Altilis-738

I really like window shopping. Even more so when I have money and the window shopping has the potential to turn into actual shopping. Today I was pleasantly surprised by one of my impulse purchases. And so it happens that

I have a tasty piece of comic review on the menu today (puns fully intended) 

Chew, Volume 1: Taster's choice is bizarre in a way you rarely see published. The events take place in the alternative reality where bird flu pandemic was so bad that government prohibited chicken. Eating chicken, buying chicken, owning chicken is illegal. The black market for poultry is blooming. Conspiracy theorists are having a blast. Oh, and some people have inexplicable abilities that more often than not relate to food. Other than that life is pretty much as it is, which only makes the few oddities in the Chew funnier in comparison.

Our protagonist is a copper called Tony Chu. He is Cibopathic. He eats stuff and gets psychic impressions from what he ate. His ability comes in handy at detective work, as long as he doesn't mind tasting murder victims and their dogs every once in a while. (He does mind, but he'll do it anyway) It takes only one case where Chu bites suspect's face off and he is enrolled into government's Special Crimes Division and the rest is stuff of the legends. 

I really enjoyed Rob Guillory's art, his bold lines and caricaturesque style. His style also goes really well hand in hand with John Layman's bizarre humour. Chew: vol 1 has left me hungry for more, and I'm only a bit miffed to be hooked on a comic that is next to impossible to find from stores in Helsinki. Do I have to (gasp) order something from internet?!

I don't want to be a clown

Colourful and psychedelic music video with a message? Yes please.

I stopped believing / The moment when space / Was reduced to a needle

I meant to write ages ago about this whole Higgs Boson business, but then work happened and laziness happened and now it is almost 2 weeks since it was finally found. I am not going to explain what it is to you, mainly because so many people has done it better than I can. Okay, below brief (and awesome) presentation about whole subject:






(hurrah, minute physics. I love these videos, if you can't tell)

So, since I'm not going to tell you about things that you can find anywhere in internet, I'm instead going to write about

Why I think it's wrong to call the Higgs boson a "God Particle"

Yes, yes, it is invisible and we have no way of sensing it in traditional means and it is responsible for our (and cheese's and stars' and everything's) existence as we know it, it must be same thing as God / it must be a proof that God exists / haha in your face Atheists who now believe in something intangible that doesn't make any sense.

wrong!

Science and it's achievements and theories are very different from religion for one reason only. 

Science's (ok, physics') purpose is making theories about universe or about parts of universe and how these parts work. Theory in itself is only a brainchild, so it isn't necessarily true, and even if it seems to fit all the facts available, it still can be proven wrong. For example, we don't perceive the Earth turning in our everyday life, but we see the Sun moving across the sky. For a longest time all the data available led us to believe that the Earth stands still while everything else moves around us. But, with the new technologies came the new data, with new data came the new theories. And now we know a little bit more about the universe around us.

Religion on the other hand is known for putting it's fingers to it's ears and not listening when something they believed (creationists, I'm looking at you lot) is proven wrong. Christianity has been fundamentally the same for 2000 years, while science has gone forward in leaps and bounds.

We cannot confuse quantum physics with religious rabble, because all scientific theories are under construction all the time. Physicists are always trying to find what's wrong with their theories. Is there mistakes somewhere? Is there still something we don't know? Were we wrong about this or that? 

I don't think we'll ever be satisfied. We won't ever be able to sit down and make sense of it all like they can in religion. Believers can always just point at the heaven and say God when they are confused. It is not a luxury I want or need. Finding solutions with logic and brain power is more satisfying. (or you know, reading about other people doing it from a book)

Worst thing about religion is in my opinion that once you are proven wrong, the whole construction collapses into itself like a stack of cards. Believing in science and in logic makes rebound from failure easier.  

Calling the Higgs Boson a God Particle only confuses those who already have very vague and shady picture of the Quantum physics as a whole. It might be the thing that enables our existence, but it didn't create anything. It doesn't exist so that we could exist, but we exist because it exists. Secondly, we might not be able to see it or sense it otherwise, but we can gain information about it by looking at other things we have found. And if this theory is proven wrong, there is about dozen theories in line waiting to be tested.

Better listen to mr. Samuel L. Jackson

There's a disease spreading from organ to organ / And you are the white blood cell that fixes the problem.

There's been a lot of discussion in internet about misogyny in videogames lately. I felt like adding my voice to discussion, because this is one of the things that make me go to full rant mode pretty damn quickly.

