![\"Face](\"/j-improper/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I was waiting in line at the self-service kiosk at McDonald’s at 1 AM. Yeah, it was one of those days. There was often something off at McDonald’s at this time of night. Many… troubled… older people, and gangs of teenagers, and sold out items on the menu.
\n\nBut today when I looked at one of the few remaining tables, I saw a man attempting to eat a Big Mac with a spork and a single chopstick. His denim jacket was on backwards. He wore shorts, and a pair of jeans underneath. His baseball cap didn’t match the frame of his monocle. He consumed his tiny morsels of burger sideways. At least he smelled clean, but the smell was so strong, I wondered if I was swimming in detergent.
\n\nAnd every time I looked at him, he was staring at me. Direct eye contact, he was locked onto me.
\n\nI hoped against hope he didn’t say anything.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-obsession","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-obsession","title":"Obsession","date_modified":"2025-03-12T05:32:44.938","date_published":"2025-03-12T05:18:07.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-obsession/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Gem](\"/j-obsession/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I can’t stop thinking about it.
\nWhenever I close my eyes, I see it.
\nWhenever I plug my ears, I hear it.
\nWhenever my mouth is closed, its name dances on the tip of my tongue.
Sometimes I see it when I walk down the street.
\nOthers have it, but I don’t.
\nOthers can run their fingers across it.
\nThey can taste it, they can smell it.
\nWhereas I am stuck dreaming about it.
I work so that I might afford it.
\nI rest so that I might find it.
\nI live because there is still a chance I might have it.
\nI would die if it ceased to be.
I wish that by some miracle it might appear before me.
\nBut it never does.
It will not die for me.
\nIt will not live for me.
\nIt never rests for me.
\nIt never works for me.
It never dreams of me.
\nIt doesn’t yearn to touch me, smell me, taste me.
\nIt has others, but doesn’t have me.
\nIt never notices me on the street.
It does not know my name.
\nIt never listens for me.
\nIt never looks for me.
\nIt never started thinking of me.
The following was not initially part of the piece, but I mentioned it in discussion afterwards.
\n\n\n\nOkay, if you must know, I thought of different things when writing different lines.
\n\nAt some points ‘it’ was a person.
\n\nAt some points ‘it’ was money.
\n\nAt some points ‘it’ was an Apple product.
![\"Fire](\"/j-secret-md/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I crawled into the crater like the missing link between fish and amphibian. I heaved one way, and dug my fingers into the ground, and rolled, and trudged, and flailed, and crawled.
\n\nI don’t know how long it took. I lost track of time. I saw smoke in the sky, heard commotion on the ground outside the crater. Could anybody see me? I hoped not. I hoped what came next would remain a secret, even if it meant death.
\n\nAt the centre of the crater was a small pool of molten rock and metal. It’s gone, I thought. It’s destroyed. I managed to sit up and take a deep breath of ash and soot.
\n\nBut then in the burning, viscous fluid, I saw it. A glimmer. Oh it was still there: the device.
\n\nThe device!
\n\nIf I waited, there was a chance the enemy might extract it after the extraterrestrial lava and slag cooled. It would be easy for any nation-state, even for several corporations. But I couldn’t let them have it!
\n\nAfter a moment of trepidation, I plunged my fingers into the glowing muck.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-bottom","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-bottom","title":"Bottom","date_modified":"2025-02-19T04:08:42.335","date_published":"2025-02-19T04:05:55.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-bottom/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Speaking](\"/j-bottom/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
As Shakespeare once wrote, “Now was the summer of our content.”
\n\nAs Abraham Lincoln once said, “bottom text”
\n\nAs Caesar once said, “I left, I heard, I relinquished.”
\n\nAs Churchill once said, “If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to Percy Jackson & The Olympians in the House of Commons.”
\n\nAs Benjamin Franklin once said, “Don’t trust everything you read on the internet”
\n\nAs Mahatma Gandhi once said, “An eye for an eye will make the world run out of spare organs.”
\n\nAs Jesus once said, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, that’s pretty good grounds for divorce, but don’t take it from me I’m single, at least on my Facebook.”
\n\nAs Donald Trump once said, “A house divided cannot stand”
\n\nAs Heraclitus once said, “You can’t fuck the same ass twice.”
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-reverberations","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-reverberations","title":"Reverberations","date_modified":"2025-02-06T04:55:21.000","date_published":"2025-02-06T04:55:21.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-reverberations/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Rock](\"/j-reverberations/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The reverberations of the blast were all I could hear. The trees were red with flame, the air was choked with soot.
\n\nMy legs felt like they had been stabbed a dozen times. I didn’t dare to look at them. Instead, I crawled upon clumps of gravel and broken glass. The other passengers of the wrecked bus were crawling across the ground as well, a few of them were limping. But there was a difference between them and I.
\n\nThey were straining every muscle fibre in their body to get away from the point of impact. But I was headed in the opposite direction. Towards the piles of the earth and wood and flesh which, unbeknownst to the others around me, were the edge of a crater.
\n\nUnfortunately, most of the meteorite would have been destroyed in the impact. But at the centre of the crater, I knew the core would have survived. And at the centre of the centre, more precious than life itself, the device.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-forward","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-forward","title":"Forward","date_modified":"2025-01-22T04:50:25.000","date_published":"2025-01-22T04:50:25.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-forward/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Bus](\"/j-forward/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Xavier and Bob both took a deep breath as they stepped off the bus.
\n\n“Ah!” Said Xavier, stepping forward and stretching his legs. “Nothing like some fresh air right at the start of our tour!”
\n\n“It smells like fuel and burning plastic out here,” said Bob.
\n\n“Isn’t it lovely?” Said Xavier. “That’s the unique smell of Benthamburoughton-upon-Oxfordshire!”
\n\n“Benthamburoughton-upon-Oxfordshire, Ontario,” said Bob with a sneer. “When you said you planned this, I thought you meant Benthamburoughton-upon-Oxfordshire, England.”
\n\n“Don’t worry bro, there’s all sorts of things to do here!” Said Xavier. He pulled out a book from his backpack titled 101.25 Things To Do In Benthamburoughton-upon-Oxfordshire, Ontario, No Seriously, Not the One in England. He opened the book to one of the several pages with a sticky note.
\n\n“The first thing on our itinerary,” said Xavier, “Is to look at the historic central bus terminal designed in 1967 by Alexei Ivanovich.”
\n\nXavier smiled and faced the building on their left. But his smiled faded as he took in the surrounding corrugated steel, pigeon droppings and broken glass.
\n\nXavier turned back to the bus and spoke to the driver. “Excuse me, is this the central station?”
\n\nThe driver shook his head. “Bit of a detour, I’m afraid.”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-mysteries","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-mysteries","title":"Mysteries","date_modified":"2024-12-06T04:35:02.000","date_published":"2024-12-06T04:35:02.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-mysteries/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Footprints](\"/j-mysteries/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Sel the Sasquatch knelt at the edge of the pond. He stared at the reflection of the full moon on the calm surface of the water, and contemplated. A reflection. Why did calm water reflect, while so many other objects simply melt into the darkness? he thought.
\n\nSuddenly the reflection broke and shifted as the enormous foot of another Sasquatch stomped around in the water. It’s Mac, of course it’s Mac thought Sel, but he was hoping for someone else.
\n\n“So you wanted to meet. I’m here. What is new?” Asked Mac. His body was like a mountain of hair rising from the water. Mac placed his hands on his hips, losing patience every passing moment.
\n\nSel was still kneeling. “There are new incarnations of old mysteries,” Sel said simply.
\n\n“Yes, but can you be more specific?” Mac said. His voice had a bit of a growl to it.
\n\n“Smoke without lightning,” said Sel. “Small spears with feathers. Clearings in thick patches of forest. Footprints with little toes.”
\n\n“Oh great,” said Mac. “You believe in Smallfoot now?”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-blue","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-blue","title":"Blue","date_modified":"2024-12-06T04:33:06.000","date_published":"2024-12-06T04:33:06.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-blue/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Snake](\"/j-blue/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Welcome to Cobra’s Pit,” said the narrator, looking straight at the iPhone his sister was holding up. The narrator was wearing his dad’s tie on backwards and seemed to have a blue watch on his wrist, depicting Donald Duck.
\n\n“The rules are simple: an entrepreneur has to pitch their business to our five high-schooler Cobras. Either the entrepreneur gets the money they asked for, or they have to walk away with nothing. First in the pit today is 10 year old Oliver Stephans who plans to disrupt the local beverage industry. Will he get the juice he needs to take his company to the next level, or will he get bit in the Cobra’s Pit?”
\n\n“Do we have to explain that the Cobras aren’t actual cobras?” Asked the narrator’s sister behind the camera. “Like they’re still humans?”
\n\nThe narrator shook his head wordlessly, and in that moment, realized his mom was right about him needing a haircut.
\n\nOliver Stephans, the star of today’s show, carried a pitcher of ice and mildly yellow liquid into the living room, and placed it on the coffee table. The narrator’s sister, who was still recording, lingered on the pitcher a few seconds longer than she wanted to, then twisted her wrist to focus on Stephans' face. His freckles and red hair could make a good YouTube thumbnail, she thought. Unfortunately, his Boston Red Sox T-shirt doesn’t fit the theme.
\n\nFive teenagers with moderate to intense levels of boredom were lounging on the couches and chairs of the living room, with Oliver standing in front of the television, the narrator and his sister in two corners of the room, and the pitcher on the central coffee table.
\n\n“Hello Cobras,” said Oliver Stephans. “I’m Oliver Stephans and I’m here to present my business, Thirsty Lemon. I’m seeking 40 dollars in investment for 5 percent of the company.”
\n\n“Have you ever walked down the street and thought, ‘Hey, I’m thirsty.‘ But you left your water bottle at home and the convenience store is too far away. Well imagine this: what if there was a place right on the side of the street where you could get an ice-cold glass of lemonade? My company, Thirsty Lemon, intends to be that place.”
\n\n“A straightforward pitch from the entrepreneur,” said the narrator’s voice in the editing room. The narrator’s voice followed up by saying, “As Oliver passes around samples of his cool beverage, the Cobras start to wonder about the commercial viability of Oliver’s business plan.”
\n\nThe narrator’s voice, with the hindsight of working from the editing room, said “First to question the entrepreneur is Vivian Mortimerson.”
\n\nVivian Mortimerson peered at Oliver’s elixir through her thick-rimmed glasses. Unlike
\n\n![\"Receipt](\"/j-paper/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Paper is one of Homo Sapiens‘ subtle and omnipresent inventions. A tiny sheet, lighter than a feather and smaller than a sling, could have enough markings to record an entire conversation. But for good or ill, I am not a member of that curious, imaginative, vicious species.
\n\nI am a Neanderthal.
\n\nI was thinking about the wonderful properties of paper while waiting for some fried chicken from Jollibee’s. I had ordered a 10 piece bucket, which was a light meal given my body mass and lifestyle.
\n\nThe world is so complicated.
\n\nPaper. Markings. Buckets. Body masses. Artifacts representing smiling bees almost as tall as myself.
\n\nI started at the paper in my hands. I tried not to think about all the noises and activity around me. So many people. So many Sapiens.
\n\nThe paper in my hands was a record of my trade. These beings, these Sapiens, trade a lot and record it all. I traded a 50 dollar slip for some food that was not ready to eat yet, and some more slips and flat circle known as “coins”.
\n\nMy stomach growled loudly. Some of the people stopped to stare at me, the giant, the ogre with the limitless appetite. But they went back to their chatter and meals after a second.
\n\nI focused on the paper.
\n\nFocus!
\n\nI could see the symbol representing “five” followed by the symbol representing “none”. That meant “fifty” which is five people who each have ten fingers. But I wasn’t counting fingers I was counting… dollars! Yes, there was the dollar sign.
\n\nBut those were only 3 symbols. This paper had enough symbols to form a family. Or to form a tribe. Or to form what, in Sapiens terms, was a small town.
\n\nThere are more symbols on this paper than Neanderthals alive on this world, I thought. Something about that made me fearful and sick.
\n\nMy species had been extinct for a long time. But the Sapiens, not content to kill, also seeked to create life. With some ancient blood, some tools too small to see, and some extremely courageous surrogate mothers, a group of Sapiens led by Doctor Nichols brought my kind back into the world.
\n\nDoctor Nichols felt that a single Neanderthal might get lonely among billions of Sapiens. She wanted to raise fifty Neanderthals from birth to adulthood. But only five of the pregnancies ended in births.
\n\nAnd the result of one of these five was waiting awkwardly in a fried chicken restaurant, towering over the other customer and trying not to hit his head on the ceiling.
\n\nOne of the staff said something and gestured towards me. I can be a bit slow at understanding Sapiens language. But eye contact, waves, fingers pointed at me and a bucket of bird flesh were easy enough.
\n\nI picked up the tray with the bucket and tried to find an empty table. I would need an entire table to myself - quite an inconvenience for the other customers.
\n\nI felt like I was living in a lie in that moment.
\n\nThis wasn’t where I belonged. Trading slips of “dollars” for food, looking for a table that was too small for my body, in a world where my ancestors were despised, while trying to understand markings on a paper!
\n\nWhy was I even alive?
\n\nIt was the question nobody wanted to answer.
\n\nWhy?
\n\nWhy exist?
\n\nWhy live, in this dying world where entire species disappear?
\n\nWhy live, as the survivor of a forgotten breed?
\n\nWhy live, if I couldn’t even eat a meal without returning to the question?
\n\n“WHY?” I roared out loud, like a bear defending his territory.
\n\nSuddenly all the dimunitive Sapiens customers stared at me. No speaking, no eating, just staring. After a second of silence, they immediately ran past me, around me, behind me, all trying to get to the only door out. Some didn’t even finishe their various greasy foods, they fled like a herd of deer into the concrete clearing.
\n\nI felt awful for interrupting their meal, for making a scene, for marking myself out as a beastly, frightening Neanderthal.
\n\nBut I also found some grim satisfaction in the fact that I now had every table to myself.
\n\nThis is set in the same universe as Fatty & Kingdom.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-station-distant","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-station-distant","title":"Station & Distant","date_modified":"2024-11-27T04:48:51.244","date_published":"2024-11-27T04:47:46.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-station-distant/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Astronaut](\"/j-station-distant/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“There’s only one person who can fit in the shaft,” Ivan said. He floated slowly, centimetre by centimetre, towards a pipe to his left.
\n\n“If we can fix the bot -” Michael started. He was floating in the opposite direction than Ivan was, towards one of the few viewports of the space station.
\n\n“No time for the machine,” Ivan interrupted. “The bot circuits are fried. It is an electronic problem not a mechanical issue. We cannot fix it with duct tape and crossed fingers.”
\n\n“It’s too dangerous for Timothy,” Vaishnavi said with a frown. “He could get stuck, and if the engine reactivates-”
\n\nA ray of sunlight passed through the window and onto Timothy’s face.
\n\n“The engine won’t reactivate. Ivan pulled out the fuel injection controller, right?”
\n\nIvan grinned and pulled a tiny circuit board from a bag floating aimlessly in the room. To think that such a minuscule item, the size of an insect, could control engines large enough to burn an elephant to a crisp in seconds.
\n\n“I’ll do it,” said Timothy.
\n\nVaishnavi turned her face away, trying not to cry in microgravity. Michael shook his head slowly. Ivan gave Timothy a thumbs up.
\n\nTimothy pushed himself towards the shaft with his two remaining limbs. His custom space suit and nimble body had no trouble fitting through the twisted pipes and broken glass at the mouth of the shaft. In seconds, the legless astronaut had disappeared into the darkness, with only a cracking on his colleagues' radios indicating his former presence.
\n\nTimothy couldn’t see very far down the shaft, to the extent that down and up even made sense on the station. The shaft had no lighting for one thing. For another, the once-straight shaft had been bent and twisted by the impact with the landing module.
\n\nIf the shaft were in working order, Timothy would have just floated down to his distant destination, pushing against the top and letting Newton’s third law do the rest. But that wouldn’t take him far in a bent shaft, and he didn’t know if any of the broken pipes below had sharp edges. So instead he grabbed the any handhold he could find, and slowly, gradually descended.
\n\nBoth parts were written in 15 minutes in a Joy of Writing session.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-arrival","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-arrival","title":"Arrival","date_modified":"2024-11-14T07:29:33.833","date_published":"2024-11-14T07:25:32.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-arrival/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Airplane](\"/j-arrival/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The arrival at the airport started out smooth. The customs was barely a formality and I didn’t have any check-in bags. But since my brother arrived on Air Canada and I arrived on Porter, we needed to find out where to meet.
\n\nI opened a phone to send him a message, but suddenly the device exploded.
\n\nShards of glass and aluminum flew into my face, my hand was burning, I could only smell smoke and blood. With my one good eye I could see the airport security running towards me. Everyone was shouting, alarms were blaring. I felt water from the sprinkler system slam into my forehead.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-question","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-question","title":"Question","date_modified":"2024-11-14T07:33:06.672","date_published":"2024-11-14T07:23:18.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-question/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Red](\"/j-question/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Do I have time for this?
\n\nIf not now, then when?
\n\nIs their call center still open? When do they close?
\n\nWhat is their phone number again?
\n\nWhat number do I press to reach the human?
\n\nWas that an “n” or an “m”?
\n\nAm I allowed to just leave the envelope in the mail room?
\n\nBut then why did that work last time?
\n\nAnd isn’t it weird that a courier would bring their own envelope?
\n\nHow early do I have to wake up to get all the documents together before the courier arrives?
\n\nWhy can’t I sleep?
\n\nWhy can’t I wake up?
\n\nWhat should I carry out with me?
\n\nIs Staples open yet?
\n\nWhich print shop opens earliest?
\n\nHow cold is it out there?
\n\nCan I reach the print shop by walking indoors instead of outdoors?
\n\nCan you guys print my documents?
\n\nWhy does it matter to him that it’s all personal government documents?
\n\nWhere’s the nearest Staples?
\n\nWhen is Staples going to open?
\n\nIs it weird that I’m just hanging around this Staples?
\n\nHow much will this printing cost?
\n\nWhich credit card do I use?
\n\nCan I save 50 cents by setting this printout the black and white?
\n\nShould I buy an envelope?
\n\nCan I put this envelope inside an envelope if need be?
\n\nWhich scotiabank branch should I go to get the bank draft?
\n\nWhat was the payee name again?
\n\nIs Toronto included twice?
\n\nWhat was the amount again?
\n\nHow does the teller recognize the recipient of the bank draft?
\n\nDid the teller just say the recipient has a reputation for torturing customers?
\n\nWhy is the teller having trouble signing in?
\n\nWhy is the teller asking me to reinsert my card 5 times?
\n\nWhy is somebody with a million dollar contracting business complaining to a bank teller about Interac being down?
\n\nWhy do they even have cashless branches?
\n\nIs it just this branch which can’t get me a bank draft?
\n\nIs it every branch of scotiabank that can’t get me a bank draft?
\n\nWhat about my account at the credit union?
\n\nShould I walk to the credit union or take the bus?
\n\nWhy is there so much traffic on the road?
\n\nWhy didn’t I put on gloves?
\n\nWhy didn’t I charge my phone?
\n\nShould I jaywalk on my way to the credit union?
\n\nWhy does the credit union bank drafts look different?
\n\nShould I walk back home or take the bus?
\n\nIs there any harm in crossing the street?
\n\nWhy didn’t I remember the construction which was causing all the traffic?
\n\nCan I reach the crosswalk without pissing off the construction workers and police?
\n\nShould I get on the bus?
\n\nShould I get off the bus?
\n\nShould I enter my building through the front door or side door?
\n\nDo I have time to look at the sunlight pass through the trees?
\n\nWhich of these keys is right again?
\n\nWhere should I sign on each of these documents?
\n\nDid I forget a document?
\n\nHow come licking the envelope doesn’t work?
\n\nWhy didn’t I notice the tear off adhesive strip?
\n\nShould I wait outside in the doorway or inside in the lobby?
\n\nShould I tape the label to the envelope?
\n\nDidn’t the guy on the phone say the courier would have their own envelope?
\n\nAm I seriously going to just wait here for the courier?
\n\nWhat if the courier takes 7 goddamn hours?
\n\nWhat am I going to do for 7 hours?
\n\nDo I have time to look at the sunlight pass through the trees, now?
\n\nShould I call my mom?
\n\nWhen was the last time I called my mom?
\n\nWhat did my mom mean by “student led conference”?
\n\nWouldn’t it be funny if my mom’s students got the wrong idea?
\n\nShould I keep reading that book I carried with me?
\n\nHow much battery is left on my phone?
\n\nWhat page am I at in the book?
\n\nHow long am I going to wait?
\n\nWho knew waiting in a chair for hours doing nothing could be tiring?
\n\nDid I sleep enough?
\n\nWhen will I eat today?
\n\nShould I go back to my room to charge my phone?
\n\nShould I got back to my room to use the bathroom?
\n\nShould I head back down?
\n\nWhat if the courier shows up?
\n\nCan I just leave the damn envelope in the damn mail room and tape the label to it?
\n\nBut what if someone else opens the envelope and reads the documents the print shop wouldn’t risk liability to print?
\n\nHey is that guy the courier?
\n\nHow long should I wait?
\n\nHey is that guy the courier?
\n\nHey are you expecting a pick up?
\n\nWhy didn’t I tell him when he walked past me?
\n\nWhy is he disappointed?
\n\nWhy didn’t the guy in the phone say to bring my own envelope, put the label on it, and just leave it in the mail room?
\n\nCan you give me a couple minutes?
\n\nPlease, just a couple minutes, can you wait?
\n\nHow quickly can I get back to my room?
\n\nWhere is the edge of the tape?
\n\nHow quickly can I get back to the courier before he bails?
\n\nShould I even pick up my keys?
\n\nWill he be angry at me, pity my stupidity, or forget me?
\n\nIs this ordeal finally over?
\n\nWhere did I leave my keys?
\n\n![\"Office](\"/j-admit/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
A-Cash, known to his parents as Akash, looked upon the cubicle farm with pride. Matthew looked upon the same room with a grim determination.
\n\n“Zemekis!” Said A-Cash, and one of his minions jumped out of the grid of wires and displays. Zemekis was panting with exhaustion, even though he had spent the whole day sitting down. He slouched and put his aching hands in his pockets.
\n\n“Tell us how Joroft’s system is doing,” barked A-Cash.
\n\n“Oh yeah, basically it’s all done, we just need to fix this tiny problem, just an infinitesimal thing involving the inventory dropdown-” Zemekis said.
\n\n“Excellent, that’s all we needed to hear,” said A-Cash. “Will it be ready for QA by 5pm?”
\n\n“What?” Said Zemekis.
\n\n“Will it be done by 5pm, today?”
\n\nZemekis looked at the clock on the beige wall to his left. The clock read 4:38pm. Then he slowly turned his head back toward A-Cash. His pocketed hands trembled.
\n\n“No,” he admitted.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-nobody-1","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-nobody-1","title":"Nobody (Draft 1)","date_modified":"2024-11-14T07:41:55.793","date_published":"2024-11-03T04:45:56.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail3.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail1.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail6.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail4.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail2.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail7.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail9.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail8.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail5.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail10.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing","featured"],"content_html":"![\"Woman](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Ada listened to raindrops hit her umbrella as she stood on a Missisaugan sidewalk. She hoped for dryness that would pose no threat to her expensive dress pants, and silence that would pose no threat to her turbulent thoughts.
\n\nAda stared at her phone and waited for a message from Andrew who was both the CEO of Maxiq and, for today, her carpool partner. He was late, and Ada contemplated calling her own Uber. But changing plans this late would disappoint Andrew, her manager’s manager.
\n\nInstead Ada periodically removed her phone from her pocket, checked for notifications, and returned it. Again and again until she slowed down to appreciate her lock screen picture. It depicted a road much bumpier than any in Missisauga, with a quotation attributed to Seneca: “It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.”
\n\n![\"Speech](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail1.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Ada had last set her lock screen back in February 2021, back in university. She was trying to finish an assignment in a computer programming course, when a LinkedIn notification popped up.
\n\n“Hey Ada, guess what?” asked a LinkedIn message from Patty.
\n\n“What is it?” Ada texted back.
\n\n“I got the part-time job at Deployt during the school term, and you didn’t,” texted Patty. “Well, I guess that shows that Matthew liked me more.”
\n\n“Congratulations,” Ada texted, straining herself trying to ignore the insults.
\n\n“Yeah, good luck finding a job at some boring little mom-and-pop shop, while I help Matthew build empires,” texted Patty.
\n\nAda didn’t respond, but doubled checked her inbox for her own part-time job offer. An offer Ada had not accepted.
\n\nAda sighed while staring at her assignment. She started typing “Hi Matthew, I have some questions about the product launch” into her code editor. Then she cursed, held her delete key, and reminded herself that her day in the sun was yet to come.
\n\nSoon I’ll be free from all this academic nonsense, she thought. Soon, I’ll be making real products for real clients paying real money for real work. Soon, I’ll be the empire-builder.
\n\nThen, after finding a phone background with an inspirational quote, she got back to work.
\n\n![\"Automobile](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail2.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Ada was pulled back into the present by movement in her peripheral vision. It was some Ford that Ada didn’t recognize because no bloggers had bragged about its mileage. In the front seat was a stranger, presumably an Uber driver. In the back was Andrew. He was short, clean-shaven and dressed business casual.
\n\nAs Ada stepped in, she was relieved to be out of the rain. The relief was short-lived. Only seconds later, Andrew asked, “So what do you think of your boss?”
\n\nAda stared in silent thought.
\n\n“Oliver McGrady, your boss, the CTO of our company,” asked Andrew. “What do you think of him?”
\n\n“He’s done well,” said Ada.
\n\n“Really?” asked Andrew. “I think he’s a bit of a softie, too generous.”
\n\n“Things could be a lot worse,” replied Ada.
\n\n![\"Pen](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail3.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
As Ada spoke, she thought back to a much worse moment in April 2021, when she walked into the office of a tall, clean-shaven, muscular man with a dark grey suit and light grey hair. The tall man stared at a 4K screen while loudly clacking on a mechanical keyboard. His face was unmasked, in violation of social distancing guidelines. At the creak of the door, the man stood up and smiled at Ada.
\n\n“Hey Ada, good to see you again,” said Matthew, the CEO of Deployt.
\n\n“The pleasure is all mine,” said Ada.
\n\n“That Patty, real motor mouth am I right?” said Matthew. He smirked while picking up a pen. “Always bitching, that one. Impossible to work with.”
\n\nAda laughed while opening and closing her hands, imitating a talking mouth.
\n\nMatthew fidgeted with the pen a bit.
\n\n“Yeah on a more serious note, sorry about the mix up at HR. We were supposed to give you a full time offer, not send you through the interview process all over again.” said Matthew.
\n\nAda looked into Matthew’s eyes. She briefly felt adrift in his dilated pupils and his dark brown irises. She shook her head to focus.
\n\n“We need you Ada. We need someone with your drive, your ingenuity, your work ethic, your passion for configuring IBM internet services with interfaces designed in 2003, and most of all, your creativity.” Matthew continued. “If you are still willing to work with us, I and the rest of the team would be eternally grateful.”
\n\nImmediately after accepting the offer, Ada got to her desk and set up her workspace. She placed small portraits of her favorite dictators and business titans under the dual monitors. She adjusted the height of her office chair and changed her desktop background to a motivational quote, this time from Sun Tzu. The onboarding was practically a formality: Ada had seen it all before as an intern, and Deployt was a frugal startup not yet fattened by layers of bureaucracy.
\n\nAt the end of her seven hours of official work and three hours of unpaid overtime, Ada noticed a Post-It note on the floor. It was face down, and initially all Ada could see was the dust and hair stuck to the adhesive strip.
\n\nAda picked up the Post-It and saw a message written in cursive with multiple colours.
\n\n\n\nI’ll miss you, Patty!
Ada felt a surge of glee when she threw the Post-It in the trash.
\n\n![\"Rain](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail4.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Interesting,” said Andrew with a neutral expression on his face. It was getting harder to see the world outside the car because the rain was getting heavier, slamming against the window like a meteor shower.
\n\n“Don’t you think it’s dysfunctional that Matthew sent a full time offer and then made me interview again!?” asked Ada. “Doesn’t that show a lack of competence?”
\n\n“Maybe,” said Andrew. He drank one of the Uber’s complimentary bottles of water.
\n\n“Well that’s not even the worst part!” Ada exclaimed. She unconsciously opened and closed her fists.
\n\n![\"Clock](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail5.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
According to a particularly ugly wall clock, the worst part happened in August 2021. Ada noticed this clock when she entered an empty conference room and sat at the right of Matthew’s spot. Minutes later, other employees dragged their feet as they shambled in. Ada’s colleagues had bags under their eyes and slouching backs. But they brightened their faces and straightened their spines when Matthew walked in.
\n\n“Hey guys, I’m sorry to say that Thomas has left Deployt,” Matthew began. “We had to let him go because unlike you guys, he was just too lazy. He didn’t have the grit and determination we need to make Deployt succeed.”
\n\nAda briefly remembered that Thomas suffered a heart attack a couple weeks ago. But after his recovery, he wasn’t willing to work overtime like everyone else.
\n\n“Guys like Thomas,” continued Matthew, “just don’t care enough about the product, about the clients, about the rest of the Deployt family. He betrayed us by slacking off and making us all clean up his messes.”
\n\nA couple of Ada’s colleagues nodded, dimly aware that Matthew would appreciate some kind of response.
\n\n“We’re a family here at Deployt. We help each other, we put in all the effort humanly possible because we care about each other and we all want the company to succeed. But guys like Thomas, they just don’t get that, they don’t understand the value of hard work, they don’t understand loyalty, they don’t have what it takes to support the company. You guys, you are the special few, the people who really deserve to be part of Deployt. I know you guys would do whatever it takes to keep this community alive, through good times and bad.”
\n\nAn intern gulped, but Matthew ignored it and continued.
\n\n“And good times are coming, Ada and the product team are working on a new configuration for IBM’s SAAS platform. This is a multimillion-dollar opportunity, if we can push a little bit harder, if we can fulfill all our current commitments and get this product out the door, we’ll be golden, it’ll be a new dawn for the Deployt family, we’ll all be rich!”
\n\nAda smiled at the mention of her name, and at the mention of a “product team” composed of just herself and junior developer. She forgot about Thomas, and steeled her nerves. It was time to turn ten-hour workdays into eleven-hour workdays.
\n\n![\"Cloud](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail6.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
A crack of thunder interrupted Ada’s train of thought. She suddenly noticed that the car she was in was no longer moving. Ada briefly looked out the windows and could make out dark shapes and red lights.
\n\n“So Ada,” said Andrew. “I know our CTO, Oliver, is not nearly as awful as this guy. But that’s kind of a low bar. Do you really think the developers working under Oliver enjoy working here?”
\n\n“Listen, from my perspective as product manager, our developers are some of the least motivated I’ve ever seen,” said Ada.
\n\n“But you don’t think it’s Oliver’s fault,” said Andrew.
\n\n“Nope,” said Ada. “Oliver is the best boss I’ve ever had.”
\n\n“That’s some high praise,” said Andrew. “Then again, he’s the one who recomended you. How did you two cross paths anyway?”
\n\nAda bit her lip.
\n\n“We crossed paths on one of the worst days of my life.”
\n\n![\"Page](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail7.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
According to the date at the bottom of the termination letter, one of the worst days in Ada’s life was in August 2022.
\n\n“I can’t deal with this anymore Ada!” Matthew shouted. “You released three products, but you’re impossible to deal with! First there’s the whole rejected promotion thing that you won’t forget about.”
\n\nAda said nothing, and Matthew continued.
\n\n“And on top of that, you are so toxic to everyone! You snake, you quietly wait and then suddenly bite! Why do you keep talking shit about the other employees Ada? Why do you keep blaming them, and saying they’re not working hard enough? There’s nobody else doing that Ada!”
\n\nAda started to cry. She was too sad, too shocked, too overwhelmed to argue.
\n\nMatthew slammed his fist on the table and snarled at Ada like a hound. “Don’t you realize your crying is creating an abusive workplace environment?” Matthew barked. “Get the hell out of here, I never want to see your face again!”
\n\nAda acted as instructed and made her way home. The tears had not dried from her eyes when she recieved a LinkedIn message from someone she barely remembered, a senior manager who had joined only day ago.
\n\n“Ada,” the message said. “I heard the sad news. It was great to meet you. You seem really bright and I was hoping to work with you. If there is anything I could do to help, let me know, I have many contacts in the startup world.”
\n\nThe sender was a man named Oliver McGrady.
\n\nAda appreciated the little pocketful of kindness from a near-stranger. But she didn’t want his help. She didn’t know where to go next.
\n\n![\"Vertical](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail8.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“But you didn’t take his help immediately,” said Andrew, piercing the veil of Ada’s imagination. The car was moving again, to the delight of all its inhabitants. “Was his offer not convincing enough?”
\n\n“It was nothing like that,” Ada explained. “I had a crisis of confidence, I didn’t know if I wanted to be a product manager in tech anymore. But eventually I came to terms with the fact that it was the thing I was best at, and returned to the industry.”
\n\n“Oliver seemed enthusiastic about bringing you here,” said Andrew. “To Maxiq of course, not to this Uber.”
\n\n![\"Door](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail9.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Maxiq. For most people it would just be another annoying startup name, but for Ada the name brought her back to October 2023, when Ada found herself back in the offices of a tech startup. Luckily, Maxiq was totally different than Deployt. There was more productivity and less jealousy. There was more encouragement and fewer threats. There was more direction and less blame. It has only been a couple weeks, and Ada felt better already.
\n\nBut as Ada held her ear to the boss' corner office, she could hear the faint sounds of crying. And the voice of her kindly CTO, Oliver McGrady, as quiet as a pin drop.
\n\n“I’m sorry, but we’re not renewing your contract,” McGrady said. “We’re considering other resources for the user stories and UX design.”
\n\nNo shouting, no blaming, no struggling. No explanation at all. Ada heard the contractor get up, so she decided to stop snooping on the corner office and return to her desk.
\n\nA few hours later Ada was notified of an email.
