Camp Cthulhu
01/05/2015 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaIzzie has been a busy serpent. There was so much stuff going on in April. All sorts of government gossip and a dreaded certain centenary and a whole bunch of gardening to be done. For most of the month the weather was absolutely gorgeous. It was sunny but not too hot and most of the time there was the delicate light that invites quiet contemplation, pottering amongst the weeds and general contentment with the universe.
Also during two weeks of April there was an invasion of artists from all over the world adorning the city walls with gorgeous murals. Some were so large that the artists used cherry pickers. It was wonderful fun wandering around with the lists and ticking each item off one by one. Since a lot of the walls are a bit off the beaten track and hiding in quirky corners it was a most fascinating way of seeing the suburbs.
One proved to be very inspirational indeed.
Then there was the annual ritual of Camp Nanowrimo for folks who do not want to wait until November to squiggle their stories. So that’s where all the words have been going the last month. Was slacking a bit going for a goal of 33,333 words for the month rather than the usual April quota of 50,000. Just been for a quick visit over at the camp cabins. These are groups of a dozen or so participants who share a ‘campfire’ where they can post snippets of story gossip, offer ideas or encouragement to each other. Well that is the theory anyway.
It is always amusing to see how the April fools rush in with grand plans for 50,000 words and within a week most have abandoned their projects because enthusiasm is no substitute for habit. Of the 12 in my group, every single one of those who chose the default option of 50,000 words ended the month with word counts of zilch, nichts, nada, absolute zero. Maybe they did write a page or two but none of them bothered to update or validate their word count.
The other 6 had goals ranging from 10,000 up to 33,333 words and only one of them actually reached the target. No prizes for guessing ;)
In spite of the best of intentions I could not help but pick some tasty looking fruit from the online trees of knowledge in the MOOC garden. I had vowed to stay away from such temptations until after April due to dropping out of every single one attempted since December. The overseas adventures were the first distraction, but since returning it’s been sheer laziness and lack of discipline that has been the major reason for such a high fail rate. Bailing out on a coding course using Scratch is simply inexcusable. It is literally kindergarten kids stuff. So the good habits developed during the daily writing rituals for Camp Nanowrimo might be just the routine needed to get back to doing serious studying.
One such course started last week. It is offered by a Dutch university and concerns the Dark Art of framing which is basically a sneaky and devious trick to win arguments or discussions by resorting to the manipulation of values and emotions.
Got to thinking that all those “How to think and reason” sorts of courses are like two edged swords. The same training used to learn how to spot logical fallacies and other dodgy debating techniques is precisely what can be used to create them.
This course is different in openly embracing the Dark Side rather than claiming to be merely a defense against such dark arts.
It is quite scary to think that some of the material used to illustrate the concepts includes Australia’s immigration policies. I am inclined to suspect that the recent drug smuggler Death Row deadline drama in Indonesia might also feature in future episodes.
There’s homework due on Tuesday so will dedicate the rest of the weekend evenings to that. It is such a pity that the course is using the Edx platform which has truly awful discussion forums that are almost impossible to follow.
There is also another course starting soon on the topic of propaganda. I’ve created two religious cults during April’s writing adventures so such a course will provide invaluable information for research purposes.
Of course that is also the excuse for rereading “Call of Cthulhu” and “The Dunwich Horror”. James Herbert’s “Portents” has also proved to be very inspirational. Climate Change Chiller is a genre I’ve never come across before. It’s not quite the same as tales of the zombie apocalypse but still spooky and creepy.
On the subject of the Apocalypse, it looks like the Book of Revelations might provide some useful inspiration for a nihilistic death cult. Since I cannot get my greedy green paws on a proper copy of the Necronomicon, it could prove to be an acceptable substitute.
Also during two weeks of April there was an invasion of artists from all over the world adorning the city walls with gorgeous murals. Some were so large that the artists used cherry pickers. It was wonderful fun wandering around with the lists and ticking each item off one by one. Since a lot of the walls are a bit off the beaten track and hiding in quirky corners it was a most fascinating way of seeing the suburbs.
One proved to be very inspirational indeed.
Then there was the annual ritual of Camp Nanowrimo for folks who do not want to wait until November to squiggle their stories. So that’s where all the words have been going the last month. Was slacking a bit going for a goal of 33,333 words for the month rather than the usual April quota of 50,000. Just been for a quick visit over at the camp cabins. These are groups of a dozen or so participants who share a ‘campfire’ where they can post snippets of story gossip, offer ideas or encouragement to each other. Well that is the theory anyway.
It is always amusing to see how the April fools rush in with grand plans for 50,000 words and within a week most have abandoned their projects because enthusiasm is no substitute for habit. Of the 12 in my group, every single one of those who chose the default option of 50,000 words ended the month with word counts of zilch, nichts, nada, absolute zero. Maybe they did write a page or two but none of them bothered to update or validate their word count.
The other 6 had goals ranging from 10,000 up to 33,333 words and only one of them actually reached the target. No prizes for guessing ;)
In spite of the best of intentions I could not help but pick some tasty looking fruit from the online trees of knowledge in the MOOC garden. I had vowed to stay away from such temptations until after April due to dropping out of every single one attempted since December. The overseas adventures were the first distraction, but since returning it’s been sheer laziness and lack of discipline that has been the major reason for such a high fail rate. Bailing out on a coding course using Scratch is simply inexcusable. It is literally kindergarten kids stuff. So the good habits developed during the daily writing rituals for Camp Nanowrimo might be just the routine needed to get back to doing serious studying.
