S P Hannifin

A Problem with Google Wave

Google Wave is still, of course, very much in its infancy, but I see one major problem with it.  Well, it’s not really a “problem” … it’s more of a structural property that I think is unhelpful.

With Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and forums, when I post something, I’m not posting to anybody.  I’m just posting something out there to whoever might be interested.  In Facebook I’m posting to friends, in Twitter I’m tweeting to followers, in blogs I’m posting to whoever visits or subscribes to my blog (that’s you!), and on forums I post to other members or visitors of the forum.

With e-mail, on the other hand, I’m conversing privately with one select person (or a select group).  Twitter has an equivalent: direct messages.  Forums also have an equivalent: private messages.  Facebook also private messaging, an equivalent, and a wall-posting, which is semi-equivalent.

Currently, Google Wave is somewhere between.  It can certainly replace email as it is (well, once attachments are allowed and more people start using it).  But to truly be revolutionary, it needs to provide a way for me to talk to nobody; it needs a way for me to post a wave and let anyone who wants to read it read it and reply to it, or let other wavers subscribe to my public waves.  I fear that if it does not do this, it may stay a very niche tool.

That said, I probably shouldn’t worry; there’s a lot of functionality yet to be implemented and a lot of plug-ins and exports and whatever yet to be written.

So while I’m glad I got a Wave invite and am allowed on, it’s still kind of useless to me at the moment.

THESE AREN’T THE DROIDS WE’RE LOOKING FOR

Droid In other not-very-interesting news, I’m continuing to look through Google’s Android SDK.  Even though I’ve been programming in Java for a while now (though I definitely consider myself far from expert), the structure of how Android applications work is still kind of cryptic to me.  And, unfortunately, the OS is still so new that there aren’t many learning resources for it, especially for game development and graphics, which are my areas of interest.  If you want to develop games, you’re pretty much on your own.  Google does provide some source code for some very small sample programs, but you kind of have to figure out how they work on your own.  For example, Google says:

Writing a summary of how to actually write 3D applications using OpenGL is beyond the scope of this text and is left as an exercise for the reader.

I’m sure Java / game / graphics programming experts would have an easier time understanding how it all works by just studying the sample source code, but it will take some extra work for me.

Anyway, I’ve been looking more and more at the new Droid phone coming out, and I’ve been thinking that I’ll be needing some sort of phone with Android on it to test any potential apps I might create, so I’m very tempted to get one.  Like, very very tempted.  Like, I probably will.  For, you know, game development research, of course.

By the way, I like what it says at the bottom of the Droid site:

DROID is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. and its related companies.  Used under license.

Where would the world be if Star Wars had been a flop?  We might not have this phone!

By S P Hannifin, ago

No NaNo and other stuff instead

I guess NaNoWriMo has officially started!  And … I don’t care.  I’ve once again changed my mind, and will probably not participate this year.  I have a bunch of other stuff I want to do, including finishing my album that I’ve been working on for over a year now.  I’m still about 10 minutes of music away from completing the thing.  I’m currently working on the last section of an unnamed orchestral piece.  I’m orchestrating / composing the climax and end, so it’s almost done.  Then I have four other pieces started that need finishing, though I don’t believe all of them will make it onto the album.  One will probably be called “The Journey Ahead” and I am fairly sure that it will indeed appear on the album as I think it really fits with the spirit of the other pieces.  And one will probably be called “Castle Sky” … that’s my long 15-minute orchestral piece (and still unfinished, but I don’t think it will be much longer).

Oh, I started a new project, one that I know I’ll finish eventually because it requires hardly any work at all from me.  I call it: The Mozart Listening Project.  The objective: to listen to the complete works of Mozart while following along with the scores.  As you can see on the side, I made a page about it.  Because it is just so important.  I just started working through his symphonies.  Got a long way to go.

