Day Z , Arma II mod.

Chernarus Map  mod version 1.7.7.1

Multiplayer game, point of game is to survive as long as possible. Survival is very problematic.

Players tend to create their own narratives.

Day 5 : Sunrise. Probably hubris.

Day 1 Otmel. Night. (25-6-2013)



On beach at Otmel. It's night, moving at night because less survivors and the Zs don't see very well. I have only a bandage and a flare. Run to Elektrozavodsk, watching out for bandits. Avoid the Zs. At the end of the day I have an axe, compass, assault backpack, knife, pistol and AK-74 with 4 magazines and two packets of antibiotics, the antibiotics are valuable because the Z's are infectious. Bandages. A lot of bad experiences with running. Take bicycles from stand outside school in Elektrovodsk and high tail it out of there. Stop by petrol station outside, north of Vyshnoye, logging out.

Day 2 Vyshnoye. Night. (26-6-2013)

It's night. The petrol stations cylinders I logged out nearby are on fire. First I thought it might be a helicopter, but no. Someone has been around. Hike towards Stary Sabor but end up running from a hoard of Zs, get lost and ended up near the coast. Take compass readings and head towards Chernogorsk. Two guys are yelling in side chat. We meet on road, they're friendly, although one of them points out how easy it would be to just shoot me and take my gear. Tense meeting, transfuse one of them. The three of us ride bikes to military airport, Balota, east of Chernogorsk. Over radio guy asks for medical help, guy comes out of airport. He is dressed as bandit, seriously consider wasting the bandit (Voodoo) but transfuse the guy. He is grateful, but it's the gratitude of a bandit. The Zs are problematic, we start using our firearms out of desperation, more Zs appear.  I aim the AK 74 assault rifle at an attacking Z, trying for a head shot, I miss at close range and it lashes out, I'm slow bleeding and infected. Fire several rounds into Z out desperation, it's a waste of ammunition. The bandit has gone, I think, I run into the forest, bandage myself and use one of my valuable antibiotics. Below my two partners are firing their guns, one is wounded and doesn't have a bandage. He is scavenging for a bandage in the airport hangers, it doesn't sound good. I try to help but end up attracting more Zs, so run back into the forest, towards Chernogorsk with the intention of losing the pursuing Zs. In the supermarket in Chernogorsk I find matches and  taking a bicycle I head north along coast. I now have enough equipment to be able to feed myself without raiding the cities and towns. On the way I shoot a cow, just off the highway, and gut it using the knife and put the raw steak into my Survivors back pack. I stop by a petrol station with a bicycle stand, just north of Solnichniy. Over the radio the bandit (Voodoo) is asking where I am? I say "I'm finding a safe place and logging out".

Day 3 Solnichniy. Night. (27-6-13)

It's very early morning, I am in a forest overlooking a petrol station on a highway that is parallel to the sea. I walk down to the petrol station, grab a bicycle and making a compass reading start riding to Stary Sabor. On the way to Stary Sabor, near the village of Staroye, the server restarts (backs up). I am stranded on foot, making a compass reading I follow the main road south to Elektrozavodsk. Raiding the supermarket I don't find much, I still need a tent and a map (in game) and go inside a tavern, climbing up the stairs. I use most of a AK-74 magazine taking out the Zs that chased me inside. I make steady fire with mostly one shot head shots, because I am firing down a corridor and the Zs inside buildings move significantly slower. I bandage my wounds and eat some steak. Outside I can hear the fire of what sounds like an assault rifle, a dull crack, crack. Peeking through the window I can see a swarm of Zs following a survivor into a red brick house. I consider trying to make contact but I've had too many bad experiences in Elektrozavodsk and am feeling vulnerable. Upstairs in the tavern I log out, effectively hiding from the person below.