To get started, there's this article (the pictures in article are NSFW) and video below:



They both put this issue much more eloquently than I ever can (which is good because you know, they get so much more attention than my little corner of internet ever will)

I don't get much shit personally when I play, mainly because I stay far away from games whose audience is mainly fifteen-years old angry teenager boys with something to prove, and I generally don't play much online. (ok, Assassins Creed MP is darn cool, but you don't have to personally interact with your co-players in it so I guess that doesn't count.) Also the games I prefer; long, plot driven action and free roaming games have this issue well in control. Here in my little bubble all is fine. But then Hutchinson from Ubisoft's creator team says something like: “It felt like, if you had all these men in every scene and (a female assassin is) secretly, stealthily in crowds of dudes, it starts to feel kind of wrong. People would stop believing it"
And: American Revolution "is the history of men". 

As a result, I feel disappointed and betrayed by one of my favourite games. This argument doesn't work no matter what direction you look at it for several reasons.
1) There was female Assassins on AC: Brotherhood and AC: Revelations. Also Ezio's sister is big part of the organisation even if she doesn't participate in actual killing people activities.
2) We have lots of historical figures for women in war: Jeanne D'Arc, Catherine the Great, Cleopatra, etc. There was women participating also on US civil war, as seen at this website.
3) If Ezio and Altaïr could walk stealthily in the crowd dressed in a cape and full body armor, armed to teeth and sometimes having an eagle jutting form their shoulder, so can a woman. If anything, woman is not generally seen as a threat: they get to places unnoticed, because they were basically second rate citizens.

Ezio "No one can see my crimes against fashion because
I'm so fucking stealthy" Auditore

4) After the debated article in question, Ubisoft revealed that there will be separate story line for a female Assassin Aveline. Oh irony!

I'm getting a bit side tracked here. And by the way, I am against the idea that the protagonist in AC III would be woman, because we can't forget that it's really Desmond all the time in the memories of his ancestors. While it would be very interesting to see how bleeding effect from a different gender would fuck Desmond up, this game is not a time or a place for such investigation.
Anyway! Sidetracks.

So, lots of support for Feminist frequency, Il Doctorine and the rest who have spoken about this issue. I appreciate the work you are doing that I and many, many others can continue enjoying games and maybe, in future, widen our gamer horizons to genres that haven't been really female friendly in the past.

If that's what gets your dick hard / Telling people they're bad at making art.

I tried my hand at this making art-business again. Work in progress or not, depending if I can muster up courage to add contrast and textures. Probably not, though.
Funny fact: Blue ink dries faster than red.
Note for self: Test how long new inks take to dry before using them.

Ladies of the New Century

I took my first tattoo today. I was a nervous wreck until I walked into the Flame Tattoo & Piercing in Helsinki, Kamppi. After sitting into that chair, though, all my worries drained away. It didn't hurt all that much  (from stories I had heard I expected a lot worse) Guy who tattooed me was calm and nice. My tattoo didn't bleed almost at all, and it already (after 4 hours) has stopped prickling. In short: I'm very pleased with outcome.

It's a hydrogen atom. You'll be receiving no
explanation.

Taking a tattoo was to me obvious choice. I was about ten when it first occurred to me that they are a real thing that real people have. Of course I wanted one. (If I remember correctly, my first idea for a tattoo was a old school scorpion. I was one of those kids.) My mother said, "maybe when you're older" Well, guess who's older now?
My family doesn't care about my septum, or haircut, or tattoo in one way or other, but I do hear from them regularly (them and my grandparents) that I'd be "such a pretty girl" without them. And each time I grin internally, because it rarely occurs to people, that I want piercings and tattoos (yes, I intend to take one or two or ten more) to set myself apart from those pretty faces and bodies. There is more to people than that. This is a way to show others who I am inside, on the outside.
Cheeeesyyyyy.

Scotty liked all the books that I recommended / even if he didn't I wouldn't be offended.

Okay folks, we have another list coming today.
I was organizing my bookshelf today (don't laugh, it's something I do regularly) and it occurred to me that I would like to show off some of my most precious treasures. I am hopeless hoarder when it comes to books of any kind. I loathe to let any of them go, even that horrid paperback I dragged home only because it was free and I thought that I might read it someday but I never did. I care about how my books look like almost as much as I care about their content, so I have one book written in Chinese taking space in my shelf only because it's so damnably pretty. Neither of those has made it to this list. No, these are the best of the best. This list contains:
a) Books that are So Very, Very Pretty but also joy to read.
b) Books that don't look like much but are Rich and Fulfilling reading experiences.
c) Books that I come back to over and over again regardless their looks.

