I can see the waiting room. I try to read something on my phone, but the buzzing is making it hard for me to concentrate.

The buzzing in my head is becoming louder. I look around, trying to find some sort of distraction. There are posters on the wall, of smiling families, of a man cheerfully reading a letter, a woman sitting at a coffee table. The text of the posters is friendly: “You and us, in partnership, together”, one reads; “Helping you get back on your feet”, another.

Elsewhere there are smaller, A4 pieces of paper stuck to the wall. One of them warns that tardiness to appointments may cause your Cards to be revoked. Another reminds me that omitting to inform the Department about other Cards that one possesses is a prosecutable offense. A third suggests that I consider the space to be a “Neutral Tone Zone” and that everyone’s vocal tones must remain within a neutral range or risk ejection from the area.

Finally I reach the front of the ticket dispenser. I slide in my Green Card and punch in my Department Customer Identification number. There is a moment’s pause, then the dispenser starts rattling. I assume this is part of the normal operation, but it continues, on and on. I start to count in my head. How long has it been since it started rattling? Twenty seconds? I’ll count from there and stop if it takes more than a minute. Thirty. Is a minute too long? I look back at the line. They look at me. Forty. No, a minute is fine. I have a right to be here. I haven’t done anything wrong.

Did I do it wrong?

I try to think back to the numbers I entered. No, I can’t have typed them wrong. I know them by muscle memory these days. I realise I’ve forgotten to keep count. Shit. Where was I?

The rattling stops abruptly and a ticket appears. I pull out my Green Card, and take the ticket. I turn away and walk towards the waiting room. The waiting room is nearly empty. A couple huddle in one corner, a disheveled man counts his fingers in one of the chairs by the door, a guard sits near the far door. The walls have been painted a cheerful pastel blue, and are covered with more posters and pamphlets and warnings. There is music playing, some kind of reedy whistling is piping through a small speaker mounted in a corner of the ceiling. At the far end of the room, a man sits at a counter below a large screen displaying what I assume is a ticket number. It’s not my ticket number, and no-one stands before the man. He is staring at his screen, tapping keys.

I sit.

Time passes. I want distractions; I read the posters. The whistling song continues. I don’t want to take my eyes off the ticket number screen, afraid I will miss my number. What is my number? I look at my ticket. X28. Ok. The screen says P35. It can’t be linear, there aren’t enough people here. Someone else walks in from the hallway, sits down.

Time passes. The number on the screen finally changes: N02. It’s not linear. No-one goes to the counter. The man behind the counter looks around the room. After a moment, the number changes again: 50R. The couple stand up and walk up to the counter.

The buzzing in my head reminds me of its presence. I imagine that it has a rhythm, like an old air-conditioning unit. BzzzzZZzzzZZzzzZzzzz. The couple leave. The number stays on the screen, unchanged. The man behind the counter goes back to staring at his monitor. Someone else comes in and sits down.

I can feel the buzzing curling around my ears. I become convinced that it has a weight to it, that it exerts a pressure that I start to feel, pressing on my skin. I remind myself that we’re all living under the pressure of the atmosphere. I focus on my breathing. I feel the buzzing wrap itself around me, close against my skin.

The number on the screen has changed, and the disheveled man is at the counter. He wants something. He doesn’t speak well. The man behind the counter explains, slowly, that the disheveled man hasn’t brought the correct paperwork, that the Department can’t help him until he brings a log of his Green Card usage. The disheveled man doesn’t want to leave. The man behind the counter smiles and explains that he cannot help without the paperwork.

I wonder if there is going to be a fight, but the disheveled man turns and shuffles out of the room. I hear him muttering to himself. The guard looks disappointed, before returning to staring across the room. The man behind the counter stares at his monitor, pecking at his keyboard.

I can feel the buzzing starting to inhabit the back of my head, down by the base of the skull. It is warm and red and insistent. I breathe. I look at the large screen. In my pocket, I clench my thumb against the skin of my hand, letting the pain distract me from the buzzing.

I see the number on the screen change to X28. Is that my number? I know I was an ‘X’. I pull the ticket from my pocket. Yes. I have the right number. The man behind the counter is looking up and around the room.

I approach the counter. I try to ignore the buzzing in my head. The man behind the counter smiles. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He asks what the Department can do for me today.

I tell him I would like to pick up the forms needed to apply for a Violet Card. He smiles and tells me that the Department doesn’t provide Violet Cards anymore. Is there anything else he can help me with today?

I’ve heard about this. They’ve changed the system, but you can still get the same effect, somehow, with some other card. Maybe they’ve renamed it?

I ask him if there is a replacement or equivalent for the Violet Card. He stops me, no, the Department only offers Blue Cards these days. I know a Blue Card isn’t what I need. I mention the fits, ask if there is anything that might help with that. He smiles and waits for me to continue. I remain silent. He smiles a moment longer. I stand there. I can tell he knows what I’m asking. Have I used the correct words? Perhaps I’m really in the wrong place. Please let me be in the right place.

Oh; he says; perhaps you are looking for a Red Card supplement form for the Blue Card. Yes, I say, that must be it. Do you have a Blue Card already, he asks. No, I don’t have a Blue Card, yet. You need a Blue Card as well, he tells me. He reaches over and takes a red form from a pile, slips it into a larger, blue form. You must take this, he says, indicating the red form and smiling at me, take this and get this part here filled out by a registered psycholocutioner, then fill in the rest, and ring our main number to arrange an appointment to start the process. Please bear in mind that our current waitlist for appointments will mean at least a ten working-day wait from the time you call to arrange the appointment.

Can I arrange the appointment now? I’m sure I know the answer but I ask anyway. Oh no, he says, we don’t allow that as we must have received a referral from your psycholocutioner before we can arrange an appointment. You will want to wait at least two days from your appointment with your psycholocutioner but no more than five working days, as referrals expire within a fortnight.

He smiles at me. Is there anything else the Department can do for you today? I clutch the forms to my chest. No, I say, thank you, that’s all. Have a lovely afternoon, he says, and turns back to his monitor, his left hand reaching to press the red button he must use to change the ticket number on the big screen.

I turn and walk out. The people in the line to the ticket dispenser lift up their heads again and watch me leave before returning to their phones.