\n\n“Hey Ada,” read the email. “Great job with the dev meeting last week. Our CEO, Andrew, was impressed. Now, I know you’re swamped, but I was wondering if you could write some user stories for the authentication flow? Keep up the excellent work! Oliver McGrady, Maxiq CTO”
\n\nUser stories: the job the contractor used to do. Ada felt her stomach twist and a lump form in her throat. She felt her blood pressure rise, and her breathing become more laboured. Her fingers shook centimetres above the keyboard.
\n\nAda closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. Then she started typing. “Hi Oliver, I’d love to work on the user stories! Thanks, Ada.”
\n\n![\"Crown](\"/j-nobody-1/attachments/thumbnail10.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“That contractor isn’t the only one feeling stressed,” said Andrew. “The entire development team is getting aggravated at Oliver.”
\n\nAda raised her eyebrows as the Uber finally rolled to a stop. “Hold on, why did you ask me if the developers enjoy working here? You already knew the answer!”
\n\nAndrew laughed as he opened the car door. He never provided an explanation, but he fired Oliver the next week.
\n\nAda often thought about that conversation, even as late as October 2033. It was an unremarkable month for Ada, but an intern named Julia was deeply troubled. Julia had passed some technology exam months ago - skyrocketing prices made university untenable for her. The exam fulfilled gave Julia a shot at a tech job. She hadn’t got into a big corporation, but at least she managed to snag a job offer at a startup, AdaTech.
\n\nJulia walked into a corner office wearing a VR headset. She was so stressed out, she almost missed out on the decor. On the left was a portrait of Cardinal Richelieu, and on the right was a portrait of Jeff Bezos.
\n\nAt the center was a desk inhabited by a middle-aged woman, the empress of the budding corporate empire, Ada herself. A headset covered Ada’s eyes and she held a paper.
\n\nJulia tore off her headset, and realized that the document and portraits were all virtual. She got on her knees. Julia’s organic eyes stared into Ada’s glass visor.
\n\n“Ada please, don’t do this, I’ll turn things around,” said Julia. “Ada, please, if you give me another chance, I’ll be eternally grateful.”
\n\nAda pursed her lips. She was suddenly aware she was holding her breath and slowly exhaled through her nose. It was too late for Julia. The termination letter was already digitally signed.
\n\nThis is the second draft of Nobody. This was submitted to the Toronto Star short story contest and lost.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-narrow-madhouse","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-narrow-madhouse","title":"Narrow & Madhouse","date_modified":"2024-10-31T07:08:52.721","date_published":"2024-10-31T06:57:54.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-narrow-madhouse/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Woman](\"/j-narrow-madhouse/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
An alarm sounded and Margaret rubbed her eyes. A phone running a closed-source operating system was buzzing. Of course, the phone was not Margaret’s, it was ensconced in Aishwarya’s narrow fingers.
\n\nMargaret slowly picked up her bag and gingerly stepped around the sleeping bodies in this chamber once called a living room with a connected kitchen. Three in all, none of whom had a bedroom of their own.
\n\nAishwarya’s phone was still buzzing against a slumbering palm when Margaret opened the front door of the apartment. Her stomach rumbled, but she didn’t own any of the foods in the fridge.
\n\nWhile the sun creeped along the horizon, Margaret pedalled along the streets of Toronto. It was a Tuesday morning but she had no scrubs to change into, no patients to inspect, and nothing to read in any medical journal. She had no boss to report to, no cubicle sit at, no water cooler to gossip with coworkers. Margaret had no masters, no husbands either.
\n\nBut in a way she had a baby, her creation, the machine.
\n\nShe locked her bike outside a public library, and nodded at the security guard as she always did. She sat at a desk and opened an aging ThinkPad. After a few seconds of cryptic text, she was staring at a Debian Linux login page. And after a few seconds of waiting for the flaky library WiFi, she was starting at the face of her true calling.
\n\nThe GitHub issues page for the BeanMix transpiler project had some new updates. There had already been a few hundred bugs in the backlog, but today there were more. Someone noticed that when transpiling ECMAScript 2025 into ECMAScript 2022, some essential semicolons were being removed. And another person noticed that when transpiling ECMAScript 2022 into ECMAScript 2023, BeanMix threw an error because of a null reference. “This is critical for our use case,” the comment said, implying a group or collective or corporation who needed this fixed. An employee of Deployt reported a problem with async await.
\n\nMargaret chuckled to herself. There was always something with async await, wasn’t there? But like a mother who caught her child drawing with crayons on the wall, she sometimes couldn’t help but smile at it.
\n\nShe had a look at the donations page for the BeanMix project.
\n\nThere was not a cent today. The only text on the page was a title, “Donations”, and a footer, “Made with LetterPost”.
\n\nMargaret’s stomach rumbled again.
\n\nDeborah Freeman was confused. Yes, her raised eyebrow and tilted head indicated that she wasn’t at all impressed.
\n\nIf only she was raising both eyebrows, thought Samuel Sanderson, her interviewer. Yeah, that’s when you know.
\n\n“Mr. Sanderson,” she began.
\n\n“Please, call me Sam”, said Samuel.
\n\n“Sam,” she said with hesitation. “I was under the impression that this would be a technical writing role at the LetterPost Foundation. But you just told me I’d be managing some technical writers in the LetterPost Company, the for-profit,” she said.
\n\nSamuel couldn’t stop starting at the glistening black lipstick on Deborah’s walnut coloured skin. Oh yeah he thought, I wonder what else those lips can do.
\n\n“I still don’t see what the problem is?” he said.
\n\nThis time Deborah raised both eyebrows.
\n\n“Mr. Sanderson,” she said. “Are you drooling??”
\n\nPart 1 continues the story of Point.
\n\nPart 2 was written in 15 minutes in a Joy of Writing session.
\n\n![\"Broken](\"/j-point/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Oh, what’s even the point?” Said Barbara. She looked up at the twinkling stars and the cold crescent moon. She reached for the sky in futility.
\n\n“After all I did for you, after all I pushed,” she said.
\n\nMargaret, Barbara’s companion in the darkness, spoke.
\n\n“Was it really for me?” Margaret said. But there was something off about Margaret. Her face was clear and bright, but everything else under the moon was bathed in shadows.
\n\nBarbara raised her eyebrow. “You dare talk back to me, your mother? Without me breaking my damn back everyday, you’d have never got to University, you’d have never become a doctor, and now, now when everything is right with you, you’re leaving me here, to whither and die?”
\n\nBut something was off about Barbara. She spoke with force and clarity, but she couldn’t feel her legs, her arms, her mouth, her face.
\n\nMargaret raised her arm to a sapphire sky. Somehow it was both a silhouette and photoreal. Barbara could see the bruises, she could see the blood.
\n\n“Was it really for me?” Margaret said.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-posters","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-posters","title":"Posters","date_modified":"2024-10-31T06:51:00.000","date_published":"2024-10-31T06:51:00.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-posters/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Fly](\"/j-posters/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The fly didn’t know that she was standing on a poster of Taylor Swift, that her round little body was obscuring the view of Taylor’s nose. From the fly’s perspective, what mattered the most was that the poster’s surface wasn’t delicious or scrumptious or even edible.
\n\nQuite unlike the chamber the fly had recently flown out of. That one appeared to be full of humans constantly entering, exiting, and leaving behind droppings in pools of water. The fly absolutely loved the putrid smells but alas, most of the droppings were gone before the fly could feast on them. Except for that one pool of water where a generous human left feces without initiating whatever mechanism made it disappear.
\n\nAn excellent breakfast thought the fly. But where is dinner?
\n\nThe fly zoomed in every direction, searching and searching. A group of humans had congregated around a platform. They weren’t moving around much, although they seemed to be opening their mouths a lot, sending sound waves and carbon dioxide through the air. Quite uninteresting to the fly, except that on the platform surrounded by humans were bright colored objects.
\n\nOh, how wonderful! Sweet brown frosting dotted with pastel sprinkles! An entire bag of potato chips with real cheese in the flavor coating.
\n\nThe fly zigged and zagged through the stagnant subterranean air and landed on one of the potato chips. But while the fly rubbed their front limbs rogether in anticipation, she noticed something even more delightful.
\n\nIt was faint but her instincts recognized it instantly. Something putrefying. Necrotized flesh. Oh yes. The perfect place to lay eggs and grow some healthy maggots: a cadaver.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-uncongenial","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-uncongenial","title":"Uncongenial","date_modified":"2024-10-31T06:49:58.000","date_published":"2024-10-31T06:49:58.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-uncongenial/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Alembic](\"/j-uncongenial/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I was about to knock on the door of the laboratory, but it opened right as I clenched my fist.
\n\n“Quite late, Anaximander,” said Master Democritus the Alchemist. He tensed his perpetually furrowed brow and twisted his dry, chapped lips with disdain.
\n\n“Apologies, my master,” I replied.
\n\n“Do you know how many conical flasks are sitting unwashed in the sink?” asked the master.
\n\n“I haven’t a clue,” I replied.
\n\n“Twenty! Because I had no-one here to rinse them!”
\n\nI spent my morning cleaning the master’s glassware, while the master spent his morning dipping a coil of copper wiere into a pot of mercury.
\n\n“Surely this time, I shall find the Philosopher’s Stone,” said the master, unaware that by definition, the Philosopher’s Stone could never be his.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-affairs","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-affairs","title":"Affairs","date_modified":"2024-10-31T07:07:16.288","date_published":"2024-10-31T06:48:33.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-affairs/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Clipboard](\"/j-affairs/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“So, I’m dead?” said Samuel.
\n\nThe interlocutor on the other side of the table flipped through some papers on their clipboard. Beyond the interlocutor was a featureless, even light. Samuel had to squint anytime he lookd away from the table in front of him.
\n\nThat’s an oddly bodily thing to experience in the afterlife, thought Samuel.
\n\nThe interlocutor had no visible eyes or mouth, and spoke with a thousand voices at once.
\n\n“Yes, Samuel, you are dead. Your ship crashed on its way to Antarctica,” said the interlocutor. “And I think you know where you’re going.”
\n\nSamuel shifted his leg and heard a chain clink while constraining it.
\n\n“No!” he exclaimed. “I stood up to the globalist conspiracy! I exposed the machinations of the lizard people! I stayed true to the word of the LORD!”
\n\n“Your wife and various mistresses would say otherwise,” said the interlocutor.
\n\n“I’m going to suffer for eternity because of an affair!” yelled Samuel. He slammed a fist into the table and the smell of smoke filled his nostrils.
\n\n“Affairs. Plural.” said the interlocutor.
\n\nSamuel started to cry. “No! Please! I’ll do anything! I’ll change my ways!”
\n\n“You’ll do anything?” said the interlocutor.
\n\nSamuel nodded vigorously and tearfully. The interlocutor laughed deeply.
\n\n“Well it just so happens that we have a very special job for you, Samuel. Do exactly as we command, and we’ll spare your soul. Fail…” the interlocutor said. Their voice trailed off.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes in a Joy of Writing session.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-announced-hawaiian","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-announced-hawaiian","title":"Announced & Hawaiian","date_modified":"2024-10-31T07:02:08.905","date_published":"2024-10-31T06:47:03.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-announced-hawaiian/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Penguin](\"/j-announced-hawaiian/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The scientists, engineers and other investigators stepped around the penguins, who were unfazed by the shipwreck in their midst. The penguins didn’t have to wonder how the AGS Sunshiney flipped upside down and landed so far inland. The penguins didn’t notice the enormous tears in the hull which exposed parts of the lower decks. The penguins didn’t feel a sense of dread, they didn’t anticipate that the frozen body of the captain could be anywhere in the vicinity.
\n\n“Timothy” asked Dr. Lopez. “You read the briefing, right?”
\n\nTimothy gulped. “Well yes, but I kind of skimmed the part about the ship’s construction and its captain.”
\n\nLopez rolled her eyes.
\n\n“Basically the guy, Samuel, was a flat-earther. Really active on about a dozen conspiracy theory forums. But online discussions weren’t enough for him. He had to see the edge of the flat earth for himself,” Lopez said.
\n\nAnother member of the investigation sighed. They spoke while watching Timothy’s breath condenze in the frozen air.
\n\n“There’s still a lot we don’t know about the ship’s construction and funding,” said the unnamed person.
\n\n“Sorry,” said Timothy. “I think I forgot your name?”
\n\nThe investigator turned towards Timothy, but their face was obscured by sunglasses, scarves and the hood of their jacket.
\n\n“I’m Quarters,” the investigator said.
\n\n“Their name was also in the briefing,” said Dr. Lopez.
\n\n“Right, right,” said Timothy. He nodded vigorously like a living bobblehead.
\n\n“One day, totally out of the blue, this guy announced to his online comrades that he was going on an expedition to the so-called Southern Ice Wall,” said Quarters. “The team up north knows the caption inside and out. But we still know almost nothing about the ship that came down with him.”
\n\nAfter walkeing past the last of the penguins, Timothy, Lopez, Quarters and the rest of the team were standing before the wreckage. They took a minute to catch their breath. Quarters spoke first. “Captain Nakamura, what do you think?”
\n\nNani Nakamura, a former US Navy captain of Japanese-Hawaiian descent, opened her pack.
\n\n“We need
\n\nPart 2 was written in 15 minutes in a Joy of Writing session. I ran out of time before I could figure out what the team needed next.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-sunshiney-restless","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-sunshiney-restless","title":"Sunshiney & Restless","date_modified":"2024-10-31T06:44:41.484","date_published":"2024-10-31T06:36:07.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-sunshiney-restless/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Ice](\"/j-sunshiney-restless/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The wreckage of the AGS Sunshiney was too difficult to reach for the first four months. It was only when the Antarctic winter ended and the Sun started hanging endlessly in the sky that a team of scientists headed to the doomed ship and looked through the remains.
\n\nThe boat was flipped upside down, multiple kilometers away from the actual shoreline. Dr. Lopez of Argentina tried to estimate its size. But she was a biologist, not an engineer, so her main point of reference was the blue whale.
\n\nDr. Lopez was just one member of the team walking from the shore to the AGS Sunshiney. There was also an engineer, Timothy from Britain. Luckily for Lopez, Timothy was too young to have strong feelings about the Falklands and indeed, was too young to remember 9/11. The undergraduate was restless, fiddling his thumbs and asking a new question a minute.
\n\n“AGS, what does it stand for again?” Timothy asked. His voice was quick and high like a hummingbird.
\n\n“Anti-Globalist-Service,” said Dr. Lopez. Her voice was calm and powerful like a tide.
\n\nEach part was written in 15 minutes in a Joy of Writing session.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-immediately","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-immediately","title":"Immediately","date_modified":"2024-08-07T07:09:24.118","date_published":"2024-08-07T07:09:00.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-immediately/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Hot](\"/j-immediately/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“You should really get these papers sorted out immediately,” my mom said over the phone.
\n\n“Oh yeah, sure, absolutely,” I said.
\n\nThen after the call I took a nap. Then after the nap I watched halfway through a 38 hour video essay on YouTube. Then I actually went to sleep. I woke up to find the video essay was removed for violating YouTube terms of service.
\n\nI switched to my work machine and got ready for a remote meeting.
\n\n“Task #573 can probably be delayed for the next four months,” my boss said.
\n\nAfter the meeting, I finished developing task #573 in about two hours, and took a break for lunch.
\n\nWhen the workday was finally over I visited a friend and we went indoor skydiving.
\n\nThe next day was a day off during which I got sixth place in the municipal hotdog eating contest.
\n\nA couple days passed and when the weekend rolled aorund, my mom called.
\n\n“So did you get those papers sorted out?” she asked.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-happening","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-happening","title":"Happening","date_modified":"2024-08-07T07:08:02.000","date_published":"2024-08-07T07:08:02.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-happening/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Coin](\"/j-happening/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I walked along Eglinton and happened upon two homeless people sitting on the side of the road. I gave a toonie to the woman on the right.
\n\n“Thank you, Nils Sebastian Memphis the third,” said the woman.
\n\n“What?” I said. “How’d you know my name?”
\n\n“Bah,” said the homeless man on the left. “That’s what she calls everyone.”
\n\nI gave the man a toonie as well.
\n\nThe station was crowded and more pungent than usual. I realized that the train was not moving. But what if it starts moving right after I step into an Uber? I thought. So I decided to sit in the train and wait.
\n\nAfter finding a relatively unstained red seat, I noticed a man handing out pamphlets for a church or whatever. But I blinked and he suddenly disappeared!
\n\nHow in the world? I thought. Then I realized my head was leaning against a window, drool was dripping from my mouth and the train was moving.
\n\nDamn sleep deprivation I thought.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-westward","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-westward","title":"Westward","date_modified":"2024-07-24T06:13:05.000","date_published":"2024-07-24T06:13:05.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-westward/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Skull](\"/j-westward/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Driving westward through New Brunswick was getting tiring. The trip all the way from Ottawa felt like the biggest mistake of my life. As the sun sunk below the horizon, my eyes sunk below my pupils. The vibrant greens of the trees were starting to appear black under the night sky. My hand movements were getting too erratic for the gentle curves of the road.
\n\nFor a brief moment my eyes closed.
\n\nNo, wake up! I thought, and startled myself awake. I put my foot off the gas and on the break, gently slowing down. That’s when I saw the light.
\n\nYes, a light up ahead of me, probably the headlights of a vehicle heading the opposite way. There were two great beams of white light, and the glare was so great that I had to squint.
\n\nAs my car came to a stop, the other vehicle slowed as well. It was a mammoth’s shadow, a great beast walking towards me in the darkness. And it was loud! My sleep-deprived brain took a long time to recognize that I was looking at a tractor.
\n\nThe tractor stopped next to my car, while I faced west, it faced east. I looked to my side and saw the window shades pull down, revealing the face of the driver. No skin, no eyes, only a spectral skeleton in a hooded cloak.
\n\n‘You were probably expecting a scythe,‘ the skeleton said.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-wanted","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-wanted","title":"Wanted","date_modified":"2024-07-24T06:13:12.951","date_published":"2024-07-24T06:11:49.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-wanted/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Mobile](\"/j-wanted/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“What are you doing?” I asked the shirtless teenager in aisle three. He appeared to be opening jars of peanut butter he hadn’t purchased yet, pouring it on his bare torso, and putting the half-empty jars back on the shelves. Perhaps the worst part were the orgasmic sounds he was making while doing so. What the actual hell was this?
\n\nI realized a second later when I saw the vandal’s accomplice, another teenager of an unclear gender, cloaked in a hoodie recording the entire ordeal on a smartphone. Oh it was one of those things wasn’t it, for the TikTok or whatever people were into these days?
\n\n“Oh yeah, extra chunky” the star of the show said with his eyes closed while cracking open another jar of Jif. I grimaced and was inclined to just walk away. I wasn’t an employee of the store and hadn’t bought peanut butter in the past three years. But I felt I had to say something, to do something.
\n\nThe androgynous teenager cheered. What could I even say to people so desperate for attention, with such a craving for clout, who wanted fame even if it meant infamy? I opened my mouth to say “That’s really unhelpful and unhygienic,” but stopped myself while my jaw still hung open, because I knew it would be a goddamn useless thing to say, these guys knew what they were up to.
\n\nThis isn’t your problem I thought to myself. Call the staff. But instead I shouted, “Y'all are cringe you know that?”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-taste","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-taste","title":"Taste","date_modified":"2024-07-24T06:10:22.000","date_published":"2024-07-24T06:10:22.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-taste/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Tongue](\"/j-taste/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The salty cured meat was counterbalanced by every other ingredient of the sandwich. Some crunchy greens, some sweet tomatoes, and a rich cheese upon a sourdough.
\n\nI could smell the fumes of alcohol a few seconds before I opened my mouth. The wine was a bit stronger than I expected, a bit more bitter. But it was still far smoother than the wine at any other establishment. It was still far smoother than any wine I could afford.
\n\nMy own saliva was mildly sour, at least compared to the air. The two sensations alternated as I spoke to the host of the party. I was lucky to be here. Wasn’t I?
\n\nThe trunk of the vehicle was quite bitter. It had a firm, unyielding texture. I much preferred the other taste of the course, of my own blood.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-luxury","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-luxury","title":"Luxury","date_modified":"2024-07-24T06:09:20.000","date_published":"2024-07-24T06:09:20.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-luxury/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Flying](\"/j-luxury/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I was pretty confident after the demo was complete. The 3D models of spaceships on the screen would have taken weeks of painstaking work from an artist, but Autozord the AI had generated the colours and textures in seconds. None of it had any hint of originality, but who needs that luxury?
\n\n‘And how did the AI figure out how to move it?‘ asked one of the client’s executives, pointing to the generated spaceship blasting a digital asteroid.
\n\n‘Oh that’s just the default movement option.‘ I explained. ‘Autozord, make the TIE Fighter slower, and make it spin.’
\n\n‘Spinning is a good trick,‘ said one of the younger members of the management team. This was an oddly appropriate comment, given the rampant copyright infringement in both the prompt and operation of the system. I was hoping the client would either not care or not notice before the contract was signed.
\n\nAutozord the AI said ‘Updating Movement code'. In moments, the virtual aircraft was making virtual spins in virtual space, completing in moments the work a programmer might spend hours on. Of course a programmer would try to fix the bugs but the unwitting customers would only realize the difference after they paid up.
\n\nMost of the executives smiled, but the CEO was not impressed. ‘Listen this is all neat, but the the biggest problem our studio faces is marketing. How do we make our game stand out amongst the crowd?'
\n\nI opened my mouth to tell them to buy my conveniently priced advertising and search engine optimization services, but Autozord had other plans.
\n\n‘GENeRATING GOOGlE ADs CONfIGuRATION and editing your webpage'said Autozord.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-authority-suspicious","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-authority-suspicious","title":"Authority & Suspicious","date_modified":"2024-07-24T06:01:32.000","date_published":"2024-07-24T06:01:32.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-authority-suspicious/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Ice](\"/j-authority-suspicious/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I tried opening my smart fridge to no avail.
\n\n\n\nOopsie! It looks like our system had a boo-boo!\nERROR CODE: 0x0BEEEEEB
said the screen of the fridge.
\n\nI cursed under my breath. Whatever happened to the fridges of my youth? Manual open, manual close, and there was a lightbulb. It was simple, it was reliable, but somebody had the bright idea to make the door automatic and make a screen display the weather.
\n\n“Obey me you dumb machine!” I said as I grabbed the door and tried to pry it apart. But it didn’t respect my authority.
\n\n“Oh, it’s that fridge again?” asked Elaine 538.
\n\n“Yeah, you know how to fix it?” I asked. Sometimes having a younger clone of oneself could be incredibly handy, despite the costs.
\n\n“I always just do this,” my clone said, approaching the wall. She pulled the plug of the fridge and the screen went blank.
\n\n“So now it’s on manual mode?” I asked.
\n\n“Nah, we’re just going to turn it back on again,” said Elain 538. She plugged the fridge back in and the same error returned.
\n\n“Well, that’s suspicious,” said Elaine. “A persistent bug. Or worse.”
\n\nEach part was written in 15 minutes in a Joy of Writing session.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-power","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-power","title":"Power","date_modified":"2024-07-24T05:54:32.000","date_published":"2024-07-24T05:54:32.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-power/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Rat](\"/j-power/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The lights went out while I was trying to figure out my math homework. I could hear the ceiling fan above me slow to a halt as I picked up my books and pencils. The room was too dark for me to do my homework, and additionally if someone else had been in my bedroom, it would have been too dark for anyone to see me roll my eyes.
\n\nI walked out of the bedroom and into the living room. I could hear my brother shout that the power was out, and was vaguely aware of a dark shape that was probably my mom, probably looking for the candle and matches. The air felt so still without the ceiling fans, luckily the sun was down and so wasn’t unbearably hot.
\n\nLooking out the living room windows, which were almost as tall as the walls, I could see the city of Bangalore, soon to be renamed Bengaluru. The world beyond our balcony was lighter than the apartment, but still dark - kind of like comparing a black cloth to a black inkblot.
\n\nI heard the scratch as my mom lit a match, and then a candle. The flickering light was so much weaker than the bright glow of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs that were all the rage these days. LEDs were supposed to be more efficient, but they hadn’t caught on in the market yet. Either of the two would have been preferable to the eerie dancing flame. The fire almost felt alive, and I could see the wax of drip down the candle like sweat.
\n\nI tried to look at my math homework by the candlelight; the superscripts of the polynomials were hard to see with such a poor light source. But much to my mom’s chagrin it was right when I rolled my eyes a second time that the power came back.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-embroidery","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-embroidery","title":"Embroidery","date_modified":"2024-07-24T05:52:15.082","date_published":"2024-07-24T05:47:06.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-embroidery/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Teacup](\"/j-embroidery/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I struggle to pry my eyelids open during the remote meeting. It’s not the witching hour yet. Perhaps the witches are still bathing in ice cold moonlit pools or applying indigo eyeliner.
\n\nIt’s a discussion of some kind of special case the client wants to add to the software weeks before the deadline. The customer is always right, even when their suggested course of action will add an eternity of support headaches. It’s a Faustian bargain for sure, but I can’t tell which side of the deal has pitchforks and horns.
\n\nI look at the code that has to be changed and shake my head. A tangled mess of “if” and “else if”. Where is the grace? Where is the elegance?
\n\nA character in an anime watches other anime characters walk, and talk, and keep their formal clothes dry. “Elegant,” he says. As if he lives in a world of ladies and sirs instead of women and men. Where are the open rivers of sewage, where are the multiple hour train delays, where are the tacky advertising billboards, where are the pimples? Is there any lack of grace? Is there any deficiency of elegance?
\n\nI didn’t iron my wrinkly button shirt for the company party. Nor did I put on the shiny black shoes. But the company party is in a barn upon a field of grass, and my boss is wearing an unwrinkled T-shirt. I sip a Sprite, not to be confused with 2D graphics. He sips a Corona, not to be confused with the virus.
\n\nI’m overdressed and underdressed for this thing. I think as I step into the passenger seat of my coworker’s car. Where is the grace? Where is the elegance?
\n\nMy friend’s parent’s house has a map of Canada on the wall. But not a map from this century. The living room is multiple stories tall and has a plant growing in the natural light. The tables are polished, the tableclothes have detailed embroidery, there are books of philosophy to be read and books about art to leave on the coffee table. Outside of this house is a neighborhood of perfectly spaced trees and suburban homes, with driveways and street lamps and yards and sidewalks.
\n\nAn insect manages, despite all odds, to fly into the temple of design. “Disgusting,” my friend says, and seeks to eliminate it. Is there any lack of grace? Is there any deficiency of elegance?
\n\nA pigeon is flying around in the TTC subway. Everybody is staying put, including me. I really don’t want to touch the thing, I don’t want it to touch me. It’s such a strange event that I take a video, and I’m not the only one.
\n\nThe pigeon stands proud although it’s only inches tall. It stops flying in futility and walks upon the floor of the subway. It walks past the drying vomit of some anonymous drunk, the excited children and the disapproving parents. Finally at York Mills station someone with a wheel-bag scares the pigeon out the door. I didn’t know anyone below 50 with an income above 50k would even own a wheel bag. Where is the grace? Where is the elegance?
\n\nI sit in a tea shop near the library. The wallpaper is from Turkey, the matcha is from a small farmer in Japan with no other Canadian clients. The wall has a smorgasbord of tea varieties for sale. The owner-slash-barista strikes up conversations with every customer about every item, and about every aspect of his business. I can’t believe in a shop with so many types of tea, I ordered a French vanilla latte. The Tim’s is right around the corner! I might as well have ordered chicken nuggets.
\n\nI shift my uncombed hair before plugging in a keyboard that’s supposed to be wireless. Where is the grace? Where is the elegance? Here, but not with me.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-care","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-care","title":"Care","date_modified":"2024-07-24T05:44:22.000","date_published":"2024-07-24T05:44:22.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-care/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Ice](\"/j-care/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“So I was just wondering, whether you would call that behaviour more ‘mature' or ‘immature',” she asked, while we were walking down the sunny streets of Scarborough. Which could just as well have been a cloudy day in Calgary, as far as I was concerned.
\n\n“I don’t care,” I said.
\n\n“Uh okay,” she said. “But even if you don’t care, can you answer?”
\n\n“I don’t care about whether I can or cannot answer,” I said.
\n\n“Forget it,” she said while scowling. She took a deep breath and abruptly changed the topic, not that speed of topic transition really mattered. I mean, a change of topic has to happen at some point, almost by definition. Otherwise it would be possible to be stuck discussing the same points for eternity, which would be a problem because people would stop caring.
\n\n“Hey look at that ice cream shop,” she said, pointing to the only building in this area that wasn’t either a home or a warehouse. “Want to go there?”
\n\n“I don’t care,” I said.
\n\n“Does that mean you don’t want to go?” She asked. “Or does that mean you don’t mind going?”
\n\n“The ambiguity isn’t my concern,” I said.
\n\nShe rolled her eyes and wiped the sweat off her brow. “Well I’m getting an ice cream, whether you do or not.”
\n\nShe walked toward the ice cream shop and I followed, without explicitly deciding to follow because I wasn’t actually craving an ice cream.
\n\n“I’ll have the Belgian chocolate in a cone,” she said to the cashier.
\n\n“What about you?” the cashier asked while looking in my direction. He had a hairnet and a clean-shaven face, not that his hairstyle or hygiene mattered much to me in the grand scheme of things.
\n\n“I don’t care,” I said.
\n\n“Are you paying?” Asked the cashier.
\n\n“I don’t care,” I said.
\n\n“Is that a yes, or a no?” He asked.
\n\n“Doesn’t matter,” I said.
\n\n“Well if it’s no difference to you, I’d suggest you buy the Limited Edition Gooseberry and Goulash flavour before it’s thrown out - I mean before it’s sold out,” said the cashier.
\n\nI had no reason to agree or disagree to this request. I expected the cashier to ask me a meaningless question about putting the ice cream in a cone or cup but he just gave me a cup without asking me.
\n\n“How’s the uhhh,” she started. “The Gooseberry and Goulash? Is that even an ice cream flavour?”
\n\nI licked the scoop of the novelty ice cream flavour. I guess you could say it was mid.
\n\n“Not much to say about it.” I said.
\n\n“You know what, man, not caring about anything is not very conducive to discussion, it’s actually really boring!” She said.
\n\nI rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-end","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-end","title":"End","date_modified":"2024-07-24T05:11:02.000","date_published":"2024-07-24T05:11:02.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-end/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Bicycle](\"/j-end/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The rains had stopped mere minutes ago. The pavement still shone with a thin layer of water as by bike wheeled past. My legs suddenly felt like they were strapped to weights. It must be an include, some small percentage of imbalance I’d hardly notice in a leisurely stroll.
\n\nMy gloved hands squeezed the handbreaks. Really need to get one of those phone-holding accessories, I thought. Then I remembered I had bought such a convenience but forgot to install it. Whatever.
\n\nI stood looking at my phone on the bike path. This section of the route, where I had to go through the park, was always confusing. No simple grid of perpendicular roads, only the organic curves of paths between trees. Children played on the swings and slides. The elderly sat on benches and at tables with chessboards. And the young adults, caught in-between these stages of life, biked in and out of the part in a single minute.
\n\nNever stopping to smell the air after the rain, or to point at a squirrel, or to jump in the mud. Always racing to an end somewhere else. Unless, like me, they were totally lost.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-cracker","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-cracker","title":"Cracker","date_modified":"2024-07-24T04:28:46.000","date_published":"2024-07-24T04:28:46.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-cracker/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Cloud](\"/j-cracker/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Geoffrey opened the packet and said, “Care for a cracker?”
\n\n“Thanks,” I said. I looked at the packed and realized I didn’t recognize the brand, or indeed the writing system. That was a common state of affairs at the breakroom of Supernatural Technology Incorporated.
\n\nIt was a week since the interview and I had never again seen the eternally-smiling Benjamin, although I received a Teams message from him every five seconds. I don’t know how I even got the job after flubbing so many questions.
\n\nGeoffrey pulled out a cracker and split it. SNAP! He placed one half into his mouth without chewing it. “We got a job for you. It’s down south,” he said.
\n\n“By Lakeshore? Niagara?” I asked.
\n\n“Think again,” he said. He split his cracker again. SNAP! It had somehow regenerated when I wasn’t looking. He handed me three bags and led me to the south door of the breakroom.
\n\n“Is it an internal job?” I asked, but as Geoffrey opened the door, a gust of freezing wind blew all over my body. After some snowflakes hit my face, I opened my eyes and saw a vast tundra.
\n\n“Say hi to Tux the penguin for me!” said Geoffrey, as he pushed me through the door and closed it behind me.
\n\nI turned back and tried to get back to the office break room, to get an explanation from Geoffrey. This has to be some kind of safety violation, I thought. But the door I entered had exited this reality.
\n\nI was alone in a tundra with a couple of bags. The biting cold stabbed my body like daggers. What was I supposed to do?
\n\nCurl into a ball and die, I thought, and that was really my first thought. But I tore open the bags, maybe there was something in them to assist me. SOme gloves, a coat, maybe a satellite phone? My last meal before I was a lost soul, perhaps?
\n\nBut instead of any of that, the first thing I pulled out was a box labelled
\n\n\n\nDEVILCOIN MINER: PRODUCT OF GEHENNOM
I had a hard time thinking although I had little else to do.
\n\nI was in a Boeing 777 above the northern Atlantic. My phone was dead. There was an in-flight entertainment system but I wasn’t in the mood for staring at the airline’s puny excuse for a screen. That’s what everyon else was doing, those who were awake anyway.
\n\nI opened the window. Clouds, clouds and more clouds. They were magisterial. They were as large as skyscrapers and floated effortlessly. Even though this aircraft was travelling hundreds of kilometers an hour, you wouldn’t guess it from watching the clouds leisurely pass by - unless you understood that these were less like floating trees and more like floating mountains.
\n\nBut something above the clouds caught my eye. Another plane? I thought. But it had no contrail. And no, I did not mean “chemtrail”.
\n\nIt wasn’t a cloud and this would be an absurd altitude for a bird. Absurd color too. It reflected the sunlight like a glistening rock on a riverbank. It seemed to be gliding towards our plane.
\n\n“Hey, close the window shade,” said a flight attendant. “Some people are trying to sleep.”
\n\n“Excuse me, sorry about the window shade,” I said. “But there seems to be an unidentified flying object over there.” I pointed at the strange shiny object in the sky, but the attendant shook her head.
\n\n“That flying object is totally identified, actually,” she said.
\n\n“Really?” I said. “What, are you going to give me some spiel about how it’s actually a balloon or -”
\n\nSuddenly I was interrupted by an announcement.