That being said and without further ado:

The top 10 books from my bookshelf

J.R.R Tolkien: The Hobbit or There and Back Again

I'm pretty sure I don't have to go very deep into the content of this book, since everyone and their mother has either read it themselves or heard it from their parents, teachers etc. I have been brought up with Tolkien, so this book is here for obvious reasons. While most people gobble up ice cream for comfort, I huddle in pillow fortress and read Tolkien. Especially Hobbit, since it is lighter and funnier than Lord of The Rings trilogy or The Children of Húrin (which is very obvious Kalevala rip-off and very tragic story.) It's also fun to spot things that'll get more refined and polished in the final LOTR books, to see where ideas and plot lines originated. And finally, even if this is for all means and purposes a children's book, it doesn't look down to it's audience. It has some pretty heavy stuff, from greediness to addiction, and it isn't wrapped in metaphors and baby talk. That is why to this day, Hobbit remains one of my very favourite books.

My copy is illustrated by lovely Tove Jansson, and her style fits Tolkien's world oh-so well.

Neil Gaiman & P.Graig Russel: The Sandman: The Dream Hunters

Yes, graphic novels (or less pompously, comics) have their rightful place in this list too. I have collected them for some years now, especially The Sandmans, and I could have just put all 8 of the copies I own here with no remorse. It is hell to choose a favourite out of that bunch, so I just took the one who stands on its own better than others. 

The Dream Hunters looks very much like a authentic folk story with some characters from The Sandman series, and for a longest time it was sold as one. The original short story, illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano was published 1999 with foreword by Gaiman who (out of modesty, I imagine) claimed that it was a real folk story he had rewritten. In remake, the one in my bookshelf, Gaiman apologizes to all the confused book-lovers and academics who had been looking for the original story all this time, and confesses that the whole story is from his pen. The point to the story is that The Dream Hunters really is THAT good. Both the original and the remake are also achingly beautifully drawn, obviously. 

Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I can never quite grasp what it is in Kundera that keeps me coming back for more. Whatever it is, it works. The Unbearable Lightness of Being is in its core a twisted love story between a neurotic woman with mother issues and pathological adulterer man. There is also artist who is unable to settle down and a mouse of a man who fucks his life up pretty brilliantly. In short, the type of story I normally try to keep at arms length. But in typical Kundera fashion, all the pathos has been wrapped in a delicious package with philosophy and some history, and even with all their problems and faults, the characters are likable and genuine. To me, the ideas presented in book make sense in a way very few things do. Einmal ist Keinmal has somehow, accidentally become the cornerstone of my own life views.  

No picture, but a quote:

“We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.” 

And that is what Einmal ist Keinmal really means.

Hal Duncan: Vellum - The Book of All Hours I & Ink - The Book of All Hours II

Hal Duncan's style is to avoid definition and genre. Some might say that his style is to avoid sanity all together. According to wikipedia, Vellum is something called The New Weird.  Reading The Book of All Hours is difficult, weird, exhilarating and inspiring. Things happen in multiple dimensions and times, you can never be quite sure in which corner of reality or sub-reality or post-reality or non-reality you are. Reading these books from cover to cover in hopes to get some closure and explanation is futile. And that is in nutshell what I love in Hal Duncan. You get the feeling that he doesn't really care about the reader or order or any of those things. But as long as you hang on on the ride somehow, both of these books are incredibly rewarding. The ideas, the possibilities! The Book of All Hours is something quite unlike anything else you have read before or anything you will read in future.

“We are our own worst enemies. How banal and trite that sounds, but [...] have come to believe that all the greatest truths are trite and banal, when spoken aloud in their simplest and most honest terms. Perhaps they can only be imparted in the Cant, in a language which writes itself onto your heart so that you understand not just the words but all the shattering ramifications of of a sentence which, when heard without true understanding, seems quite risibly simplistic.
We are our own worst enemies.People die.” 

Apostolos Doxiadis & Christos H. Papadimitriou - Logicomix

Logicomix is quite different from everything else I have included in this list. It is partly a lecture about history and basics of logic in the form of a comic, partly it's about process of making a comic about logic, and partly it tells about one logician in particular, Bertrand Russel and his story, fears and accomplishments. Even if mathematics are really not my division, I find it comforting that there is whole science dedicated to finding logic in all things. That there are people who are ready to spend years and over two hundred pages for proving that 1+1 is, indeed, 2. 