A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Life

2019-05-25T09:58:00.003+12:00

I always liked choose-your-own-adventure stories. At the end of every page you were obliged to make a choice: “If you want to follow the man, turn to page 53. If you want to investigate the noise in the bushes, turn to page 61.” Frequently, you’d end up at some awful dead-end. The protagonist would be killed gruesomely or wake up, strapped into a chair, being turned into a mindless slave. At that point your only choices were to re-start the story or to turn back to your previous page and pick another path.

I was in my mid-thirties when I discovered that I could travel backwards through time. I was drunk, at the time, reflecting on my sham of a life as it stood then. A loveless marriage, two appalling children, a mediocre career: I’d made a mess of the whole thing. The only consolation I could find to tell myself was that it might have been other than it was. I might have made different choices. I could have been a better person.

I tried to think back, to find the moment where it all went wrong. There wasn’t just one, of course, but a procession of missed opportunities, of cowardice, of sloth. It hurt to remember the many ways I had betrayed myself. I was desperate to avoid drawing the obvious conclusion about myself. I focused on one moment: an opportunity I had refused and that I regretted bitterly.

It had been a couple of years prior, and I was working late on a big project. Exhausted from another twelve hour day, my coworkers and I decided that we were done for the night and that we should get drunk. We emptied the office fridge of beer, sent someone out to fetch more, and kept drinking. One by one, my colleagues dropped away until I found myself alone on a couch in the office with an attractive co-worker. We’d always had a certain frisson, a certain sexual energy, and I could feel the heat of it crackling between us now. Both of us knew what was going on as we continued to pretend to chat. Our legs were casually pressed against each other, my hand rested on their arm.

And then my partner called. What could I do? I answered it. The resentful question posed itself: where was I? In the background I could hear the baby crying. I was drinking with colleagues, but yes, of course, I was just about to come home. Yes, I was sorry for not getting in touch. Yes, I loved them.

The spell between my co-worker and I was broken. I went home and returned to my family and the two of us would act like nothing had ever happened.

I poured myself another glass. What if I’d ignored the phone, I wondered. What might have happened?

I found myself back on that office couch, sitting so close to my colleague that I could smell whatever it was they had put in their hair, and it smelled good. We were both waiting, the hungry absence before the wave crashes. Any moment could be the right moment. I turned my phone off, and tossed it on the carpet. Our moment arrived, and it tasted sweet and free and hungry.

Have you ever had an affair? Ever cheated on someone? It is the most exquisite blend of appetite and disgust, of need and guilt. It sharpens every stolen moment into its own crystalline jewel, set into a silver filigree of lies, evasions and excuses that curl around everything in your life. You can go years living like this, but eventually your lies will crumble and your state will be revealed for what it is.

So that was a mistake. I felt confident, after two attempts at married life, that it was not for me. That moment on our trip overseas, walking on the beach with my lover, hand in hand, when my heart ached with love, when I took their hand and told them that we should get married. That was the moment I should have taken back. Stop the whole, messy disaster before it was too late.

This time I let myself feel that love and I remained silent. The trip ended well, but neither of us were surprised when, a few months after returning, we parted, amicably. It just wasn’t meant to be.

The trick with time travel, I discovered, is memory. No-one else can remember the years of struggling to make a relationship work. No-one else remembers the bitter arguments, the ugly habits that form in the crucible of a trapped couple’s life. They can see the effect of it, though.

I was ruined for other partners, for a long time. I’d meet someone new, things would spark, a relationship would bloom, and some part of me would begin screaming. Soon, everything they said would become a trap, an irritation, a reminder of arguments past. I had to get out. I bounced around for some years, leaving confused and hurt partners in my wake.

Perhaps, I decided, I was focusing on the wrong aspect of my life. Perhaps my mediocre career was the root of my discontent. For years after my graduation I had followed a standard progression, moving from big company to big company. I wasn’t a failure, but neither was I especially talented. The companies I worked for, and the salary I earned reflected this.

This time, instead of safe jobs, I would seek out riskier positions. I would dare more. This approach returned dividends. I was involved in more interesting projects, I became a part of talented teams and sometimes I was even proud of the work that we achieved. I was paid less, but my desires were scant.

Sadly, this approach also proved a mirage in my quest for happiness. I had breached my thirties, focused on my career. I still felt a hollow in the pit of my guts when I thought about who I was and where I belonged.

What could I do? What other choices remained me? I contemplated suicide but I knew I’d never have the nerve. I made a few aborted attempts at a life of hedonism but frankly, I’m not the type. Too boring, I suppose. I tried half-heartedly to investigate the spiritual. It was not for me.

Finally, I had a revelation, if you can call it that. The single common element in all my attempts to escape ennui was me. I was the problem. No wonder I couldn’t escape the emptiness. I was empty, and nothing outside of me could fill the void.

I needed to discover who I was, and to find a way to live in integrity with that. I embarked on a journey of self-awakening, one that took me halfway across the world, across many years. I explored and probed and learned many things about who I was.

It turns out: I’m an asshole.

I hate everyone and everything. I hate joy. I hate happiness. I hate beauty and family and love. I hate foreigners and foreign lands. I hate my hometown and the locals that abide in it. I hate the weather, all weather: I hate sun and rain and mist and snow and wind and wet and dry. I hate change. I hate it when everything stays the same. I hate seeing people do well. I especially hate seeing my friends do well.

I do enjoy seeing them do badly, though. That cheers me right up.

At first I considered surrounding myself with especially unfortunate souls. I imagined I might be forced to engineer unhappiness in those around me. I’m quite good at that.

But it turns out terrible things are constantly happening to people. Arbitrary tragedies and unjust inconveniences. I don’t even have to provoke them. Once I started looking, I realised that they happen all around me, to everyone, all the time. I need only ask people how their day was, or how things are going at the moment, and I hear it all. Bankruptcies, betrayals, bereavements. Depression, disappointments, despair. We’re positively soaking in it. You might call it inescapable.

These days I’m doing quite well. I don’t think I’ll need to use my powers again.

We walk the point

2019-05-25T09:58:00.000+12:00

We walk the point, you and I.

I am distracted, I talk away, but you look out across the harbour.

“What are you looking for?” I ask, and let my words sink in the damp air.

“Whales,” you tell me, “or dolphins.” You stop me with a gesture and still the crunch of our feet on sand.

Through the swells we see them, cresting grey backs, a pod. You are entranced. One of them breaches and you gasp. I try, but I can’t see what amazes you. I pull out my phone and check the time.