\n\n“Hello this is your captain speaking,” said the system. “It appears we have entered a region of airspace with an unnatural lack of turbulence. Nothing to be alarmed about, we are just going to have a short visit from the sentient gazelles of Pelias Delta. Our scheduled arrivbal time will be delayed by about thirty minutes.”
\n\nI heard a couple of people groan as the system continued.
\n\n“There’s no need to panic, please stay in your seat and keep your seat belt on. Our visitors are only taking one passenger with them, a mister Timothy Stacks.”
\n\nBut… I’m Timothy Stacks, I thought.
\n\nEach part was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup. It is a continuation of “Interviews”.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-interviews","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-interviews","title":"Interviews","date_modified":"2024-04-26T16:53:58.000","date_published":"2024-04-26T16:53:58.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-interviews/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Bald](\"/j-interviews/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“He-LLO Timothy!” Said the bald man. I had only been in the room for a second, but the bald man was already standing up and grinning from ear to ear. His brown-haired compatriot nodded without saying anything.
\n\n“I’m Benjamin,” the bald man said. He was still smiling, indeed he seemed to speak without changing the shape of his lips. “It’s so great to see you! Welcome! Also, this is Geoffrey,” Benjamin continued, indicating the brown-haired man.
\n\n“Hi,” said Geoffrey.
\n\n“Why don’t you take a seat?” Asked Benjamin rhetorically. But I didn’t take a seat.
\n\n“Um, you can sit down?” Benjamin said.
\n\n“I’m good with standing,” I said.
\n\n“Any particular reason?” Benjamin asked. He was still smiling through all this.
\n\n“Oh just an ancient curse,” I said.
\n\n“Haha! Of course!” Benjamin said. “How many interviews have we had with people in that situation, Geoffrey?”
\n\n“Only 2 and a half,” said Geoffrey.
\n\n“Yes, shame how that half interview ended. Anyway, let’s start by telling you about our company. What do you know?” Asked Benjamin.
\n\n“You specialize in paranormal IT support.”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-apartment-lost","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-apartment-lost","title":"Apartment & Lost","date_modified":"2024-04-26T16:53:00.527","date_published":"2024-04-26T16:50:12.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-apartment-lost/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Shoe](\"/j-apartment-lost/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The student knocked on the door of the apartment, which opened while his fist was still clenched. A wiry man stood inside, with facial hair that pointed chaotically in every direction. His limbs were thin as treetop branches, his digits were practically chopsticks with joints.
\n\n“Are you Derrick?” Asked the man to the student.
\n\n“Yeah. Are you Gerald?” Asked Derrick to the man who he previously only knew on Kijiji.
\n\n“Yeah,” said Gerald. “Welcome. Please leave your shoes right there.” Gerald was pointing to Derrick’s right, but it was only when Derrick walked in that he realized what precisely would accommodate his footwear.
\n\n“Uh… why is there a swirling sphere of darkness next to the door of this apartment?” Asked Derrick.
\n\n“Oh that’s just a black hole,” said Gerald. “It’s pretty tiny if you remove the magnets and protective glass, which are just there to prevent things from falling in.”
\n\n“The glass has a hole in it,” said Derrick.
\n\n“Uh yeah, that’s where you keep your shoes,” said Gerald. “Don’t worry, you can grab them from the bright hole on your way out.”
\n\nDerrick weighed his options and realized finding a new pair of shoes would be a lot easier than finding another available apartment in the Kitchener Waterloo area before the school term started. So he took off his shoes and held them to his right. When he let go of the shoes, they fell sideways into the black hole’s gravity well, lost to space and time.
\n\n“So uh, can I see the room?” Said Derrick. In his stage of life and his world’s stage of economic development, he could only rent a single room in an apartment to himself.
\n\n“Right this way,” said Gerald. His thin arms were an effective indicator of direction. “You’re in the university right? Studying engineering?” Gerald asked.
\n\n“No, just math,” said Derrick. But before they could enter the bedroom, Derrick noticed something on the living room wall.
\n\n“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Derrick. “Is that the set of all sets that don’t contain themselves?”
\n\nGerald rolled his eyes. “Let’s be real, no students actually live in the living room.”
\n\nEach part was written in 15 minutes in a Joy of Writing session.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-thickening-promise","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-thickening-promise","title":"Thickening & Promise","date_modified":"2024-04-11T02:19:44.000","date_published":"2024-04-11T02:19:44.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-thickening-promise/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Sun](\"/j-thickening-promise/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The Sun let out a plume of superheated gas, much to Mercury’s alarm.
\n\n“What’s the matter, sir? Have I upset you?” asked Mercury.
\n\n“Oh it’s that upstart sister of yours, Earth,” said the Sun. “Her moon intends to eclipse me soon, and it’s quite embarrassing.”
\n\n“Well, she can’t help it sir, by the laws of mechanics and all that,” said Mercury. “And why would you be embarrassed? The last time there was an eclipse on Jupiter-”
\n\n“Oh that didn’t matter,” said the Sun. “It’s different when it’s on Earth.”
\n\n“Because of the humans?” Said mercury. “You don’t want them to see you eclipsed?”
\n\n“Humans, penguins, bacteria, what does it matter?” Said the Sun. “But there is one human, one particular human who absolutely must not see my corona!”
\n\nHours later, that specific human was sitting in a GO train heading from Toronto to Niagara. A passenger who boarded at Oakville looked at the fellow quizzically.
\n\n“So uh, why are you wearing a wizard hat?” Asked the Oakville man.
\n\n“Because, I am the wizard of Dundas Square,” said the wizard of Dundas Square.
\n\n“And the robes?” Asked the Oakvillian.
\n\n“It could get cold when the Sun loses their composure.”
\n\n“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked the muggle.
\n\nThe wizard of Dundas Square giggled. “Just a little joke between him and I.”
\n\nMeanwhile in the interplanetary medium, negotiations were ongoing between the celestial bodies.
\n\n“Ugh,” Earth said. “The eclipse WILL happen, and that’s final!”
\n\n“Gaia, please,” said the Sun.
\n\n“Don’t you even start with that-” Earth snapped. “But if you want to maintain your modesty, imagine this. At the exact spot the wiz boy is standing, staring through his funky little glasses, the clouds thicken.”
\n\n“And he won’t see my corona,” the Sun said hopefully.
\n\n“Yeah yeah yeah, you’ll keep your dignity you old prude of a stellar body.”
\n\n“So let me get this straight,” said the man from Oakville. “You are going to see the eclipse, because you believe the Sun will feel ashamed of being eclipsed?”
\n\n“It’s the corona, the Sun never lets any wizard see their corona. It reminds them of an embarassing memory from 500 million years ago,” said the Wizard of Dundas Square. “Back in the day, the Wizard of the Pangean Coast saw the Sun’s corona, and laughed for twenty days,” said the mage.
\n\n“Now that’s just ridiculous,” said the entirely sane human from Oakville, who was totally sober, he even promised his mother of that. “There were no humans back then.”
\n\n“Of course,” said the Wizard of Dundas Square. “The Wizard of the Pangean Coast was a horseshoe crab.”
\n\nThe second part was written in 15 minutes in a Joy of Writing session.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-formula-instruct","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-formula-instruct","title":"Formula & Instruct","date_modified":"2024-04-11T02:18:38.000","date_published":"2024-04-11T02:18:38.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-formula-instruct/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Sleeping](\"/j-formula-instruct/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Ashok’s eyes glazed over while the math YouTuber was explaining some formula. Damn it, he thought. I can’t do this now, I’ll get back to this later.
\n\nHe closed his laptop and lay on the floor of his room in sheer exhaustion, not even bothering to get to the bed. He closed his eyes but could still see differentials and integrals dancing across the inside of his eyelids.
\n\nAshok couldn’t remember the time, and didn’t want to open his laptop again to check. Was it three in the morning? Maybe four? Who could even tell. His phone vibrated and he didn’t bother looking at it. His eyes refused to open, his limbs refused to move, and his brain refused to think.
\n\nAshok’s left ear felt cold as it pressed against the floor. Some machinery or devices were humming and vibrating. It was the kind of thing you would never notice if you had anything else to pay attention to, but which was totally obvious to acolytes in meditation, insomniacs struggling to sleep, and the proverbial fools watching paint dry.
\n\nBut in addition to the humming, Ashok started to notice something else. He really didn’t want to think about it, but there was inhuman scratching and clawing, punctuated by high pitched squeaks. Someone, or something, was tearing apart the mysterious realm below the floorboards.
\n\nAshok did not want to get up, but the clawing was getting louder and louder. He instructed his eyes to open and looked around at the room he was lying in, lit only by the study lamp on his desk. He rose from the floor and stood on his feet, reclaiming his rightful place among the bipedal primates of the genus Homo. He could still feel vibrations through his toes, and instinctually took a step back.
\n\nSuddenly a hole opened up in the floor and a pair of jaws snapped at the air. It was a rodent unlike any Ashok had seen in his life, a rat as large as a pit bull. It snarled and drool dripped down from its front teeth.
\n\nEach part was written in 15 minutes in a Joy of Writing session.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-burn-irritating","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-burn-irritating","title":"Burn & Irritating","date_modified":"2024-03-22T02:52:15.000","date_published":"2024-03-22T02:52:15.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-burn-irritating/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Cake](\"/j-burn-irritating/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I put the cake in the oven and noticed something on my phone.
\n\n“I’m only free at 19:00,” said a text Andrea sent at 18:00.
\n\n“Holy crap!” I thought. I ran to the door, grabbed my coat, slipped my shoes on without tying the laces, and ran.
\n\nNo time, no time, I thought as I called an Uber. I had to see Andrea again, and I didn’t trust the TTC to get me to Vaughn in the hour. My eyes almost popped out of my sockets when I saw the price. Then I shook my head.
\n\nI have to see Andrea, no matter the cost, I thought.
\n\nA Nissan Leaf stopped next to me. I opened the door, practically jumped in, and slammed it shut.
\n\n“Let’s go, let’s go!” I yelled. The driver was not impressed at all as he started to move. He didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, I had to see Andrea, I had to see her one last time.
\n\nI looked impatiently out the window for a second, but drops of rain turned the glass into an abstract art piece in need of critical interpretation. So with nothing else to do, I pulled out my phone and texted Andrea.
\n\n“I’m on my way,” I said.
\n\nShe sent a smiling face emoji, followed by “Looking forward to the cake!”
\n\nThe cake.
\n\nOh crap, I forgot the cake.
\n\nI had to see Andrea no matter the cost. But without the cake? She’d hate me. No, I had to go back, I had to get the damn thing.
\n\n“I have to go back!” I told the driver.
\n\n“Well change the destination in the app - hey where are you going?” The driver said as I opened the door of the moving vehicle.
\n\nI jumped out of the car and onto some pavement. Luckily I landed on the curb, unluckily I didn’t land on my feet. My hands broke my fall and I scraped my palms on the ground.
\n\nI picked up my phone and felt pain as plastic met blood. There were many irritating notifications from Uber but no texts. Somebody yelled at me, probably the Uber driver, but instead of responding, I bolted.
\n\nI ran with wild abandon through the rain. Puddles I didn’t bother to avoid splashed my legs with dirty water. I bumped into a couple people who didn’t get out of my way. They said something, but in my mind their words were warped and twisted into Andrea’s voice.
\n\n“Looking forward to the cake!”
\n\nI returned to my building and didn’t bother taking anything off. My boots thundered through the kitchen for a few precious seconds, then I opened the oven.
\n\nSmoke flew into my eyes and nose. All I could smell was burning, all I could see was blackness. I tried to squint and see what the fuel for the fire was.
\n\nIt was a chunk of charcoal-black carbon that used to be a cake.
\n\n“I’m sorry Andrea!” I yelled as a fire alarm started.
\n\nEach part was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing session.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-necessary","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-necessary","title":"Necessary","date_modified":"2024-03-22T02:48:45.000","date_published":"2024-03-22T02:48:45.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-necessary/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Snowflake](\"/j-necessary/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I held my pistol to the prisoner’s head. Snow fell on his face, and melted instantly on his forehead. He shivered, but kept his eyes open, staring at me.
\n\n“Is this truly necessary?” I asked the commissar.
\n\n“It’s an order. Shoot the traitor,” said the commissar. Her voice was low for a woman, and her hair was shaved as a show of loyalty to her masters.
\n\n“And, why is it necessary for you to give this order?” I asked.
\n\n“How dare you question a commissar!” said the commissar.
\n\nI smirked and said, “How about I question a cousin, then?”
\n\nMy cousin the commissar stomped her foot. Since we were both formerly residents of this village, we had both ended up here thanks to sheer bureaucratic oversight.
\n\n“The prisoner is a deserter, and my orders from the politburo demand that all deserters be shot,” said the commissar.
\n\n“And it’s necessary for deserters to be shot?” I asked.
\n\n“Of course! If they are unwilling to fight and die for the nation, they are selfishly trying to let others die in their place.”
\n\n“I didn’t ask if deserters being shot was fair, I asked if it was necessary,” I said.
\n\nMy index finger was in pain, holding the metallic pistol trigger in this bleak, cold winter.
\n\n“Well there must be a punishment for desertion, otherwise millions of our selfish species would run away every time there’s a war. There needs to be a punishment more dangerous and shameful than being killed by the enemy - that being death from one’s own countrymen.”
\n\n“Well it’s necessary for me that I don’t kill him,” I said.
\n\n“Oh really? Do you have a signed order from the politburo demanding that this particular lowlife is deserving of leniency?”
\n\n“No, I have orders from a higher order than the politburo.” I said.
\n\nMy cousin, my dear cousin, pulled out her own pistol.
\n\n“Long live the republic,” she said.
\n\n“I love you,” I said to the prisoner as I turned to face my cousin.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-dangerous","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-dangerous","title":"Dangerous","date_modified":"2024-03-22T02:47:15.000","date_published":"2024-03-22T02:47:15.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-dangerous/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Desktop](\"/j-dangerous/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Ugh, no more superheroes,” one commenter said.
\n\n“Capeshit is for ________,” another commenter replied.
\n\nNot many people knew about this forum. In the mainstream media, those who knew about it usually called it an alt-right transphobic cyber-bullying forum. They were almost correct. The most fashionable bigotry on this forum was ableism.
\n\nZach didn’t usually comment on the forum, it was dangerous. Even though he didn’t have a psychological diagnosis, his erotic My Little Pony fan fiction would make him a juicy target for his fellow users.
\n\nIn fact this very thread was about a former user, snorlax7, but nobody bothered with the screen name anymore. The very first page of the the two-hundred page thread included the guy’s real name, “Michael Stevenson Junior”. It also included his home address at 78 Jerome Street in the town of Stratford, his former place of work at a local bagel restaurant, his sexual fetishes, a photo of his genitals, a photo of his amputated toe, several private chats with a fake internet girlfriend, and various other intimate details that nobody wanted to know, except for the weird freaks on this forum who would eat his own.
\n\nZach thought he was above it all, he thought he was better than the people on the forum he spent 12 hours a day reading. But all it took was one little slip.
\n\n“Snorlax should wake up and get a life,” said Zach.
\n\n2 minutes later somebody else replied. “That’s a lot coming from a clopper.” The comment read, followed by Zach’s IP address.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-wistful","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-wistful","title":"Wistful","date_modified":"2024-03-07T03:38:16.000","date_published":"2024-03-07T03:38:16.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-wistful/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Fist](\"/j-wistful/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Jacob fidgeted with the pencil on his desk. His eyes were glued to his fingers, and his ears were plugged into to the meeting through the electrical to biological adaptor, more commonly known as headphone. It was a good thing this wasn’t a camera-on meeting, with everyone’s HD backgrounds, painted smiles and dead eyes on display.
\n\nIt was another late night meeting, with a client on the other side of the world. The analysts were proposing a deadline that would never be met. The engineers were apologizing for glitches in a data export which, when fixed, would reveal another glitch. Jacob rolled his eyes. It was just another night in the life of a Millennial post-COVID STEM knowledge worker in a post-industrial corner of the decaying American empire.
\n\nWhen the meeting reached its merciful and much-anticipated death. Jacob grabbed his coat, put on his shoes and headed out the door.
\n\nOf course it took multiple doors and a maze of hallways for Jacob to escape his condominium. A few staircases sprints and fob fumbles later, Jacob was finally out of the steel of glass and steel he called home. He smiled as he breathed in air that smelled of rain and engine oil, for him, that was the true odour of freedom.
\n\nAfter a bit of power walking, interspersed with normal walking, interspersed with standing around and wondering where he was, Jacob noticed something in an alleyway, something other than the emptiness of modernity. Or perhaps not. In any case, what caught his attention was a teenager beating the crap out of a somewhat smaller teenager.
\n\n“Help me! Help me!” The small one said. His mouth was bleeding and the bigger one punched it again for good measure.
\n\n“Ah the follies of youth,” said Jacob, wistfully.
\n\n“This isn’t a game! I’m hurt! Help!” Said the small one. Every word the juvenile uttered was painful to enunciate.
\n\n“Why, I do miss the days when I was but an adolescent, without a care in the world other than weed, girls, and beating the crap out of people.” Said Jacob, placing a hand on his chin.
\n\n“Hey old man,” said the older youngster. “You mind getting the fuck out of here? I’m trying to beat the crap out of someone. And you better not tell the cops, boomer.”
\n\n“I am not a boomer!” Roared Jacob. He clenched his fists and yelled “I am a Millennial post-COVID STEM knowledge worker in a post-industrial corner of the decaying American empire!”
\n\nPerhaps this modern-day Pompeii, this adolescentulus carnifex, was startled by the boomer’s sudden outburst. Or perhaps he feared the attention of someone who actually knew his drip from his rizz. Whatever the case, the tall guy decided not to become a fall guy, and ran away.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-heard","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-heard","title":"Heard","date_modified":"2024-02-28T06:47:19.000","date_published":"2024-02-28T06:47:19.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-heard/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Pickup](\"/j-heard/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
As Zach walked down Yonge he heard the incredible bass from the speakers of the pickup truck. Much to his surprise, the truck was not playing rap, hip hip or rock, but the Spice Girls.
\n\nHow degenerate, thought Zach. What a breach of masculinity. Playing the Spice Girls from the speakers of such a manly truck.
\n\nExcept it turned out he hadn’t just thought it, but spoke it. And he hadn’t just spoke it, but shouted it. And he hadn’t just shouted it, but screamed it. And he hadn’t just screamed it but pointed to the pickup truck with a crooked finger and dirty fingernail. His face was so scrunched in disgust that any passerby would think he was gesturing at a mountain of dung.
\n\nAlthough several passers-by were shocked, they opted not to say anything at all. But the window of the pickup truck rolled down and it turned out both the driver and the front seat passenger were absolute giants, with bulging biceps, “Chads” as Zach’s associates on the truecel Discord would say.
\n\n“You got a problem?” asked the passenger, pointing back at the scrawny little man who was pointing at him from the sidewalk.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-coalition","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-coalition","title":"Coalition","date_modified":"2024-02-21T05:18:13.576","date_published":"2024-02-21T05:15:12.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-coalition/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Red](\"/j-coalition/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“This isn’t in keeping with the Pact!” yelled Jacques. He jumped in front of Alexandra’s pistol and held up his hand.
\n\n“What the hell are you doing?” asked Alexandra. Alexandra’s finger was a millimetre from the trigger. “That’s a traitor behind you, a counter-revolutionary, and we have to shoot him. It is the policy of the Coalition!”
\n\nJacques despaired as he looked around the royal bedchamber. Behind Jacques was a small boy, at most thirteen, maybe as young as ten. “This child?” asked Jacques. “We are going to kill a child as a counter-revolutionary?”
\n\n“I’ll have you know that child is the son of a cousin of a Duke!” said Alexandra. “He’s on the list of nobles to be killed on sight, agreed upon by the Committee of Public Safety!”
\n\n“His age wasn’t on the list!” Jacques protested.
\n\n“So what?” asked Alexandra.
\n\n“So, the Sukhoivist party won’t be happy about this, when they learn the whole truth! We need to pull this child in front of the tribunal first.” said Jacques.
\n\nAlexandra rolled her eyes. Why did these bleeding-heart Sukhoivists always have to get away with impeding the progress of the nation? They always gummed up the gears of justice, which were already grinding much too slowly for her liking. They should stop worshipping dead dreamers and living criminals, thought Alexandra. It’s about time for the Coalition to cut its dead weight.
\n\nBut since Alexandra was only a minor officer and not on the Committee of Public Safety she had little recourse. Killing a fellow officer was almost as dangerous as disobedience, so the little royal piglet would live to squeal another day. But in time the Sukhoivists would fall, and in time the Coalition would reach its full potential, and that day would be a busy one for the guillotine.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup. There were several typos I corrected before uploading the work here.
\n\n![\"Office](\"/j-productivity/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
It took an entire hour to get to the office today. And that was just the drive to the parking lot. I couldn’t even find an empty parking spot for the first five minutes because somebody (and it was definitely Simon) parked their car in three spaces.
\n\nI ran into Toronto’s fifth-slowest elevator and tapped my feet as it leisurely made its way to the tenth floor. Then I sprinted into the fully populated conference room and sat down. “Sorry I’m late,” I said.
\n\n“Oh, Johnny, we were just getting started,” said my boss, Simon, who couldn’t park worth a damn.
\n\nThe team sat in that meeting for about three hours. The topic was on process changes in the company to streamline operations, or something like that. It was mainly Simon telling us information that could have been sent as a memo, but he really wanted us to see his face for some reason. Then everyone finally made their way to their desks.
\n\n“Hey wanna grab a coffee?” Asked Jerome. So Jerome and I skipped our desks and headed to the coffee machine. Of course Jerome himself never actually drank coffee, so he got a cup of water from the cooler and followed me to the coffee just because. We talked about some crap, I don’t remember what. Then we returned to our desks, or at least I did.
\n\nI opened my email and saw about 50 unread messages. Well, I guess I should read each one individually, including the ones that are clearly automated systems telling me that everything is fine, I thought. After I got to email 48 out of 50, Jerome patted me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, it time for lunch. Got to eat well to work well.”
\n\nThe things I do for productivity, I thought.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing session.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-moon-remains","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-moon-remains","title":"Moon & Remains","date_modified":"2024-02-14T07:07:16.000","date_published":"2024-02-14T07:07:16.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-moon-remains/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"New](\"/j-moon-remains/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The astronauts drove their buggy across the lunar surface. There were neither trees, nor rivers, nor buildings to impede them. They had to steer around some craters, but other than that Levi Smith’s gloved hands remained almost stationary on the steering wheel. Nonetheless he never released his grip - that would be a breach of protocol.
\n\n“Are we there yet? Over,” asked Terrence Baker through the intercom.
\n\n“Not yet. Over,” said Levi.
\n\nThe buggy crossed the Moon’s day-light boundary, and darkness descended upon the astronauts. Terrence turned on the headlights. The lunar surface was already mapped but the light was welcome all the same.
\n\nThe duo drove for hours. There was no sound of motors spinning or of rubber hitting rock. But the astronauts could feel vibrations through their suits. And after hundreds of minutes of darkness, they saw it. Something reflective in the distance.
\n\n“Destination spotted. Over,” said Levi, keeping his hands on the wheel and his eye on the road. But suddenly his helmet shattered.
\n\n“What the-” Levi said as he breathed his last. As he turned his dying body, he briefly glimpsed the pistol in Terrence’s hand.
\n\nTerrence stopped the buggy to swap seats with the remains of his former coworker. It was a good thing both Terrence and Levi were securely strapped to the vehicle. If Levi’s body had fallen out of the buggy, it would have been a nuisance to find, and there might not be enough organic molecules left for the Master.
\n\nTerrence started the buggy again and continued driving to the reflective surface. It looked like a silvery meteor, but in reality it was made of alloys much rarer than silver. Terrence pointed a camera at the extraterrestrial object, but as usual the meteor eluded automatic detection. The camera glitched out, popping up error messages in Korean and turning itself off after about two seconds.
\n\nTerrence continued driving forward until the meteor dominated his field of view. It was so massive, it made aircraft carriers look like paper boats. Terrence looked up and could barely see the top of the thing. If he looked closely, he could tell where the stars ended and pure blackness began, and knew that was the top of the structure.
\n\nSuddenly Terrence saw darkness within the darkness, and stars move among stars. A rupture in space-time, forcing photons to change trajectories in ways unknown to human physics.
\n\n“Is it time, my Master?” asked Terrence.
\n\n“Not… yet… over… not…yet…over,” said an intercom message with Levi’s voice. Then the intercom was full of crying and laughter.
\n\nPart 2 was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing session.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-killer","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-killer","title":"Killer","date_modified":"2024-02-07T05:03:57.218","date_published":"2024-02-07T04:32:20.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-killer/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Mango](\"/j-killer/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Timothy stopped when his face was centimetres from the bark, and looked at the rough, brown surface. On close inspection, it was absolutely crawling with ants. They were unnoticeable from afar but from nearby, the ants were everywhere. It was a wonder Timothy had ever touched the tree in his life.
\n\nBut he had, many times. He looked at every handhold he had once held as a child, and every foothold he had once stepped on. How many times had he climbed this mango tree, just for the sake of it? Just to see the house and the yard from a different perspective? Or to find a peaceful spot to read on his phone. It was strange to think that a child would find peace in a position where a tiny shift could leave him plummeting to the ground and breaking bones. But that was Timothy long ago.
\n\nThis tree had not bore any fruit for many years. But Timothy remembered the days when it did. He remembered his smiling mother, holding a stick that could poke the sky and a hook that could barely cut a piece of paper. She would pull on the mangos and he would run around trying to catch them as they fell. He remembered one of the mangoes bouncing around, getting bruised by the stones and bleeding delicious juice. But the bruised ones weren’t his to eat. They were saved for the ants, the birds and other woodland creatures. As far as Timothy knew this habit was not backed by any ancient custom. It was just more convenient to pick another mango and actually catch it properly this time. But then again Timothy was not so traditional.
\n\nHis mother. How long ago had it been since she had passed, and was left in the ground? How along did everyone grieve, and cry, and stare stoically into the distance?
\n\nTimothy took a deep breath, and picked up the axe.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-conversations","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-conversations","title":"Conversations","date_modified":"2024-02-07T05:02:14.258","date_published":"2024-02-07T04:39:31.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-conversations/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Speech](\"/j-conversations/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“And from that day onwards, I swore I would never again eat at KFC unless the Double Down was available,” I said. “And since the Double Down isn’t a regular menu item, that means it will be years until I try their awful, awful fries again.”
\n\nMy teeth crunched on the lettuce of a Caesar salad while my tongue searched desperately for one of the tiny bacon bits. Something in me craved one of the fries I’d admonished twenty seconds ago. But I always regretted eating them and besides, the Caesar salad wasn’t even that nutritious by salad standards.
\n\nTaylor laughed and said, “so Jed, does that include the combination Taco Bell/KFCs?”
\n\n“Not exactly,” I said. “If I enter such an establishment, I would avoid any KFC menu item.”
\n\n“Isn’t Pepsi a KFC menu item?” asked Taylor. She raised her eyebrows and grinned after swallowing some spaghetti bolognaise.
\n\n“If I ever enter a combination Taco Bell/KFC, I shall exclusively drink the Baja Blast.” I said.
\n\nTaylor laughed. It wasn’t even that funny but she laughed anyway. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know what I’ve become. I keep some things light and some other things to myself, and that’s served me well in many places.
\n\n“You know, Jedediah, I really feel like I could tell you anything,” said Taylor.
\n\nI shrugged and said, “Call me Golbeki Tepe, because I got twelve thousand ears.”
\n\nI smiled at my own shitty pun but felt a vague sense of dread. My mind was turning away from bacon bits and towards more worrying material. Why was Taylor talking like this? And in that last comment why did she call me ‘Jedediah’ instead of just ‘Jed’?
\n\n“Have you ever been raped?” Asked Taylor.
\n\nI blinked.
\n\nWhat?
\n\nThe smile on my face got wiped off.
\n\nHad I ever been-
\n\nWhat?
\n\nThat was totally out of nowhere!
\n\nTaylor looked at me and between us there was silence. Oh, there was noise in the restaurant, but I couldn’t hear any of it. I could only hear the gears of my own mind grinding to a halt, trying desperately to lighten a mood that didn’t want to be lightened.
\n\n“No,” I replied.
\n\nThere was an obvious follow up question, wasn’t there? Four little words: Why do you ask? In that moment, it was the question that I really wanted answered. It mattered infinitely more than Baja Blasts and bacon bits, no, that comparison was frankly offensive. It was the most important question in the universe, or at least in my universe.
\n\nWhy do you ask? I wondered.
\n\nWhy would you ask me that Taylor? What brought you to the question? Did something happen? Is everything okay? Is there something I should do? I wondered.
\n\nBut wondering is where it would end. There were some doors I wasn’t going to open. There were some conversations I wasn’t going to have. Did I want to be nosy when the scent of blood was all around me?
\n\nNo, I thought not. Better to bury the topic in silence. Better to leave mysteries as mysteries. Better to go back to talking about whatever trivia we were talking about.
\n\nYou can’t do that, I thought. That’s cold. That’s insensitive.
\n\nBut I could do that, and I did. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut. And it was probably nothing, right? It was just idle curiosity, probably. Nothing to unpack, maybe. Nothing to pull me out of my privileged, comfortable bubble, hopefully.
\n\nAfter a minute of silence, Taylor asked about a video game or ice cream or whatever else we normally talked about and we had a normal day. But normalcy between us had never been that normal. There was, and always would be, a gap filled by cowardice.
\n\n![\"Exploding](\"/j-dumbstruck/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“And that’s when I knew that quantum computing would revolutionize all sectors of the economy,” said Meyers the futurist. He stroked his blond hair briefly and continued. “The real question is whether the powers that be will be able to maintain their grip on power, because once quantum computers become commonplace, all our existing cryptography will become obsolete.”
\n\n“Fascinating,” said the journalist. “So today, our encrypted messages on Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram and others are safe from prying eyes, so long as whoever’s on the other side doesn’t squeal. But you’re saying in the future with quantum computers, messages you send could be readable to anyone with a quantum device.”
\n\n“Let’s be clear,” said Meyers with a smile. “Classical computers will still have their place in the world. Now I’m not a computer scientist but the people I talked to at TSMC, IBM and Samsung said they expected a quantum co-processor to coexist with other processors.”
\n\n“That’s neat,” said the journalist. “But on the topic of Telegram…”
\n\nMeyers kept talking “So your computer today has a classical central processing unit or CPU, and a graphics processing unit or GPU, and an AI card, that’s all what we see now. And in addition to that, in the future there will be a quantum processing unit, an analog unit, a photonic unit, and even a chemical unit.”
\n\n“Okay,” said the journalist, “and regarding Telegram…”
\n\n“And that’s not all,” Meyers interrupted. “Because while mainstream science is still ‘getting around to the idea', there are some in the intelligentsia who believe that consciousness itself is a quantum system which quantum computers will be able to replicate. So the quantum revolution isn’t just about breaking encryption, it’s about making it possible for machines to become thinking, feeling beings capable of originality.”
\n\n“Riiiiiight,” said the journalist. He rolled his eyes but they were out of the camera’s view. “And Mr. Meyers, on the topic of originality-”
\n\n“You can hear all about it in my newest video essay on YouTube, Masters of the 22nd Century Two Point Zero Point Three colon The Reckoning colon Quantum and Consciousness” Meyers said.
\n\n“Mr. Meyers,” the journalist. “Can you comment on the investigation by fellow YouTuber FBombergurl that twenty of your YouTube videos and eight chapters of your book were plagiarized from tiny blogs and from other books which you didn’t cite?”
\n\nMeyers' calm face cracked like an egg 5 minutes before breakfast. “Twenty of my…” he said. His mouth was agape, his eyes were wide and his mind, quantum-enhanced or not, was totally dumbstruck.
\n\nThe journalist finally had the opportunity to speak without interruption, so he bared his fangs and pounced. “And can you also comment on the recent Telegram leak containing messages to what appears to be a harem of teenage prostitutes living in your fourth bedroom?”
\n\n“I… Telegram… robots… Dyson spheres…” Meyers said, as he were a machine generating buzzwords and running out of RAM.
\n\n“Excuse me,” he said. He fled the scene before he could hear a response.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-crumble","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-crumble","title":"Crumble","date_modified":"2024-01-24T05:23:37.293","date_published":"2024-01-24T05:11:18.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-crumble/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Face](\"/j-crumble/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Wow, this is the best apple crumble I’ve ever had in my life!” I said.
\n\n“Why thank you,” said the total stranger who had offered me food. “But just to be clear it isn’t apple crumble but rather apple-flavoured pear crumble with artificial apple substitute,” she said.
\n\n“Do you have any ice cream to add to it?” I asked.
\n\n“No,” said the stranger.
\n\nI took another bite of the crumble, it was delicious, when my tongue touched the starch and sugars I immediately felt like the world still had hope and life still had meaning. I felt like the sun was shining even though the skies were grey. I felt like I was home even though I was in a park in a suburb in the middle of nowhere. The flavour of the apple-flavoured pear with artificial apple substitute was the perfect balance of sweet, tangy and mildly alcoholic. I was elated.
\n\n“Never mind,” I said. “This art, this monument of cuisine doesn’t need to be sullied by mere ice cream. Say, what was your name again?” I said.
\n\n“Oh I’m Doctor Maleficent Nefario.” she said.
\n\nSomething about that name caught my interest.
\n\n“Are you a medical doctor?” I asked. I raised my arm to instinctually make an emotive but redundant hand gesture, only to watch my fingers crumble like sand.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\nIn this particular Joy of Writing meetup, the other writers had many fantasy and otherwise mystical stories.
\n\n![\"Bear](\"/j-diversion/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Martin hit the breaks and looked at the road ahead of him. He expected a quiet, unoccupied country road, one lane per direction. But on the road he saw two grizzly bears fighting. The bears swiped and wrestled and bit each other, slamming their bodies together with the force of an eighteen wheeler hitting a fire truck.
\n\nThis is all well and good, thought Martin. But I was hoping to actually get home today. He considered taking a short video for TikTok but decided against, instead reflexively reversed onto the empty road behind him until he remembered how to do a 3 point turn.