Android Lastly, I was chatting on a music forum on Friday, and someone mentioned the new Verizon phone coming out called Droid, which will compete with the iPhone (though, of course, that’s some very tough competition).  Looking at the Droid rekindled my interest in creating an app.  It was something I looked into in college, when Google’s Android OS first came out, but somehow lost interest.  (And as far as I can tell, one must have a Mac to use the iPhone SDK, so I don’t think I’ll be trying to develop for the iPhone anytime soon … though, from a business perspective, that’s currently where most of the phone app market is, methinks.)

Anyway, I’m downloading the newest Android SDK and will perhaps try creating something with it.  Having long been interested in game development, two things excite me about the phone app market: 1) It’s rather new, and is still at a stage where a single developer can develop a sellable app by himself.  In most of the video game industry (except perhaps online Flash games), those days are long gone, never to return.  And perhaps one day the phone app industry will be like that too, but it isn’t now.  And 2) it can be very lucrative.  Actually, I’m not sure how lucrative it is.  I’ve heard that some iPhone apps are making millions.  But that’s only a very select few out of tens of thousands, so I suppose it’s like saying that the music industry can be very lucrative.  Well, yes, it can be, but only few a very select few.  Still, I’m guessing the phone app industry is more lucrative than the indie artist industry.  Unfortunately, I’m sure it’s even less lucrative for non-iPhone developers at this time, but who know?  With Google’s more open platform, Android or some similar OS might come to dominate the phone industry, just like Windows now dominate Macs, despite Apple’s oh-so-witty ads.  In fact, I predict that will happen in the next decade or so … Apple may still dominate the iTunes / iPod industry, but the iPhone might meet its demise with a collection of other phones that run the same OS and are thus compatible with the same programs…

And… I guess that’s all I have to say.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Writing fiction is mentally exhausting

I worked a bit more on my novelette this weekend, The Cliffs of Oakenrah.  The wordcount is now up to 5,600.  I’m still on scene 5 of 21 though, but it’s a rather long scene.  Perhaps it is because I am out of practice, and I haven’t been forcing myself to write everyday whether I feel like it or not (as some writers do), but I am finding the process to be mentally exhausting.  Some of it is because of the actual writing; trying to find the right words, trying to describe things as simply as possible, trying to make sentences flow easily together.  But some of it also has to do with the internal imagining of the world.  If I were just going to sit and daydream, it wouldn’t be very hard; I could probably go through scenes in my head as if they were parts of a movie.  But when I have to write down everything that happens, I have to always slow it down, play it over again and again (and of course it’s always a bit different each time), and pay attention to the details.  Not that my writing is overly detailed, but it’s easier to imagine travelling through a mysterious cave than it is to describe it in words.  It’s easy to imagine the look and movements of fantastical non-existent creatures than it is to describe them in words.  I find that process to be very mentally exhausting.

Dialogue can also be annoying, because as the author I know what I want the characters to talk about, but if they’re talking about something completely different, I have to find a way for them to flow into the desired topic, without it seeming completely forced.  And I have to continually change world-view perspectives in my mind.  The story might be from the point-of-view of one character, but I have to know the world-view and motivation for every character that says something important to write his or her dialogue believably.

And then of course there’s always the balance of info-giving.  Especially since this is a fantasy novelette, there’s a lot of other-worldly stuff I could spend time describing.  But I don’t want to “info-dump,” which might bore readers.  On the other hand, I don’t want to leave too much out, which would confuse readers.  Finding the balance is tricky, especially since it’s something I don’t really think about directly while writing; it’s more an element I just have to get a feel for through feedback I think, since my world is always completely clear to me, the writer.

OK, that’s enough blather isn’t it?

By S P Hannifin, ago

Ten thousand hours might mean nothing

At this point I’m fairly sure I will indeed do NaNoWriMo … sort of.  I’m going to start writing, that is, but I’m not really going to try to win, I’m not going to strive for 50,000 words in a month.  I’m just going to see how much I can get done, but I’m not going to push myself.  That way, I can’t lose!