The whales are gone and I walk on, but you remain, standing, looking out. I get back, light the fire and start dinner, and when you return, finally, we share a glass of wine.

At night, you snore quietly besides me under the sheets and I just lie there, listening to the waves and watching your face.

millennium challenge 2002

2019-05-25T09:55:00.000+12:00

blue force: United States Armed Forces
red force: unknown middle-eastern adversary

blue force:
battleships: deployed.
aircraft carriers: deployed.
sophisticated electronic surveillance network: deployed.
ultimatum to red force: deployed.

red force:
motorcycle messengers: deployed.
World War 2 light signals: deployed.
fleet of small boats: deployed.
massive salvo of cruise missiles: deployed.
suicide fleet: deployed.

blue force:
sixteen warships: destroyed.
one aircraft carrier: destroyed.
ten cruisers: destroyed.
five amphibious ships: destroyed.
twenty thousand men: dead.
you sunk my battleships.

blue force:
select option: suspend exercise.
select option: re-float fleet.
select option: re-start exercise.
select option: change rules of engagement.

red force must follow the script.
red force must turn on all anti-aircraft radar.
red force may not shoot down blue force aircraft.
red force may not use air-defense weapon systems.
red force must disclose location of units.
red force must follow the script.

blue force victory.

[Based on a true story]

Muscle Memory

2019-05-25T09:54:00.002+12:00

My thumb still finds its way
to the base of the finger
where we used to rest

Now we sit, unused,
in my drawer
with my ties and drugs

I don’t miss us
much
these days

but my thumb still finds its way
to the base of the finger

Mindfulness Exercise #1

2019-05-25T09:50:00.002+12:00

Close your eyes. Take some time to make sure you are comfortable.

Concentrate on your breathing. Pay attention to its rhythm. Do not try to change it. Just watch the way it comes in, and goes out.

When you breath in, try and breathe through your nose. When you breathe out, try and breathe through your mouth. Don’t worry if you cannot.

Let the air enter your lungs and then, without effort, let yourself exhale, long and slow.

Free, relaxed inhale.

Long, slow exhale.

Slowly, and without effort, let your exhale lengthen. As the air from your lungs is pushed out, gently (gently!) tighten your abdominal muscles until you’ve squeezed all the air out. Then let in a free, relaxed inhale, all the way down into your abdominal cavity. Keep breathing.

How are you feeling? A little more relaxed? Pay attention now to the tension in those muscles. As you breathe out, let those muscles slowly relax. When you breathe in, with a free, relaxed inhale, some of that tension will come back in. That’s alright. Just focus on relaxing your body as you exhale.

Begin to notice your mind. How is it? Are you stressed? Is it moving too fast? Pay attention to the pattern of the movement of your thoughts. Let them run. When you find yourself becoming distracted, notice this and gently bring your mind back to this exercise.

Now listen to your surroundings. What can you hear? Are there any hums outside? Dogs barking? Traffic?

Listen to it all and let it wash over you. Try to hear the sounds without thinking about them. Hear them as sound, not as meaning.

Bring your attention back to your body, now. Are you still comfortable? If not, adjust until you are. Pay attention to your skin, and the sensations that it is experiencing. Is it warm? Is it cold? Feel the pressure against it — the pressure of your chair, or the pillow. Feel the weight of your body.

Take a few minutes.

Move your attention deeper into your body. What can you feel? Can you feel the blood pumping relentlessly through your arteries and veins? Can you hear the dull, persistent beating of your heart? Notice how this tireless engine fills you and animates you. Imagine the network of dark, visceral threads that spreads through you, that keeps you warm and living. Can you feel each throbbing pulse as the blood drives through your muscles?

Bring your attention back to your lungs. Your lungs supply your heart. Every breath in fills those fibrous sacs. But notice how your muscles must pull and push at your lungs to make them work. Feel the muscles distorting those bags in your chest. Notice the cycle.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

You cannot stop any of this. It all continues without your direction.

Take a deep breath and hold it. Feel the pressure of it in your chest.

Keep holding it.

Do you feel the rebellion of your body, that mounting pressure as you refuse to supply it air? Are you sure that it is the body rebelling against you? Perhaps holding your breath is an act of rebellion against the body? If that is the case, notice how futile your act of rebellion is.

Let the air back into your lungs. Sense that relief. How does that feel? Perhaps your body is rewarding you for obeying it.

Broaden your focus, now, and pay attention to the whole of your body. Notice the weight of your body. Notice its physicality. Notice the endless sensations, the little muscle and joint aches, your gut churning away, how the external world feels, smells and sounds. What is paying attention to the body? Is that your consciousness? Does your consciousness feel in control?

If you told your body to stay here, in place, forever, what would happen? First, you’d get bored. You’d tell yourself how stupid the exercise was, and how you had things to do. You have people waiting for you. You have a schedule. You are somebody. But you know none of that is forcing you to get up. You could continue to sit here, couldn’t you? But you want to get up, don’t you? Are you sure this is your consciousness speaking?

If you still refuse to get up, your body will try other tricks to bring you in line.

Perhaps your stomach, endless sucking tube that it is, will start growling at you. You’ll feel that hollow need of hunger rising. Are you thirsty? Your mouth is dry, pasty. You can taste it. You can almost imagine that cold, refreshing glass of water trickling down your throat.

Your muscles become uncomfortable. They want you to stand up, or to adjust your position. The discomfort will increase, until they feel like they are on fire. A little movement would be all that it takes to bring relief. Are you able to resist that?

Your bladder is full, perhaps. Notice that uncomfortable ache. It wants you to attend to it. Ignore it. If you find that you can’t, let it go. Let those muscles relax. Feel the warmth as it spreads across your legs. Notice the shame that rises in your gorge. What wants you to feel ashamed?

Perhaps your body decides that it will go to sleep. It knows that you will be more compliant after it has had a chance to tinker with you. Notice the weight on your eyelids. Notice your thoughts becoming slow and drowsy. You might be able to resist it for a while, but sooner or later you’ll find your head nodding. You’ll want nothing in life but to close your eyes and get comfortable.

Do you think you will wake up ready to continue the fight? Or will your body heat up, agitate your mind until you feel you must do something or scream. Do you still feel in control?

Oh, you say. I choose to stand up. This is silly. I am not a puppet — I’m merely going along with my body’s polite suggestions as I go about my day. We are a partnership, my body and I. I am free to choose whatever I like. I am somebody.