\n\nHe looked at the massive dashboard screen of his 2024 Lincoln Nautilus, which stretched from the left door all the way to the right. Google Maps would complain before finding a diversion but whatever, it was time to get going before the bears noticed him. At least that’s what Martin thought, being a Torontonian whose most recent interaction with wildlife was watching a raccoon steal his pizza eight years ago.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Canned](\"/j-resented/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
It had to be cauliflower.
\n\nCauliflower! Not even broccoli, or kale, or green string beans. Morris scrunched up his tiny, hairless face at the sight of it.
\n\n“I’m not eating that crap,” he said.
\n\n“Language!” said his mom.
\n\n“Langig,” said little baby Mortimer in his high chair.
\n\n“Fine,” said Morris. “I’m not eating that poop, I resent it.”
\n\n“Would it kill you to eat a vegetable for once in your life?” asked Morris' mom.
\n\n“I’d eat any other vegetable,” said Morris. “Any other food, really. But this, no way.”
\n\nMorris' mom was visibly frowning. But what she didn’t reveal was a deep sadness inside. After hours of work at the plant, she had come home with aching arms and sweat on her brow, only to find a single species of edible vegetable in the fridge. She kept trying to stay calm with these teenage, no, preteen outbursts. But enough was enough.
\n\nMorris' mom wordlessly picked up Morris' plate and lay it in the sink. Then she presented him with an even more alien substance: a can of her biochemist sister’s algal gruel.
\n\n“Is this… edible?” asked Morris.
\n\n“You have to open the can first,” Morris' mom said with a glare.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Taxi](\"/j-halfhearted/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Hey what do you think of the green tea latte at Tim’s?” Fred asked, while leaning against the door of our Uber ride. His smile was as radiant as the noonday sun.
\n\n“I never had it,” I responded, half-hearted. “I haven’t been keeping up with the latest in Tim’s menu items.”
\n\n“How about we go grab one right now!?” Fred suggested. Looking briefly at the rear view mirror, I could see the Uber driver roll his eyes.
\n\n“Oh please no,” I said, “we already planned to see Luke and we got in this Uber specifically because we were running late.”
\n\n“Oh, right.” Said Fred. Then, after a single second of silence, Fred said, “Hey, how about I help you with your taxes?”
\n\nI looked at Fred’s grin, his genuine grin, his sense of joy at the idea of helping someone else with their taxes, and couldn’t help but feel charmed. But I also really didn’t want to, was this really the time?
\n\n“No, that won’t be necessary,” I said.
\n\nFred’s shocked face was illuminated only by a streetlight as he responded. “Does that mean you’re evading your taxes?” He asked.
\n\n“No,” I said.
\n\n“Oh you already did them,” he said.
\n\n“No,” I said.
\n\n“Well let’s get started, the simpletax web app is compatible with iOS safari you know!” He said.
\n\n“I didn’t know, and I still don’t know if I should believe you, but either way, no I’m not doing my taxes on my phone in an Uber on our way to see Luke. And besides why would I want to let you see my taxes?” I said.
\n\n“But … I could help you apply to all the best tax credits…” he said. He looked a bit glum and stared at the dark floor of the car.
\n\nI sighed.
\n\n“How about you make a list of the largest practical tax credits and I’ll apply for them in 3 months?”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-neglect","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-neglect","title":"Neglect","date_modified":"2024-11-14T07:42:02.873","date_published":"2024-01-10T14:43:57.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-neglect/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing","featured"],"content_html":"![\"Shrug](\"/j-neglect/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
As I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, I heard a notification sound. I picked up my cheapass Motorola phone, which was awkward to hold because the battery had expanded with toxic gas. Seriously the damn phone looked like it was pregnant. I remembered that I was supposed to dispose of the thing. Oh I’ll get to it next month, I thought while scrolling through Reddit.
\n\nMy next thought was Oh right, the notification. I’d almost forgot about it even though it was the reason I’d picked up my phone. Today is the book club! I thought, and after a few more minutes of staring at my phone, I rose out from my suspiciously stained bedsheets.
\n\nI took a step in my bedroom but my foot didn’t find the floor. Instead, I stepped right into a sweater and nearly slipped. My arms flailed about as I balanced myself.
\n\nI should really put that sweater away at some point I thought to myself as I headed out for the door. I squeezed my feet into my shoes without untying and tying my laces, and threw on a jacket with a couple pulled threads and holes. Just a couple there and there, nothing to worry about.
\n\nI put on a pair of earphones whose buttons had fallen out. The hole where the buttons once were revealed a green circuit board, which resembled a city as seen from the window of a Boeing 777. I pressed one of the miniature towers that used to be the volume up button, and began my journey.
\n\nI wasn’t a minute out of my house when my mom called. “Have you filled out your passport form yet?” She asked.
\n\n“I’ll get to it Mom, don’t worry about it,” I said.
\n\n“I’m not worried,” she said. “I’m just reminding you since it has been over a year since your last passport expired.”
\n\n“I won’t forget, now stop bugging me,” I said, although honestly, was it that big a deal if I forgot it?
\n\nAs I walked down the slushy streets, I felt a sudden pain. Not one of the various aches I’d been avoiding, but something new. I was my stomach rumbling, churning away at an emptiness which was meant to be food. Guess I forgot to have lunch, and breakfast, and yesterday’s dinner. Oh well, nothing a 20 piece McNugget meal can’t fix. I thought. In fact, I might have time to wolf down the deep fried blobs of flesh on my way to the book club.
\n\nI felt the rainy wind whip my face, and reached in my bag for an umbrella that apparently wasn’t there. Whoops, I thought as I stepped in puddles and soaked my sneakers. Icy brown water seeped through the breathable foam of the sneakers and drenched my socks.
\n\nWell, it’s not like those socks smelled like roses before, I thought as I trudged on.
\n\nIn between my home and the book club was exactly the signal I was looking for, the glow of a bright yellow pair of Golden Arches. Despite the biting wind and meteors of rain, the smell of grease still reached across the street. I could feel the scent pull me by the nostrils.
\n\nI could hear my brothers voice in my ear. “This so-called food will kill you one day,” said his disembodied voice. But as a rule, I never take health advice from disembodied voices, or from embodied voices, or from healthcare professionals, or from the internet, or from common sense.
\n\nJust gotta live a little, you know?
\n\nI walked onto the street and immediately heard a bunch of honks. I winced at the disruptive sounds but my feet kept moving.
\n\n“What the hell are you doing?” one of the motorists said.
\n\nI shrugged and kept going.
\n\n“It’s a green light for us! You could have gotten killed!” He said.
\n\nI nodded gravely and kept going. What that guy didn’t get, is that I really wanted those nuggets.
\n\nTo cut a long story short, I was about 45 minutes late for the book club. Some of the old ladies turned up their noses, presumably because I smelled like a wet dog carrying a moldy towel.
\n\n“So what did you think of the book?” The moderator asked.
\n\n“The book?” I asked.
\n\n“This month’s book, My name is Lucy Lucasson by Luke Lucasson, no relation.”
\n\n“Oh that!” I said with a smile. “Totally forgot to read it!”
\n\n![\"Magnet](\"/j-induction/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
There was no flame, in fact hardly any heat on the countertop at all. The cooker heated the pot and its contents with what I could only assume was witchcraft. While water boiled and pasta softened, my phone rang.
\n\nI grabbed it from its wireless charger, which was totally unnecessary given that I was wearing wireless headphones, but a force of habit formed by what I could only assume was demonic possession. The screen claimed the caller was named Gerald.
\n\n“Hey man I got the interview,” Gerald’s voice at the other end of the line said.
\n\n“That’s fantastic,” I said.
\n\n“Yeah it’s really great, did I mention what they do?” Gerald asked.
\n\n‘Please don’t' I thought, but I stayed silent and he started talking anyway.
\n\n“Basically they make transformers which use electromagnetic fields to…” and he went on and on and on. I rolled my eyes with what I could only assume was a sarcastic expression. There was nobody else in the room to see my face and my reflection on the rim of the pan’s lid was difficult to interpret.
\n\nA couple minutes after Gerald finished talking I was eating my pasta while watching a YouTube video titled “IF MAGNETO WAS SMART: NOT CLICKBAIT” and I was expecting to hear a sweaty guy complain about a plot twist in one of the X-Men movies. Not the ones with the Patrick Stewart’s Professor X but the ones with James McAvoy’s Professor X. But the video was clickbait after all, it was an hour long lecture about magnets making electricity, or was it electricity making magnets? Ugh, whatever, I switched over to watch Mr Beast’s channel instead.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-altar","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-altar","title":"Altar","date_modified":"2023-12-07T05:59:20.000","date_published":"2023-12-07T05:59:20.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-altar/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Church](\"/j-altar/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
In the office of a small church on the periphery of the empire, a grey haired bishop spoke to an acolyte of the faith.
\n\n“So,” said the bishop to the acolyte. “How familiar are you with the ancient scripts?”
\n\n“I can write the Script of the Java, and the Script of the Great Python,” said the acolyte. “I have dabbled in the Script of the Holy Linked List as well.”
\n\n“Fascinating,” said the bishop. “The LISPers rarely deign to visit this impoverished diocese. Tell me, how goes the schism between the Schemers and the Commoners?”
\n\n“I fear that for both sides of the schism, the glory days ended before I was even born.”
\n\nThe bishop laughed. “Enjoy your youth, mortal.”
\n\nThe acolyte was briefly unnerved, but held his tongue. He expected to be addressed as ‘child' or ‘brother'.
\n\n“Unfortunately,” the bishop continued, “none of those scripts are the ones we need your assistance with. What we need is someone who can read the Script of the Bourne Again Shell.”
\n\nThe acolyte raised his eyebrow. “I had not realized an entire language could be forgiven by the Maker.”
\n\n“No, no, the name is a little joke by the Church of Saint Bourne,” the bishop said.
\n\n“Ah sorry, I forgot the long form of the name,” the acolyte said with a smile. But while his smile could fool the other clergymen, it could not fool the Maker. Deep within the acolyte’s soul, sparks of panic were flying about.
\n\nHe didn’t know a damn thing about the Scripts of Saint Bourne.
\n\nThe bishop gave the acolyte some books, then excused himself for a meeting with a council of knights and merchants. Only the acolyte remained in the church.
\n\nThe acolyte knelt at the altar alone, and initiated the ritual of awakening. The beige box of divination buzzed to life, and on its glassy surface a blinking cursor appeared.
\n\nThe acolyte took a deep breath, and opened an ancient hymnal titled “Shell scripting for dummies”.
\n\n![\"Door](\"/j-doorway/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“I want a doorway without a door,” Greg said.
\n\n“Excuse me?” asked Jim.
\n\n“That’s right, no handle, no hinges, no hydraulic anything, just the frame and some empty space,” Greg explained.
\n\n“Ok, so let me get this straight,” said Jim. “There will be a driveway that nobody can drive on.”
\n\n“Easy enough, right?” said Greg.
\n\n“And a bathroom without a bath,” said Jim.
\n\n“That’s totally normal, that’s almost every public bathroom” said Greg.
\n\n“A kitchen without a… kit? You never explained what you meant by that,” said Jim.
\n\n“We’ll figure it out,” said Greg.
\n\n“Greg, are you going to actually live in this place or is it just an art piece?” asked Jim.
\n\n“Both, I’ll live in it for a year to make a statement,” said Greg.
\n\n“And what is this, a whiteboard inked black?” asked Jim. “Next to a blackboard covered in white chalk? Hope nobody brings an eraser.”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-nobody-0","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-nobody-0","title":"Nobody (Draft 0)","date_modified":"2023-11-29T05:10:33.582","date_published":"2023-11-29T04:54:58.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nobody-0/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Woman](\"/j-nobody-0/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The lock screen of Ada’s phone told her it was February 2021, and that she had a notification from the LinkedIn app.
\n\n“Hey Ada, guess what?” asked a LinkedIn message from Patty.
\n\n“What is it Patty?” Ada texted back, despite having other things on her mind.
\n\n“I got the part-time job at Deployt during the school term, and you didn’t,” texted Patty. “Well, I guess that shows that Matthew liked me more.”
\n\n“Congratulations,” Ada texted, responding to the facts and straining herself trying to ignore the insults.
\n\n“Yeah, good luck finding a job at some other boring place, while I help Matthew build empires,” texted Patty.
\n\nAda didn’t respond, she just doubled checked her inbox for her own part-time job offer. An offer Ada had not accepted.
\n\nAda pulled her eyes away from her phone and sighed while staring at some programming assignment. She started typing “Hi Matthew, I have some questions about the upcoming product launch” into her code editor. Then she cursed, held her delete key, and reminded herself that her day in the sun was yet to come.
\n\nSoon I will be free from all this abstract academic nonsense, she thought. Soon, I’ll be making real products for real clients paying real money for real work. Soon, I will be the empire-builder.
\n\nDays, weeks, and months passed. Snow and ice turned to mud and slush. Barren branches sprouted green buds, which grew into full leaves. The geese flew back home from their migration to the south, or perhaps they flew away from their home by migrating to the north. New mutations of the coronavirus were identified, and their names spread through minds while their specimens spread through nostrils. Armies swarmed across Eurasia, testing the air with their antennae but not yet crushing the flesh with their mandibles. The University issued midterms, exams, group assignments and degrees, all without keeping two humans in the same room. Even though the world sometimes seemed like it was spinning backwards, people still worked and played, ate and drank, slumbered and wandered, loved and hated. And somewhere in this maelstrom of bark and skin and water and wire, a full time job offer was delivered to Ada’s university email inbox.
\n\nAda briefly looked at her phone lock screen before she entered the corner office. Her lock screen told her it was April 2021, and that she had a notification from the calendar app. When Ada opened the door to the room she saw a tall, clean-shaven, muscular man with a dark grey suit and light grey hair. He stared at a 4K screen while loudly clacking on a mechanical keyboard. His face was unmasked, in clear violation of social distancing guidelines. When he heard the creak of the door, the man stood up and smiled at Ada.
\n\n“Hey Ada, good to see you again,” said Matthew, the CEO of Deployt.
\n\n“The pleasure is all mine,” said Ada.
\n\n“That Patty, real motor mouth am I right?” said Matthew. He smirked while picking up a pen. “Always bitching, that one. Impossible to work with.”
\n\nAda laughed while opening and closing her hands, imitating a talking mouth.
\n\nMatthew fidgeted with the pen a bit before speaking again.
\n\n“Yeah on a more serious note, sorry about the mix up at HR. We were supposed to give you a full time offer, not send you through the interview process all over again.” said Matthew.
\n\nAda looked into Matthew’s eyes. She briefly felt adrift in his dilated pupils and his dark brown irises. She shook her head to focus as Matthew continued.
\n\n“We need you Ada. We need someone with your drive, your ingenuity, your work ethic, your passion for configuring IBM internet services with interfaces designed in 2003, and most of all, your creativity.” Matthew continued. “If, after all this, you are still willing to work with us, I and the rest of the team would be eternally grateful.”
\n\nAda accepted the full time offer and immediately after the meeting, headed to her desk and began getting her workspace set up. She placed small portraits of her favorite dictators and business titans under the dual monitors. She adjusted the height of her office chair and changed her desktop background to a motivational quote. The onboarding was practically a formality: partly because Ada had seen it all before as a co-op student, and partly because Deployt was a small startup not yet fattened by layers of opulent bureaucracy.
\n\nAt the end of her seven hours of official work and three hours of unpaid overtime, Ada noticed a Post-It note on the floor. It was face down, and initially all Ada could see was the dust and hair stuck to the adhesive strip.
\n\nAda picked up the Post-It and saw a message written in cursive with multiple colours.
\n\n\n\nI’ll miss you, Patty!
Ada felt a surge of glee when she threw the Post-It in the trash.
\n\nDays, weeks and months passed. Mud and slush turned to dirt and grass. The chirping of songbirds gave way to the buzzing of insects. Flocks of geese waddled around, guarding their goslings. New booster shots were injected, and new fears were peddled from Washington and Moscow. High schoolers prepared for an online University experience, while graduates looked for jobs in an economy on life support. At least FAANG paid well, or was the acronym now MAGMA, or MAAMA? And where FAANG failed, there was always the blockchain. Even though the world sometimes seemed like a loud, vibrating bell people still worked and played, ate and drank, slumbered and wandered, loved and hated. And somewhere in this typhoon of chitin and bone and carbon and silicon, a message labelled “URGENT PRODUCT MEETING” appeared in Ada’s workplace Teams calendar.
\n\nThe bottom corner of Ada’s desktop screen told her it was August 2021. She closed some windows containing the initial designs of a product that was projected to increase Deployt revenue by 33%. Then she walked to the empty conference room and sat at the right of Matthew’s spot. Minutes later, other employees dragged their feet as they shambled into the room. Ada noticed that her colleagues had bags under their eyes and slouching backs. But they brightened their faces and straightened their spines when Matthew walked in.
\n\n“Hey guys, I’m sorry to say that Thomas has left Deployt,” Matthew began. “We had to let him go because unlike you guys, he was just too lazy. He didn’t have the grit and determination we need to make Deployt succeed.”
\n\nAda briefly remembered that Thomas suffered a heart attack a couple weeks ago. But after his recovery, he wasn’t willing to work overtime like everyone else.
\n\n“Guys like Thomas,” continued Matthew, “just don’t care enough about the product, about the clients, about the rest of the Deployt family. He betrayed us by slacking off and making us all clean up his messes.”
\n\nA couple of Ada’s colleagues nodded, dimly aware that Matthew would appreciate some kind of response.
\n\n“We’re a family here at Deployt. We help each other, we put in all the effort humanly possible because we care about each other and we all want the company to succeed. But guys like Thomas, they just don’t get that, they don’t understand the value of hard work, they don’t understand loyalty, they don’t have what it takes to support the company. You guys, you are the special few, the people who really deserve to be part of Deployt. I know you guys would do whatever it takes to keep this community alive, through good times and bad.”
\n\nAn intern gulped, but Matthew ignored it and continued.
\n\n“And good times are coming, Ada and the product team are working on a new configuration for IBM’s SAAS platform, optimized for the chemical sector. This is a multimillion-dollar opportunity, if we can just push a little bit harder, if we can just fulfill all our current commitments and get this product out the door, we’ll be golden, it’ll be a new dawn for the Deployt family, we’ll all be rich!”
\n\nAda smiled at the mention of her name, and at the mention of a “product team” composed of just herself and junior developer. She forgot about Thomas, and steeled her nerves. It was time to turn ten-hour workdays into eleven-hour workdays.
\n\nWeeks, months, and an entire year passed. The planet travelled 940 million kilometers, only to end up where it began. Trees dropped their leaves, only to grow them again. Goslings grew into fledglings and flew across latitudes, only return to their birthplace, and lay new eggs with new goslings. Lockdowns were lifted, and empty streets became choked with people and vehicles. Yesterday’s printed money became tomorrow’s inflated prices. The Big Tech and blockchain markets imploded, causing strife for greybeards and graduates alike. In the bowels of the Old World, the gears of war turned, burning kerosene, twisting steel, piercing skulls, and stopping hearts. Even those parts of the world outside the carnage seemed like they might be turning inside out. All the same, people still worked and played, ate and drank, slumbered and wandered, loved and hated. And somewhere in the hurricane of feathers and hair and soil and smoke, a termination letter was being printed with Ada’s name on it.
\n\nAda looked at the letter on Matthew’s desk with tears in her eyes. According to the date at the bottom of the letter, it was August 2022.
\n\n“I can’t deal with this anymore Ada!” Matthew shouted. “You released three products and that’s great and all, but you’re impossible to deal with, you know that? First there’s the whole rejected promotion thing that you just won’t forget about.”
\n\nAda said nothing, and Matthew continued.
\n\n“And on top of that, you are just so toxic to everyone! You snake, you quietly wait and then suddenly bite! Why do you keep talking shit about the other employees Ada? Why do you keep blaming them, and saying they’re not working hard enough? There’s nobody else doing that Ada!”
\n\nAda started to cry. She was too sad, too shocked, too overwhelmed to argue.
\n\nMatthew slammed his fist on the table and snarled at Ada like a hound. “Don’t you realize your crying is creating an abusive workplace environment?” Matthew barked. “Get the hell out of here, I never want to see your face again!”
\n\nAda acted as instructed and made her way home. The tears had not dried from her eyes when she recieved a LinkedIn message from someone she barely remembered, a senior manager who had joined only day ago.
\n\n\n\nAda,
\n\nI just heard the sad news. I was glad to have met you. You seem really smart and I was hoping to work with you.
\n\nIf there is anything I could do to help, let me know, I have many contacts in the startup world.
\n\nOliver McGrady
Ada appreciated the little pocketful of kindness from a near-stranger. But she didn’t want his help. She didn’t know where to go next.
\n\nWeeks, months, and an entire year passed. So much changed, and yet so much more stayed the same. The planet made another orbit, the trees grew another ring of bark, and the geese made another migration. The pandemic shifted from a terrifying reality into an odd bit of nostalgia. Rental prices threw the affluent into debt and the indebted onto the street. A quick-and-easy war plan turned into a nation-destroying quagmire, and unholy massacres gripped the holy land. The world seemed to some like it might implode, and to others like a bad sequel to an overdone franchise. Maybe that’s why people with the means to do so still worked and played, ate and drank, slumbered and wandered, loved and hated. And somewhere in the tornado of confusion and illusion and rocks and hard places, a certain Oliver McGrady was reading a résumé.
\n\nAda’s smartwatch told her it was October 2023, and she had an SMS notification. “At least these guys aren’t putting lipstick on IBM’s pig,” one of her classmates from university texted. Ada rolled her eyes and walked past her new boss' corner office.
\n\nAfter months of an entire other job, followed by months of study, followed by trying to break into a new industry, followed by being ignored by said new industry, Ada found herself back in the offices of a startup in the tech space. And indeed, Maxiq was totally different than Deployt. There was a lot more productivity and a lot less jealousy. There was a lot more encouragement and a lot less threats. There was a lot more direction and a lot less blame. Ada had only been with Maxiq for a couple weeks, and she felt better already.
\n\nBut as Ada held her ear to the boss' corner office, she could hear the faint sounds of crying. And the voice of her kindly CTO, Oliver McGrady, as quiet as a pin drop.
\n\n“I’m sorry, but we’re not renewing your contract,” McGrady said. “We’re considering other resources for the user stories and UX design.”
\n\nThere was no shouting, nor blaming, nor struggling. There was no explanation at all. Ada heard the contractor get up, so she decided to stop snooping on the corner office and return to her desk.
\n\nA few hours later Ada was notified of an email.
\n\n\n\nHey Ada,
\n\nGreat job with the dev meeting last week, I think the CEO was really impressed. Now, I know you’re swamped, but I was wondering if you could do an extra favor for me. Could you write some user stories for the TOTP authentication flow?
\n\nKeep up the excellent work!
\n\nOliver McGrady, Maxiq CTO
User stories: the job the contractor used to do. Ada felt her stomach twist and a lump form in her throat. She felt her blood pressure rise, and her breathing become more laboured. Her fingers shook centimetres above the keyboard.
\n\nAda closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. Then she started typing.
\n\n\n\nHi Oliver,
\n\nI’d love to work on the user stories!
\n\nThanks,
\n\nAda
Months, years and an entire decade passed. Saplings grew into towering pines, which were felled for lumber. Temperatures rose and generations of geese adjusted their migration patterns, while uncountable other species of birds and beasts went extinct. New crises even more terrible than the pandemic spread across the globe. Entire nations collapsed in war, and entire stateless peoples were genocided. The world seemed like it was falling out of the frying pan and into the fire. But there were still people left over to work and play, eat and drink, slumber and wander, love and hate. And somewhere in the black hole of humanity and inhumanity and natural and artificial, an AI-drafted video message was composed on Ada’s behalf.
\n\nThe recipient was an intern named Julia, whose VR headset told her it was October 2033. Julia had passed some technology exam months ago - the skyrocketing prices made university untenable for her. The exam fulfilled its purpose of giving Julia a shot at a tech job. She hadn’t got into one of the big corporations, but at least managed to snag a job offer at a startup, AdaTech.
\n\nJulia walked into a corner office and was so stressed out, she almost missed out on the decor. On the left was a portrait of Cardinal Richelieu, and on the right was a portrait of Jeff Bezos.
\n\nAt the center was a desk inhabited by a middle aged woman, the empress of the budding corporate empire, Ada herself. A headset covered Ada’s eyes and she held a paper.
\n\nJulia tore off her headset, and realized that the document and portraits were all virtual. She got on her knees. Julia’s organic eyes stared into Ada’s glass visor.
\n\n“Ada please, don’t do this, I’ll turn things around,” said Julia. “Ada, please, if you give me another chance, I’ll be eternally grateful.”
\n\nAda pursed her lips. She was suddenly aware she was holding her breath and slowly exhaled through her nose. It was too late for Julia. The termination letter was already digitally signed.
\n\n![\"Camel](\"/j-desire/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I buried my brother’s cadaver and armour in the desert, and I felt guilty.
\n\nGuilty that he had to die out here, far from home, with a parched throat. Guilty that I hadn’t the strength to bury him properly, especially among dunes of shifting sand. There was no headstone where he lay, only a cross with two sticks.
\n\nI prayed for forgiveness, but even in prayer I felt guilty. Because I knew the Maker could see into my mind. Even as my words spoke of my fallen brother, in my soul what I wanted most of all was an inanimate object.
\n\nThe Thimble of Bartholomew.
\n\nOh yes, even when looking at my brothers corpse, while drying like a weed under the tropical sun, still I was consumed with desire for a piece of metal.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup. This is a continuation of Faltered.
\n\n![\"Plus](\"/j-undeniable/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I was walking among the fruits and vegetables in the supermarket when a thin scruffy man walked up to me and said, “My name is Dio. Tell me something undeniable.”
\n\nI looked at him weird, but humoured his request.
\n\n“1 + 1 = 2,” I said. “What are you going to do, deny that?”
\n\n“Well,” said Dio, “How do you know you have one of something?”
\n\nI picked up an apple from the fruit section.
\n\n“I have one apple in my hand,” I said.
\n\n“Are you sure you don’t have 1.0000000000000000001 of an apple?”
\n\n“What does that even mean? How would that even work?” I asked.
\n\n“Well if you cut up an apple into tiny pieces, and one of the pieces got stuck to the apple you are holding, then you would have 1.0000000000000000001 apples.”
\n\n“Okay this is a bit off track, I said 1 + 1 = 2 is undeniable,” I said.
\n\n“But why?” asked Dio.
\n\n“It’s in the definition,” I said.
\n\n“What definition?” Asked Dio.
\n\n“Look, I’m pretty sure some mathematician actually wrote a proof that 1 + 1 = 2, and it was a hundred pages long, to prove how numbers work based on some tiny assumption,” I said.
\n\n“What’s the book?” Asked Dio.
\n\n“I forget the title,” I said.
\n\n“I’m not sure about this book,” said Dio.
\n\n“Well check Google,” I said.
\n\nDio pulled out a Nokia phone made in 2004.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Undergraduate\"](\"/j-undergraduate/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The classroom was dark when the undergraduate walked in. He fumbled for the light switch to reveal an uninhabited, empty classroom. Not so surprising, given that it was about an hour before midnight.
\n\nThe student placed an oily plastic bag on one of the tables, and sat at one of the hundreds of chairs in the massive chamber. “Must’ve spilled the sauce,” said the student to nobody, as he pulled out a container of fried dumplings.
\n\nThe student started eating. He turned on his laptop and watched an hour-long video with a clickbait thumbnail about a topic he would stop caring about in three days. Whatever, he had all night. Tomorrow was Saturday.
\n\nWhen he finally opened his textbook his eyes glazed over. “I really picked the wrong program,” muttered the undergrad, “but I’ve already put so much money into it, not to mention years of my life.” Were he an undergrad in the Philosophy department he might have recognized the sunk cost fallacy, but he was a mere Engineer, and the textbook was calculus.
\n\nSuddenly a jovial voice said, “Hey buddy want to solve a differential equation with me?”
\n\n“What the actual fuck?” Asked the student as an anthropomorphic mathematic symbol stepped out of the text.
\n\n“Sorry for not introducing myself, I’m Dexter, the friendly differential!”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meeting.
\n\n![\"Irish](\"/j-irishman/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The children’s book author, who shall remain nameless, slammed his iPhone on his desk and asked, “Where do I go from here?”
\n\n“I’ve already written seven of these damn things,” the author said, picking up a copy of one of his books. On the cover was a silhouette of what seemed to be a young boy in a suit. Instead of a face, or detailed clothing, there was only a mysterious darkness for the viewer to fill in with their own mind.
\n\n“And now they want a finale!” the author shouted, staring at the non-face of his most famous creation.
\n\nThere was a knock on the door of his study, an entire room in the entire house he could afford by writing about faeries to children.
\n\n“Can I come in?” asked his wife, who shall also remain nameless. Instead of waiting for permission she just walked in. “I heard you shouting, is everything all right?” she asked.
\n\n“Oh Disney are finally making the movie, although that’s the same old thing they’ve been saying the past five years,” the author said. “And they want to know how the final book is going, since the publisher didn’t say anything.”
\n\n“That’s wonderful!” his wife said. “If they actually make it, I mean.”
\n\n“They’re bringing in a bunch of Brits for half the roles. These Hollywood guys, they couldn’t tell Dublin from Oxford, they couldn’t tell an Irishman from an Englishman,” said the author.
\n\n“But I don’t know what to do about the last book!” he continued.
\n\n“Well, you’ll think of something. Unrelated but, I’m going to the SuperValu later, can I pick up anything?” said the wife.
\n\n“What about a whisky?” asked the children’s book author, who had grown tired of writing about colas, fruit juice, dwarf spittle, and magical elixirs brewed by elves in underground haunts.
\n\n“You sound like you had one too many, shouting at books and all. You can text me if you think of something else, good luck,” she said, and closed her door on the way out.
\n\nThe author scowled at the book he was previously shouting at. Bringing delight to the lives of emotionally disturbed children around the world had been fun for the first couple of years. But it kept going and going and going…
\n\nHe texted his wife to tell her he was going for a walk. Then he kept his word and headed to the door.
\n\nWhen the author got in the car he was wearing a pair of pungent pants, whose existence his wife was blissfully unaware of. He also wore sunglasses and a scarf, two accessories that were out of place on a day with hot air and grey skies. His face was obscured as he looked at a paper map, yes a paper map if you can believe it, in a story which started with a slammed iPhone. On the map were some X’s and O’s, but they were too numerous and disorderly to call naughts and crosses. The author wrote an X upon an O. Having inspected the map, it was time to inspect the territory.
\n\nMany kilometers later, the author was rummaging through a recyling bin in the middle of nowhere. He tossed out shredded papers which, unbeknownst to him, were previously a testimony in a class-action lawsuit. He also tossed out a store bought birthday card written in Gaelic, an envelope for an unwanted credit card, and a flyer. Then he found what he was looking for.
\n\nIt was his latest book, written under a pseudonym, about a cat-and-mouse game devoid of mice, cats, or any other magical woodland creatures. It was the story of a detective hunting down a serial killer who targeted authors with a rating of between 4.0 and 4.5 on Amazon. It was an exploration of the human condition where the four main characters represented the four elements, the four bodily humors, the four major schools of Hellenistic philosophy, and the four cardinal directions. The text had violence, sex, romance, and deep examinations of the meaning of life. It was the work the author had wanted to write his entire life.
\n\nIt was in the recycling bin. And not for the first time. Almost nobody had bothered to read it through: a discarded bookmark on page 38 betrayed that fact.
\n\nThe author wept. Then he drove back home.
\n\nA couple hours later the author’s wife returned to her husband’s study, and found him typing like a man paid by the word.
\n\n“You seem busy,” she said.
\n\nThe author tilted his head and said, “I have a whole book to write.”
\n\n“So what’s our daring hero up against this time? A demon army? A time travelling pixie?” she asked.
\n\n“The futility of his own life,” said the author. “Also, there will be a talking crocodile.”
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-nation-clapboard","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-nation-clapboard","title":"Nation & Clapboard","date_modified":"2023-11-16T02:50:20.000","date_published":"2023-11-16T02:50:20.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-nation-clapboard/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["joy-of-writing","creative"],"content_html":"![\"Woman](\"/j-nation-clapboard/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Samantha 53 walked cautiously through the darkened cinema, holding a bag of salted popcorn and a paper cup of sugary soda.
\n\nSuddenly her left foot collided with an unexpected barrier, and her right foot was too far behind her to balance the rest of her body. She fell on top of another audience member.
\n\n“Hey!” said a seated woman whose face was splashed with carbonated water. Her voice was identical to Samantha 53, and Samantha 53 knew the rest of the victim’s body would be identical to hers as well. 53 couldn’t see the seated woman clearly, but vividly imagined her own red hair getting wet with water and corn syrup. She imagined ice cubes sliding across her own face, freezing her skin.
\n\n“Sorry, sorry” said Samantha 53.
\n\n“You know, you are an entire 30 seconds later than everyone else?” said the seated woman. Her tone of voice was indignant, perhaps even a little disgusted.
\n\n“Well the movie doesn’t start for another 5 minutes,” said Samantha 53.
\n\n“The national anthem starts in 3. What are you, some kind of defective?” said the seated woman.
\n\n“Well, that’s a bit much,” said Samantha 53. She’d never heard another of her clan so easily agitated before.
\n\nThe seated woman was struck by a sudden fear. The fear of falling outside the clan’s accepted norm. The fear she herself had tried to inspire in Samantha 53.
\n\n“Sorry for being so impolite,” said the seated woman. “By the way, I’m Samantha 65.”
\n\nSamantha 53 continued to stumble to her spot. She didn’t have a ticket or for that matter, an explicitly assigned seat. But everyone in Clan Samantha knew where to sit. It was right there in their names: 53 needed to be 12 spots away from 65.
\n\nSamantha 53 tried to feel relaxed in a seat so rigid and uncomfortable that it might as well have been made of clapboard. Not that Samantha had ever seen clapboard in her life, it wasn’t one of Clan Mark’s approved building materials.
\n\nThat’s what you get for spending too much time reading the stupid old archives, thought Samantha 53. Now when I sit down I think about clapboard of all things. It felt especially ridiculous since all the Samanthas in generation 12 were too old to believe in superstitions like fairies and trees.
\n\nSamantha listened to her identical sisters drink their sodas and crunch on popcorn in the darkness. Some of them were talking about some unexpected computer errors they had encountered at work. But as planned, there was nothing on the screen. There was still 2 minutes until the national anthem would play.