I spent an hour today finally continuing work on my fantasy novelette, The Cliffs of Oakenrah.  I’m on scene 5 of 21, so there’s a ways to go.  If I finish, it might become longer than Dreamgiver, making it the longest work of fiction I’ve ever completed.  Which, I suppose, is pretty lame compared to most writers, but very superior compared to people who never write anything.

TEN THOUSAND HOURS

I was listening to a writing podcast the other day, and I heard the concept of the “ten thousand hours to expert” come up once again.  I think some writers and artists in general are interpreting the concept in a ridiculous way, taking it to mean that an artist’s art won’t be any good until the artist has ten thousand hours of experience, and that artists who do have ten thousand of experience are objectively better because of it.  But I think the arts are a bit too subjective for that, and I think people forget that there’s a difference between experience and practice, as I mention on the Book Quotes Blog.  Even I have used the terms synonymously, when they’re not exactly synonymous.  Getting more experience doing something you already know how to do well might not help you much, might not make you that much better.

Really, though, it just comes down to the subjectivity of an art like writing.  It’s hard to argue that you’re a better chess player if you keep losing games, or a better piano player when you can’t play anything by Chopin.  But there are no games or rules in writing.  And we don’t have “author’s experience hours” stamped on the back of books to help us decide whether or not it’s something we’ll like.

So please please just stop applying the ten thousand hour rule to something as subjective as writing fiction.  It actually doesn’t mean quite so much in such a context.  I’m sure there are plenty of inexperienced writers whose first works I would find brilliant, and plenty twenty-thousand-hours experienced writers who might make me want to jump of cliff to end the torture of knowing their work was deemed by someone else to be publishable.

Nor does the ten thousand hour concept apply to walking, eating, sleeping, daydreaming, etc.

I still think about this post by writer John Scalzi (especially since it was brought up in the podcast I mentioned as being a “painfully honest post”).

While I agree with a lot of what he says, I also think he is making the mistake of thinking his own experience counts for a bit too much.  Experience does not make your opinions more valid, not in the subjective art world, as he (and many others) seem to think.  I believe that that is a snobby way to think.  Sometimes people compare writing to fields in which opinions aren’t subjective, like medicine.  (“I want my doctor to have experience!”)  Well, duh.  There is right and wrong in medicine.  Writing, not so much.  Yes, there is some, but not nearly as much.  Writing is based on our desires, the rules come from our opinions.  Medicine doesn’t work that way.  Experience writing also does not automatically make you a better writer.  You have to practice … you have to work to understand the conventions of our time, understand how you as a reader respond to other people’s works, understand how the authors you enjoy write the way they do.  So, yes, I do agree that inexperienced authors (including me) tend to not be as good.  I still don’t have any sense of how a plot should arc over the course of something novel size, as I have never finished writing a novel.  But that opinion comes from me, not some scientific objective rule about novel plot arcs, and not from writers who are more experienced looking down upon me judging my work.  And I’m not going to get better (which is also subjective) without getting feedback from others, including publishers who reject my work.

It’s not science (well, technically it is; it’s psychology, but it’s nothing we can currently objectively study).  It’s definitely not medicine.  And authors are not doctors.

And that’s all I have to say today.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Read a book, write a book

READ A BOOK

Why Don't Students Like School? The other day I finished reading the book Why Don’t Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom and I put up some quotes from the book on my Book Quotes blog.  It was a short read, only 165 pages.  It’s really meant for teachers, but as someone who is interested in our terrible American education system, I quite wanted to read it.  It takes a psychological perspective on education, which would probably interest anyone interested in the basic psychology of learning.

That’s only 8th book I’ve finished this year.  I probably could’ve read more by now, but I’m reading about 8 more books simultaneously at the moment, so finishing one takes a lot longer.  And of course sometimes I just give up on a book.  I realized yesterday that I only finished reading one fiction book this year, the other seven were all non-fiction.