Notice that flicker of doubt when you say that. Notice all the compulsions that drive you forwards like a battery-powered bunny. Notice the feeling of being a trapped passenger inside a pulsing meat machine. Notice that you told yourself you didn’t need to try the experiment, that it was a ridiculous waste of your time. Who told you that? Are you sure it was you?

Perhaps it’s time to get up now. Perhaps it’s time to get on with your day. You have things to do. You have places to be. You have commitments. Perhaps it’s time to forget these thoughts.

You have agency.

You are real.

You are in control.

Open your eyes.

There will come a day

2019-05-25T09:49:00.000+12:00

There will come a day

when things get

as good

as they are ever going to get

There will come a day

when your best

is behind you

You will not mark these days

that pass

save in moments of regret

You will not note them

until forgotten dreams

remind you

And when you do,

what will you do?

What will there be

left to say?

And when you do,

Who will there be

left to grieve you?

And on the shore

I will wait

as the light

softly dims

And on the shore

I will stand

and turn to greet you

The hole in the field

2019-05-25T09:48:00.000+12:00

At the end of my eighth year, or perhaps at the start of my ninth, my family moved to a suburban area. Ten years before it had all been countryside. Since then, developers had converted it into an inane sprawl of identikit houses. It was the kind of place designed for young families.

I attended a school near to our house. Although I had few friends at the school, I was not especially ostracised or left out. I was happy enough.

There was one oddity about the school itself: in the centre of the main playing field was a large hole in the ground. It was wide enough that you could have dropped a car or a van straight down it. The grass grew all the way up to the edge of the hole. Indeed, in some places it even continued a metre or so into the hole’s gently curved entrance. Although I didn’t have the courage to get close to the hole, I could see it was deep. I would get within a metre, or half a metre, from where it began to curve down, and I would be seized by a sense of vertigo. I imagined the hole plunging deep into the centre of the earth. Of course I knew that must be nonsense, but I couldn’t bring myself to get closer and look.

The other strange thing about the hole was that no-one seemed to pay any attention to it. There was no fence to stop the children approaching the hole. There were no signs to warn them away from its edge. Nonetheless, the children avoided the hole. No-one went closer than a few metres to its edge. They seemed to be ignoring the hole. There had been a storm drain at my old school and my friends and I had spent hours throwing whatever we could find down into its murky depths. Nothing similar happened here.

Occasionally a ball would go off course, kicked by some child, and bounce off down into the hole. The children would gaze at the hole a couple of moments, and then would go and find a new ball to continue their game with, or start a new game. I never saw a child complaining about the loss of their ball, or any curiosity about retrieving it.

The teachers mirrored the children’s lack of interest. They would patrol the playground, cup of tea in one hand, monitoring and scolding the children as they played. I never once heard any of the teachers even mention the hole, let alone warn the children away. They seemed aware of the hole; they gave it a wide berth as they wandered about, but they didn’t seem to care about it at all.

Of course, I was filled with an intense interest in the hole. I imagined that there must be some hideous story that caused the children to avoid the hole, some child that had fallen in, or a tale of monsters emerging at night. But the children I spoke to told me no such story. They were simply uninterested in the hole, or anything to do with it. It was just a fact of life, and they seemed more confused by my curiosity than anything else.

The only other child that I could discuss the hole with was Dylan. Dylan had moved into the area a couple of years prior. Perhaps he too could not ignore the hole because he hadn’t grown up in its presence. We would stand as close as we dared to the edge, and talk about it. I can’t remember our speculations with any precision. I suppose we tried to guess how deep the hole went, what was at the bottom of the hole, how it came to exist, why it had not been filled in. I don’t think we came to any particular conclusions.

It was Dylan who suggested that the hole might not have a bottom at all. This thought, once expressed, became a common theme in our conversations. We started to develop a shared belief that the hole wasn’t natural, but some kind of entrance to an endless, plunging abyss. We speculated that the hole descended not into the earth but was more like a hole in the universe itself.

We took to throwing objects down the hole and trying to listen to the sound of them hitting the bottom. No sound ever emerged.

One day, Dylan suggested we lie down on our bellies and crawl to the edge of the hole to get a better look. Our mutual imaginings had inflamed my curiosity, but they had also filled it with a kind of hesitance. I felt a dread that manifested itself as a tightness in my guts. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know any more about the hole than I already did. But Dylan seemed unconcerned and his confidence reassured me.

We approached the gently curving edge of the hole, crawling like commandos. I paused at a point where I felt the ground begin to slope down, but Dylan kept going. He crawled until the upper half of his body was definitely past where the curve began. Fear of having my cowardice exposed drove me forward to match Dylan.

From here, we could see almost to where a bottom might have been. Within a few metres of the top the walls became dark and earthy and featureless as the light dropped away.

As I gazed down into the depths of the hole, the spinning nausea I felt from standing close to the hole returned with a vengeance. The only time I’ve ever felt similar is on swings. I’d be standing on a swing, going higher and higher, leaning back as my face turned to the sky and I’d be struck by the sensation of hanging off the edge of our planet, gravity the only thing holding me from tumbling endlessly into the vastness of the heavens. I would become dizzy and unbalanced and soon I would have to stop swinging and sit on the solid ground for a few minutes to overcome the illusion.

Here, though, there was no such reassurance. I could feel myself planted firmly on the ground, but below me gaped a vast, eternal void. I knew, I was convinced, that if either of us crawled any further we would plunge forever into this uncaring absence. I knew nothing could stop our fall. I knew we would starve to death before we encountered any obstacle.

I could feel myself mentally withdrawing. I stared at my arms, extended in front of me, holding my upper body horizontal. I saw them telescope away from me until they looked like someone else’s arms. It was like I was gazing out through my eyes, but from a metre behind where my head usually was. I noticed I could no longer hear the sounds from the field. A rushing humming sound that seemed to emerge from and resonate within my ears had replaced all else. I felt like I was experiencing my body as if it were separated from my consciousness by a vast, invisible sphere.

I told my hands to move, to push me backwards, and, as if they had received a message over a distant ocean, they did. As they obeyed I became aware of my shallow, panting breathing. I continued to push myself away from the edge, to crawl backwards back up the curve until, finally, I was back on flat ground. I closed my eyes and hugged the grass, letting the cold prickles of the blades bring me back into my body. My breathing slowed. The sounds of children playing returned.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that Dylan was still leaning over the edge. I tugged his foot, irritable, afraid. He shook my hand off and continued to stare downwards. I called his name but he didn’t reply. I sat for some minutes, watching him, before even that became unbearable, and I stood and walked away.