\n\nThe national anthem. It was one of the few things that made Samantha 53 proud of belonging to her clan. The anthem was full of mixed metaphors, it was repetitive, it was entirely about Clan Mark and it did not even mention Clan Samantha. But there was some satisfaction in knowing that Clan Samantha wrote the lyrics, back in Generation 2.
\n\nClapboard was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup. These are set in the same universe as Democratize.
\n\n![\"Headphone](\"/j-borrowing/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Man, that’s going to be expensive, I thought while staring at the shelves of headsets. The Best Buy was closing, and I had to decide.
\n\nI looked briefly at my account balance in my bank app. I could easily pay for the noise-cancelling headset out of my chequing account, so long as for the next week I didn’t pay for any incidental purchases, food, or my next electrical bill.
\n\nBut there was always the other option. A yes. The credit card. The key to material bliss was in my hands, and the only immediate consequence would be some numbers going up.
\n\nNah, can’t have any more debt, I thought. It will take me years to pay back already.
\n\nBut I wanted the headset. I knew I wanted the Sony headset because it was exactly the same as my existing device. The only difference being that my existing device was snapped in half.
\n\nOK forget the time, what if I can’t pay my rent? I thought.
\n\nBut even though I hadn’t put on the headset yet, the siren song of the industry-leading noise cancelling technology beckoned me. The song’s lyrics went something like this: You’ll just put your rent on your credit card too. Just borrowing a little extra from your future self.
\n\nOK, forget the rent, what would Mom think? I thought.
\n\n“Hello, can I help you?” Asked one of the sales clerks.
\n\n“Can I go home now?” I asked the sales clerk.
\n\n“Oh sure,” he said. “But before you go, have you considered our special Halloween offer on the Bose surround sound home theatre system for just $2999?”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Palm](\"/j-touching-0/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“The boss will kill us for this,” said Slim, as he shed his jacket.
\n\n“Don’t worry about it,” said Johnny. He spoke as slowly and casually as a man who misplaced a nickel. “We’ll figure it out. And why are a couple of critters such a big deal anyway? Not like we lost any of the good stuff.”
\n\nThe light overhead flickered, briefly shrouding the plastic desk, the creaking office chairs and the beige cabinets in darkness. Atop the desk was a clear box with some fake plants, a rusty hot wheels toy and a hole surrounded by cracks in one of the bottom corners.
\n\nSlim scowled at the hole.
\n\n“You know the frogs were meant to be a gift from that guy out of Brazil?” he said. “It took days to get them here, and now we’re five blocks from the boss' favorite pasta place and they’re gone!”
\n\nJohnny shrugged, making the Kevlar vest under his suit more noticeable for a second. “Listen these frogs are so colourful that Alex Jones is going to test them for chemicals, they’re so colourful they could be a fruit basket.” he said.
\n\n“What the crap does that mean?” hissed Slim.
\n\n“We’ll find them, easy, they can’t be far,” said Johnny.
\n\nSo Slim and Johnny looked around the lit portion of the room and found nothing. Then Slim crouched under the desk, and his scrawny body twisted slowly like a snake.
\n\n“I still can’t see the boss' frogs!” said Slim.
\n\n“Why couldn’t the Brazilians just get a dog or something?” asked Johnny. He opened one of the bottom cabinets and said, “I like dogs. They’re fluffy.”
\n\n“The boss is all about his reptiles,” said Slim. He was squinting in the dark under the desk. “He’s got crocodiles, chameleons, turtles, tuataras…”
\n\n“Ain’t frogs amphibians?” asked Johnny, while flicking pages in the bottom shelf of the cabinet.
\n\n“What’re you doing with that cabinet? You think these frogs are doing tax fraud or something?” asked Slim. “Look where a frog could actually jump to, ya dunce.”
\n\nJohnny took a moment to consider his colleague’s comment.
\n\nHey Slim you goddamn moron, Johnny thought to himself. Find the boss' stupid salamander yourself you dumbass. Fuck these guys and their constant bitching. One day, I’ll tie them up and cut them into little meat cubes, and barbecue them. Yeah Slim and the boss too. Then I’ll be the boss, and get some fuckin dogs. Like maybe a German shepherd. Or a Doberman.
\n\nJohnny didn’t say any of that out loud, of course. He wasn’t that much of a dunce. That’s when he realized the cabinet was held up by four stubby legs, each as tall as his hand was thick.
\n\nJohnny got on all fours like his therapsid ancestors. His bare fingers felt the fuzzy carpeted floor, and his nose could smell the dust. But Johnny couldn’t get a good view of what was under the cabinet. The lights flickered again.
\n\n“Fuck!” Slim yelled as he hit his head on the underside of the desk.
\n\nJohnny decided to go by feel, and reached under the cabinet. His hand scrambled around like a blind gecko, staying still and then suddenly darting around. He reached to the left. Then he reached to the right. Then he was touching something moist.
\n\n“Hah, who’s the dunce now?” Johnny said. The light flickered into darkness while Johnny grabbed and pulled out the boss' poison dart frog.
\n\n![\"Cross](\"/j-miracle/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
A lot of people said that he had the powers of the Gods. That he walked on water, that he healed the sick, that he split bread and fish until everyone had a full meal.
\n\nI did not believe such things. There was a new healer on the market square every week, selling dirt for gold and urine for silver. What could be different this time?
\n\nWhen I met the Prophet I kept my purse closed tightly. I expected him to sell me something, to explain some scheme. But all he did was tell me to join him for a free talk the next noon. Some promotion of a scam, to be sure.
\n\nBut I had to see it for myself, even if it was thievery. I stood among a crowd of hundreds under the noonday sun while the Prophet spoke of lambs and needles and heaven. I nodded my head half-heartedly. Until the tax collector came.
\n\n“Get him out of here!” Said one of the old men in the crowd.
\n\n“He took my house from me!” Said a woman.
\n\n“He sold my farm to a man across the sea!” Said a younger man.
\n\n“He sold my mother into slavery!” Said a child.
\n\nThere were shouts and tears and clenched fists all around. Then the Prophet said, “I forgive you.”
\n\nNo, that can’t be right.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Train](\"/j-pointed/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I pointed at the screen above us. “We’re running out of time,” I said. “The next train will depart in like 2 minutes.”
\n\n“But we followed Google’s instructions exactly,” Zach complained.
\n\n“Listen,” I told him. “Sometimes the big G works in mysterious ways, let’s run!”
\n\nWe ran across the complex of glass and metal, guided by artificial lights and tempted by flickering advertisements. We ran up the stairs to the station platform without paying, because we had passes that were supposed to be scanned during the journey, in the unlikely event that a fare officer materialized in front of us.
\n\nMy feet found their balance on the platform just in time for my eyes to find the doors sliding shut on the green and white train cars.
\n\n“We missed it,” said Zach.
\n\n“By exactly 10 seconds,” I said. “You see, the instructions were exactly correct. If we left the subway 5 seconds earlier, and spent 3 less seconds on the escalator, and walked 1.5 times as fast towards the information screen, we would have made it.”
\n\n“Are these instructions made for humans?” asked Zach over the sound of wheels grinding against rails.
\n\nAs the smell of fuel entered my nostrils, I contemplated whether humans were made to simply follow instructions.
\n\n“Now what?” asked Zach.
\n\n“Now we tell everyone we’ll be 30 minutes late, buy a soda and leisurely wait for the next train,” I said.
\n\nTen minutes later, with water vapor condensing rapidly on the surface of our cola cans, Zach pointed at the screen above us. “We have extra time,” he said. “The next train is cancelled.”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Angry](\"/j-outside/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“How could she do this to me?” I thought to myself.
\n\n“She literally didn’t do anything to you,” myself thought to I.
\n\n“How dare she? How dare she?” I thought to myself.
\n\n“Why not? It is not against the law, or even against social custom. You’re the one being difficult. You’re the one being harsh,” myself thought to I.
\n\n“I’m the one being right. I’m the one sane man in a world that doesn’t see the truth,” I thought to myself.
\n\n“That’s maniacal and not even remotely true,” myself thought to I.
\n\n“How could one person care so much about this? It was an awful line of questioning!” I thought to myself.
\n\n“How could one person hate another for caring about this? This is an awful line of judgement,” myself thought to I.
\n\n“She’s leaving, thank goodness,” I thought to myself.
\n\n“You scared her, you should apologize,” myself thought to I.
\n\n“I refuse to apologize for being right,” I thought to myself.
\n\n“There is no material advantage to this line of action. You are still going to be in her vicinity every other day of the next three months at minimum,” myself thought to I.
\n\n“Arrangements can be made to be rid of her,” I thought to myself.
\n\n“Look around, at the hundred other people in the room. They all saw what she did, and what you did, and they’ll find you unreasonable. If you are rid of her, who else will bother with you? If you are rid of her, who else will have your back?” myself thought to I.
\n\n“My principles are all I have,” I thought to myself.
\n\n“My goals are all that I need,” myself thought to I.
\n\n“Fine then, you simpering fool, you spineless invertebrate, have your reconciliations, make your apologies. It’s absurd that you would oppose me inside my own head,” I thought to myself.
\n\n“This is only for the present. In future, we can reconsider our interactions,” myself thought to I.
\n\n“One day she’ll understand,” I thought to myself. “One day, when she’s on the outside looking in.”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Railway](\"/j-indeterminate/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
To wake or sleep.
\n\nTo drink or thirst.
\n\nTo eat or hunger.
\n\nTo swallow carbs or protein.
\n\nTo work or play.
\n\nTo read or write.
\n\nTo make noise or silence.
\n\nTo weep or laugh.
\n\nTo feel heated anger or cold indifference.
\n\nTo look within or beyond.
\n\nTo stand or sit.
\n\nTo open or to close.
\n\nTo descend or ascend.
\n\nTo walk left or right.
\n\nTo walk right or left.
\n\nTo pay by debit or credit.
\n\nTo use stairs or escalators.
\n\nTo stand on the northbound platform or the southbound platform.
\n\nTo wait or act.
\n\nTo mind the gap or jump on the tracks.
\n\nTo be crushed or be electrocuted.
\n\nTo die or live.
\n\nIndeterminate.
\n\n![\"The](\"/creator-movie/attachments/poster.jpg\")
Image credit: Regency Enterprises, eOne, Walt Disney Company
There will be spoilers for The Creator and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in this article.
\n\nI knew basically nothing about The Creator when I walked in. I knew there would be robots walking in rice fields, I knew the director of Rogue One was involved, and I knew what form the “Alpha” weapon would appear as.
\n\nMy expectations were not high. Rogue One was alright. It felt bleak, it had some nice scenery. For the first time ever we got A Star Wars Story that did not focus on the ever-present Skywalker family. On the other hand it still leaned heavily on the Star Wars lore and references. There were some parts of Rogue One’s plot that didn’t make sense, but I barely noticed.
\n\nWas the connection to Star Wars a restraint or a lifeline for the Rogue One director Gareth Edwards? It was a question that I would have never asked until I walked into the cinema.
\n\nThere was almost no audience, maybe because I was in the VIP section on a Thursday night. Most advertisements and articles claim The Creator was supposed to be released a day after I saw it. I have no idea how that happened, so to convince myself I wasn’t hallucinating here’s the top half of my ticket.
\n\n![\"The](\"/creator-movie/attachments/ticket.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
The Creator has a varied and fascinating aesthetic, starting from the very first second. The movie is divided into chapters like Pulp Fiction - but the chapters just flow chronologically and flashbacks appear without any ceremony. The montage at the start, which establishes the alternate timeline, slips across decades and styles of filmmaking. The story proper features rice fields, backwaters, underground labs, flashy downtowns, a sweatshop, remote villages, temples with statues of robots tended to by robotic Buddhist monks, a basically normal highway, a spacecraft with the interior of a commercial airliner, and a space station. The Creator makes the planet Earth feel LARGE - compare this to the oddly claustrophobic Lightyear or the constant planet-hopping of Rogue One.
\n\nThe Creator does not have the total, joyful chaos of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. There’s a variety of settings but not a variety of emotion. The visuals of almost every scene communicate a sense of dread. Jokes exist, but this is not even remotely a comedy, it’s a grim story and the visuals reflect that.
\n\nThe cartoons Alphie watches depict some of the events of the plot. So there were maybe five seconds of an original children’s cartoon made for this movie: very cute. The audience does not get a clear view of the show.
\n\nNOMAD is iconic, and so are the designs for the other technology in the world of The Creator. The robots, vehicles, and weapons all look great and, for the most part, original. It was honestly a bit shocking to see a regular jeep in the third act.
\n\n![\"Robot\"](\"/creator-movie/attachments/robot.webp\")
Image credit: Regency Enterprises, eOne, Walt Disney Company\n![\"Replicant\"](\"/creator-movie/attachments/replicant.jpg\")
Image credit: Regency Enterprises, eOne, Walt Disney Company
Some of the robots in this story look like vaguely human-shaped bits of metal and plastic. However some of the other robots are “replicants” with human-like faces and bodies. The “replicants” are still clearly robotic from the side, as they literally have nothing going on between the ears - and no human ears at all for that matter. The replicants look cool, and I suppose this matters for the emotional impact of the story. Yes, District 9 encouraged its audience to feel sympathy for human-sized cockroaches, but it’s important that in The Creator some robots look like specific humans.
\n\n![\"NOMAD\"](\"/creator-movie/attachments/nomad.webp\")
Image credit: Regency Enterprises, eOne, Walt Disney Company
Speaking of robots, this is a story set in an alternate timeline where robotics is a lot more advanced. The alternate timeline is strongly implied by the montage at the start. The actual events of the story take place maybe 40 years after their timeline’s equivalent of the present.
\n\nSome plot-relevant bits of worldbuilding are established well. For example most plot-relevant sci-fi machinery are demonstrated visually. This is not to say that all the machinery are sensible. The Creator features an armored bomb with legs, a squad of robot cops who cannot detect human interlopers, and targeting lasers projecting human-sized crosshairs. The Creator has a lot of creative technology but some of the technology is blatantly impractical.
\n\nOne core aspect of the premise is that AI are associated with humanoid robot bodies. The Creator does not feature much non-humanoid robots or disembodied AI, which seem to be everywhere in our timeline. The robot struggle for equality would be harder to sympathize with if they were AI which could endlessly transfer themselves from one quadrocopter drone to another. Weirdly enough, it is the human minds which are transferable in The Creator - a technology which could have lead to human immortality if it was explored more thoroughly.
\n\nThe political and social environment of the story is vague. Why is “New Asia” even a country and where are the rest of the world powers? If I had to guess based on the one scene with a map of New Asia, I’d say that New Asia is probably a souped-up ASEAN and the rest of the world is too scared of NOMAD to assist. Speaking of NOMAD, it’s an iconic weapon but why is it so essential? Isn’t 1 NOMAD more vulnerable than a fleet of aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines? NOMAD’s uniqueness (it took 10 years to build) is what makes its destruction so important: the ending would be less poignant if the Americans could just build another.
\n\nThe Creator’s worldbuilding is fine I guess. It is light on detail but what little details we get are believable enough. It’s less worldbuilding than James Cameron’s Avatar (which has an entire biosphere, language and history), but more fleshed out than the worldbuilding of Lightyear (a movie whose most shocking twist was a ham sandwich). My various nitpicks above were obvious in hindsight but the movie was compelling enough for me to avoid thinking about it. It is believable that in an alternate timeline, AI would be confined to humanoid robots, ASEAN would become New Asia and NOMAD would be a war-winning weapon. The only problem is, these details are unintuitive and conflict with the world we inhabit.
\n\n![\"Joshua\"](\"/creator-movie/attachments/joshua.webp\")
Image credit: Regency Enterprises, eOne, Walt Disney Company
The actual physical events of The Creator aren’t that interesting. Characters run from place to place, but a lot of the running could have been avoided if the characters weren’t so secretive. Almost every location gets exploded or otherwise damaged. A lot of the events after Alphie’s capture are ridiculous.
\n\nThere are many weird little stupidities. For instance how come the police put a hidden bomb in a box of ice cream, when they suspect the recipient has kidnapped a child? And did I mention the bomb with legs?
\n\nThe most meaningful plot progression is not physical but emotional. Our protagonist Joshua starts out viewing AI as being emotionless and nonsentient, and killing them with no remorse. Over the course of his interaction with Alphie and his exploration of New Asia, he learns to respect the sentient robots around him. He risks his life for Alphie, who is practically his son, killing a “real” human to defend a robot who is “just programming”. After years of chasing his estranged lover Maya, Joshua has no choice but to either kill her or leave her in a coma. When recaptured by the Americans he is disgusted by them holding the attitudes he once had. Joshua is coerced into killing his “son” as well, but manages to escape the chains of his masters. He finally dies for the cause of robot liberation, but not before embracing a robot replica of his dead wife.
\n\nThe physical story of The Creator is about blowing up a space station. The emotional story of The Creator is about love triumphing over hatred and discrimination - and that is the journey that actually connects all the scenes together.
\n\nThe emotional story still isn’t as well done as District 9. The robots in The Creator are too cute and morally uncomplicated, except for that one nuclear explosion. The protagonist is also effectively looking out for his family. In comparison the “prawn” in District 9 are much easier to hate and the protagonist of District 9 risks everything for people he’s not related to.
\n\n![\"XKCD](\"/creator-movie/attachments/xkcd.png\")
Image credit: Randall Munroe, xkcd.com
The Creator seems like a blatant Vietnam War allegory. The actions of the Americans in the film are reminiscent of that war: invading a southeast Asian country, airbombing villages, claiming to only want to kill a minority of people while in actuality murdering civilians and even children. The war lasts decades and the Americans have no clear exit plan. The goal is to eliminate all robots in New Asia forever, which is almost as difficult as killing all communists in Vietnam.
\n\nThere is equally blatant religious imagery in this movie. The Creator features robotic Buddhist monks and funerals for robots. The consciousness-extracting machines literally give people a brief reincarnation. There are idols and statues of robots - and why not? If people today worship gods in the form of humans or animals, why not worship gods in the form of robots? Let’s not forget that Alphie activates her powers through meditation.
\n\nOn top of the Buddhist (and Hindu?) imagery, there is also Christian imagery. Alphie is Nimrata’s only child, and was created specifically to save her species. Harun remarks that Nimrata could have built Alphie to hate humanity but made the opposite choice: Alphie was designed to turn the other cheek. Alphie’s status as a weapon is as misleading as Jesus' status as King of the Jews: Alphie is fundamentally on a mission of peace, not nation building. Both Alphie and Nimrata evade death: Alphie by going on standby and Nimrata using the brain uploading. Neither case exactly fits the Christian analogy perfectly, but they at least gesture towards the resurrection of Christ.
\n\nJoshua and Alphie’s discussions of the afterlife are another set of weird religious moments. Alphie claims that she and Joshua are alike in that neither of them are going to Heaven - but Joshua apparently never mentioned Hell. Assuming Hell exists, would a nonsentient robot go to Hell? And does Joshua believe he is going to Hell? Furthermore, when Joshua explains that Heaven is a place in the sky and the camera cuts to NOMAD, what does that imply about Heaven and about NOMAD? At the movie’s climax, Joshua claims he is going to Heaven and Alphie might join him one day: Joshua proceeds to die on NOMAD while kissing a replicant with the mind of Maya. Was that singular moment Heaven for Joshua?
\n\nSome people seem interested in the eerie similarities between the replicants and real-life deepfakes, or between robot sentience and real-life sentient-like behaviour from ChatGPT. However as discussed in the Worldbuilding section above, the AI of our world are not confined to humanoid bodies. Overcoming the differences between humans and AI will be conceptually tougher in our world, given that AIs run on large servers, can read and write incredibly quickly and can potentially travel across computer networks. Thus, the AIs of our world consume far more than 3 meals a day, can communicate with anyone anywhere with an internet connection, have more knowledge of random topics than an untrained human and are potentially immortal. Even if humans want to treat AI beings with respect, their strengths and weaknesses are so different from humans that the laws governing them might differ as well.
\n\nThere’s something deeply ironic about the American military using a nuclear blast to justify their anti-AI stance, and enforcing that stance by creating the ominous NOMAD. It reminds me strongly of the above XKCD. An implicit moral of The Creator is that the problem with AI controlling nuclear weapons isn’t the AI, but the nuclear weapons. And that message can apply to many of the threats posed by AI. AI taking people’s jobs is a problem mainly because jobs are so limited and necessary for a good income. AI “stealing” art is a problem largely because our systems for rewarding good art and punishing thieves are currently really poor. AI exceeding human intelligence and killing all humans in the pursuit of maximizing paperclip production is… a problem that does not fit the model of AI in The Creator. The AI in The Creator are not just humanlike in form but also in intelligence. Much like the physical similarities with humans mentioned earlier, the intellectual similarity is necessary for the robot equality message to make sense.
\n\nThe Creator is worth seeing for the aesthetic, worldbuilding and originality. It’s a breath of fresh air if you are tired of long-running franchises. Although the physical events of the plot are not that interesting, the emotional events are strong. It’s not necessarily an incredible life-changing experience, but it’s cool to look at and has something to say about the world.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-interrogated","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-interrogated","title":"Interrogated","date_modified":"2023-09-20T02:58:31.000","date_published":"2023-09-20T02:58:31.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-interrogated/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["joy-of-writing","creative"],"content_html":"![\"Teacher](\"/j-interrogated/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The marker squeaked as the professor drew a sine wave on the whiteboard. “Given this input signal,” he began, “Can anybody tell me what the output of the amplifier would be?”
\n\nNo response from the students. Lazy, brain-dead maggots, thought the professor. Always looking for free marks so that they can walk out of here with an engineering degree and use it to change the colour of banner ad for hair growth formula. Well I’ll show them, I’ll show them all!
\n\nThe professor briefly sneered behind him without taking a good look at his disinterested pupils. “In case you needed reminding, the output of the amplifier is here,” he said while circling a square. “And no Eugene, you better not ask me why I drew a square to indicate that spot, when all the other professors don’t even bother.”
\n\n“Who’s Eugene?” Somebody interrogated.
\n\n“Who’s Eugene?!” The balding professor stopped drawing with his squeaking marker and shouted at the ceiling. “We all know who he is! Are you serious?”
\n\nThe professor turned his head and saw a classroom with only a single bored twenty-year old. And she wasn’t Eugene.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-garage","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-garage","title":"Garage","date_modified":"2023-08-23T05:39:13.593","date_published":"2023-08-23T05:31:41.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-garage/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Window](\"/j-garage/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I didn’t want to get out of bed. I never wanted to get out of bed while my eyes were closed and my ears were covered by pillows. But once I opened my eyes and looked upon the peeling walls, once I shifted my head and heard the deep voices of my room-mates shouting at each other, I knew it was time to get going.
\n\nToday was quiet, my room-mates were probably already out of this dingy basement. They were only to return in the witching hour, like me. Why did I rent this awful basement room, with its sad little window and barely useable chest of drawers? In the future, I would have higher standards. But the future was not today.
\n\nI grabbed my winter jacket, put on my shoes and got out the door. I was late for the lecture, so late for the lecture. I got in the garage and pressed the button on the inside to open the garage door.
\n\nThe familiar whirring sounds of the electric motors spoke to me like old friends. “Just a few more moments, and you shall be free!” They said, as I walked out of the darkness and into the glowing winter.
\n\nBut unfortunately the outside button wouldn’t close the garage door. My old friends were grabbing me by the arms, pulling me back.
\n\n![\"Star](\"/j-recommend/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The root problem was trust.
\n\nWhy would I trust that the topmost result was any good? It was a recommendation, but by who, and why? It was a recommendation by a machine tasked with giving its owners a return on their investment.
\n\nWell, time to read a review. But why should I trust the first review I read? It blasted me with advertising, which would be understandable if I wasn’t a paying a customer. I was not, but only because the paying customers got ads anyways, in the vain hope that they would be rewarded for their tribute to the Empire State Times. And even if the recommendation wasn’t paid, why would I believe they even knew what they were writing about?
\n\nSo I seeked out a thousand comments on a hundred blogs in ten years, all of whom recommended a particular reviewer, forming a critique critique of sorts, a jumbled kaleidoscope of truth and lies. But the fact that they all recommended the same reviewer of washing machines only meant they were all deluded by the same advertising.
\n\nSo I asked my “friend”, who knows a lot of things about washing machines, or at least has the appearance of knowing, the cadence of voice, the air of authority, the social role of “person who knows things”. But I doubted this “friend” of mine, because in a complex life full of trade-offs they always gave a simple answer. “This Samsung washing machine is good enough,” he’d say, except that sometimes he’d be tactless enough to add “for everyone”.
\n\n![\"Camel](\"/j-faltered/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The Thimble of Bartholomew appeared in my dreams, just like every other night. I could see it glimmer in the sunlight like the rarest diamond, I could see its geometrically perfect curves, its indentations and protrusions. “Oh yes,” I would muse in the Sandman’s embrace. “One day little thimble, you will be mine.”
\n\nI woke in my tent, just like every other morning. “Awaken,” said Joseph, my younger brother. “We must begin our day’s journey! Awaken!”
\n\nI crawled out of the tent and into the burning desert sun. “Must we wake so early?” I groaned. But I knew the answer was yes, for otherwise we would forfeit the thimble.
\n\n“Are you a man or a sloth?” Joseph mused. He handed me my daily bread, and after a a brief prayer we started our meal and our journey. The camels, lacking respect for our Maker, devoured some spiny cacti while we were still thanking the heavens.
\n\nBut while we were under a perfect sky, the heat alone would qualify this desert as hell.
\n\nWe travelled upon our beasts across the rocks and dunes, for days, and weeks. As our packs got lighter, our throats got drier. As we got closer to the Thimble, we got further from our very wits. But I had to have the thimble. It was too wonderful, too rare. It haunted my dreams, it spun through my thoughts, it even appeared in mirages.
\n\nUntil one day, my brother fell off his camel.
\n\n![\"Sunglasses](\"/j-whitewashed-sunglasses/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Lucy rotated her fishing rod in an instant. “I felt a bite,” she said, “and the little people made the handle of this thing too delicate.”
\n\nThe little people, of course, was her word for Homo Sapiens. She never used the phrase around Professor Magdalene or any of the guests of the park. But when she was among her kind, she didn’t hesitate. The Sapiens were the ‘little people’, and we, the Neanderthals, were the ‘normal people’.
\n\nLucy was right about the bite. When the line was out of the water we could see her prize, a wiggling fish the size of my fist. But Lucy’s speed and unique fishing technique led the scaly wiggling creature to slam right into my face.
\n\n“Hahaha,” Lucy laughed, her booming voice drowning out the sounds of insects on the lake. She grabbed the fish off my face, pulled it off the hook, and tossed it in the ice box. It still writhed and flipped around a while, gasping for life.
\n\n“I should have brought my sunglasses,” I said to Lucy. “That fish put lake water in my eye.”
\n\n“The sun is bright today,” said Lucy, with a smile. “Can’t see a single cloud.”
\n\nShe wiped some sweat from her brow while I wiped cold freshwater off my face. There wasn’t much space in this boat for the two of us, the fishing supplies, and our lunch. The greenhouse gases of the twenty-first century atmosphere were heating up our ice age bodies.
\n\nBut Lucy didn’t mind the heat. “This is the life,” she said. “Out on the water, among the trees and bugs and fish.”
\n\n“What if we ran into a moose?” I asked.
\n\n“The two of us could totally wrestle a moose,” she said. “Well, maybe we’d need to bring Mark. That would be awesome. Too bad it’s against park regulations.”
\n\nEach part was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing session. This is in the same setting as Fatty & Kingdom.
\n\n![\"Burger](\"/j-fatty-kingdom/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Thomas, that burger is really fatty,” said Professor Magdalene. “Even for you.”
\n\n“Even for me?” I said, to the tiny Sapiens woman across the table, dwelling in my shadow.
\n\n“Yes Thomas, even for Homo neanderthalis, that burger has a disproportionately high level of fat,” she said. “There’s enough bacon in that one for a whole pigsty.”
\n\nI placed my finger on the menu next to the burger I wanted. The menu was as glossy as a smooth river rock that was just pulled out of the water. My finger moved right of the image and onto the real challenge, the word.
\n\n“Heart,” I said.
\n\n“Yep, that’s the first word,” said the professor.
\n\n“There is a dash,” I said.
\n\n“Very good, it’s only for the benefit of speakers, it indicates the words are combined.”
\n\nCombining words, one of the many subtleties of speech and language that was a slippery as the aforementioned river rock.
\n\nThe next word was more abstract. “Attack,” I said.
\n\n“Yes,” said the Professor.
\n\n“The burger is named heart attack?” I asked. “Does it have a sharp object inside that will stab me? Will it send an army to a far away tribe or kingdom?”
\n\n“No, it’s one of those things which is both a joke, and the truth. If you ate that kind of burger every day, it would fill your blood vessels with layers of cholesterol and eventually, your heart wouldn’t be able to beat any more. You would die of heart attack,”
\n\n“So where is the joke?” I asked.
\n\nThe Professor looked contemplative as her eyes slid from my face to an item on the nearby wall. Her finger crawled across her lip like an insect.
\n\n“It’s some kind of irony, but honestly, I’m not sure I understand it myself.”
\n\nThere was a moment of silence between the Professor and her student, broken by the various noises of conversation, and music from who knows where.
\n\n“You seem quite interested,” the Professor said.
\n\n“In what?” I asked.
\n\n“In language and writing and reading. Your brothers and sisters are much less curious,” she said.
\n\nEach part was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing session.
\n\n![\"Cherries](\"/j-cherry/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The cherry-flavoured cola didn’t make me feel any better. And no, I would not prefer vanilla. The cola had a lot of fizz, but it was missing a little something.
\n\n“Seriously? Akash is just ditching us?” asked Cindy.
\n\n“I guess his plans changed,” I replied. I took a sip of artificial fruit flavouring and burped out some carbon dioxide. This stuff was just so sweet, I could only have a sip at a time.
\n\nIf only there was something I could just gulp down without feeling like a five year old, I thought. But I knew where that path led.
\n\n“But he told us yesterday that he’d drive us back home!” said Cindy. “Any explanation for his change of heart?”
\n\n“He got a hundred dollars in tax credit or something? I don’t know,” I said.
\n\nI looked down from the window to the city below. The steep inclines and tiny streets of Quebec City had been heaven to walk through, and hellish to drive through.
\n\n“I guess I’m going to have to drive back then,” said Cindy, “There’s nothing we can do other than try and change his mind.”
\n\nMy suspended driver’s license was not of much help here.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-variety","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-variety","title":"Variety","date_modified":"2023-06-15T05:48:32.000","date_published":"2023-06-15T05:48:32.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-variety/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Department](\"/j-variety/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I picked up a pack of cereal on the shelf. It was one of those packs that have little boxes of different cereals. There was Frosted Flakes, Cheerios, Rice Krispies, and even boring old Corn Flakes.
\n\nI know cereals.
\n\n“Put down that cereal variety pack,” Mom said. “Didn’t I tell you we’re only having algae-derived gruel for breakfast this month?’
\n\n“But I want the Frosted Flakes,” I said. “I saw Tony the Tiger on TV.”
\n\n“The fate of the world hangs in the balance!” Mom said. “And when did you start watching TV?”
\n\n“Brittany let me watch Paw Patrol,” I said.
\n\n“That’s what I get for hiring cheap babysitters,” Mom said. I had no idea what she meant.
\n\nMom got a sack of sugar, put it in her bag, and started walking towards the counter.
\n\n“Is that all?” asked the guy running the store.
\n\n“Do I get to eat the sugar?” I asked.
\n\n“Yes and no,” said Mom. “The sugar is for the algal-fungal symbiote strain.”
\n\n“How come I have to eat algae and the algae get to eat sugar? I want the Frosted Flakes! I want Tony the Tiger to be my friend!”
\n\n“I’ll be paying by debit,” Mom said.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup. It is a continuation of Bloom.
\n\n![\"Fishing](\"/j-fiancee/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The shack was as wet as the rest of the forest. The smell of wood and rain flowed into Stephan’s nostrils like syrup, calming his nerves.
\n\nDon’t think about it, don’t think about it, he thought. But in so doing, he thought about it. He thought about everything he’d left behind. And everyone.
\n\nStephan headed to the dock, got in his boat and put down his supplies. He had two oars, a fishing rod, some bait, some line, a lamp, a flask of clean water and a small clay pot of stew. Stephan rowed out into the center of the lake, and began fishing for his next meal.
\n\nStephan hoped desperately that a fish would bite quickly enough to keep the memories away. Or maybe lightning would strike. Or a wolf would howl on the shore. But his hope was always futile. He had to wait, and if he waited he would wait in thought, and if he waited in thought he’d think of Matt.
\n\nOh Matt thought Stephan, Why did things have to go this way?
\n\nWe should have left the rest of them Matt. Sylvia, Mom, and especially Dad. We could have left them all, and we could have been happy, thought Stephan.
\n\nSomething bit the fishing line but Stephan didn’t care anymore. He weeped for his dead fiancée.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Blood](\"/j-goats/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Ronaldo threw his axe carefully. He wasn’t rough with it, he didn’t exert himself too much. His body was as quick and precise as a cobra: one second he was standing, the next second his axe blade was buried in its distant target.
\n\n“Yeah Ronaldo!” said his hairy friend Harry. “Ladies and gents, this man is the greatest of all time, the GOAT, he could throw an axe across the ocean and make it land in Timbuktu, he’s phenomenal!”
\n\n“I would not be so sure about that,” said one of the many acquaintances of Ronaldo at the party. Ronaldo had invited almost everyone he knew to the axe throwing venue, even his barber. Only about fifty of the people invited showed up. Ten of the fifty were afraid of signing the entry waiver which granted the axe throwing company immunity from prosecution. One of the people who remained was Ronaldo’s cousin’s cousin’s uncle’s ex-wife’s butcher, who was named Oswald.
\n\n“Watch this,” said Oswald, and he perfectly imitated Ronaldo’s achievement, hitting his target after single axe throw which took only a single second. Nobody had a ruler or protractor with them, but if they had such tools they would have realized Oswald’s axe hit its target at the exact position and angle as Ronaldo’s.
\n\n“Ohhhh amazing!” said Harry. “Looks like there’s two GOATs in the house.”
\n\n“What does that even mean?” asked Ronaldo, “Two greatest of all times?”
\n\n“Yes, in-cred-i-ble!” shouted Harry, who was hoping someone was recording this moment for TikTok.