One such course started last week. It is offered by a Dutch university and concerns the Dark Art of framing which is basically a sneaky and devious trick to win arguments or discussions by resorting to the manipulation of values and emotions.
Got to thinking that all those “How to think and reason” sorts of courses are like two edged swords. The same training used to learn how to spot logical fallacies and other dodgy debating techniques is precisely what can be used to create them.
This course is different in openly embracing the Dark Side rather than claiming to be merely a defense against such dark arts.
It is quite scary to think that some of the material used to illustrate the concepts includes Australia’s immigration policies. I am inclined to suspect that the recent drug smuggler Death Row deadline drama in Indonesia might also feature in future episodes.
There’s homework due on Tuesday so will dedicate the rest of the weekend evenings to that. It is such a pity that the course is using the Edx platform which has truly awful discussion forums that are almost impossible to follow.
There is also another course starting soon on the topic of propaganda. I’ve created two religious cults during April’s writing adventures so such a course will provide invaluable information for research purposes.
Of course that is also the excuse for rereading “Call of Cthulhu” and “The Dunwich Horror”. James Herbert’s “Portents” has also proved to be very inspirational. Climate Change Chiller is a genre I’ve never come across before. It’s not quite the same as tales of the zombie apocalypse but still spooky and creepy.
On the subject of the Apocalypse, it looks like the Book of Revelations might provide some useful inspiration for a nihilistic death cult. Since I cannot get my greedy green paws on a proper copy of the Necronomicon, it could prove to be an acceptable substitute.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-02 08:34 am (UTC)Oh, damn... I don't like FutureLearn, but the propaganda course is too tempting. At least their courses are usually non-challenging, quick to browse and do not require much commitment.
Lately got nostalgic for organized learning again (I guess once you're poisoned, it's forever) and signed up for the Coursera Calculus course (it's self-paced, maybe it's for better), a couple of programming courses that haven't started yet, and one thing I'm too embarrassed to admit (will reveal it if I'm sure I'll stick around.)
You don't happen to have an Amazon wish list by any chance? ;)
This Cthulhu mural is fantastic. At first I was sure it's a sculpture.
Crazy Creatures
Date: 2015-05-02 04:02 pm (UTC)That course you raved about - the Coursera one with the online games, narrative and stuff has just started another run and I was a good serpent and resisted the temptation. It did sound very addictive from what I remember of your descriptions.
Quite a few of the courses are now going into self paced mode including Coursera's ones on terrorism and counterterrorism and "Learning how to learn". I find those with deadlines to be more motivating.
That's actually a pretty crappy picture of the Big C and does not do justice to the magnificence of the mural. There were better ones in the blog that the piccie links to and of course I have taken loads of pretty piccies for research purposes. I must send some as email attachments since I don't know how to host pictures online and it's hardly worth the bother anyway.
What is really strange is that there are quite a few little tentacled beasties drawn on the alley ways and walls of that particular port town. So that's where I got the idea from to have a war between the Church of Serpentology and the followers of the crawling chaotic deep sea creatures best left nameless and led by the mysterious and sinister Damien O'Reilly.
There's also a cute Cheshire cat lurking on a wall. Scary to think that Alice and friends have their 150th birthday this year. I still like the Cheshire Cat and Jabberwocky best of all of them. Oh and of course how could Izzie ever forget Humpty Dumpty?
Funny thing with Nanoland. Had been considering making this the last year of doing them since now it's time to stop squiggling and start sorting out all the word salad. This calendar shares the same days and dates as 2009 so this November will be one big nostalgia fest. After all that was the year you introduced me to The Tentacled Terror and I also came across the dreaded Dark Grimoire deck. But then I got to thinking that the November write ins, forums and such are the sorts of social events that even this introverted serpent enjoys so will likely stick to the one month and no longer bother with the camps.
Now the trick is to turn the persistence in production into actually finishing, editing and publishing stuff. Now that's the really hard part. In some ways the April and July nano camps have provided the perfect excuse for procrastination on that front.
I used to have an Amazon wish list but it's pretty dead these days. But I can think of one item. I had resorted to listening on youtube but it uses too much bandwidth even though there's not even a proper video to go with it.
PS I tried to embed but it didn't work so here is the link
"Necronomicon
Re: Crazy Creatures
Date: 2015-05-03 09:45 am (UTC)The online games course is probably more addictive for gamers... It's the 1st one that requires to actually play a game and perform particular tasks in it for the assignments! On the other hand, for the students without gaming experience there's a lot more novelty, so maybe you'd get even MORE addicted... especially that the game is LOTR-based, and you're more of a LOTR fan than me.
Hooray for starting to cook the word salad into delicious dishes! You can publish a few snacks for free, and see people's feedback... and I'm pretty sure that you CAN earn money by writing.
You might consider Dropbox.com for image sharing. Of course there are tons of specialized sites e.g. Flickr and Photobucket, but they make you jump through the hoops with bloated and annoying interface, while Dropbox is dead simple - you just have a directory (and all subdirectories inside it) on your computer(s), designated for sharing, and whatever you copy there, gets automatically synced to the cloud, privately to your account. If you actually want to share, there's an additional step of going to the web interface, finding the file and creating the public link. So it's not suitable for those who post lots of photos and create galleries and want as many viewers as possible, to comment, upvote and re-share. But if you occasionally upload a few odd photos to share with friends, it's perfect. (Plus, Dropbox is not restricted to images - all files are accepted. The only downside is 2Gb quota.)
The band of Cthulhu worshippers is duly noted ;)