From then on, we didn’t talk. There was only one thing that we could have talked about and I was not prepared to discuss it, nor was there anything to say. Dylan took to spending lunches in the same position, lying as close as possible to the hole, staring down into it. I avoided the field when I could, though given the small size of the school, this was limiting.

I still had to pass the field to reach the school gate at home time. I noticed that Dylan would be out in the field after school, lying close to the hole. No-one else commented about his behaviour. No-one even looked his way. I imagine, like most of us, he had a few hours free in the afternoons before his parents expected him home for dinner. I never saw his mother at the gate after school, so perhaps she worked.

One day, Dylan stopped coming to school. No-one said anything, but I noticed that his name was no longer called out in roll-call. He had friends in the class, but I never heard anyone say his name. When I asked the others in class what had happened to him, they just looked at me. I couldn’t tell if they they had forgotten him, or they could remember him and just didn’t care. I dropped it.

I continued to avoid the field as much as I was able. Six months later, my father got a new job. We moved away from that neighbourhood to another similar neighbourhood and I started attending a new school.

Buoy

2019-05-25T09:46:00.000+12:00

We used to do things differently around here. You listening, girl? These days, you want to go dive under Buoy, you’ve got to get in one of them big bells, there’s got to be two of you down there at all times, all sorts of safety rules and policies and mechanisms.

Good reason for it, though. Things changed about fifteen years ago. Before then, Scrapers worked in teams of two: one below and one above. You know how every now and then the mariners bring a boat up onto dry dock, scrape down barnacles and such? Well, you can’t very well put Buoy itself into dry dock, can you? Too damn big and unwieldy. So we have to do the scraping in situ. Fancy term for “in place” as in “go diving with a long hook and pull all the shit off the bottom”. Nasty job, but someone’s got to do it. Hence: Scrapers.

As I said, normally you’ve got one Scraper up top, running the air pump and monitoring for signs from the diving Scraper. Sounds like an easy job, but it ain’t. Most of the time you don’t need to do nothing, but if you stop paying attention for even a moment, you might find yourself hauling up a dead Scraper buddy. And no-one’s gonna want to work with you again, for sure. You might see a Scraper above lighting a pipe and smoking it, but watch their eyes. You’ll see. They never leave what’s going on.

Not that being a Scraper below is any easier. You got to have strong nerves to put on a big ol’ clumsy suit, take up a hook, and then jump into that cold, dark water. You got to remember there’s only one way back up, and that’s through the shaft you came down. The shafts are spaced across Buoy so you can get to anywhere underneath pretty easy, but if something goes wrong, the next shaft across might be a hundred meters away. And they didn’t used to be as wide as they are now. Big enough for one diver through at a time, was all would fit. So if things went wrong, not like anyone could dive in and come get ya, easily. You had to be brave, or stupid. Preferably the former, but we had plenty of the latter, too.

It’s dark down there. No natural light under Buoy, except at the edges. All the suits had these big electric lights in the middle of their chest. Pretty bright, but when it’s the only light you got, and you got to turn your whole body around just to see what’s behind you, you get a tad nervy. We had more than one Scraper come up, a complete mess, swearing they heard something they couldn’t account for, refuse to ever dive again. Lot of turnover in the Scraper profession. Five years below is about the most anyone wants to do, and if you last longer it’s because you was a bit peculiar to start with, or the work made you that way. I think I did about five years, myself, but by the time I graduated to a Scraper above job, I was real good and ready.

Anyway, it wasn’t a perfect system. Plenty of dangers, for sure. We lost em to pump failures or tubes getting tangled or tearing. Doesn’t take long without air to breath before it becomes pretty unlikely we’ll be pulling you out alive. Good pay, though, of course, to compensate. Good enough to keep the young lasses and lads coming, sure they’re invincible enough and clever enough to collect. Still is that way, I suppose.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah — what changed.

So this kid, she’s maybe eighteen. Been a Scraper below for a couple of years. Good kid. Unshakeable, great attitude. But steady, you know? Reliable. Never took any unnecessary risks, none that I saw. We’d worked together as partners a few times and I didn’t have a bad word to say about her.

So we’re down at the depot, just shooting the shit. Mueller’s there, and Abel. I ever tell you about those two? Story for another day. The chief comes in and throws us a job — some kind of big obstruction, close to the Bow. He thinks it might be some kind of floating wreck or something. I tell him that if it is that big we’re gonna need to mount a larger expedition, but he tells me no, that first we’ve got to get eyes on the thing, see what it is and what’s gonna be involved clearing it. I can’t argue with that, so the kid and I grab tools and mosey off Bow-wards.

We decide to start at B3. You might imagine we’d start at B1 but I prefer to avoid the edge if I can help it. There are eddies and weird little currents that run around the edge of Buoy and it can make things just a little harder. So, B3 made sense to my mind. I got the pump going, the kid put on the suit, we ran through the usual safety checklist (”You ready?” “Yep” “Alright, then”) and the kid dropped below. She ran about fifty metres of tubing out and made a wide circle, but when she came up she said she couldn’t see much of anything. She thought she might have seen something closer to B8, but visibility was murkier than usual. We packed up and wandered in the direction of B8.

Now, B8’s a bit of a tricky one to get to. You need to duck in the alley whose entrance sits between Barber Nell’s and that cafe run by the cranky old Gaul. And then, once you’ve pulled your pump through the narrow alley, you’ve got to fit it through an access door and lower it down to a kind of basement area. Takes two people and you’re both puffed before you even get ready to dive. A real pain in the behind.

So we did all that, took five minutes to rest and smoke a pipe. Then the kid gets in the suit, I start up the pump, and down she goes. I’m sitting there, arms crossed, watching the tube spool out. Ten metres, twenty, twenty-five — no problems.

Then, there’s a sharp jerk on the tube. Sometimes, if the tube has gotten snarled on something, a Scraper below will give it a bit of a yank to get it clear. But this didn’t seem like one of those tugs. And it didn’t seem like a communication tug. So I’m paying close attention now.

The tube slackens a wee bit, so I reel it in some. The kid must be heading back, I think. But it stops again, and everything is still. I imagine the kid under there, in the dark, slowly turning one way, then slowly turning back the other way. She’s seen something, but she doesn’t know what yet.