The aspect to this graphic novel I found particularly interesting is the fear Mr.Russel has for insanity. He sees many of his tutors and fellow logicians to go insane, bitter and mentally ill in their search of certain knowledge. I can also totally relate to his difficulties at his youth to find that one right academic pursuit, since I'm currently struggling with similar problems myself. 

Leonardo da Vinci - Työpäiväkirjat (collected and translated to Finnish by Laura Lahdensuu)

Työpäiväkirjat (= work diaries, or as Da Vinci himself called them, codex) is collection of found and translated notes by master himself. Notes are sometimes very rough, draft-like, and Laura Lahdensuu haven't left anything out, not even shopping lists or lists of seemingly random words and thoughts Da Vinci often scribbled in margins of his sketches. The notes are about various subjects: anatomy, perspective, geometry, etc. There are passionate arguments about why visual arts are at least as valuable, if not even more valuable, than poetry or music, general notations of natural phenomena like echo or shadows. Everything is written with almost childlike enthusiasm. It is highly amusing to find out how science has changed, how much more we know nowadays about simple things like how water behaves and moves.

Not to mention how amazingly well this book has been laid out. It has been huge effort, to take the remaining pages and put them in logical order. Studying Da Vinci's sketches never gets old. It is so well made that it won vuoden kauneimmat kirjat award (the most beautiful books of the year) in 2009

Donna Tartt - The Secret History

I'm one of the probably thousands gullible youths who read The Secret History and saw their lives changing in a matter of seconds. I wouldn't be the person I am without it, and I still come back to it yearly, when I need a reminder why I am pursuing the things I do in the first place. I still think it is beautifully written, I am still in love with the characters. I know I am very much in debt to The Secret History, for my overly romantic views of academic world, for my love of old, stuffy books and pompous scientists. 

The Secret History is also irreparably tangled with the messy things in my history - reading it is nowadays a painful stab of bittersweet nostalgia. It raises repressed memories and old aches I'd rather leave behind. But even with all that sentimental package, I love it to bits and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

“Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls- which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn't it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from the world, that no one and no thing hurts along with one's burned tongues and skinned knees, that one's aches and pains are all one’s own. Even more terrible, as we grow old, to learn that no person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us. Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that's why we're so anxious to lose them, don't you think?"

Art Spiegelman - Maus

Maus is one of the most resent additions to my collection. It is true story about authors father who went to Auschwitz and back, and survived. It is haunting, to know that all things told in the novel have really happened. The holocaust has never seemed to me this close, this personal. I appreciate that the author haven't tried to cover the faults of his father, trying to make him some sort of hero or worse, a victim. His choice to draw people as different animals (Jewish are mice, Polish pigs, French frogs...) is effective way to show otherness and isolation the war made between nations. Language has been left rough, there are very similar grammar mistakes than I do when writing in English, or than in the letters from my Polish penpals. It adds to intimacy of the story. 

Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of Baskervilles

Yet another book that made it to the list because of my childhood. We used to watch the Granada's Holmes series with my family every Saturday. I must have been about 9 or 10 and I had a ridiculous crush on Jeremy Brett. It is only natural that I moved on to the books as soon as I could read well enough. We had only a copy of 'Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' in our bookshelf, the collection that begins with 'A Scandal in Bohemia' and ends with 'The adventure of the Copper Beeches' which was, at the time, my favourite. For a longest time I thought that that was all there was to Sherlock Holmes and I was quite content. Then BBC's Sherlock happened, I was reminded of my previous devotion for the hook nosed detective. Sooner than one can say "Elementary, my Dear Watson" I caught up with the rest of the stories and bought few of them to fill my previously lacking collection. I could have chosen any of those books (I am rather fond of 'Study in Scarlet', where Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes meet for the first time) but my copy of The Hound is too pretty to not to include in this list. 

You can't tell by the picture, but the cover is fabric. This is part of Penguin Classics series, which I warmly recommend for friends of pretty books.

Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's series

Also known as the only five part trilogy on Earth, The Hitchhiker's is insanely funny scifi novel series (also a movie, radioshow and obscure PC game) After writing 4 hours about books I have loved and obsessed over (and doubt not, this is definitely in the latter category) I can't seem to say anything about this. Except maybe: Don't panic, bring your own towel and let the journey begin.

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."