WRITE A BOOK

I’m still not sure whether or not I’ll participate in NaNoWriMo next month.  I have some fun new ideas floating around in my head, so it’s quite tempting, but I do want to finish my album, obviously.  I keep going back and forth.  One day I’ll think to myself “oh, I’ve gotta at least try NaNoWriMo; this idea is just too exciting to resist,” and then the next day I’ll think, “I can’t do it, I’ve gotta finish this album.  I don’t want to have to worry about writing fiction too.”

So I still don’t know what I’ll do.  It will all depend on how I feel in November I guess.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Deadline failure and other such things

I was hoping to compose 5 minutes of music a week, starting last Tuesday, but unfortunately I was only able to compose 2 minutes and 46 seconds by this past Sunday.  So I fail!  Shocking, no?

I blame a few things:

deadlineclock1)  My job. It’s a part-time job, so I can’t blame it for taking up too much time, but it does take up time.  So I must blame it.

2)  Fatigue. This is also job related.  When I have to work at 9 AM, that means I am pretty much tired throughout the day.  Which isn’t a problem for doing most things.  But I think a lot while I’m composing; it’s a very mind-intensive activity; it takes a lot of focus for me.  And when I’m fatigued, music has a way of lulling me off to the land of pleasant dreams, especially the incredibly fantastic music I compose.  So it is extremely difficult to compose while fatigued.  I did try taking some caffeine tablets, but alas, no effect.  I must have high caffeine tolerance.  I could feel it make my heart beat faster, but nothing else.  Of course, caffeine really isn’t supposed to be used to counter sleep-deprivation, so maybe it has nothing to with tolerance.  But that’s what some people seem to use it for and they swear by it.  It doesn’t help me though.

3)  Not being able to stay up all night. Again, job related.  Since I have to be at work at certain hours, I am not free to simply stay up as late as I want composing and then just sleep until I am not tired anymore.  (Not that this problem doesn’t plague most people.)  I sometimes seem to think more actively at night, perhaps because there are fewer distractions; the TVs and radios are off, no one’s on the phone and no one calls, etc.  But I can’t use the time to my advantage if I need to get some sleep in before going to work.

4)  Perfectionism. Or pickiness.  I spent 2.5 hours a few nights ago composing and orchestrating 4 bars.  I think that’s the longest 4 bars ever took me.  But I’m very pleased with the result.  Though I suppose I could fiddle around and tweak orchestration for many many hours, it always eventually has to come to a point in which I am pleased enough and must move on.

5)  Other stuff. For example, on Tuesday, I had to spend time tidying the house for guests.  Chores are evil and must be blamed.

That said, I must say I’m extremely pleased with the progress I’ve been making with my latest piece so far.  I went to bed yesterday with the melodies I composed annoyingly humming through my mind uncontrollably.

A big disadvantage of giving myself a deadline has emerged: I get angry. And stressed.  And a bit depressed.  And what fun is that?  I blame all the other stuff I must do, like go to work, which just makes going to work that much more painful and annoying.  So I’m very much considering throwing away the deadline and just composing as often as I can.  I don’t want to be angry by having goals and then not reaching them due to things like having to go to work that I can do little about.  Or I could just blame my undisciplined self for not being more disciplined and getting more done when I do have chances, but that won’t make me any happier either.

FEDERATIONS

federationsSince I don’t have much time for composing, I have even less time to read, but in what short moments I can spare, I’ve been reading a collection of science fiction short stories in a book called Federations.  Here are my very short reviews of the few stories from the book I’ve read so far.  They are only my subjective opinions, and I am perhaps more picky than most (ratings are on a scale of 0-5 stars):

Mazer in Prison by Orson Scott Card:  4 stars.  I actually read this in another book before, so I skipped reading it again, but I almost always enjoy Orson Scott Card.  Very good story from the Ender’s Game universe.