The tube spools out, slowly, a couple of meters. Trying to get a better look, I suppose. I can imagine, now, the kind of thing she must have seen, in that dim light. A jumble of dark shapes, something that looks like a large school of fish all gathered around an obscure mass. It’s hard to say exactly how much she would have been able to make out. But she must have seen enough.

The line slackens rapidly and I pull it in. She’s heading back towards the shaft, at pace. Faster than she usually moves, much faster. Like she’s panicked. Not like her at all. I’m wondering what the hell is going on down there.

And then the line goes taut. And then slack. And then taut again. It’s pulling backwards and forwards, like a fishing line with a marlin or something else big on the hook. Now I know she’s in real trouble, and so I start pulling on the line myself. I figure she needs my help to get free of whatever’s got a hold of her. She’s only about ten metres away at this point. I’m pulling on this line, and I can feel it thrashing under my hands, but it’s not giving at all — I can’t pull it any closer.

And then the line pulls once, tight, hard, and then, suddenly, there’s nothing. No resistance at all. I’ve been pulling the line so hard that when it goes I fall back on my arse.

I pull the last few meters of tubing in and up over the edge, and all I can see is this angry, torn end where something has bitten clean through.

The kid’s gone.

I slump on the ground, staring at the shaft, hoping she got free of her suit and is moments away from surfacing, but every second that passes I know means less hope. I keep staring. I keep waiting. I notice myself counting seconds. I wait a hundred seconds. Two hundred.

I resist the mad urge to dive down there myself and save her. If they got her then I’m not going to fare any better. I’m useless.

The pump is still churning away, so I stagger up and switch it off. It shudders into silence and now all I can hear is the creaking sounds that Buoy makes, and the splash of water against the shaft’s walls, all echoing in this windowless room.

Eighteen years old.

Eventually, I pull my shit together. I leave the pump where it is and I climb out of the access, walk up the alley and stumble towards the depot. The early evening sounds and smells of Buoy are all around me, everyone carrying on their business. There’s the smell of a street vendor’s popcorn, the sound of live music and chatter from one of the Bow’s bars. No-one knows what’s happened. No-one but me knows the kid is gone.

I make it to the depot. There’s still a bunch of folks around. The chief’s there. I tell him what happened. He goes pale, sits me down, gets one of the Scrapers to fetch me a drink. A flurry of activity, everyone else standing around looking sick. They organise a bathysphere expedition.

Time passes. People leave me alone, mostly. My cup gets refilled. Dusk turns to night. There’s a crowd of about thirty folk, all waiting, talking in hushed voices in the lamplight. Finally the bathysphere folk come back. There’s some kind of dead, giant squid under the Bow, they say. It’s attracted a bunch of sharks, all gone crazy on the blood and the meat and taking bites out of anything that comes near it. The kid must have gotten just a little too close, and they went for her. Not anyone’s fault. Just the way it is.

Someone else has the job of telling the family. Maybe it’s the chief. I’m glad it’s not me.

After that, I was done with Scraping. Couldn’t bear to see anyone else go diving under there. Didn’t have the stomach for it. I was having these dreams, you see. Dreams of being in the suit again, hearing my own breathing, the light in my chest illuminating this squirming darkness. Watching shapes detach from the mass and swim towards me, and then teeth.

I got a dry job, managing shifts at the depot. I kept to myself. People in the depot didn’t really want to talk to me, or even look me in the eyes anymore. They didn’t know what to say, I guess.

After that, things changed for Scrapers. People were shaken up about how the kid went. I guess everyone could imagine what that must have been like, it was too much for em to let go. So Buoy put a whole lot of work into widening the shafts, building these big metal bells, all that stuff I was telling you about before. Seems to have done the trick, I suppose. A lot less accidents these days.

I’m not telling you this to scare you off, girl. If you got your heart set on being a Scraper and you’ve the nouce and the nerve, then you go for it. The pay’s still good and it’s never been safer. But don’t forget that when you go down there, you’re trespassing on a space that ain’t yours, and that will swallow you whole without pause. You respect the darkness below, you fear it, you never forget you’re a guest down there. You do all that, you get paid, you go home to your family.

Alright. I’m done. Story-time is over. You go away and think about it. If you’re still keen, come Thursday, I’ll book you in for some shifts next week, set you up with somebody experienced.

Get on, now. Go.

Project planning with Pivotal Tracker

2011-08-26T09:00:00.003+12:00

I've been using Pivotal Tracker for my own project and I recently helped a mate get set up so that they can plan their first release, an awesome-sounding old-school multiplayer deathmatch game. I gave them a bunch of advice about how to use it and realised that I could do with having the advice written down for reference myself. So here are some thoughts about how to plan and schedule those features.

Break down many-tasked features

Features with a heap of significant tasks attached are a planning "smell" (meaning the indication that something is wrong). Consider breaking them down to smaller chunks. This will help you to both get a grip on what actually needs doing and get an idea of how long it will take.

Pushing the estimate length limit

If you find yourself setting a lot of estimates at 3 (the default maximum in PT) and thinking "I wish I could set this to 4...", this is a sign your feature is too big.
[Update] Dan P points out that Pivotal Tracker's default estimate range of 0-3 abstract points is completely customisable. I'd still recommend sticking to the default while you get used to writing good features.

Use chores to represent decision points, learning activites and setup tasks

If you're creating a feature and there are big design questions or technological unknowns, break them out into their own items. You should consider making them chores instead of features as they don't represent actual functionality. Any significant setup task e.g. setting up test environments, should also be its own chore.

Prioritise risky features

Adding simple, easy-to-implement functionality is good, but make sure that if you have features planned that have lots of unknowns that you prioritize work on resolving these. This doesn't mean you have to complete the risky feature, just that you need to get confidence around what it will take to build it. You could spend some time sketching the design, do some (time-boxed) research on how others did it or build a small spike solution. The aim of this stuff is to get to the point where you can confidently describe what it will take to build it and a rough guess of how hard it is.

Features in progress

You will have a bunch of stuff currently in progress when you start. If it's small enough to be one feature, just create the feature and mark it as started. If it's a "super-feature" (to coin a term), such as "Art Theme X" or "Capture The Flag Mode", break it down into its component parts and set their status individually to 'done', 'current' or 'unstarted'.