Day 4 Elektrozavodsk. Morning. (28-6-13)

It's daylight, but when I look outside the window I can still see the stars in the night sky. I go down stairs, quickly search the supermarket, eat the cans of tuna and baked beans that I find, then grab a bicycle from the school and high tail it out of Elektrozavodsk. Heading north west and passing through Stary Sabor, I make it to the North West airfield that is just west of Grishino. The morning sunrise is actually pretty, one of the "rosy fingered dawns" of Homer. The North West airfield is a prime location for bandits, the chances of being sniped are high, crouching I search the control tower and find a M4A1 CCO assault rifle with a total of 4 SANAG magazines, it's rare and is useful for close combat but also has range optics. I wistfully leave my trusty AK-74 in the control tower with the remains of one magazine. Cycling to Grishino I find a petrol station with a bicycle stand to the south. I hide in some bushes nearby and log out.

Day 5 Grishino. Night. (29-6-13)

It's night, I creep to the bicycle stand and grab a bike and ride to the North West airfield. Climbing a control tower I run into a Z, I try for a head shot with my M1911 but miss, it lashes out and I am bleeding, I fire my entire clip and it goes down. I bandage and can hear the Zs below attracted to the sound. I take out the M4A1 and try for headshots as they come up the stairs, one by one.

Its not perfect but the Zs are eliminated with less than a clip. My confidence in my M4A1 is decreased, the process was not as smooth as with my AK-74 but that could reflect my lack of familiarity. I find a G17 pistol with two clips, useful because it has a inbuilt torch. I crouch run to my bicycle that I've positioned for quick egress and start riding south. Over the radio a person called Jazz-Anon is asking for morphine, he has broken legs. He is at the North West airfield, barracks.  I've got a total of 3 morphine cartridges on me, so I respond "I'm on my way, 10 minutes", as well as sort of whining "Please don't shoot me", ahem.

When I get there, to the south of the airfield, he is standing, and Jazz-Anon is a bandit. It really irritates me that I am helping a bandit, I administer morphine and a blood bag, offer to trade sand bags and then bug out. He has a friends somewhere, they are talking over the radio and "Jazz" is a clan name.

I've begun to learn where the petrol stations with bicycle stands are and so cycle to  the north of Vyshnoye, before logging out.

Day 6. Vyshnove. Night. (30-6-13)

It's night. Creep to bicycle and head north. Stop In Stary Sabor. Head south towards Chernogorsk to gather medical supplies.

Just south of Kabanho I run into a road block, I hop off bicycle to take a screen shot. As I kneel, looking at the roadblock I am shot by Dalek Pepin, a bandit, who knew I was taking a screen shot. As my character is dying, bleeding out, he goes "How's that for a screen shot". It's an ambush and the Dalek clan are pretty merciless about who they snipe and I am still a tourist enough to fall for it. He plays "Seinfield" music, which is somewhat cathartic. Slightly depressed, I uninstall the game so I'm not tempted to spend the hours required to do this, again. I think I'll go finish that Phillip K Dick novel I was reading. Maybe go to the gym. Go look at flowers and puppies. So.. Day Z standalone alpha is coming out sometime, one site estimated December, whatever that week window is...

This comic pretty much says it all.


Comic by Maki  2012.

The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K Dick (1962),

Currently reading "The Man in the High Castle" (1962), on recommedation from IO9 and because I have the brief luxury of time.

The science fiction books and short stories of Phillip K Dick have been mined by the popular media (Hollywood, whatever that means) to create movie classics such as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and others.

(2-7-13)

The novel "The Man in the High Castle" is a science fiction novel that though noticeably written in 1962 is ahead of the curve, as with a lot of Phillip K Dicks science fiction. It is a synchronic slice of a fictional alternative reality where Franklin D Roosevelt was assassinated in 1933 and America not developing the industrial infrastructure associated with Roosevelts "New Deal" during the Depression is unable to meet the military pressures placed on it when it enters World War 2 in 1941. This alternate 1962 world is divided into  two major power blocks with the characters predominantly in San Fransisco in the Japanese "Pacific States of America". Understanding the impact of biasis associated with hindsight, the setting is one of a hostile world changing from one where there is good made from compromise into a potential nightmarish blood bath, which with the benefit of hindsight again, must have happened elsewhere in this fictional alternate reality.

