2017-10-07 (Sa) Weekly Summary


In case you missed it, Tim and I did a show about robot sex dolls. It seemed like a joke at first but there were some good points and relevancy to cyborgs and emerging technology. Just because it had to do with sex, doesn’t mean that it is off-limits or taboo on the show. In fact, showing how it was important wasn’t difficult. Check out episode 036.
Brian - Left _____ Tim - Right


Charged: DesertIrish restarted last week. My job reassigned me to work away from home for the foreseeable future and writing is a very portable project.

It occurred to me that not everyone reading this blog is willing to read through all the previous blogs in order to catch up to the current day and there are a lot of past blogs about Charged: DesertIrish. To help people understand what is happening, I wrote an introduction to Charged: DesertIrish which encourages people to start the story in the audiobook form or reading and it gives some background about why I started and what makes it important to me.

For everyone reading along, here’s the spoilers for the week.

Most of the time, movies gloss over what it actually feels like to have powers, they just show characters using them in badass ways. It can also be done poorly, remember the chapter where The Incredible Hunk jumped? For the whole chapter.

Vani talked more about her Charge, not just what it does but what it feels like to her when she uses it. Writing these kinds of supernatural descriptions isn’t easy but I think it’s really rewarding when done well. Since she creates portals, the obvious solution was to talk about folding a map and sticking a pencil through two points. Of course I didn’t go that route because it’s a tired trope for teleporters. Since that trope is so well known, it was not a stretch for her to describe her power like pressing two sides of an inflatable tube together. This also gives the impression of resistance from the creation of the portals. She also explains the limits of her portal generation since she can’t open a portal inside solid matter or close one to sever a partially transported object, like a person.

Later that day, Heather and Dawson were flying his jet and Heather went into how her Charge works and feels. Dawson was feeling wounded that he was at a loss when it came to piloting because Heather could innately sense the readings from the jet without having to reference the gauges like him. Furthermore, Head was already a better pilot by virtue of his Charge without any training.

Heather reassured him by talking about what her power felt like. Heather allowed people to think that her Charge was an effortless gift where she simply gained knowledge of the inner workings of everything she touched. In fact, she compared it to a bland spreadsheet with constantly changing numbers rather than some beautiful synergy with machines.

When they landed, Heather was shown the mysterious item which was being delivered. Despite her ability to get readings from machines, she was not able to see every aspect of the package. All she could tell was that it shouldn’t work and there was some kind of unknown part at the heart. Jason offered to look at the device as well but the person giving them the package didn’t want him to and Jason obliged.

After all the talk about Charges and limitations, the story moved back to a more personable level and explored the relationship between Dawson and Vani. Dawson’s playboy lifestyle was clearly a determent as he tried to develop a healthy relationship but his inexperience was showing. Vani offered to bring Dawson to her place by portal even though he was delivering a package across the country. He politely refused the offer but Vani was annoyed that he wouldn’t accept.

Vani was able to convince him that her offer was not an inconvenience on her part and that she was being genuine rather than self-effacing.


Charged

A stray post in the middle of the week diverged from writing or recording to announce a new job position. In addition to being reassigned by my salaried job, I also started working for Hackaday. I have mentioned them a few times in this blog since they have been nice enough to write features about things I’ve built.

I absolutely adore Hackaday and I’m excited to work for them and make a little cash to put back into projects. My first feature article was about the PCB business cards I’ve been making. In the future, I will try to mention when articles I’ve written will appear on Hackaday. There are already a handful to check out.

Hackaday feature article



 

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