Handle known tasks consistently

The asset creation process is often able to be broken down into repeating features for each super-feature. So, when you're creating an art theme, there might be: 'Concept Art', 'Room Textures', 'Props' and 'Playtesting' for each one. Name them consistently: "Nightworld - Room Textures", "Zombietown - Room Textures", and add an "art" and a "theme" label to each feature. If all the features are consistent, you can start to predict how long it will take to create a new theme based on how long it took you to do the last few. This data will be invaluable when you sit down to schedule the next three months' worth of theme releases.

Write feature descriptions

Partly this is an aid in communication across the team, but mostly this is because it forces you to think through what the feature actually entails, what value it actually delivers and how the feature might actually be implemented. Think of it as a kind of ninja design. The uncomfortable feeling you get when writing a detailed description is the pain of design and decision-making. You have to figure this stuff out eventually, but by doing this thinking up-front and early you'll save yourself all sorts of pain.

Write good feature descriptions

"Features" are things that make your game better. That is, they deliver some kind of measurable value to the players of your game, your customers. Try and write every description as if you're justifying the work to someone that's bought your game. A (slightly verbose) template to get you in the spirit of it: "In order to , as a < gamer / server host / power user >, I should < be able to do X >. You don't have to stick with this template, it's just a tool to help you get in the habit of framing your features correctly. If it's not improving your users' lives, maybe it's a bug, or a chore?

Keep your estimating light

PT's estimate values are limited by default to 0..3 points. Of course you'll want these estimates to be consistent across your team, but they are rough-grained and abstract for a reason: they are estimates. By their nature they are educated guesses. Remember, the more process you add, the more non-work you're doing, and the less likely you'll be to do it. Ask yourself, how much value will you get with more detail, and is it worth the extra weight? Just start, and be prepared to improve the parts of your process that aren't working.

Further information or ideas

Pivotal uses Scrum/Kanban methodology pretty religiously. You don't need to get deep at all on process, but a little process can help. Some further links:

Explanation of Kanban management
Example of a typical workflow
Howto get started with Kanban
Lostgarden on how to use design logs to document your game's design - an alternative technique worth considering for iterative gameplay development

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

A short poem

2011-06-05T14:15:00.000+12:00

swans cross stygian channels into
the darkening chamber
wings echo off moss-rust walls
then a matte and hollow silence

.

Rabid sharing: a recreation of the break from Peshay's Piano Tune

2011-05-24T16:40:00.000+12:00

Further to my last post about rabid sharing, I thought I'd share a recreation I have attempted to do of Peshay - The Piano Tune.

This is my version:

It's basically a chopped up amen with distortion (using Ableton's Saturator), compression and EQ. I added a little Redux down-sampling and bit reduction to give it that old-school sampler feel. Some of the hits have amplitude envelope modifications to achieve that abrupt, gated sound. The bass is just a simple sine wave with a fast attack and decay. There's a touch of Saturator distortion and EQ on it as well.

Download the zipped sample pack.

This is the original version:

Any producers out there: I'd love your ideas about how I could make this break closer to the original. I just haven't quite been able to nail those woody snares!

Thoughts on backups and sharing (and a recreation of the Terrorist break)

2011-05-24T13:01:00.000+12:00

Last Wednesday my laptop was stolen from my flat. I'm in the process of claiming insurance to organise a replacement. That's the bad news. The good news is that my backup drive was not stolen. That means that when I get a replacement laptop, I'll have my years of work and data back as they were!

It's a strange situation I find myself in. I feel some kind of sadness for the loss of my instrument, and yet most of what I miss will be available to me again. I've maintained for years that it's the data, not the medium, that actually matters, but I still seem to be mourning the loss of my faithful machine!

A couple of obvious, but worth repeating, lessons from this:

Make regular backups. As regularly as you can, really. My last backup was 13 days before, which is definitely too long. Losing two weeks of work has had a huge psychological cost.
Keep 'off-site' backups. If my backup drive had gone, I really would have been up shit creek. At the very least, I need to be keeping a backup in another part of the house, and ideally at someone else's place. I'm considering finding a friend and organising a fortnightly backup swap with them. Any musicians out there keen?
Work in public, and share ferociously.

I'd like to elaborate on that last one. I lost two weeks of work, but that has been mitigated partly by the fact that I posted some of my work fragments to Soundcloud and shared files with collaborators and friends. Uploading the Pornogroove sketch that Kwrk and I made to Soundcloud means I now have a decent chance of recreating it; whether I should is a different matter! Similarly, I was pleased with the initial ideas present in this old-school jungle sketch. If I hadn't shared it, it would now be lost forever. Because I shared those Massive patches last week, I can now re-download them myself!

So, be promiscuous with your data. Share your samples, music collections, sketches and anything else you can. Let me know if you do, too. I want to get ma leech all up on that! You might be leery of sharing your "special sauce" but, if you have confidence in your abilities as a musician, you certainly need not worry about other people biting your sounds. Just keep moving forward and making good stuff. Then, when the inconceivable happens, you can hit up your mates for all the data you shared with them. Pro-tip: avoid DRM-locked data as it can be much harder or impossible to share.

In the spirit of working in public and sharing my work, and in case this loaner laptop gets stolen, I'm gonna share my recent recreation of the Terrorist break from the jungle classic by Renegade. It's available for download under a CC by-nc license. I've got another version of the break with the Hot Pants shakers laid on top, but I'm not yet happy with how they sound. Post a message in the comments or on Soundcloud if have any feedback about it!

4 free Massive patches based on SubFocus tutorial

2011-05-16T15:30:00.003+12:00

So, I felt like I learnt a bit from this series of videos by SubFocus. One thing I struggled with was the image quality; when he's doing something specific in Massive I really had to lean in to see what he was up to. I've saved the Massive patches I created while following along and I'm putting them here to share with y'all in case you were interested in using them yourselves.

Some detail about my patches:

CleanReese - this is that super-warm and phat old-school Reese sound he created, as found in a whole bunch of seminal jungle tunes e.g. Ray Keith - Terrorist. I love this sound, and it dirties up real purdy-like.

ElectroStab - A classic detuned electro chorus stab sound.

ReeseLead - You can make this all trancey, or filthy like DBBC - Torpedo. Remarkably flexible sound, try it all the way up and down the octaves for different effects.

BassPatch - The least successful of my patches. Mostly interesting for the way it uses the Performer modulation page.