The novel is written as a number of interrelated character storylines, with three of the characters being practioners of the "I Ching". Although the influence of the I Ching in the novel seems to be more a feature of Phillip K Dicks interests, in the novel it does introduce a spiritual element and provides it with thematic connections. In many ways the novel meditates on connection, destiny, and change and seems to demonstrate the principles of the I Ching in the mechanics underlying the novels reality. The I Ching was introduced into Japan during the eighth century (Wai-ming 568 : 1998) and became part of a metaphysical component in the Neo Confucianism associated with the Tokugawa bakufu  徳川幕府 (1603 -1868) and was transformed by various scholars into a more Shinto or nativist movement over time (Wai-ming 568 : 1998) but in the context of the novel is more a feature of the authors interests and the fictional creation he is building. In my opinion.

There is a core narrative element associated with "Operation Dandelion" where some of the protagonists are attempting to diffuse a potential nuclear war amongst the power blocks and realize that the more moderate, reasonable elements in the Pan European Nazi government are responsible for backing the nightmarish genocidal plan, while the least desirable elements in the Nazi government are the ones opposing "Operation Dandelion", because they are politically unpopular and being forced to the periphery. It conveys the operations of a nightmarish bureaucratic hydra,.Phillip K Dick in researching for writing this novel read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by (1960) William Shirer.

It could be considered as one of a series of alternative history writings that explore an Axis victory during World War II, a popular point of divergence.

Biblography

Wai-ming, Ng. (1998). The I Ching in the Shinto though of Tokugawa Japan. In Philosophy East & West. Volume 48, Issue 4. Pages 568 -583.

Reading  The Passage by Justin Cronin.

In the beginning chapters there appears to be an unsentimental capriciousness in the world constructed by Justin Cronin, it's in the small details, the multiple protagonists are aware and intelligent in their social situations, yet lead inexorably to the events of the novel. The novel lavishly describes the technologies of control, communication, medicine, psychology and transport. The chapters are written mostly in the third person but also contain excerpts of emails, government documents and a hand drawn map. Bram Stoker's "Dracula" was a tale told through "diaries, letters, newspaper clippings and medical notes" (Halberstam 1993 : 335), and the first two hundred or so (208 pages to be exact) pages of  "The Passage" conveys the scene of malign influence by Subject Zero, and to me this evokes the malign influence of the Dracula. The beginning chapters dwell on death, cancer, poverty and the stresses of modern life, this may contrast with the later chapters. The protagonists or antagonists, because it blurs, are competent individuals with their own skill sets, the author shows the circumstances in which they are competent and in the end, how they fail and there is a sense of causality. Bram Stoker's "Dracula" is known for its technology fetish, the use of a dictaphone, type writers and transfusions, to quote Oliver Lubrich (1993), Dracula, a monster, "is hunted down by implementing the technologies of documentation and data processing, communications and mobility" ( Lubrich 1993 : 1).


In Justin Cronin's "The Passage" technology, military and deviated humanitarian efforts, are used in the creation of the monster. Technology and the systems of control create perverse, corrupted, expendable individuals in the "sweepers" and in the self aware soldiers, and in the form of means of control and communication it fails the "hunters". It is rather trite to point this out as potentially reflecting a more critical evaluation of modernity, but the difference is there. Perhaps it's evoking the points made in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" as well.









Bibliography

Cronin, Justin. (2010). The Passage. Published by Orion Books. Printed in Australia by Griffin Press.

Halberstam, Judith. (1993). Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker's Dracula. In the Journal of Victorian Studies. January 1993. Pages 333- 352.

Lubrich, Oliver. (1993). Dracula vertextet : Bram Stoker und Adolf Loos entsorgen ein archaisches Monster. In the International Journal for Literary Studies. July 2005.