Carthago Delenda Est by Genevieve Valentine:  2 stars.  Though the premise was very interesting, the author didn’t seem to do much with it.  It was more of an idea story, as nothing much really happened.  A world was presented, some unimportant things took place, and that was it.

Life-Suspension by L. E. Modesitt:  0 stars.  Interesting characters with interesting dynamics.  But nothing very interesting happened.  And there were these battle scenes that were too cryptic for me with all their pilot-in-battle speak.

Terra-Exulta by S. L. Gilbow:  3.5 stars.  Not really a story, but a very fun fictional letter.  I enjoyed it.

Aftermaths by Lois McMaster Bujold:  1.5 stars.  Again, an interesting premise, but an uninteresting story.

Someone is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy by Harry Turtledove:  2 stars.  Had it’s funny moments, but most of it’s humor was just stale and annoying, as if the author just wrote the story off the top of his head, writing down every stupid joke he thought of.  Didn’t really work for me.

Prisons by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason:  3.5 stars.  Started off a bit confusing, but once the story started rolling, it was actually quite good.

Different Day by K. Tempest Bradford:  0 stars.  Yikes.  While I like the idea of not portraying an alien race as a clichéd “monoculture” (as we humans certainly aren’t), this not-really-a-story didn’t really do much with it.  It’s just a three page ramble.

And that’s all for today, methinks.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Deadline

As you may have noticed, I am no longer concerning myself with the Hours project.  Took too long, obviously.

cds I really want to finish my album before the end of the year; before Christmas if possible.  So I’m going to try giving myself a deadline of October 31st to finish all the music for the album.  October 31st 2011 that is!  No, no, the end of this October.  Part of me hates to give myself a deadline because I would much rather work at my own leisure, composing when I feel like it.  On the other hand, I really want to finish the album.  And I want to get working on other albums.  I’ve got so much music flowing through my head lately that I really want to get out.

Fortunately I only have about 15 more minutes of music to write for the album to be at least 60 minutes long.  So if I can write at least 5 minutes of music a week, I should be set to go.  So for now I’m giving myself until Sunday, October 4th, to write 5 more minutes of music.  I’ll let you know if I succeed or fail.

Then when (or if) I finish the music at the end of October, November will involve getting everything else ready to go, ordering the CD replication, and getting it out there (mostly to CD Baby and Amazon).  I am hoping it will also be the first album of The Worlds Inside series I’m starting.

For a little while, I became a bit interested in trying to replicate some mini CDs.  I thought they might be cheaper since they’re smaller.  After researching around and asking for some quotes (since it seems not that many companies want to publish prices for mini CD replication), it seems it’s actually more expensive, I suppose because it’s just less popular.  It would save on postage though, but not quite enough to make it worthwhile, at least not for a first album.

When you ask for price quotes from a bunch of different companies, some will just email you back a price, others will email your three times before they give you a price letting you know that you will soon be receiving a price, some fill their quotes with guarantees and promises and statistics of how many customers they’ve pleased, and some treat you as if you’ve already signed a deal with them.

Anyway, I haven’t really been up to much [that is not super top secret] lately.  So I won’t write anything else in this post.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Well, blah blah blah

I haven’t worked on any music since I finished Across the Kingdom.  My friend and I finished another O’Really animation here.

The other day, I bought some watercolor supplies so I could begin learning the art of watercolor painting.  Because, you know, I’m always trying something new, I’m such a renaissance man.  So far my efforts are horrible.  But I suppose that’s to be expected when one just starts.  There’s a lot one must get a feel for: how the colors mix, how much water to mix with it, how wet the paper should be before applying paint, how to apply the paint, etc.  Years on down the road, I think it’d be awesome to be able to paint (good looking) pictures of castles and dragons, blah blah blah, and be a millionaire too.