Get the zipfile I've uploaded to Google Docs. These patches are for the Native Instruments Massive synth.

Legal disclaimer: I doubt I'm doing anything wrong by recreating patches from a free tutorial, but I take no legal responsibility for the use of these patches. They are released by me for free under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Enjoy!

Photos of Night and Fog

2011-05-10T14:50:00.000+12:00

I was out wandering the other night and Auckland City was covered in this dense fog. I felt oh-so-very Exorcist as the spirit of Christ compelled me to take these photos. By way of disclaimer: they were taken with my HTC Magic phone and I know basically nothing about photography.
I've touched them up a little in iPhoto (I know, right!); the biggest fix was bringing the overall levels up as they were pretty dark initially. They've ended up looking pretty grainy but I kind of like that.

These lights have always reminded me of the base of space rockets taking off. I love the contrast with the sinister squat silhouette of the church.

I like the apocalyptic vibe I got when I messed with the contrast and saturation here:

One of my treasured aesthetic memories from childhood was sitting in the backseat of the family car late at night as we drove through the northland countryside, usually travelling between Dargaville or Walkworth and Auckland. I would look out across the countryside to the shadowed hills against the dark sky. There was something ineffable about the infinite obscure textures of gray and blue.

Sometimes I would look past my parents in the front seat down the length of the motorway illuminated by spotlight ochre lamps; imagine us hanging on the undercarriage of some huge spaceship as we flew by rail to a docking station. That delicious feeling of vertigo I felt as I considered the yawning maw of the sky below us.

I suppose for me there will be forever the association of being transported, safe and warm, through the night. My father would play his cassettes of the time: Rickie Lee Jones, Counting Crows, Vicka & Linda, Richard Thompson. Sometimes there would be conversation. I would ask about how some part of the world worked: the ethics of crime and punishment or New Zealand's involvement in Vietnam or the media. Mostly we were silent.

These days, I find my father's driving unnerving; he drives well but faster and more aggressively than I find comfortable. My brothers and I inherited his fahrvergnügen; I'm told my driving is good but stressful. I try and drive in a reassuring manner but it just doesn't stick.

Learning to drive is a loss of innocence: you can never sit in the backseat again.

"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." - You Can't Go Home Again, Thomas Wolfe

How Chase & Status Construct Their Beats

2011-05-06T16:00:00.023+12:00

The audio on these two videos is pretty rough, but I found what they had to say interesting. My notes and thoughts are below.

Reusing beats - It was interesting to hear that they re-use elements from one beat to another. In the example they demonstrate, they re-use a high-end shaker pattern and a processed version of an entire beat they had made previously. I'm personally a bit ambivalent about re-using much myself, but maybe I'm being too precious about my creations. After all, when cooking a meal, one uses the same ingredients again and again.

Pick good sounds and don't over-process them - Their point about finding a great sound and not fucking with it too much is a good one, and one that I will try and keep in mind. Too often I find myself fiddling with a sound, only to listen back to the original sound I selected and realise I've totally killed what I liked about it.

Full-spectrum beats - Their break completely fills the frequency spectrum. I'm a little surprised how full they seem to build it in order to achieve that energy level. My impression is that this is very much in line with the Chase & Status sound though, and less of a must-do production technique.

Cutting the kicks from breaks - They make sure the breaks are kick-less, to avoid muddying up the punch of the low end. I personally don't like cutting out whole sections of my breaks as, to me, the point of a background break is to introduce a kind of live feel and to glue the individual hits I'm using together a bit. The technique I'm experimenting with now is isolating the kicks in the break and making them 12-20 dBs quieter. I combine this with a bit of low-cut EQ and then leave it alone.

Don't push the loudness - Loudness maximising and over-compressing is bad. I was surprised quite how little processing they do here.

Work with audio rather than MIDI breaks - Slicing breaks as sound waves, rather than into MIDI hits. I've been experimenting with this and I've got to say, it seems like the best default thing to do. I've done a bit with Ableton Live's Drum Rack and I really like using it, but unless I'm doing something clever with the individual hits of a break, though, it's probably too complex.

Overall, I'm not sure I agree 100% with their approach, but I've found plenty of interesting ideas in here. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Poem: The Night...

2011-05-04T18:49:00.001+12:00

I wrote this many years ago, late at night and fueled by mania. Reading it again, I think it retains a certain amount of charm. Disclaimer: none of the things in this poem are true in any sense of the word. Also, the poem is a bit dark and might be disturbing; consider yourself warned.

The night that Max wore his wolf suit
and made mischief of one sort
and another
his mother called him 'wild thing'
and Max said 'I'll kill you, and desecrate your corpse, removing your fingers
and frying them in a pan, and wear
your dresses, and burn your photos,
and
pull out your heart and leave it rotting,
hung from the ceiling such that you can see it
as you walk up
the long road
that brings you from town to our house, our very quiet house, our
very
secretive
house
and the secrets you made me keep will never be kept any longer oh mother of mine what fun shall I have
and all without you any longer
because you see
I don't need you
and I never needed you
and I owe you nothing
and I hate you
and I wish oh how I wish that time would stand still
for you
for you
for you
for you
and most especially for me

Vignette of a Busy Saturday

2007-11-28T20:27:00.000+13:00

The monkey's shrieks fill the sky, they squawk and chitter and crash, with no elegance, and scrap with each other, and root quickly and roughly, and shit over the city. Blotting out the sun, mottled red flashes between dark blurry shapes. The pitch rises and the rich stench swallows the air, hot like a steamy burrow.

They are brawling now, ever more agitated, grinning teeth ripping at pinioned arms. Bodies, limbs are hurled to the ground, while people dash for cover. Dark blood buckets on stone pavings. Ever more excited, the smell drives them to a heightened frenzy.

People caught exposed are thrown to the ground by sweeping winds of the beasts, the less fortunate lifted by anguished gangs and torn to pieces in the tumultuous cloud, outstretched fingers disappearing, desperate screams cut short into violent gurglings. A panic of its own fills those on the ground, and a storm of frantic escape falls upon them, old driven under reddened heels, small acts of heroism deadened by the crush, eyes wide, nostrils flared, panicked beasts.

Recent Studies Show

2007-11-19T18:19:00.000+13:00

"It's not true, what they say," he spoke, with the matter-of-fact smugness that she hated, "It is not better to have loved and lost. Studies show..."