Lacksadaisy Cats

Lacksadaisy Cats

A comic set in the 1920's prohibition era of the United States of America, with molls & gansters, as cats! Because the internet does not have enough pictures of cats. Actually the process of anthropomorphising the "cats" is quite interesting and Tracey Butler, who creates this comic is able to imbue her characters appearances with attributes that would be hard to represent using a purely human face. Some of the characters are cute because they have pedomorphic body characteristics. A lot of human evolution appears to be the retention of neotonic traits. The comic has high production values.

Look at the lines in the profile of that gangster. Lacksadaisy Cats.

The cuteness of the cartoon characters in terms of body characteristics is a property that is present in Disney cartoons and many examples of artwork predating this, such as the rotoscope creation of "Betty Boop" (Bouldin 48 :  2000), an aesthetic contemporaneous to the setting of the comic Lacksadaisy Cats. In Japan "cuteness" or "kawaii" (かわいい) is part of a cultural commodity that was introduced into toys during the 1970s (Allison 386 : 2003). The first postwar economic burst of 1968 saw a change in childrens styles from "moretsu" (hardwork) to "byuchifuru" (beautiful) (Allison 386 : 2003) which in retrospect was the development of the cultural commodity referred to by "kawaii" (Allison 386 : 2003). The term "kawaii" is derived from the 12th century term "kawayushi" which meant embarrassing, shy & pitiful and was in dictionaries  from the Taisho period (1912 -1926) to 1945 as kawayushi (Kinsella 221 : 1995), which in the 21st century has become semantically broad enough to include parasites displayed in a museum (Washida 57 : 2004).

Bibliography

Allison, Anne. (2003). Portable monsters and commodity cuteness: Pokemon as Japan's new global power. In Post Colonial Studies. Volume 6. No 3. Pages 381 -395.

Bouldin, Joanan. (2000). The Body, Animation and the Real: Race, Reality and the Rotoscope in Betty Boop. In the Conference proceedings for Affective Encounters : Rethinking embodiment in feminist media studies. Pages 48 - 54.

Kinsella, Sharon. (1995). Cuties in Japan. (Edited by Lise Skov & Brian Moeran) In Women, Media and Consumption in Japan. Published by the University of Hawaii. Pages 220 -254.

Washida, K. (2004). Kotoba no kao. Chuo koron shinsha. Tokyo. Page 57.

Finished reading "The Twelve" by Justin Cronin.

It is a continuation of  "The Passage"and has a similar structure of shifting times and places that are thematically linked, the early chapters dealing with a collapse of a contemporary society and later chapters describing a post apocalyptic future where the top predators in the ecosystem are feral vampire creatures that hunt in packs. It also continues the story of the main protagonist "Amy" and survivors of the "Colony", who are investigating the "Homeland" a city, showing signs of evolving from influences of contemporary society but is governed by a council of "ghouls", familiars of the "Twelve", who survive on a earlier generation ghouls blood. It is a description of a society run on near concentration camp conditions, despite the contemporary thought processes of the ruling council, who have survived for over 100 years on the ghoul blood.The institutions of the society, despite the titles and ways the council think about them have developed to meet the needs of the governing body, there is a dark comedy there.

I picked up "The Twelve" first, thinking it was similar to McCarthy's "The Road".

The beginning chapters, with some foreshadowing, further develop the apocalypse described in "The Passage", focusing on events and characters vaguely mentioned in the first book and introduces important antagonists such as "Deputy Director Horace Guilder", Lila and "Grey" , who are relatively well developed as characters in this type of fiction. One idea the author has is the feral vampires, "virals" are creatures that exist trapped in a particular memory symbolic to the individual creature, which is an interesting narrative device, it gives the "virals" a degree of pathos, and facilitates increased distinctiveness. There are a range of protagonists, some are more interesting than others but the characterizations are quite relatable.