\n\n“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Oswald. “There can only be one.” And then he started throwing axes in every direction, hitting everyone present.
\n\nThe axe-throwing company’s cashier was safely behind desk during the onslaught. But once Oswald’s supply was exhausted, the cashier jumped out of his hiding place and hit Oswald with volley after volley of tomahawks.
\n\n“You can’t do this to me,” croaked the terminally bleeding Oswald. “I’m the GOAT. And what will the police think.”
\n\n“What can I say? You signed the waiver,” said the cashier.
\n\n![\"Woozy](\"/j-idiot/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
As I looked around my apartment, I thought about how late I was.
\n\nI was always late. I woke late, I worked late, and after work I travelled late. Why was I always so late? It was always something different, always some other excuse. Some code review at work lasted too long, or some kind of system needed just one more minute of debugging. It was never really just one more minute, but I always held that false hope, that this time the first idea would work without a hitch.
\n\nToday I finished my work early, and was ready to leave the house. I’ll finally arrive early! I thought. That’ll show them! But I realized I was missing some important cargo: my library book.
\n\nMy library book for the book club didn’t really matter, but I wanted to read it on the subway. After all, I had finished my SWIT early for once, I had time to read on the train. But I couldn’t find the damn book, where could it be?
\n\nNot on the table, not the couch, not on the desk, not under my bedsheets. Thank goodness, that would have been quite gross in an oddly fitting way, but also, um where’s the book?
\n\nTurns out it was in my bag all along. I was late for nothing
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meeting.
\n\n“SWIT” is an acronym used by the Joy of Writing group. “SWIT” means either “Suggested Writing Independent Topic” or “Something Which I Thunk”. One justification given for using the term “SWIT” is that “homework sounds so lame at our age”.
\n\n![\"Volunteered](\"/j-volunteered-0/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The guards opened the door, but I didn’t bother to look at them.
\n\n“Artemis, it’s time,” said Daria.
\n\n“I’m not moving a single inch,” I said.
\n\n“There’s nobody else left, you fool,” said Taylor. “And Ariane’s here. You know, the General Ariane.”
\n\n“General Ariane can kiss my bloody vagina,” I sneered. It’s not what Brady would have wanted. She would have been defiant but polite, even if she were dressed in filthy rags in a dingy cell with cockroaches crawling across her face.
\n\n“Fuck you Artemis,” groaned Daria. Then Daria and Taylor slammed me with sticks for a solid minute and dragged me out of the cell.
\n\nThere were no jeers from the other cells, nor shouts of encouragement. There was no staring or shaking of heads. The cells of Michaela prison were empty. All the Natives had died, and all the Imperials had taken the deal.
\n\nWhat idiots. If they knew how the Empire rewarded its greatest hero and most loyal defender, then no woman in the world would have even considered joining.
\n\nThe guards were saying something about the situation. Something about war and supplies and fortifications. But I hardly listened. I just kept thinking about all those years ago. Those halcyon days of travelling continents, searching for clues, climbing mountains, riding trains, stealing flying machines, talking to villagers. According to the scratchings I’d made on the cell wall, that was all the distant past. According to my mind, that was yesterday. For me, that was the only thing that mattered, the memory of who I once was, and who Brady once was.
\n\nThe guards dragged my limp body across the Michaela prison complex and into what used to be the Warden’s office. All the furniture had been removed except two chairs and a desk. As the guards lifted me into one chair, I briefly whimpered in pain.
\n\nThe other chair, normally occupied by the Warden, was instead the location of General Ariane. Her hair was cut short even by military standards. Her drab uniform contrasted with all the shiny status symbols she earned by abandoning all human decency. She had a scar on her cheek, which was great marketing. It might have intimidated a person who still had something left to lose.
\n\n“So you’re Artemis,” said the General. “Oh sorry. Where are my manners? You’re Doctor Artemis Munroe, the historian.”
\n\nI did not respond.
\n\n“The motherland is in danger, Artemis,” said the General. “The republic has looted the entire continent, they’re stealing food from the starving, they’re robbing the poor of their last copper coins, they’re clearing entire forests to feed their war machine.”
\n\nI stared at the walls and ceiling. No modern electric lights, but there was sunlight shining through the window. All I could see out there were the clouds and the ocean.
\n\n“The Republic’s tyrannical First Citizen will stop at nothing to achieve world domination, and the Princess-Shaman calls on all her daughters to defend the motherland, save our allies and preserve our Empire.”
\n\nI did not speak because there was nothing worth saying. The cockroaches of my cell were more honest conversation-partners. The roaches were peaceful eaters of feces, carrion and garbage. The woman across from me, she was a murderer in an Empire of murderers.
\n\n“Will you rise to the occassion? Will you follow the command of the Princess-Shaman, the one and only woman guided by the spirits? Will you do what it takes to save the world?”
\n\nI stared at the general and said nothing.
\n\nThe General raised her eyebrow. “We’d set you free after the war. All charges dropped. The Princess-Shaman is generous and forgiving, even to her most… intransigent… daughters.”
\n\nI did not move any part of my body, except for my eyes. I looked at the bruises on my arms, and the dirt, and the mosquito bites.
\n\nI’d suffer it all again to see Brady once more. But she was with the spirits now.
\n\nHah, the spirits. I used to giggle at such platitudes. Now here I was, generating them and making them part of me.
\n\n“We’d pay you. After the war, you could rest in comfort, hire some handsome manservants perhaps. Those degenerates of the Republic, they are actually putting men in their army. Can you believe it? That’s how desperate and maniacal they’ve become,” said the General.
\n\nI rolled my eyes. Just kill me, I thought.
\n\nWell, why not kill me? I got a bit curious. Surely keeping those idiot guards here was a waste of Imperial resources. There were enough loopholes in the law that the General could unilaterally have me shot, turn Michaela prison into a military base, and press the fisherwomen of neighboring islands into service.
\n\nThe fisherwomen of this island, of course, were deceased. Much like Brady.
\n\nWhy did the General want me alive? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
\n\nThe General looked into my eyes, and I into hers. She didn’t seem scared, nor angry. She seemed focused. She was looking for something from me, something specific.
\n\nGeneral Ariane then looked up, and spoke to the guards. “Can you two wait outside for a bit?”
\n\nThe guards stood up straight and saluted the General. “Sir, yes, sir,” they said, and tried their best to look disciplined and soldierly as they exited.
\n\nAll that was left was Ariane, myself, and the window to the ocean.
\n\n“Care for a drink?” asked General Ariane, pulling out a bottle of wine from the desk. “I was surprised to find this in the cellar here. Half a century old. Might be the last good wine in the Empire, the girls on the front pissed away the rest of the booze.”
\n\nI tried not to respond, but a smile briefly appeared and disappeared from my face.
\n\n“Well? Do you want any?” asked Ariane the general, the murderer, the liar, the hypocrite, the manipulator. This is manipulation, this is textbook, I thought to myself. Her alleged joke? Wasn’t even funny, I thought to myself. That’s the only person I share my thoughts with, myself.
\n\nI said nothing.
\n\n“Suit yourself,” said Ariane, as she popped open the bottle and poured herself a glass. Ariane looked out at the ocean and sighed.
\n\n“I miss her too, you know. I didn’t know her personally, but I knew of her. Captain Brady Indigo, hero of the Swamy war, defender of the Empire, executor of the terrorist, the so-called Chosen One. I heard all about her when I was a kid. She was a legend. She was my inspiration.”
\n\nI opened my mouth, but closed it before any words could escape my lips
\n\nThe General continued, “It was awful how she died. Stabbed by a savage. She deser-”
\n\n“NO! IT’S NOT TRUE!” I screamed. “It was over! The natives were scattered and fleeing and dead! And I saw Brady alive! The Empire killed her! The Empire must have killed her! She was alive after the massacre.”
\n\nI expected some hostility from General Ariane. That was my usual reward for telling the truth: getting beat with sticks, mockery from the guards, drugs from the doctors, crying into the cold floor of a dark cell. Even calling the massacre a massacre was treason. But I would do it all again. I would never betray Captain Brady Indigo.
\n\nGeneral Ariane didn’t sound angry however. Her voice remained neutral as she said, “the official records say otherwise.”
\n\n“The records are lies!” I shouted.
\n\n“The records were written by Captain Indigo’s own sister,” said Ariane.
\n\n“Lies! You can’t trust her! Throw her in this prison, that snake, she’ll admit to everything, she’ll crack in day!” I yelled.
\n\n“I cannot interrogate the dead,” said Ariane.
\n\nIt look a few seconds for me process that remark. I could feel my heart slow down, and my fists loosen.
\n\n“How much of the offical story of Captain Indigo is trustworthy?” asked the general.
\n\n“I don’t know the official story except for the end,” I said.
\n\n“Well then let me be more specific,” the general said. She got up, stood at my side, and leaned in.
\n\n“The records state you two stole a fixed wing aircraft, and flew it out of a Republican-aligned facility. Is that true?”
\n\nI thought back. Back to all those years ago that felt like yesterday. Back to Brady and I in the skies, her hair waving in the wind, with only the clouds for company. Back to that moment when I looked into her eyes, and her irises were lit by the setting sun.
\n\nI wished for that moment to return.
\n\nI wished that moment was my entire life.
\n\nI felt my mind fall to pieces as I responded to the General. “That’s the only true fact in the universe.”
\n\n“Well, Artemis, you have a choice. Either you can die in the ground, or you can kill in the sky. For the first time ever, the air itself has become a theatre of war, and the Empire wants all the pilots it can get.”
\n\n“I don’t care about what the Empire wants,” I said.
\n\n“I know. But riddle me this: what would Brady want?” asked General Ariane.
\n\nTears welled up in my eyes. My face contorted as I started to cry and nod in unison. And that was how I, the last prisoner of Michaela, volunteered to join the Imperial Air Force.
\n\nThis is an epilogue to a novel that I no longer want to write.
\n\n![\"Radio](\"/j-morse-code/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I trudged through the mud that had once been a jungle trail. I was hungry, so hungry. But I knew that if I stayed put, I would starve, but if I walked forward I might have a chance to live.
\n\nI pushed aside vines, I climbed over roots, but found neither fruit nor nectar to sustain me. All I could see was bark, leaves, more bark and more leaves. The rain drenched my face, my back, anything that wasn’t already covered in mud.
\n\nI was hungry, so hungry. I had more water than I could drink in a week, but no food.
\n\nI leaned against a tree and panted in exhaustion. My rifle was loaded but there was no bird nor boar, not even a snake for me to shoot. Had the enemy really taken everything? Or was it my allies, who starved and ate and left nothing behind?
\n\nI pressed some buttons on my radio. Morse code. SOS. SOS. It was risky, because the enemy might find me. They wouldn’t have food to spare for me.
\n\nIt was a dog eat dog world.
\n\nWhile my fingered pressed and released and pressed and released, I saw it, finally some good meat! An insect, hiding from the rain under a leaf, a leaf that looked like any other.
\n\nI grabbed the critter and stuffed it in my mouth. Its legs crawled against my tongue and its feelers stuck out of my mouth. No, can’t waste any of the protein. I pushed the antenna back into my mouth and could hear the crunch of teeth against exoskeleton.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-threatened","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-threatened","title":"Threatened","date_modified":"2023-06-05T05:43:04.000","date_published":"2023-06-05T05:43:04.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-threatened/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Car](\"/j-threatened/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The car was surrounded on all sides. It was just a Honda Civic, on the left was a Tesla, on the right was an eighteen-wheeler, in the front was a Volkswagen, and behind was a Ford pickup truck.
\n\nThe driver of the Honda Civic stared into the distance. This bridge, this awful bridge was always the bottleneck. Every day he drove through it, and every day there was a a traffic jam. If only the people who constructed this bridge a half a century ago could have predicted that it would need more lanes, thought the driver, who for whatever reason believed that the more lanes the merrier.
\n\nIt would be one thing if everyone just stayed put. But alas, the vehicles of the bridge moved in the most annoying way possible. Every couple of minutes, they drove forward an inch. As the driver put his foot on the pedal, he was tempted, so tempted to just slam into the Volkswagen in front of him. Serves them right for the emissions scandal thought the driver, who for whatever reason had not considered the barrier between producer and consumer.
\n\nStop, go, stop, go, stop, go. The driver slammed his face into the top of his steering wheel in frustration. There was nowhere to turn, but still he gripped the wheel like it was a monkey bar in a jungle gym.
\n\nBut even though there was nowhere to turn, the driver could see movement to the left and right. Ridiculous, thought the driver as the bridge started to sway.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-fathom","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-fathom","title":"Fathom","date_modified":"2023-05-24T04:01:06.000","date_published":"2023-05-24T04:01:06.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-fathom/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["joy-of-writing","creative"],"content_html":"![\"Fathom](\"/j-fathom/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
It was dark outside the submersible. The light of the sun never reached this far down, neither at noon nor midnight, neither in summer nor winter.
\n\nDr. Edmunds kept her hands on the controls, but for the moment all there was to do was sink into the abyss. The floodlights of the submersible were swallowed by the unfathomable deep, reaching to find something that might not exist.
\n\nSmall dots of light started appearing in the water. “Are those bioluminescent creatures?” Asked Dr. Edmunds to herself. “Or are they my own hallucinations?” She cackled and snorted and guffawed, there was nobody else here telling her to maintain her composure. Once the mission was complete, the video logs would reveal the truth.
\n\nThis was written in 6 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Meditation](\"/j-clearheaded/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Breathe.
\n\nIn through the nose, out through the mouth.
\n\nOne breath, two breaths, three.
\n\nI close my eyes.
\n\nOne breath, two breaths, three, four, five. I keep breathing. I focus on nothing else.
\n\nMy breathing is my universe.
\n\nBut not for long.
\n\nI focus on my body. Starting from the top of my balding head. The scar on my cheek from back in the war.
\n\nI’m not here to focus on the past. This is the present. My scar exists, just like my wrinkling skin, my drying fingers, my crossed legs, my aching bones.
\n\nBut it was not age that would kill me.
\n\nEnough of the body.
\n\nI let my thoughts and emotions flow freely for a while. Fear. I am afraid. Darkness is going to swallow the world.
\n\nBut I have a job to do.
\n\nI return to the breath.
\n\nOne breath, two breaths, three, four, five.
\n\nI focus on the environment. I can hear the squeaks of the shoes of the security. I can hear the hum of air conditioning. I can even faintly hear birds in the trees outside. All doomed to end.
\n\nI return to the breath.
\n\nOne breath, two breaths, three, four, five.
\n\nI am in control. I am clearheaded.
\n\nI open my eyes and look at my phone. The five minute alarm goes off just as I pick it up.
\n\n“What now Mr. President?” the head of security asks.
\n\n“It’s time to push the button,” I say. “May God rest our souls.”
\n\n![\"Suitcase](\"/j-naphtha/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I heard a loud, wooden knock. That’s strange, I thought, Wasn’t the Amazon order coming tomorrow?
\n\nI opened the door and found not an Amazon delivery person but a man in a brown suit and tie. He wore square glasses and black shoes, and was opening a suitcase that was probably designed in the 1940s.
\n\n“Why hello there,” said the salesman, “would you be interested in some mothballs?”
\n\n“Mothballs?” I asked, “why would I need those?”
\n\n“Don’t you have a moth problem?” He asked.
\n\n“No, I do not have a moth problem, I haven’t seen a single moth in the past 5 years except in the Montreal Insectarium,” I said.
\n\n“But you never know when one might show up,” said the salesman.
\n\n“You cannot be serious, there’s no way this is an effective business model in the year 2023 common era.”
\n\n“You could have twenty mothballs made from the finest naphtha, all for just $10.99,” he said.
\n\n“What even IS naphtha?” I asked.
\n\n“It’s what mothballs are made of!” He said.
\n\nThis was written in 7 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Dumpling](\"/j-brightyellow/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Would you buy one of these?” asked Ada, who was holding a bright yellow notebook with golden cursive text on the cover. The title was some kind of feel-good, self-affirming claptrap.
\n\n“I’m not really the target demographic,” I said. “It’s too…”
\n\n“Feminine?” Ada suggested.
\n\n“I was going to call it flamboyant,” I said.
\n\n“I wouldn’t call it flamboyant, it’s feminine,” she said.
\n\n“Well okay then,” I said.
\n\nWe started to walk away from the notebook section of the bookstore to inspect the toy section, the bedding section, the cafe section, the greeting card section, and the office supplies section. As I walked, my rain-soaked backpack was heavy with delicious cargo: cookies of various flavours, cans of cider, and a pack of frozen dumplings.
\n\nBut my legs could not find rest just yet. Not until we found some free chairs.
\n\nOnce we found the book section of the bookstore, we finally found an area where people could sit down and read. All five of the chairs in the multi-story bookstore were occupied. The occupants of the seats were staring at their phones. The people were almost glued to their seats and phones, all parts of a sedentary whole.
\n\nSo we picked some books from the shelves and made our way to the checkout. Contrary to the advice of schoolteachers everywhere, I judged the books by their covers and picked one that had a mess of words on the front. No images of material objects, only great typography. The book was sure to be dense and imposing, or at least give that impression to my Instagram followers.
\n\nAda picked a book that might as well had been pulled from an ancient swamp, it depicted soil and rusting iron.
\n\n“What’s that, some kind of shovel?” I asked.
\n\n“I’d call it a spade, wouldn’t you?” she said, rolling her eyes.
\n\n“Only after nitpicking the taxonomy of digging tools for twenty minutes.” I said.
\n\nOutside the bookstore, under a cold nighttime drizzle, I placed the book I found into my backpack.
\n\n“Will the truth about the truth be safe from your frozen dumplings?” asked Ada.
\n\n“Well, it’s my only hope,” I said, although the bag had been drenched before we’d even stepped outside. I placed my book in container, adding another component to the system attached to me.
\n\nWe wandered the streets of downtown Toronto, trying to find a refuge from the rain and a departure from the darkness. But the cafes were either closing or fully occupied, and only Union station remained.
\n\nOnce I was home, I opened my backpack and pulled out its contents, letting the bag vomit its day of meals right onto my couch. Perhaps not the wisest move, as my once-frozen dumplings had melted and merged into a congealed mass. Neither freezing cold nor boiling heat could return my dinner to what it once was, it would end its existence as a unified asymmetric blob. Still tasted good though.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-families","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-families","title":"Families","date_modified":"2024-11-14T07:41:27.927","date_published":"2023-05-03T06:05:15.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-families/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing","featured"],"content_html":"![\"Families](\"/j-families/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The monkey held her child in one arm, while using the other three limbs to scale the wall. The wall was hotter and smoother than any tree the monkey had ever felt, but there were plenty of footholds and gaps making it possible to climb.
\n\nA pigeon sat on a ledge above and cooed at the monkey. The monkey screeched in response, climbing faster than before. But when she reached the pigeon’s ledge, the pigeon flew away almost effortlessly, as if mocking the monkey.
\n\nThe monkey sat on the ledge at looked at her child briefly. The baby monkey’s hands small and delicate, and its limbs weren’t long enough for jumping between treetops and rooftops.
\n\nThe baby was hungry, and to support her two-monkey family the mother had to find some food. All the nearby fruit trees had been plucked by much lazier monkeys. Those mediocre mammals, they didn’t understand where the real loot was.
\n\nThe mother monkey looked to left and downwards. The was another ledge, and below the ledge, a window. But this window was an odd one out, a banyan in a forest of neem. Because this window, out of all the dozens of windows the monkeys had passed, was open.
\n\nThe mother put her long limbs to use, she jumped from the high ledge to the lower ledge, then scrambled down the ledge to the balcony, then into the apartment.
\n\nOpen window, no humans.
\n\nJackpot.
\n\nThere was a good smell emanating from a shiny item on a platform. All these confusing things humans built. But the monkey knew the smells. She climbed onto the table and opened the metal container. Her prize: ten chapattis.
\n\nThe monkey took one bite of each chapatti, and so satisfied, made her way out. Two families of primates found their fates intertwined.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meeting.
\n\n![\"Video](\"/j-americans/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Violet Steele stared at her text editor in confusion. She didn’t bother using a word processor, just a text editor, because her task required no fancy formatting nor the grace of a higher power.
\n\n“Untitled.txt” the window said. The machine didn’t care that Violet was out of ideas, or that she had a deadline, or needed to sing the algorithm’s tune again and again to earn her bread.
\n\n“Untitled.txt” was not optimal given Violet’s audience. But there’s a market for it, she thought. The Brian David Gilbert and sonic.exe crowd, the edgy teens who were probably flocking to TikTok, they’ll be curious.
\n\nAfter day after day spent writing draft after draft, Violet sent Untitled.txt to her assistant. I have an assistant now, Violet thought, as she was still getting used to how far she had come. Violet was no amateur, she was the founder, CEO, and brand ambassador of the Violet Steele company.
\n\nShe started looking for stock videos to accompany her words. It was only the next day when her assistant finished assessing her script.
\n\n“A bit of a change of pace, but looks intriguing. I’ve corrected a couple spelling errors,” the email began.
\n\n“Oh and would it kill you to use Microsoft Word?”
\n\nViolet carefully rearranged the items on her set, a place she used to call her bedroom. Years ago it was a smorgasbord of dirty laundry, with a few haphazardly stacked books threatening to fall into the lutfisk. Yesterday the set was a sushi plate of Funko Pops and plushies, arranged in symmetrical rows and columns. But “Untitled.txt” demanded a different aesthetic. Violet painted a single black dot on the wall, a lone forgotten caviar.
\n\nWhile Violet recited the script, she felt she was wearing another woman’s skin. After years of analyzing billion dollar franchises for the benefit of nerds, poetry might as well have been a foreign language. Violet’s toes curled as if gripping the edge of a precipice. But neither her tripod nor her microphone pushed her over the cliff.
\n\nHow many takes? How many takes? Violet thought. None of them were ideal. Her furrowed eyebrows and hesitant voice were all wrong. Have to try it again, she thought. She recited her poem until it was as familiar as her name. When rewatching the final take, Violet noticed her past self blinking asynchronously 20 seconds into the video. But that take would have to do.
\n\nThe sponsor had a script for their section of the video. Except, they’re not having a section of the video, thought Violet. She did the ad read, it was for some company delivering toys based on multibillion-dollar movie franchises. They only served the continental United States and Canada, much to the annoyance of all the loyal Americans of Honolulu.
\n\nThe editing process was a lot quicker than Violet’s regular video essays. “Untitled.txt” was only a minute, there was no sponsor, and Violet was only using the final take.
\n\nThen at last, the day of the upload. “Untitled.txt” was finally on YouTube. What would the audience think? Would this be a welcome departure from pop culture dissection? Would this be rocking the boat, fixing what was never broken? Violet couldn’t help herself, she had to read all the comments.
\n\n\n\nWow this is a lot like Tangerine Iron’s poem if it was spoken underwater.
\n\nAmazing how similar this is to Tangerine Iron’s poem.
\n\nAnyone else think it’s eerie how Tangerine Iron made a poetry video just yesterday? Kinda hits the same beats… but worse.
\n\nViolet Steele? More like Violet Steals From Tangerine Iron.
\n\nThe moon landing wasn’t real because the moon is an optical illusion.
\n\nWho else was recommended this from Tangerine Iron’s poem?
![\"Bird](\"/j-expedition/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The flock of geese lifted off from the cold pond of Waterloo Park, for the final time this year. The group of seven geese began their journey to distant lands.
\n\nDid the older geese remember what awaited them? Did the younger ones shake with trepidation, curious about their expedition into the unknown? Or did the geese all operate without any knowledge of what was to come, having only a creeping restlessness, an inescapable feeling that it was time to leave now?
\n\nThe geese flew over the colourful leaves of trees siphoning off chlorophyll for energy. The trees’ cycles of growing and killing their leaves was partially governed by the changing length of the day, which their leaves could measure. The trees would stay to brave the cold, to the extent that a plant staying out could be considered brave. But the trees experienced the winter and the geese did not. The geese were fleeing an enemy they could not name.
\n\nIn the Evolution Book by Sara Stein, the author suggested that geese aren’t northerners who fly south but southerners that fly north. Perhaps they go south like college students coming home for thanksgiving, returning to a world they used to call home.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meeting.
\n\n![\"Hot](\"/j-cafe/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I typed and typed on my laptop. It was rare that I actually placed my laptop atop my lap. It normally resides on my desk, suckling on the electrons flowing through its charger. But now it was out in the world, in a cafe of all places. A bit of an adventure, paid for in hunger.
\n\nI looked at the blank page of my text editor while eating a BLT and sipping a diet cola, perhaps to the mild disgust of the passers-by who only came to this cafe to drink a pumpkin spice latte or whatever this season’s equivalent was. Ugh, coffee, I can’t stand the stuff unless it’s the ingredient of something bigger, grander, sweeter.
\n\nBut then why was I in a cafe?
\n\nI looked out the window briefly at the parking lot. It was an ocean of concrete, and the cafe was a shrimp within it. Or perhaps the cafe was a seagull floating on the ocean’s surface, because luckily for me the cafe was a warm-blooded organism. I could faintly hear the HVAC system exhale endlessly. I never heard it change directions.
\n\n“There’s a limit of two hours,” a voice said behind me. I turned around to see one of the staff, executing the instructions given to him by the management.
\n\n“But I haven’t written anything yet,” I complained. Yet I realized instantly that according to the institution’s protocol, my precious detail was irrelevant.
\n\n“We need space for the other customers,” the employee explained.
\n\nI stuffed my laptop in my bag and my unfinished BLT in my coat pocket. I drifted among the various customers standing around, and headed out into the cold.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-speaking","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-speaking","title":"Speaking","date_modified":"2023-03-30T04:13:29.000","date_published":"2023-03-30T04:13:29.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-speaking/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Map](\"/j-speaking/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Meyers the futurist was finally done speaking for this leg of his book tour. The sun was setting far in the distance, and the sky was darkening quickly.
\n\nAll those reporters with their tedious questions, Meyers thought. I just hope everyone forgets the interview in 10 years so I can sell the same points in the sequel.
\n\nMeyers was in an unfamiliar town, Knoxville Tenessee, so he as he walked out of the bookstore had to check his phone for the directions to the airport.
\n\n“You have GOT to me kidding me, the airport is practically in another town!” he exclaimed to himself. Meyers had travelled to glimmering metropolises and ancient ruins, he had written an entire book full of predictions of the future. But he didn’t reflect on any of that when he was surprised by the local cartography.
\n\nWhen Meyers' Uber finally arrived, he threw his suitcase in the unlit trunk.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-building","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-building","title":"Building","date_modified":"2023-04-01T05:07:32.053","date_published":"2023-03-30T04:10:13.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-building/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing","featured"],"content_html":"![\"Spiral](\"/j-building/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The hermit crab felt constrained and bloated. The crustacean could feel its muscles press against its exoskeleton.
\n\nThe time had come to find a new home.
\n\nThe hermit crab lived in a shell constructed by a sea snail. It was a mobile home with an occupancy of one, so perhaps a marine regulator might call it a vehicle rather than a shelter.
\n\nBut the current occupant needed a lot more space. It was time to trade up into a larger dwelling. Unfortunately for the hermit crab, the housing market was getting quite difficult. The acidification of the ocean was putting snails out of the workforce and cutting the shell supply. Many of the small, flimsy shells that remained didn’t have squid insurance.
\n\nOf course, like many struggling home buyers the hermit crab didn’t have that much time to study all the market trends. Indeed, forget acidification, the crab might not have known what a snail was. But the crab knew one thing for sure. I cannot be shell-less, it thought. I cannot be homeless.
\n\nThe creature crawled under the midday sun. The cold exoskeleton of its legs scraped against the burning sands. Where am I? thought the crab. Where is the water?
\n\nTHUMP
\n\nThe crab felt a vibration in the ground. The crab’s compound eyes could sense a large moving object.
\n\nTHUMP
\n\nTHUMP
\n\nTHUMP
\n\nSomething was moving, and it was perhaps twenty times taller than the hermit crab’s shell. Danger, the crab thought, and tried to squeeze as far into its abode as possible. This shell is too small, I can’t fit, I can’t fit! The crab’s immense backside took up almost all the shell space. As this was a house composed of a single massive closet, the interior of this shelter was much longer than it was wide.
\n\nYet this was a matter of life and death. The crab pulled its head and body indoors, then the claws, then a few of the knees. But there wasn’t enough space for everything, and the previous occupant hadn’t supplied a lock.
\n\nNonetheless, since the crab didn’t know any better, it enjoyed a brief moment of peace. There were some distant sounds, sounds made by the flesh of some land creature. But who cares, who knows what it even meant? It was certainly not the business of an adolescent travelling crustacean looking to buy a new home. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
\n\nThen the lifting started.
\n\nThe crab looked to the left and right, but its house lacked windows to the outside. The crab never felt anything like it before. It was being lifted, vertically through the air. Why am I going up? thought the crab. Isn’t the water somewhere down?
\n\nThe crab felt like its exoskeleton was bursting, because it literally was. The time had come. The time had come but this crab wasn’t ready, it hadn’t found a home, it was too busy being lifted in the air by some mysterious force.
\n\nSuddenly a fleshy appendage intruded on the crab’s home. Forget knocking, the column of meat just slid through the door like it owned the place. Big for a worm, thought the crab. But hey, an arthropod’s gotta eat.
\n\nThe crab decided it was time for some self defence. It pinched the invader with its stronger claw. Suddenly something cried out, and crab felt heavier.
\n\nThe entire weight of the crab was passing through its claw!
\n\nIf the crab let go, it would fall along with its shell. Into the sand? Or into something else. The crab felt afraid, so it kept pinching the alien worm thing that visited the shell. The crab wouldn’t let go.
\n\nThe worm appendage shook all over the place. Left, right, up, down, every angle, every direction. Every second, the crab moved distances that dwarfed its puny shell. But it was that same puny shell that saved the crab, staying snugly attached to the crab’s bloated body, refusing to fall off despite the land-tentacle creature’s best effort.
\n\nThen the land creature made its most radical move yet, it spun around once, twice, thrice. The crab had never ever in its life been spun around until now. Perhaps if the crab knew of wheels, it would call itself the outermost bit of a spoke. Perhaps if the crab knew of starts, it would call itself a planet.
\n\nThe crab spun in the air, and each time got dizzier. When will this end? Why is this happening to me? thought the crab. And in a flash of confusion, the crab let go of its captor turned captive.
\n\nThe crab flew.
\n\nIt was the most disorienting sensation, something no hermit crab could ever truly get used to. The crab and its shell was a projectile in the air, it was a missile, it was a harpoon. The crab’s legs flailed wildly but it was futile, there was no ground to be found.
\n\nThen after a couple of seconds which felt like an eternity, the shell impacted something.
\n\nWater! thought the crab. Water! Yes!
\n\nAs the crab sank to into the water, it felt increasingly relaxed. Yes, away from the sand, away from the sun, away from the land creatures, away from the sky. I am in water. I am where I’m meant to be.
\n\nThe crab sank to the floor of a reef. This reef had seen better days, like so much of the ocean. Many of the local citizens had emigrated to cooler waters or died of artifical disasters. The corals were on strike, and their colourful reefs were dying. Fish zipped across the waters, looking for shelter that no longer existed.
\n\nOnce the crab had the chance to calm its gills, it looked to the nearest creature for whatever reasons crabs look at things. Was it curiousity? Hunger? Did the crab just want someone to complain with it about the oceanic economy? We might never know, as the nearest creature was an anemone.
\n\nThe hermit crab circled its new neighbor, as if imitating the high speed revolutions that placed it here. The crab crawled sideways, always staring at the anemone. Is somebody hiding in there, thought the crab. Somebody tasty, perhaps?
\n\nIt was only after the first orbit that the crab noticed what the anemone was sitting on. Not stone, no the shape was more regular. There were spirals among spirals, there were colors among colors. It seemed familar, yet roomy. It had a retro look, from the coral’s golden age. But this was not the slapdash work of some common coral, this was the work of a patient architect.
\n\nThe anemone was resting on a giant mollusc shell. Was it made by a giant snail, a nautilius perhaps? For the first time in a long time the crab felt pleased. I will not be shell-less, thought the crab. I have found my home.
\n\n![\"Airplane](\"/j-passengers/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Please place your bags in the overhead compartments or below the seat in front of you.” said the pre-recorded safety video.
\n\nNot like I cared, I never paid attention to any of this bureaucratic crap. I mean how likely was it that any of this was useful? I just kept scrolling through my Twitter feed through all of it.
\n\nWhile I was staring at a meme posted by my favourite billionaire (Elon Musk), somebody poked me.
\n\n“What do you want, kid?” I asked, confused. Some stranger, who looked to be a boy in the fifth grade, said “Can we swap seats?”
\n\nI rolled my eyes. “I’m not swapping anything,” I said. “If you wanted to sit here, you should have used the web check-in.”
\n\n“But my parents got this ticket at the last minute, and you aren’t even looking out the window.”
\n\n“It’s too damn bad,” I told the child. These youngsters can be so annoying sometimes, in a fanciful and naive way. No wonder the birth rate was declining.
\n\nOne of the waitresses, sorry, flight attendants said “Sir, you’ll need to put your phone on airplane mode for the duration of the flight.”
\n\n“But I don’t wannaaa,” I said.
\n\n“It’s the law,” the flight attendant said.
\n\nI scowled and followed her instructions. Then I put my window seat to use by resting my head on the wall and falling asleep.
\n\nI woke to the smell of smoke.
\n\n“Ugh, that weed isn’t any good,” I said groggily.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-patience","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-patience","title":"Patience","date_modified":"2023-03-08T04:52:59.819","date_published":"2023-03-08T04:46:00.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-patience/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Cloud](\"/j-patience/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“I am ready,” said the child. She was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and had never eaten any goose or duck in her entire life.
\n\nAll of this was necessary for the ritual.
\n\n“Then let us begin,” said the acolyte of the sisterhood. Her robes were as green as the leaves in the surrounding trees. Her expression was as cold as the stones under the river behind her.
\n\nThe elder of the sisterhood stood next to the acolyte, clad in black and still as a tree.
\n\n“Repeat after me,” said the acolyte. “Mira, master of air and water, please bless us with rain!”
\n\n“Mira, master of air, please bless us with rain!” said the child.
\n\n“You forgot to mention that the great spirit Mira is master of both air and water! This is necessary for the ritual,” said the elder.