I’ve been receiving instruction from the late Bob Ross with this very instructional video:

By S P Hannifin, ago

Popularity is meaningless

I came across the following video from a blog post by Derek Sivers:

 

Firstly, I’m not really sure that’s at all a “new” way to think about creativity.  Secondly, there seems to be an unspoken assumption that she makes.  Not just her, actually, but I think the audience is making it too.  In fact, I think most people in general make it because it’s a natural way of thinking.  That assumption is: a good product will be met with praise, fame, and acclaim, while a bad product will fail.  In other words, if you write a book, or a piece of music, or whatever, you yourself don’t know how “good” it is until it either succeeds (by becoming popular) or fails.  If it succeeds, congrats!  You done good!  If it fails, you failed.

But I disagree with that assumption.  I believe how “good” something is (well, in the world of art at least) is entirely subjective.  Elizabeth Gilbert’s book may have been very popular, but to me that doesn’t imply that it’s any good.  I might think it’s terrible!  What does the success of her book mean?  Nothing!  And it really shouldn’t mean anything to anyone else either (except perhaps it means a good amount of money for her and the publisher).  And I believe there is a ton of brilliant work out there that’s not popular.  And I might love it if only I could find it.  I tend to find popular things the most because that’s what makes them easier to find.

In that way, popularity is an emergent property.  What makes something popular or not is a complex collection of millions of decisions by millions of people.  Should I read this?  Should I publish this?  Should I talk about this?  Should I invest in this?

I’ve heard that the first Harry Potter book was rejected by quite a few publishers before being accepted by one.  So now people say “wow, those publishers who rejected it sure must be sorry!”  Well, no.  Harry Potter’s eventual insane success was never a guarantee based entirely on the story.  If another publisher had published it, it might not have become a success.  If it was published a year later, it might not have become a success.  (For that matter, if one set of J. K. Rowling’s great great great great grandparents had not met, Harry Potter wouldn’t even exist.)

Movie producers are always making assumptions about why this or that movie succeeded or failed.  Shut up, you idiots!  You don’t know!  “Ah, this Disney animation film failed because people want computer animation now.”  “This film succeeded because Tom Hanks was in it.”  “This film failed because of the competing films that came out at the same time.”  “This film succeeded because it had a strong central hero character and a villain that represented the evils of our times very well.”  And blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever they can say to themselves to make their investments not seem so risky and more predictable.

And people apply this assumption to artists who have become insanely famous.  The Beatles are so famous because they were good.  Shakespeare was good.  Mozart was good.  But these aren’t objective facts just because they’ve happened to stand the test of time (at least, for now).  Their continued fame is still an emergent property based on millions of decisions by millions of people.  (Let’s stop forcing high-schoolers to read Shakespeare and see what happens to that market!)

“If it is popular, it is because it is really good!”  I completely reject the assumption.  When I experience or create a piece of art, I make up my own mind.

Not that I don’t care what other people think.  If I write a piece of music and someone on YouTube comments that they like it, I find it flattering and encouraging.  But it doesn’t change my initial thoughts about my own work.

In conclusion, what is “good” and what is popular are two completely different things.  You shouldn’t let what is popular influence your creative decisions too much, because you actually have no control over what becomes popular.  So stop thinking you do!

And read The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, it’s a good book.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Across the Kingdom

Just a quick post here to mention that I’ve uploaded another YouTube video of my latest piece, Opus 52, an orchestral piece called Across the Kingdom.  For some reason, I ended not using the harp at all.  Amazing, huh?  Much of the piece consists of the chord progression I-vi-IV-V (or sometimes vi-iii-IV-V).  In fact, the second half was almost entirely about seeing how many melodies I could compose to the progression, while not completely overdoing it or making the melodies sound too distant from each other.  Kind of makes the bass line a bit boring, but the focus doesn’t always need to be on you, you bassists!

So that makes 6 pieces for my upcoming album: White Castle Waltz, On the Edge of a Dream, The Dragon King, Voyage of the Dream Maker, Dance of Fools, and now Across the Kingdom.

I have at least 4 other pieces started that need finishing, some of which will surely be on the album as well.

By S P Hannifin, ago