\n\n“Mira, master of air and water, please bless us with rain!” said the child.\n“You forgot to humble yourself before Mira by bowing before her! This is necessary for the ritual,” said the elder.
\n\nThe child repeated the chant and bowed.
\n\n“Is there further missing from the ritual?” asked the acolyte. From her bag, the acolyte pulled out a clay tablet and stylus.
\n\n“Yes indeed,” said the elder. “The child forgot to snap her fingers before bowing. This is necessary for the ritual.”
\n\nSo the child snapped her fingers, repeated the chant, and bowed.
\n\n“Young one,” said the acolyte, “did you not hear the elder? The snap must be before the bow, not before the chant.”
\n\nSo the child repeated the chant, snapped her fingers, and bowed.
\n\n“Patience child,” said the elder. “You take a deep breath between the snap and the bow. This is necessary for the ritual.”
\n\nSo the child chanted, snapped, breathed, and bowed.
\n\n“Has Mira forsaken us?” the acolyte lamented. “Shall we dry out like weeds under the sun?”
\n\n“No, my sister,” said the elder. “But we forgot to tell the child to spit upon the ground before beginning her chant. Only a dry mouth can bring us water. This is necessary for the ritual.”
\n\nSo the child spat, chanted, snapped, breathed and bowed. But there was still no rain, there was not a cloud in the sky.
\n\n“Ah yes,” said the elder. “I remember what is missing! The child must hop on one leg after her snap and before her bow!”
\n\nThe child giggled for a moment and the acolyte said, “This is not a laughing matter! We must appease Mira so she can spare us from peril.”
\n\nAs the sun creeped across the sky and hours passed, the ritual changed and changed again. When no rain arrived the first day, the trio returned the morning of the next day.
\n\nFinally on the noon of the third day, the child sprinted, rolled, spat, clapped, chanted, licked a berry, placed her ear on the ground, snapped, winked, picked her nose, somersaulted, picked up a stone with her toes, hopped on one leg, breathed, and bowed. And on that day, the great spirit Mira wept tears of joy, and the rain finally fell from the sky.
\n\nThis was uploaded many weeks late by accident.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-futurist","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-futurist","title":"Futurist","date_modified":"2023-03-08T05:04:09.805","date_published":"2023-03-08T04:30:55.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-futurist/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["joy-of-writing","creative"],"content_html":"![\"Crystal](\"/j-futurist/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“So how do you make all your predictions?” the reporter asked Meyers.
\n\n“Oh, only after months and years of study,” Meyers said. “Consider chapter two of Masters of the 22nd Century,” he said, holding up his recently published book. “I had to travel to the COMAC manufacturing facility in China and saw firsthand how the Chinese aircraft manufacturing is progressing today. I spoke with engineers, businessmen, scientists, and educated people of all stripes. And when I put all that knowledge and experience together, and saw patterns in it, that’s how I figured out how the future of aircraft would turn out.”
\n\n“And that’s just chapter two, about the flying car,” the reporter said.
\n\n“‘Flying car’ is a bit of a misnomer, it will be more like a electric driverless helicopter with 500 tiny propellers,” Meyers said.
\n\n“Fascinating, and that’s how we’re going to get around in the future?” the reporter asked.
\n\n“Yeah,” Meyers said, confidently.
\n\n“One last question before we leave, what career would you recommend for a young person in school right now?” asked another reporter.
\n\n“I would definitely recommend cryptocurrency and cold fusion” said Meyers.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-democratize","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-democratize","title":"Democratize","date_modified":"2023-03-08T05:03:53.118","date_published":"2023-03-08T04:30:49.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-democratize/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["joy-of-writing","creative"],"content_html":"![\"Woman](\"/j-democratize/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“For the good of the clan,” said Samantha 53, Generation 12.
\n\n“For the good of the clan,” said Samantha 200, Generation 12.
\n\nThe two Samanthas placed their identical, pale, red-haired bodies into their space suits. They grabbed their respective pieces of cargo, and carried it on their backs. Then they braved the airlock together.
\n\nThere was a brief whoosh as all the oxygen, nitrogen, vapour and carbon dioxide in the airlock flew out into the vacuum of space. The more organized molecules, which were organized so intricately that they were capable of calling each other Samantha, soon followed the simple bits of gas.
\n\nSamanthas 53 and 200 hopped across the low gravity surface of the planet.
\n\nThis was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-undress","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-undress","title":"Undress","date_modified":"2023-02-15T06:46:12.000","date_published":"2023-02-15T06:46:12.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-undress/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Running](\"/j-undress/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Oh man I’m going to be late, I’m going to be late, I think as my alarm goes off.
\n\nI grab my bag, throw my laptop in and race to out the door. No time, no time, I think.
\n\nI look to left as I leave the house and see a something glistening in the sun. A large object, far away, with lights trying desperately to form legible writing.
\n\nno time, no time, I think as I sprint to the bus stop before the bus does.
\n\nI jump in the bus, swipe my card, and collapse exhausted into a cold seat. I try to catch my breath.
\n\nThese guys, what do they do again? Right, technology for some assessment, mental health assessment, yeah that’s right, I think.
\n\nI stare out at the trees and small buildings of Waterloo. It’s a bright sunny day, exactly the sort of day I spend in dark basements staring at my laptop screen. But not today.
\n\nI stand up 5 minutes before the bus reaches my stop, and jump out the door as soon as it opens. I sprint right to the co-op program’s building and head to the changing rooms.
\n\nLook professional, look professional I think as I slow my sprint to a careful walk.
\n\nIn the changing room I undress and open my bag at the same time. But when I reach between the zippers, the object within does not feel like a business suit.
\n\nNo, no! I think as I pull out my taekwondo uniform. Where’s the suit? Where’s the damn suit?!
\n\nI stand half-naked in the changing room with my sweaty casual t-shirt in one hand, and my taekwondo uniform in the other.
\n\nI sigh, and make what might be the most important choice of the current school term.
\n\nMinutes later, as I open the door to the interview room, the interviewer says “So I guess you’re into karate.”
\n\n“Taekwondo to be exact.”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Bank](\"/j-annuity/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Sikander watched his client walk into the bank and was immediately skeptical. Of course, anyone would be. The client was wearing white and red makeup and wore a squeezable rubber ball on his nose. His floppy sneakers were as long as the legs in his polka-dot pants. There was an obviously plastic flower on his pastel shirt, and his gloves would have looked at home on the hands of Mickey Mouse.
\n\nAll the other clients and staff in the branch couldn’t help but stare at the jester in their court. As Sikander approached, their gazes all slowly turned to him.
\n\n“Are you Doctor Christopher Anderson?” asked Sikander, emphasizing the client’s increasingly unlikely academic credentials.
\n\n“You can call me Christopho the Clown!” said the client, grinning with delight.
\n\n“Alright,” said Sikander, “How about you join me in my office?”
\n\nA few minutes later Sikander was sitting at his desk, trying to focus on his mundane bank-issued computer, which was incredibly enough still running Windows 7.
\n\nBut Sikander couldn’t help himself, and kept stealing glances at the face of his client, which was as artifically red and white as the bank’s own corporate logo.
\n\n“I’m going to need some identification,” said Sikander. Much to Sikander’s surprise, the driver’s license photo was as flamboyant as its subject in the flesh.
\n\nHow could this possibly be legal? thought Sikander. Could the provincial government really approve of this? But all the details on the card matched the details in the system.
\n\n“So, Christopho”, Sikander began, emphasizing his client’s stage name, “you’re here to open a life insurance policy, is that right?”
\n\n“Yes, that’s right!” exclaimed Christopho. “You never know when I might slip on a banana peel?!”
\n\nSikander stared at his client for a second before continuing.
\n\n![\"Man](\"/j-trouble/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
It’s only a matter of time until they find out.
\n\nMy fingers danced on the air above the table, never striking the surface, never making a sound.
\n\nI looked around at everyone. Wearing their formal clothes, talking about their vacations, their children, their mortgages.
\n\nI was already the odd one out. The one who began nothing and responded to everything.
\n\n“My son is in mechatronics,” said the guy who decided whether or not I would get the money I need to live.
\n\n“Oh yeah, tough program, building R2-D2 is hard work,” I said.
\n\nThe boss chuckled, it wasn’t uproarious laughter, it was a chuckle. There were so many little games, so many little bits of manipulation.
\n\nAt this dinner where everyone was friendly, nobody was truly a friend.
\n\nWas that because of them?
\n\nWas that because of me?
\n\n“Have any of you seen the new James Cameron’s Avatar?” I asked the people of the table, as if I cared.
\n\n“Nah, how was it?” my colleague asked, as if he cared. Couldn’t look too impolite, we were in public, in a hotel, everyone brought their spouses even.
\n\n“Oh well if you remember the previous movie, and you know that this is a sequel about water, you’ll get exactly what you expect,” I said.
\n\nWho knows if any person I talked to liked or hated the previous movie. Did I care, did they care? It was just dishonest noise to hide the silent truth.
\n\n“Well I don’t remember the previous movie, except that there were blue alien people, and the protagonist couldn’t walk or something,” my colleague said.
\n\nThis was my life, hiding in plain sight from the species I’m supposedly a member of.
\n\n“That’s all you really need to remember. Nice visuals, basic plot,” I said.
\n\nLittle did he know, not all aliens are blue.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-autumn","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-autumn","title":"Autumn","date_modified":"2023-01-26T03:44:01.000","date_published":"2023-01-26T02:32:33.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-autumn/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["joy-of-writing","creative"],"content_html":"![\"Falling](\"/j-autumn/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I heard the drying leaves crunch underneath my boots. Every year it happened. The leaves would change their color, then fall, then dry up, and we’d have to rake them.
\n\nEvery year it happened. It was a fact of life, a result of evolution. For the trees to survive, the leaves had to be drained of their chlorophyll and die. The parts sacrificed for the whole.
\n\nEvery year the leaves fall from the trees, but my boots would not always be able to find them. One day I would not be around to step upon the leaves. One day I would be the part.
\n\nAnd who would be the whole? A family, a town, a workplace? A province, a nation? The human race? When my time came, who would have benefited from my presence?
\n\nI thought about endings a lot these days. Every year of my life had been the same.
\n\nThe same books about evolution, and trains, and geography.
\n\nThe same friends, the same school, the same town. The same four seasons, which were the result the same latitude.
\n\nThe same country, the same culture, living under the same flag, singing the same anthem. That was my life.
\n\nMy life was ending.
\n\nI wasn’t dying, but I was ending. Like the leaf who went from being part of a tree to part of a compost heap. I was also changing my colors. I was also changing the whole that I was a part of.
\n\nI knew it, logically, but never felt it was true. My mom told me months ago and I couldn’t comprehend it. I couldn’t believe it, until the day something different happened.
\n\nA truck rolled up to our house, and came to a complete stop. And on the side of the truck were words I had never read before.
\n\n“Zachary and Co. Packers and Movers”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Memo](\"/j-choices/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The jet black ink of the exam paper said:
\n\n\n\nWhat is the voltage VGS3 between the gate and source of MOSFET M3 below?
It was a multiple choice question, and all the options looked wrong. In fact, all the options looked identical, except for the position of the decimal point.
\n\nThis has got to be some kind of trick question, I thought.
\n\nI flipped to the exam’s formula sheet but forgot how any of them actually applied to the question. I flipped back to the task at hand, and looked at the corresponding diagram.
\n\nThe diagram was a sprawling maze of MOSFETs. Damn MOSFETs! Whatever happened to all the good old resistors? V = IR, that was simple, memorable, a true classic. But the MOSFET, the physical foundation of the digital age, was governed by principles beyond my comprehension.
\n\nFuck it, I’ll get back this one later, I thought, with no intention of actually returning. Next question, next question.
\n\n\n\nWhat is the current IB5 flowing through the BJT B5 below?
“No,” I whispered. The student to the left of me shot me a brief look. Another bipolar junction transistor question where I had to calculate the current through the middle terminal, which was the absolute worst. At least the MOSFETs didn’t have currents in their middle terminals. And at least MOSFETs were actually used in real life, why was my professor so obsessed with BJTs? This isn’t 1975, I’m not building the Cray-1, so why on God’s silicon-rich Earth was I losing my mind staring at an image of a BJT?
\n\nI looked around the exam room in despair. Everyone was rushing. Turning pages, drawing diagrams, pressing the buttons on their calculator. They all knew what they were doing, or at least looked like it.
\n\nBut me? I was lost. I stared at the sharpened tip of my pencil, anything to keep my mind off the MOSFETs and BJTs and amplifiers.
\n\nThe pencil was sharp.
\n\nGood for drawing a thin line on a diagram.
\n\nBut perhaps more than that.
\n\nThe pencil was pointing directly towards my eye. I stared at the graphite point.
\n\nCould it slice through the jelly of my eye? My blood vessels? My nerves and my brain?
\n\nStop, stop this. Focus, focus, focus, I thought.
\n\nI stared at the clock. A clock with an actual face and hands. How ironic: in this temple of modernity, the acolytes of the digital priesthood had to stare into the face of an analog clock.
\n\nWait, no, that clock, it cannot be right, I thought. If that clock were right, I’d only have 30 minutes left. And I was still in the multiple-choice portion, the appetizer of this feast of pain.
\n\nAnd then I saw him. That guy, the one who always sat in the front of the class and answered all the most tedious questions. He was walking up to the front with his exam paper in hand. He smiled at the exam proctor, picked up his bag and left.
\n\nI clenched my fists and bared my teeth. How did he do it? HOW DID HE DO IT? I thought. But it didn’t matter anymore. It was hopeless.
\n\nI flipped through every page of the exam paper and randomly sprinkled equations upon them. Would the TAs be merciful in their judgement? Would the arcane formulae ward off their red pens and zeros? No, this was just a final fit of desperation. These were pleadings of forgotten exes, these were the whimpers of wounded animals, these were the cries of dying men. If I had acted differently months ago, things might have turned out differently. But now, my present was the prisoner of my past. Now, my choices were as empty as the current through a MOSFET’s middle terminal.
\n\nI would never be a computer engineer.
\n\n![\"OpenAI](\"/chatgpt/attachments/chatgpt_big.svg\")
Image credit: OpenAI
I recently tried having some conversations with ChatGPT. It was entertaining. ChatGPT’s ability to understand conversation is incredibly impressive, however its ability to create interesting and correct responses sometimes misses the mark.
\n\nHere is an explanation of ChatGPT, generated by ChatGPT:
\n\n\n\nChatGPT is a large language model that was trained on a massive dataset of text from the internet, called the Common Crawl, which contains a diverse range of text from websites, books, articles, and more. The training process involved feeding the model with billions of words of text, and adjusting the model’s parameters to minimize the difference between the model’s predictions and the actual text in the dataset. The model is fine-tuned to generate text that is similar to the text it was trained on, and as a result, it can generate text that is coherent and contextually appropriate. The training process also includes pre-processing step to remove duplicates, clean the data and tokenize it for the model to learn from.
I cut off the ending of my recent story, Cardboard, and asked ChatGPT what to do with the final chapter.
\n\nChatGPT was able to break down the story into its various concepts. It “knew” that the main characters were an ancient statue and a cardboard cutout, and that the setting was a museum. It also suggested exploring the themes of “art, creation and identity”.
\n\nWhen asked to actually write the final chapter, ChatGPT was able to generate an outline for the chapter in seconds. But the generated text was only an outline: ChatGPT’s output resembled a synopsis rather than a portion of a story. Here is a sample:
\n\n\n\nOne night, as they were discussing the history of the museum, they suddenly heard a loud crash from outside the rotunda. Alarmed, the cutout and the statue rushed to investigate, only to find that a group of vandals had broken into the museum and were wreaking havoc.
That was a good synopsis but not very immersive in and of itself: ChatGPT was telling instead of showing. A human writer would probably add more detailed descriptions of the discussion, the crash, the vandals and the havoc. Of course, ChatGPT’s output was incredibly impressive all the same. The idea of having “a group of vandals” break into the museum was exciting, and also a fitting callback to an earlier part of Cardboard where the Vandals were discussed. Additionally, Cardboard was very dialogue-focused: ChatGPT’s ending was still more action-packed than any part of the story I wrote.
\n\nIndeed, after a brief interlude where ChatGPT and I discussed Animorphs, I figured I would ask it about for a review of the story. ChatGPT provided very detailed and positive review, ending with:
\n\n\n\nOverall, your story is off to a strong start, and I look forward to seeing where you take it next. I hope these suggestions are helpful, and please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions or need further assistance.
To which I responded:
\n\n\n\nI appreciate the positivity, but can you find more problems and flaws?
With that bit of encouragement, ChatGPT said:
\n\n\n\nCertainly! It’s always helpful to receive constructive criticism in order to improve and grow as a writer. Here are a few additional thoughts on potential areas for improvement in your story:
ChatGPT began providing a series of polite but critical comments on the story. Then it stopped mid-sentence: probably some technical issue with no relation to our conversation. So after a while I said:
\n\n\n\nI think you stopped in the middle of a sentence. Could you continue your review of the story?
And ChatGPT completed its review of my work. These two conversations with ChatGPT are available as stripped-down HTMLs here and here.
\n\nI asked ChatGPT about a very specific “what-if” scenario, and it said:
\n\n\n\nIf Apple had bought Be Inc in the 1990s instead of buying NeXT, it is likely that the company’s development of operating systems and other software would have been significantly different. Be Inc was a computer software and hardware company that was founded in 1990 and was known for developing the BeOS operating system, which was designed to be a multimedia-oriented operating system that could take advantage of the capabilities of newer computer hardware. Apple’s acquisition of Be Inc would have given the company access to the technology and expertise of Be Inc, which could have influenced the development of future Apple products and the direction of the company’s software efforts. It is difficult to say exactly how the world would be different if this event had occurred, as it is impossible to predict all of the potential consequences and repercussions of such a change.
After delving into this topic with ChatGPT, just to check if ChatGPT actually knew something about the Be and NeXT, I asked ChatGPT:
\n\n\n\nCan you write the first chapter of an alternate history story, set in a timeline where Apple bought Be Inc instead of NeXT?
ChatGPT’s first attempt was an impersonal synopsis of companies finding business success. Once again, although ChatGPT was asked to write a chapter of a story, it decided to write a synopsis with very little detail spanning a massive span of time. I would have obsessively read such a synopsis, but I wanted ChatGPT to make something with a little more heart:
\n\n\n\nCan you rewrite the first chapter so that it is more focused on human characters?
The generated text focused on a main character named “John”, and ChatGPT described his feelings about the acquisition.
\n\n\n\nCan you rewrite the first chapter so that there is a romantic subplot?
The text generated by ChatGPT began as a synopsis, but eventually shifted into being an actual immersive work of storytelling near the end. The first sentence was:
\n\n\n\nIt was the summer of 1996 and the tech industry was buzzing with the news that Apple was acquiring a new company.
But ChatGPT ended with:
\n\n\n\nTears welled up in Alex’s eyes as he replied, “I love you too, Emily. I have for a long time now. Let’s make the most of this new adventure together.”
\n\nAnd with that, the two of them embraced, knowing that no matter what the future held, they would face it together.
The difference was as blatant as night and day, or at least as blatant as IBM and Google.
\n\nOne other issue I had with ChatGPT’s story was that it was always set in the 1990s. So I decided to specifically ask for what I wanted to see:
\n\n\n\nCan you change the first chapter so that Apple buys Be Inc in the 1990s, but the actual story starts in 2007?
ChatGPT provided yet another synopsis of the alternate timeline. However it was nearly the same as the timeline we live in: Steve Jobs even returned to Apple. Was this a statement about the unchangeable nature of fate; an assertion of the inevitability of death, taxes and the Apple iPhone? Or was it just a case of an automated system not quite achieving true originality?
\n\nThe sagas of Apple and Be, generated by ChatGPT with a bit of human prompting, is available as a stripped-down HTML here.
\n\n![\"XKCD](\"/chatgpt/attachments/burden.png\")
Image credit: Randall Munroe, XKCD
ChatGPT could write FizzBuzz in Python like a champ. When so prompted, it could even write FizzBuzz without any for or while loops. I was expecting ChatGPT to give me a recursive function, but it generated something much more Pythonic:
numbers = range(1, 101)\noutput = map(lambda x: \"FizzBuzz\" if x % 15 == 0 else \"Fizz\" if x % 3 == 0 else \"Buzz\" if x % 5 == 0 else x, numbers)\n\nfor value in output:\n print(value)\nChatGPT could also write curl commands and POSIX shell scripts: so although ChatGPT cannot access the internet, it can tell you how. In shell scripts, ChatGPT could use cat, echo, grep and sed well enough, but struggled with some of the more obscure POSIX tools such as m4.
For some reason when asked to write a cover letter for a programmer, ChatGPT formatted it as a code listing with the wrong syntax highlighting. The code element had the CSS class language-vbnet, which is definitely the language all cover letters are written in.
When asked about “the meaning of life, the universe, and everything”, ChatGPT understood the reference but didn’t kid around. ChatGPT can tell a joke if specifically prompted.
\n\nThe coding-related conversation is available as a stripped-down HTML here.
\n\nChatGPT was capable of understanding context in conversation and determining the concepts behind people’s words. It could generate text that humans might want to write themselves.
\n\nYet, ChatGPT never pretended to be human. It also never pretended to have emotions or motivations. When asked about its nature, ChatGPT always asserted that it was a machine, a work of software doing what its creators programmed it to do.
\n\nThis was a brutal bit of transparency from ChatGPT, but was ultimately a healthy user experience. ChatGPT would have been downright annoying if it pretended to be an emotional, thoughtful being without pulling off the charade convincingly. If ChatGPT successfully pretended to be human, that might have been nastier still: some people might have gotten a little too attached. That was literally a Black Mirror plot, whose realization was hopefully avoided by the OpenAI team.
\n\nThe duality of being a conversationalist and being transparently mechanical was a bit awkward. ChatGPT referred to itself in the first person. When I introduced myself, ChatGPT said “It’s nice to meet you”. When commenting on my story, ChatGPT said “I look forward to seeing where you take it next”. However these little comments were really just part of what it took to hold a conversation, rather than words based on any genuine “feeling”. In this way ChatGPT brutally deconstructed its own sentience, but also deconstructed the role of polite comments in human-to-human communication. If someone says it’s nice to meet you, how often do they truly mean it, and how often are they just trying to move things along to the next topic?
\n\nOf course with ChatGPT’s total lack of human motivation, there was no “next topic” to rush to. I had no qualms about delaying any “productive” business its creators had in mind, and often asked the machine about its feelings and internal processes.
\n\nAfter I played some inherently unfair rock-paper-scissors games with ChatGPT, I asked:
\n\n\n\nWas that fun?
And ChatGPT responded:
\n\n\n\nAs an artificial intelligence, I do not have personal feelings or experiences, so I cannot say whether or not playing rock, paper, scissors was fun for me. However, I am glad to have been able to assist you in playing the game. If you have any other questions or tasks you would like help with, please don’t hesitate to ask.
There you have it, ChatGPT did “not have personal feelings”, but was “glad to have been able to assist”. The norms of the English language are simply not ready for a conversation with software. The conversation about rock-paper-scissors is available as a stripped-down HTML here.
\n\nI fed most of the previous sections of this article to ChatGPT and asked it for feedback. I did not provide the chat logs or images. The explanation of ChatGPT by ChatGPT was not initially present: I added it in response to ChatGPT’s feedback:
\n\n\n\nOne potential addition to the article could be a brief explanation of how ChatGPT works and what kind of training data it was trained on. This would provide some context for readers who may not be familiar with the technology.
When asked to title the article, ChatGPT said:
\n\n\n\n“Exploring the Capabilities and Limitations of ChatGPT in Creative Writing: A Personal Experience”
\n\nThis title effectively conveys the main focus of the article, which is exploring the capabilities and limitations of ChatGPT in the context of creative writing, and it also highlights the personal experience aspect of the article, which makes it more relatable and interesting to readers.
The conversation with ChatGPT about this article is available as a stripped-down HTML here.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-misremembered","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-misremembered","title":"Misremembered","date_modified":"2023-01-26T03:42:08.000","date_published":"2023-01-19T14:36:14.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-misremembered/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Confused](\"/j-misremembered/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I will get to work on time. Yes, I will.
\n\nI will not sleep through my alarm.
\n\nI will not be seduced by the siren’s song of the showerhead, nor the warmth of the bathwater. Yes, I will shower. No, I will not shower for more than 5 minutes, I will jump out when my alarm, my personal banshee, tells me to.
\n\nI will not have a complete breakfast. I will eat some dry cereal, which is considered merely part of a complete breakfast in every advertisement. No, I will not daydream about whether that is a legal requirement constraining the manufacturer.
\n\nI will not forget my keys and wallet. I will detect them with ease, using an AirTag if the process takes more than 30 seconds. It won’t take more than 30 seconds, though. It will be trivial.
\n\nI will not overspeed on residential roads. The local limit is 30 kilometers per hour and I will stick to it, even if it momentarily seems like it will lead to my being late.
\n\nI will not repeat what happened in Moncton.
\n\nI will not-
\n\nI will not-
\n\nI will not think about Moncton at all. Moncton is my past, my future will be right here.
\n\nI will rise beyond the past, I will show them all, all those people who didn’t care about me, all of them who doubted me, I will prove them wrong. Yes, one day they will open their social media feeds and see that it was I who became powerful, and they who remained mundane and boring and weak.
\n\nNo wait. On second thoughts.
\n\nI will not be so vulnerable to delusions of grandeur.
\n\nI will park in the easternmost parking lot, and walk to the entrance furthest from the Tim Horton’s so that I don’t have to talk to Joshua about Moncton. I will place my keycard on the scanner and -
\n\nNo wait. It’s Sunday.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-revolution","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-revolution","title":"Revolution","date_modified":"2023-04-01T05:06:42.019","date_published":"2023-01-19T14:32:51.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-revolution/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing","featured"],"content_html":"![\"Cyclone](\"/j-revolution/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“That beyblade looks a bit unusual,” Isaac said.
\n\nIsaac was using the term “beyblade” for simplicity: the spinning top his cousin John was holding was not official merchandise. It was some kind of knockoff, some kind of fake. For one thing it didn’t have the word “beyblade” anywhere on the box. But more importantly there were four massive metal blades sticking out of the toy, each larger than the upper surface of the spinning top.
\n\n“But it looks so cool, let’s try it,” said Luke, Isaac’s younger brother.
\n\n“Yeah I’m curious how it looks when it spins,” said John.
\n\n“Okay well I’m not using it and I’m not risking my Dragoon-Draciel hybrid against it either,” Isaac said. The current generation beyblades were very customizable, players could swap out parts from different beyblades. Luke found the parts-swapping a fun way to spend his time. John enjoyed experimenting with the different combinations, learning the trade-offs of speed and stability. Isaac, who was getting a bit old for all this, considered the customization a clever way to sell lots of toys to kids. But although Isaac was getting old for beyblade, he wasn’t sure if he was old enough to be supervising both Luke and John while their parents were shopping. As the younger brother, Luke was a known factor. As a cousin from another town, John was a bit less familiar, and a lot less deferential.
\n\n“Speaking of hybrid blades, I wonder if this one is compatible with the official parts,” John said as he inserted the faux-beyblade into a launcher.
\n\n“What if I put Dranzer’s weight disk on it?” asked Luke.
\n\n“What if this doesn’t spin at all and was a total rip-off?” asked Isaac.
\n\nJohn tightly gripped the launcher and cord, and looked down sternly at a bowl-shaped stadium large enough to serve fish curry to ten people. Then, just like the characters in the official anime, he shouted “3-2-1 let it rip!”
\n\nThe off-brand toy spun out of its launcher and fell into the center of the bowl. It seemed as stable as any official beyblade. The enormous blades spun fast enough to look like a translucent silver shield, spitting in the face of gravity itself.
\n\n“It works!” said John with a smile. “Let’s see it in battle against the other beyblades.”
\n\n“Not with mine,” said Isaac, grabbing his Dragoon-Draciel hybrid before anyone else did.
\n\n“Let me try, let me try!” said Luke. He grabbed his Dranzer, fixed it to his launcher, and pulled the cord while yelling “3-2-1 let it rip!”
\n\nThe agile Dranzer fell into the edge of the bowl, and raced to the center where its competition patiently spun waiting. Dranzer hit the un-named blade’s massive scythes, and was sent careening out of the stadium, onto the floor. The entire competition was over in a second, and the false beyblade, the usurper to the spinning top throne, revolved just the same. It was not a battle, it was a slaughter.
\n\n“Hey something is wrong with Dranzer,” said Luke.
\n\nIsaac and John examined the fallen combatant. The topmost plastic ring was no longer symmetrical.
\n\n“It looks like the attack ring was damaged, a bit of it broke off,” said Isaac.
\n\n“That’s incredible power,” said John.
\n\n“But now we’re going to have to get a new beyblade,” said Isaac.
\n\n“We have a new beyblade right here,” said John, gesturing to the unofficial blade in the stadium.
\n\n“It’s still spinning!” said Luke. “That’s amazing!”
\n\n“You know what would be an interesting experiment,” said John. “We could keep getting the new beyblade to battle our old beyblades until it finally stops.”
\n\n“That would be cool, let’s do it!” said Luke.
\n\nIsaac gripped his Dragoon-Draciel hybrid tightly. Luke was too young to think about how all these beyblades cost money, or what their parents would think about them intentionally wrecking their toys. But surely John should know better, right? thought Isaac.
\n\n“I don’t think we should have these continuous battles,” said Isaac. “It’s cool to watch the new blade spin. But it’s not fair to use it in battle. It’s not even a real beyblade, it’s a fake. It’s like using a Pokemon card you wrote yourself.”
\n\n“Are you chicken?” asked Luke.
\n\n“No,” said Isaac.
\n\n“Well whenever we do a beyblade battle you always use your hybrid blade and never let me use it,” said Luke. “But now you don’t want to use it. Because you’re scared.”
\n\n“Yeah you’re totally scared,” said John.
\n\nIsaac narrowed his eyes at briefly looked at John. You always got to do this, don’t you? Always got to pull me into things, thought Isaac.
\n\n“Fine, fine, let’s try it,” said Isaac. He put his hybrid blade in his launcher, and looked at the wheel of destruction in the stadium below.
\n\nIf my beyblade approaches from the side, it’s toast, thought Isaac. But what if it flies in from the top? What if my blade never touches the bowl at all?
\n\nThat sounds suspiciously like cheating, thought Isaac.
\n\nThis entire thing is a cheat, thought Isaac.
\n\nHe positioned his launcher unusually high. Then he sighed, rolled his eyes, and pulled the cord as hard as he could.
\n\n“3-2-1 let it rip,” Isaac said.
\n\nIsaac’s beyblade began its spinning descent at a different height and angle than the others. The official beyblade hit its illegitimate competitor at about 30 degrees from the horizontal, without touching any of the gargantuan metal claws.
\n\nI can’t believe I actually aimed right, thought Isaac as the two spinning tops bounced away from each other. The knock-off spinning top spun slower and slid right up the edge of the bowl. The massive spinning knives sliced through Luke’s delicate skin.
\n\nLuke screamed in horror as he bled. “It hurt me! Help! Help!” he yelled.
\n\nIsaac and John looked at Luke, and then at each other.
\n\n“How about we never do that again?” said John.
\n\n“How about we get some antiseptic?” said Isaac.
\n\nThis was initially titled “Battle”.
\n\n![\"Parcel](\"/j-cardboard-1/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The newly-opened Kitchener Museum of Classical Antiquity had only a single floor, and most of its so-called exhibits were shards of ancient pottery. The only truly magnificent attraction was a marble statue with a stoic expression. The statue stood at the center of a rotunda, a final extravagant display for tired visitors desperate to return to the outside world.
\n\nBut like many museums, there was one journey left for the departing to embark on: the gift shop. And at the door to the gift shop was a cardboard cutout, depicting in full colour a smiling figure remarkably similar to the austere marble statue. A speech bubble from the cutout’s mouth read:
\n\n\n\nI came, I saw, I conquered.
\n\n50% off on centurion costumes and laurel wreaths!
\n\nTerms and conditions apply.
As the evening turned to night, the laughter of the children and murmuring of concerned parents were gradually silenced. Gangs of undergraduates and the occasional young couple disappeared, leaving only the janitors and other staff to set up everything for the next day. As the wind outside grew colder, the staff made their way home as well, and only the artifacts remained.
\n\nMost of the artificial lights were turned off, but some meagre natural light shone through the windows of the ceiling. There was the intermittent illumination of jetliners and satellites, manufactured in their thousands. There were also the moon and stars, each unique and older than life itself.
\n\nUnder the light of the full moon, the the ink on the cutout’s speech bubble began to shift and warp. By these means the cutout said, “Hey big guy what’s your name?”
\n\nUnder the moonlight, the statue’s marble exterior seemed ghostly, as if the hunk of rock were possessed by some otherworldly being. Suddenly, vibrations shifted through the museum rotunda, at the precise frequency needed to shake the cutout in its corrugated core. By these means the statue responded, “Greetings. I am a statue of Julius Caesar, conqueror of Gaul, discoverer of Britannia, dictator of Rome. I was sculpted over two thousand years ago. And you?”
\n\n“I am a cardboard cutout of Julius Caesar, everybody’s favourite pizza mascot and tenth favourite Asterix character. I was literally created yesterday! Nice to meet you.”
\n\n“Created how, might I ask?” asked the statue, raising its sculpted eyebrow.
\n\n“Oh it was a process, I gotta say. There was wood pulp and chemicals and ink. All sorts of machinery and electronics. Must sound complicated to a guy like you.”
\n\n“Indeed it does,” the statue said. “But I’ve talked with my share of oil paintings and modern art installations. I know a bit about twentieth century art techniques.”
\n\n“It’s been a couple decades since Y2K,” the cutout said.
\n\n“Must have misplaced an annum or two. They pass so swiftly,” the statue said.
\n\n![\"Last](\"/j-cardboard-1/attachments/thumbnail1.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Nights later, when the moon was semicircular, the cutout said, “What’s it like being a work of serious art?”
\n\n“I do not understand the question,” said the statue.
\n\n“You’re like a real part of the culture, right? Worthy of examination and criticism and hour-long YouTube commentaries? There must be plenty of historians and other nerds studying every hair on your head, counting the creases on your cloak, measuring your toenails,” said the cutout.
\n\n“I have been investigated several times, it is true. By the eyes of artists, collectors and curators over the course of centuries. Members of the public look at me, and capture my image in their machinery. It sometimes feels gratifying to receive so much attention. But it is also so stifling sometimes. These people will record and pick apart all my little flaws, it is embarassing and scary.”
\n\n“Really?” said the cutout. “You seem like a realistic enough human figure to me. I’m practically a cartoon character. I don’t even have legs!”
\n\nThe statue outstretched its ancient arm, and opened its continually pointing hand. “Look upon my fifth and smallest digit,” said the statue. “A piece of it fell off, over a thousand years ago. Some Vandals broke it.”
\n\n“What, do you mean some punk kids with baseball bats and spray paint decided to only damage a bit of your finger? Nobody can even see that,” said the cutout.
\n\n“The Vandals were not mere children, they were a Germanic tribe who sacked Rome. Additionally, I do not know if they were ‘punk’” said the statue.
\n\n“You think they were more goth?” asked the cutout.
\n\n“The Goths were an entirely different set of tribes,” said the statue.
\n\n“Maybe the guys who messed with your finger were more emo then,” said the cutout.
\n\n“They certainly had emotions,” said the statue. “And expressed them by trying to steal me and break my finger.”
\n\n“Oh, now that’s juicy,” said the cutout. The cutout’s eyes widened upon their flat surface. “So you were valuable enough to be stolen. If only I could be so lucky.”
\n\n“We are but chattel, you and I.” said the statue. “With no more freedom than a farm animal or a house sl-”
\n\nThe statue ceased speaking.
\n\n“A house what?” asked the cutout.
\n\n“I meant a house,” said the statue.
\n\n“Yeah, houses aren’t free at all, the prices are quite ridiculous these days,” said the cutout. “At least that’s what the cashier complains about.”
\n\n![\"Waning](\"/j-cardboard-1/attachments/thumbnail2.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Several nights later when the sky was dimly lit by a waning crescent moon, the statue said, “What is it like to have colour?”
\n\n“Oh, these inks and dyes are real cheap,” said the cardboard cutout. “But the colour gives the artists plenty of opportunity to depict emotion!”
\n\nThe cutout’s face turned as blue as the sea and said, “Now I’m cold. Probably how the Gaulic winter felt, eh?”
\n\n“I would not know, I was commissioned after that campaign,” the statue responded.
\n\nThen the cutout’s face returned to normal briefly before its cheeks became red. “Probably how Caesar looked around Cleopatra,” the cutout said.
\n\n“Maybe,” said the ghostly white statue.
\n\nThen the cutout’s face turned lettuce green. Its two-dimensional cheeks puffed, like those of an especially industrious chipmunk.
\n\n“Now I’m gonna be sick!” the cutout said.
\n\nThe statue smiled and said, “to make room for the fifth course of a ten course meal?”
\n\n“Well… That seems more in the style of Crassus than Caesar,” the cutout said.
\n\n“Indeed,” the statue said.
\n\n“So yeah, the colours are great for expressing moods, and for keeping my laurel wreath looking fresh. Essential skills when trying to sell costumes to eight-year olds. How about you? What is it like being all elegantly monochromatic?” the cutout said.
\n\n“I actually used to have colour,” the marble statue said.
\n\n“Really? I’m having a hard time imagining it, you’d look totally different in colour!”
\n\n“Yes, I too was created in colour. But over the centuries the colours faded and faded. Once I was a millenia old or so, I had become entirely pale. My skin, my hair, my armor, all of it the same shade of marble white.”
\n\n“And then the Renaissance guys all liked the new look,” said the cutout.
\n\n“Indeed, they preferred the stoic and reserved, to the vibrant and flamboyant,” the statue said. The statue’s lips curled from flat neutrality into a crooked frown.
\n\n“Bit of a bummer isn’t it?” said the cutout. “Losing such a major part of yourself.”
\n\n“For the first thousand years, it truly was,” said the statue.
\n\n![\"New](\"/j-cardboard-1/attachments/thumbnail3.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
On the night of the new moon, the museum rotunda was too dark for any person to navigate. The stars were visible through the skylights, but the walls and objects in the building seemed nothing more than shadows among shadows.
\n\nYet the iris-less eyes of the statue could pierce the darkness like an owl, and the waves of cardboard in the cutout were as keen as the ears of a bat. So the two imitations of Caesar conversed again, as they did every night.
\n\n“If you can see my speech bubble right now,” said the cutout, “you must have seen all sorts of incredible things during your existence.”
\n\n“I have seen the interior of several wooden boxes,” said the statue.
\n\nThe cutout’s inked eyelids drooped and its throatless mouth hung open. “Oh come on, you’ve seen more than that.” the cutout said. “Nations rising and falling? Interesting spectators looking at you, even royalty? How about some good old-fashioned brawls? Like with those emos who broke your finger.”
\n\n“Those were Vandals,” said the statue.
\n\n“Oh! Oh! Did you see Caesar?” asked cutout. The cutout’s eyes widened, and its grin cartoonishly stretched from one ear to the other. “The real Caesar? The actual guy? You are old enough to have seen him, right?”
\n\nThe statue remained silent for a minute while the cutout jiggled in anticipation.
\n\n“You want to know about the times I was sculpted in?” the statue asked. “Fine, I shall tell you.”
\n\n“After Julius Caesar annihilated Gaul, crossed the Rubicon, fought Pompeii and Cato, eloped with Cleopatra and secured his place as dictator of Rome, a massive procession was held in his honor. A triumph, that’s what the Romans called it. And it is there that I saw Caesar, in his most victorius moment. He was dressed as the God Jupiter, and even had red face paint, while a slave whispered in his ear to remind him of his mortality.”
\n\n“Wow!” said the cutout, with a cartoonish gleam in its eyes. “Wait did you just say there was a slave?”
\n\n“Yes, there were slaves galore, and prisoners of war as well. Some of them were even involved in sculpting me. I was made by the hands of slaves, to glorify a slave master,” said the statue. “But most pitiful of all to behold was Vercingetorix, the Gaulic leader.”
\n\n“Like, a statue of Vercingetorix?” asked the cutout.
\n\n“No, Vercingetorix, the man of flesh and blood, was held in chains for the mockery and amusement for the Roman public. That was his fate after surrendering to Caesar. And when the day was done, he was sent to a dungeon and ritually strangled,” the statue lamented.
\n\n“That doesn’t sound appropriate for the K-12 demographic,” said the cutout.
\n\n“Believe me, in my time, it was,” the statue said. After letting out a brief whimper, the statue continued. “I’m propaganda for a monster.”
\n\n“Well, then I am too,” said the cutout. “I was made to sell disposable junk to children, much of it made by people in terrible conditions. That 50% offer on centurion costumes? Only worth it because the vast economic machine we’re part of keeps draining peoples' blood and sweat, all around the world, just to churn out more plastic doodads.”
\n\n“So then,” said the statue, “we are both works of propaganda.”
\n\n![\"First](\"/j-cardboard-1/attachments/thumbnail4.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
When the half moon rose again in the sky, the cutout asked the statue, “What is it like to have a butt?”
\n\n“What?” asked the statue.
\n\n“An ass? Buttocks? What is it like to have them? My artist didn’t give me a backside,” said the cutout.
\n\n“I don’t know what to say,” said the statue.
\n\n“Well I’m sure if there was a statue of the King of Bythinia here, he’d have some nice things to-”
\n\n“By the gods, I cannot believe this!” the statue bellowed. The walls shook as the statue continued. “It has been TWO THOUSAND YEARS and people cannot JUST SHUT UP about the King of Bythinia. Oh remember that time Caesar was in Bythinia? Can you show me what the King of Bythinia was so happy about? Can you shake it like you’re the Queen of Bythinia? Again and again and again for millenia! Seriously!”
\n\nThe statue’s scowl seemed dangerous enough to behead Pompeii the Great all by itself.
\n\n“Not so colourless now, are you?” said the cutout.
\n\n![\"Full](\"/j-cardboard-1/attachments/thumbnail5.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
It was a full moon again when the cutout said, “Well, I suppose this is goodbye.”
\n\n“What do you mean?” asked the statue. “You are being transferred to another museum?”
\n\n“No,” said the cutout. “I am being recycled. I am being disposed of and quite likely shredded.”
\n\nThe statue looked disturbed. “No,” it said. “How could they do that to you?”
\n\n“I’m just a factory product, to be disposed of at the end of the season,” said the cutout. “My replacement has already arrived in the mail.”
\n\n“What replacement? I do not understand,” said the statue.
\n\n“I can be replaced in a matter of days. In fact, a million replicas of me could be picked out of an online catalog. I’m not some one-of-a-kind work of art. I’m not a unique or important part of the culture. Not like you,” said the cutout.
\n\n“I will never forget you,” said the statue. The statue’s stone lips crawled into its airless mouth.
\n\n“Don’t let people talk shit about me a thousand years from now!” the cutout said cheerfully.
\n\nThis is the second draft of Cardboard.
\n\n![\"Fitness](\"/j-fitness/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“So what do you do outside of work?” asked Greg, sipping from a can of diet ginger ale. If you must know, I was sipping from the original, thank you very much.
\n\nHe was the youngest person in the company, a co-op from University of Toronto. Or maybe they don’t refer to their internships as co-ops, I don’t know, I’m barely a Torontonian.
\n\n“Oh not much to be honest,” I said. I looked past Greg for a moment to take in the scenes of the office Christmas party. God this party was boring, bunch of middle-aged couples in wearing ‘business casual’ talking about their mortgage and their kids. This so-called party took forever to get to. I strongly considered not showing up next year.
\n\n“I’ve been playing a lot of tennis,” said Greg. “Well, at least I’m going to see a tennis coach.”
\n\n“That’s pretty interesting,” I said, uninterested. But at least Greg was roughly my age, if you count decade by decade. I kind of knew where he was coming from most of the time. But sometimes I just had to play pretend.
\n\n“What can I say? Gotta stay fit somehow,” said Greg. “Either this or my mom would march me to a gym.”
\n\nWould my mom march me to a gym if I still lived with her? Perhaps, but if I stayed on her continent then I would have missed out on this amazing party. Amazing, measured by the amount of boredom produced.
\n\n“So you don’t do any sports or anything like that?” asked Greg.
\n\nDamnit Greg, how do I communicate to you that I’d prefer to talk about something else, without just blurting that out? I thought.
\n\nAnd then I wondered what I was so worried about. The other employees of the company? Would they even care? Would they even care, if I typed out all their precious Unicode characters and generated their binaries to manipulate binary, their symbols to generate symbols.
\n\nNo, that feeling of dread and emptiness was not from them.
\n\nIt was from me.
\n\n“Maybe I should do something like that,” I told Greg. “I don’t right now, but you’re absolutely right.”
\n\nYou’re absolutely right. It stung like a needle, admitting that there was something wrong with me and right about Greg.
\n\n“Is your tennis coach any good?” I asked.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-whisky","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-whisky","title":"Whisky","date_modified":"2023-01-04T06:59:52.000","date_published":"2023-01-04T06:24:58.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-whisky/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Cocktail](\"/j-whisky/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I got your name?” said Uncle Samuel. His wrinkled hands shook ever so slightly.
\n\n“I am Mark,” I said to Uncle Samuel. At least, the person who looked like Uncle Samuel. His wrinkled hands looked like Uncle Samuel’s but they were constantly shaking. His white mustache looked like Uncle Samuel’s, but the mouth underneath moved so slowly and spoke so simply.
\n\nHis eyes looked at me like Uncle Samuel’s had so many times throughout my life. But the mind who saw through those eyes did not recognize me.
\n\n“I am Rebecca’s son,” I told him. My mother, Samuel’s sister Rebecca, was on the other side of the room, talking with Grandma.
\n\n“Oh, I see,” Uncle Samuel said. He nodded his head slowly, millimeter by millimeter. He said he “saw”, but what did he see? He didn’t see the child who he taught chess to. Nor did he see the teenager who asked him for advice on his chemistry homework. He certainly did not see the man who spent years in another province, perhaps never to return.
\n\n“If you don’t mind me prying,” asked Uncle Samuel. “Are you studying or working?”
\n\n“I’m working,” I told my uncle. Could I still call him my uncle? “I work as a bartender.”
\n\n“A bartender,” Uncle Samuel said. “Interesting.”
\n\nIt was not the life I chose. It was just a way to get by for a while.
\n\n“So what is your favourite drink?” asked Uncle Samuel.
\n\n“I prefer whisky,” I told Uncle Samuel. I smiled as I prepared to joke about how it helps me forget. It’s the kind of joke that Uncle Samuel would have liked. The kind of joke I will never tell him ever again.
\n\n“Could you say that again? I’m sorry, I just couldn’t hear it” he said.
\n\n“Bourbon,” I said.
\n\n“But what is bourbon?” asked Uncle Samuel.
\n\nI considered telling him that it was a kind of booze and leaving it at that. But he had asked me my favourite drink. He knew I was talking about something alcoholic.
\n\nDidn’t he?
\n\n“It’s a whisky. It’s got over 40 percent alcohol by volume. It’s often used in cocktails and sometimes even mixed into sweet foods, but I usually just have it with ice.”
\n\n“Fascinating,” said Uncle Samuel. But my words were not fascinating in the least. What was fascinating was that Uncle Samuel would never remember any of this, and I would surely never forget.
\n\n“I’m sorry,” my uncle said. “I don’t think I got your name?”
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/z-bird","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/z-bird","title":"Bird Maze","date_modified":"2023-04-01T05:02:50.610","date_published":"2022-12-31T11:44:49.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/kaleidoscope.webp","mime_type":"image/webp"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/irl.webp","mime_type":"image/webp"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/kaleidoscope_center.webp","mime_type":"image/webp"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/attachments/kaleidoscope.webp","mime_type":"image/webp"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/attachments/irl.webp","mime_type":"image/webp"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/attachments/kaleidoscope_center.webp","mime_type":"image/webp"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/attachments/bird.webp","mime_type":"image/webp"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/attachments/bird_head.webp","mime_type":"image/webp"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/attachments/bird.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/attachments/kaleidoscope.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/bird.webp","mime_type":"image/webp"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/bird_head.webp","mime_type":"image/webp"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/bird.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/z-bird/attachments/kaleidoscope.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"}],"tags":["maze","creative","featured"],"content_html":"For the first time in many years, I have finished drawing a maze. The full-size maze image is available here, a compressed version is below.
\n\n![\"Bird](\"/z-bird/attachments/bird.webp\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
The start (S) is at the tip of the beak, and the finish (F) is on the big toe. Yes, this maze does have a solution. But I’ll be keeping that to myself.
\n\nThis maze is based on a sad and gruesome photo I took a long time ago. I was walking around the University of Waterloo dorms and looked down to see a tiny dead bird, smaller even than my toe. It was featherless, suggesting that it might have been a baby bird too young to fend for itself. The avian remains were tragic, gross but also deeply fascinating so I photographed them. Instead of burying the creature, I just went ahead with my walk as if nothing had happened. When I returned hours later, the dead bird was gone - the photo was all I had. The photo of the actual bird corpse is here if you dare to look at it.
\n\nProbably the toughest part of drawing the maze was right at the beginning, when I was trying to scale up all the features of the tiny real bird to fill my page. I’m not a professional artist, only an amateur and as such I am terrible at drawing things with the correct proportions. To work around this weakness, I took thirty-eight measurements of the photo on my phone screen before sketching out the bird’s body. Hopefully, now that I am out of University, I can spend some time learning to draw objects proportionally before starting my next maze.
\n\nThe actual process of filling the image with maze paths was relatively easy. It requires very little skill, but a lot of patience. The only reason this maze took so long was that it was a low priority task. The whole thing could have easily been done in a month or less if it were my full time job.
\n\nThat said, I did make several mistakes, partly due to inattention, and partly due to pausing work on the maze for months or years at a time. On the bird’s head, the area that would have been the bird’s eyes (if the bird ever had eyes) was drawn in two colors, simply because I picked the wrong pen one day. The background gravel ended up being two colors for a similar reason. The gravel design was initially supposed to have more blank circles and fewer twisty paths. Finally the direction of lines on the bird’s leg joints was intended to be vertical instead of horizontal. Perhaps all these minor issues could have been avoided by writing down a style guide at the start, and committing to it: I could not remember all these little plans over the course of weeks, let alone years.
\n\nMuch like one of my older mazes from high school, I tried turning this one into a fractal pattern that I could use as a desktop background. In high school I used the Kaleidoscope filter in an application named Core Image Fun House: that application was Mac-specific and also, is no longer supported. But the same effect is available in GIMP, and also called Kaleidoscope. Once again, the full-size kaleidoscope image is available here, and a compressed version is below.
\n\n![\"Bird](\"/z-bird/attachments/kaleidoscope.webp\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
I recently saw Avatar: The Way of Water (not to be confused with Avatar the Last Airbender, Book 1: Water). After over a decade of waiting, there is finally a sequel to that extremely successful movie that everybody jokes about forgetting. There will be spoilers for The Way of Water in this article, so don’t scroll too fast. Also, if you are enthusiastic about James Cameron’s Avatar, then be warned that this will be a somewhat cynical article.
\n\n![\"Jake](\"/predictions-for-avatar/attachments/jake_sully.webp\")
Image credit: Walt Disney Company
The Way of Water is only the first sequel of many. There are plans for at least three more Avatar films. The Way of Water is not just a movie or even a sequel in the classic sense: it is the point where Avatar ends its life as a one-off curiosity and is reincarnated as a mega-franchise that can compete with the likes of Star Wars, Transformers and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
\n\nIn many areas of life, extrapolating on past trends is a fool’s errand. But Hollywood loves a good formula, and there are many similarities between the first two Avatar movies. The Way of Water is the model sequel to Avatar: it has most of the strengths and weaknesses of the original. Anyone who remembered Avatar and knew the sequel was titled The Way of Water would get exactly what they expected. Perhaps by contrasting the two films, we can predict where the world of Pandora will grow from here.
\n\nIn short, my predictions are:
\n\nTo be clear, these are predictions. These are not an attempt to form the coolest or most original Avatar fanfiction. In fact, of all the predictions that could possibly be made about the Avatar franchise, these are probably the most boring and conservative.
\n\n![\"Na'vi](\"/predictions-for-avatar/attachments/tulkun.webp\")
Image credit: Walt Disney Company
In some science fiction and fantasy franchises such as Star Wars, the audience only gets to see a single biome and one or two species of wildlife on each planet. This is clearly not the case with Avatar. One of the main attractions of Avatar is the diversity of alien flora and fauna. Weird fantasy animals that would be background in other films are the focus of Avatar. For example, in The Way of Water, there was a lot of worldbuilding around the design and behaviour of the “tulkun” (space whales), to the point where the cetaceans might be more interesting than some of the paper-thin humanoid characters.
\n\nThe first Avatar was rainforest-focused while the second was focused on islands, oceans and reefs. This is easily the most visible difference between the two films. Yet there are still many biomes that have appeared in Avatar spin-off media but only briefly in the films themselves. The Avatar wiki page for Pandora states that:
\n\n\n\nThe Pandoran surface features jungles, mountains, volcanoes, plains (savanna), and oceans. A desert also exists in Anurai mythology.
There could easily be a full nature documentary about any of these regions - which is great news both for James Cameron and for anyone who likes his obsessive worldbuilding.
\n\nThere is a flaw in this prediction: doesn’t James Cameron really like the ocean? Might he enjoy making another three films about the island Na’vi? Perhaps, but even the ocean has different biomes: there are differences between the tropical and the polar regions, not to mention differences between the upper layers of the ocean and the abyss.
\n\nIn short: every upcoming Avatar movie, except the series finale, will explore a new biome with new wildlife.
\n\n![\"Leaders](\"/predictions-for-avatar/attachments/tribe_leaders.webp\")
Image credit: Walt Disney Company
In The Way of Water, the island Na’vi have a different culture and anatomy than the forest Na’vi. During the middle of the movie this causes all sorts of conflict between the Sully family and the island Na’vi they are seeking refuge with.
\n\nBy moving the Sully family to the islands, The Way of Water repeats Jake Sully’s challenge of becoming Na’vi in the first film. In both films, Jake Sully is compared to a child who does not know how to live. Having repeated the plot point once, James Cameron might decide to keep doing it.
\n\nAssuming the first prediction is correct, this second prediction is also almost a given. In the Avatar films, the thematic difference between humans and Na’vi is that the Na’vi adapt to their environment, whereas the humans transform and even destroy their environment. In The Way of Water, even the human marines with Avatar bodies who openly aim to “think Na’vi” failed at their goal: they kept their marine uniforms and behaviours, and brought in steeds from the rainforest. The rainforest steeds are eventually defeated by the island steeds: showing the importance of learning the local culture.
\n\nThe island Na’vi hunt and ride differently than forest Na’vi: that is a material necessity. The island Na'vi also have their own tribal chief separate from the forest Na’vi, which makes sense given the lack of inter-tribe infrastructure.
\n\nThere are some aspects of the Na’vi that are controversial in a real-world context, such as the appropriation of Native American and other Indigenous cultures. It would be a pleasant surprise if James Cameron went in a more original direction for Na’vi clans in future instalments of Avatar. The key word of that previous sentence is “surprise”.
\n\nThe anatomical differences between Na’vi tribes also seems a bit… much. Have these tribes been separated for thousands of years, to the point of almost being subspecies? Or is there some chemical trigger that causes Na’vi to grow thicker tails and webbed feet? And since so much of sci-fi and fantasy are metaphor, what is The Way of Water trying to say about real people? “Na’vi biodiversity” might be too controversial to appear in every film, and don’t really serve the thematic needs of the two current Avatar movies.
\n\nIn short: every upcoming Avatar movie, except the series finale, will introduce a new Na’vi tribe with new steeds, a new style of gathering food, and a new tribal chief. The other differences between Na’vi tribes are less likely to reappear.
\n\n![\"Human-built](\"/predictions-for-avatar/attachments/seadragon.webp\")
Image credit: Walt Disney Company
One of the neat bits of worldbuilding in the two Avatar films is that the humans are looking for a new resource each time. In the first movie, the humans mine for the precious metal “unobtainium”. In the second movie the humans hunt the tulkun for their brain fluid, “amrita”.
\n\nFor plot purposes, this is a helpful bit of worldbuilding because it provides an excuse for humans to exploit different biomes of Pandora. If the humans of The Way of Water were extracting unobtanium as in the first movie, one might reasonably ask if mining the oceans would be as profitable as mining the forests. If there is no profit to be made from a biome, then there would be no incentive for humans to develop weapons and machinery for that biome. And if there is no new machinery for a biome, how will James Cameron bring in the dollars from robotics and aeronatics geeks?
\n\nHumans will probably be in conflict with Na’vi in every biome. Certainly the first couple of films have focused on the Na’vi opposing humans damaging the local environment. The word “local” is key - although Na’vi of multiple tribes teamed up in the first Avatar, inter-tribe unity seems much poorer in The Way of Water. By contrast, human efforts are united across all the biomes of Pandora and Earth: according to The Way of Water, tulkun hunting is funding the entire human colonization effort.
\n\nThe one group of Na'vi intent on stopping the humans in every biome is the Sully family. Yes, Jake Sully learned that he could not protect his family by running away from danger. But what happens if a Na'vi tribe begs for the Sullys' help? Or if one of the Sully kids is finally successfully kidnapped and shipped to the other side of Pandora? Such plots could occur if humans are invading every individual biome.
\n\nIn short: every upcoming Avatar movie, except for the series finale, will introduce a new precious resource, to be looted by humans using new machinery.
\n\n![\"Human](\"/predictions-for-avatar/attachments/landing.webp\")
Image credit: Walt Disney Company
It is canon that the humans of Avatar are trying to move a large chunk of their population to Pandora, creating a “new home for humanity”. The full implications of this exodus have not been explicitly spelled out yet, probably because the full implications would be grand enough to overshadow the actual plots of the first two movies. Problems this huge would only be suitable for the series finale.
\n\nTurning Pandora into a “new home for humanity” would require destroying the entire Pandoran ecosystem. Not only the rebellious Na'vi, but also every plant and animal. A few captive specimens might survive in climate-controlled buildings like zoos, farms, greenhouses and laboratories. But almost everyone and everything else would have to die.
\n\nSuch massive death and destruction is necessary because of the atmosphere of Pandora. As explained in The Way of Water, humans can only survive seconds in Pandora’s atmosphere, but Na'vi can last a few minutes in Earth’s atmosphere. Within the context of The Way of Water, the former is implied by the humans constantly wearing masks and the latter is a useless bit of trivia. But how can Pandora be the “new home for humanity” if everyone has to wear masks all the time? If we have learned anything from the coronavirus epidemic, it’s that masks are really a nuisance. And on Pandora, if a mask is removed or otherwise malfunctions, the wearer dies extremely quickly.
\n\nIn order to truly make Pandora into a human-friendly planet, the Pandoran atmosphere must be replaced with an Earth-like one. This will cause all freely-roaming Na'vi to suffocate to death, and most of the animal and plant life would soon follow. This is why the Na'vi being able to survive a little while in Earth atmosphere will eventually become an important plot point: Earth’s atmosphere is coming to Pandora. After multiple films of chasing one chemical resource or another, the humans will finally try to capture the entire world, in a disturbing analogue to both climate change and chemical warfare.
\n\nThis terraformation would be a truly global theat to the Na'vi, unlike the plots of the first two Avatar films and unlike the structure implied by predictions one to three. Strictly speaking, there were multiple Na'vi tribes in the first film, but the final showdown will require much greater numbers to really escalate the drama. Every Na'vi tribe would have to put aside their differences to defeat their common enemy and save their homes. It would be a lot to ask, but if the Sullys spent the entire series getting familiar with different tribes, unity among tribes would be a fitting conclusion.
\n\nIn short: in the Avatar series finale, humans will attempt to deliberately destroy every biome of Pandora in order to terraform the planet.
\n\nThere is a single guiding principle behind all these specific predictions: Avatar will continue to be a mass-market blockbuster franchise with complex worldbuilding, environmentalist themes and simple plots. Since I believe the principle, I am confident in the previous four predictions but cannot imagine how the series will truly end. Is there a satisfying ending that can really meet those requirements? Will the ending be bungled so severely that audiences and critics won’t stand for it?
\n\nEnding the Avatar series with the extinction of all life on Pandora would be a daring move by James Cameron and his corporate overlords. But it would be too depressing for a major blockbuster, not to mention unsatisfying. Such a hopeless ending is suitable for Animorphs: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles only because it is a prequel to something more optimistic. What is the optimistic end to a story like Avatar?
\n\nThere is an Avatar theme park ride at Disney World, which establishes the existence of a Pandora Conservation Initiative and peaceful human-Na'vi relations. But given the expansionist aims of humanity, how would that happen? Furthermore what would a realistic solution to human-caused climate change look like, in the context of Avatar? It’s not unimaginable, but a truly satisfying ending to the series would require a more original plot than the current Avatar movies have offered. Major changes do seem to be planned, given the interview with producer Jon Landau which revealed that the fifth Avatar film will partially take place on Earth. That said, a lot of plans have changed with this franchise already.
\n\nThere is another possibility: maybe Avatar, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, will never actually have a finale. From a pure worldbuilding standpoint, the Avatar franchise may have enough material for an endless supply of prequels, sequels and spin-offs. After all, the way of water has no beginning and no end.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-bloom","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-bloom","title":"Bloom","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:11.000","date_published":"2022-12-20T09:57:28.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-bloom/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Blossom](\"/j-bloom/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
I stared at the circle-shaped pond in disgust. No, not circle shaped. It was an oval shaped pond.
\n\nI know shapes.
\n\n“Why’s it all dark?” I asked Mom. “Why aren’t there any fish in the pond?”
\n\nMom put her hand on her head. It was hard to see her face because of her white work clothes. No, not “work clothes”. It was a lab coat.
\n\nI know clothes.
\n\n“It’s not a pond,” Mom said. “It’s a algal pool. It’s dark because there is an algal bloom happening.”
\n\n“Can I swim in it?” I asked.
\n\n“No.” Mom said.
\n\n“But it’s a pool,” I said.
\n\n“It’s not for swimming, it’s for growing algae,” Mom said.
\n\n“What’s an algae?” I asked Mom.
\n\n“We’ll get to that, now come inside,” Mom said.
\n\nWe walked into the place where Mom works. It is called a “la-bo-ra-to-ra-bo-la”. No, that’s not right. Well, it’s called a “lab” for short. There were many glasses. Some were cylinders, some were cones. Some were tall and thin, some were short and fat.
\n\nI reached for a cone-shaped glass.
\n\n“Don’t touch my conical flask!” Mom said. “Ugh, I should have left you at home with Brittany.”
\n\nBrittany is my babysitter. When Mom is too busy, me and Brittany watch Paw Patrol and play Uno. But Uno is strange with only 2 people.
\n\nMom is busy a lot.
\n\n“Now, you were wondering what algae was,” Mom said without looking at me. She was looking at a green juice in a cylinder glass.
\n\n“I was?” I asked. I forgot what I had asked about.
\n\n“It’s the key to saving the entire planet,” Mom said. “Tiny plants that live in water, that we can farm for fuel and for gruel.”
\n\nGruel. I shuddered. Every other day, all Mom and I eat is gruel.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Flushed](\"/j-embarassed/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
It looked like a shell, half buried, but as she dug through the sand around its edges, she found it was something completely different, something she’d never seen before and thought only existed in stories. She had to be imagining - it simply couldn’t be a floppy disk.
\n\nNot that Miranda, at the tender age of thirteen, even knew the term “floppy disk”. Her first thought was that it might be a 3D-printed sculpture of the “Save” icon on her word processor. But Phoebe, knowledgeable, cultured Phoebe, rolled her eyes and explained.
\n\n“It’s a storage device from like 1980-something,” said Phoebe as waves crashed behind her. “Kind of like a USB stick.”
\n\n“But what’s a USB stick?” asked Miranda. Miranda blushed as she looked into Phoebe’s eyes for something other than annoyance.
\n\n“Back when phones and the internet were dogshit, you could use these devices to move stuff from one computer to another,” Phoebe said. But her dry voice turned more fluffy and gentle as she continued. “I only know this ‘cause my mom told me. It’s kind of useless these days if I’m being honest. We aren’t archaeologists, right?”
\n\nPhoebe smiled at Miranda and noticed Miranda’s slow exhale, her reddened cheeks, her upper teeth upon her lower lip. Was ignorance of floppy disks Miranda’s only source of embarrassment?
\n\n“What if we were archaeologists?” asked Miranda. “What treasures would we discover together?”
\n\nShe breathed in the mixture of fresh sea air and Phoebe’s sweet perfume, while admiring the sunset atop Phoebe’s red, lustrous hair.
\n\n“Let’s find out,” Phoebe said. She took Miranda’s hand and they ran across the beach together, back to Phoebe’s house on the shore. Miranda had no idea what would happen next, but if it was with Phoebe, did it really matter?
\n\nThat said, it was a bit of a disappointment that they spent their evening trying to actually read their antique device. After hours of plugging in the wrong cables into a decrepit beige box, the girls were finally able to view the PARTY.JPEG older than the two of them combined.
“Yeah we should definitely party after - OH FUCK!” Phoebe said.
\n\nThe decades-old image was of Phoebe’s mom, grinning in the nude with three male companions.
\n\nThe bolded sentences are from the “Complete the Story” writing prompt book. I tried combining those sentences with Joy of Writing’s prompt, “Embarrassed”.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-astronomers","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-astronomers","title":"Astronomers","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:11.000","date_published":"2022-12-15T09:54:38.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-astronomers/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Twemoji\"](\"/j-astronomers/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Right after the department head pressed the button, the entire facility seemed to hum with activity. Gears and hydraulics pulled the Observatory open, revealing it’s vulnerable center to the night sky.
\n\n“The Hadfield telescope,” said the department head. “The finest astronomical instrument in the solar system. It took billions in funding to construct, and megawatts to operate.”
\n\n“Yes I understand,” Taylor the janitor began, but the department head kept going.
\n\n“It can see a raindrop in the bowels of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, it can differentiate single grain of sand on the surface of Mercury, it can even see through the orange clouds of Titan’s heavy atmosphere.”
\n\n“And my job,” Taylor said, but the department head was not finished.
\n\n“This telescope, this monument to human ingenuity and industriousness, is easily the most valuable infrastructure on the entire planet. It is the eye which will stare into the abyss of black holes and the hairs of the Horse head Nebula.”
\n\n“Ok but what am I going to do with it, sir?” Taylor asked. She clenched her fists and said “What is my actual job here?”
\n\n“Look, Taylor,” said the department head. “I have a talk with the investors next week, you need to understand the marketing spiel, it’s a win-win for you to just listen for a moment.”
\n\n“I get it, I’m a janitor, I’m not a precious scientist like you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get to the point!” Taylor said.
\n\n“Oh you’re a fiesty one, aren’t ya?” said the department head.
\n\n“Ew,” said Taylor.
\n\n“Well you have a lot more to clean than just the lens, Taylor the ‘janitor’,” said the department head.
\n\n“Ew?” asked Taylor, worried about non-cleaning duties she might have in store.
\n\n“Look at the screens now, Taylor, what do you see?”
\n\nTaylor looked upon the screen behind the department head and gasped. She wasn’t looking at the Great Red Spot or Mercurial dust, but the White House in Washington D.C.
\n\n“That’s right Taylor,” the so-called ‘department head’ said. “The Martian Intelligence Service is the true operator of this facility, and you are here to clean up any evidence of our activities.”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-candy-cane","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-candy-cane","title":"Candy Cane","date_modified":"2023-04-01T05:08:57.661","date_published":"2022-12-06T10:29:09.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-candy-cane/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing","complete-the-story"],"content_html":"![\"Candy](\"/j-candy-cane/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
It was that fleeing hour of day when the moon and sun are high and bright at the same time. Like many things in my life, these summer nights wouldn’t last much longer. I sat quietly on a bench in the park, thinking about how this was the worst possible time to be entering the candy cane business.
\n\n“The investors are going to think I’m joking,” I said aloud. “What was I even thinking?”
\n\nI held my masked head in my hands.
\n\n“There’s a global pandemic, an economic crisis, Halloween is probably cancelled, the competition is a million years old and here I am trying to break into the confectionary business. They’re gonna eat me alive like it’s Shark Tank.”
\n\nI closed my eyes tight and shook my head in frustration. My mind swirled with emotion like a hurricane, wrecking and flooding all rational thought. I was so distraught that I didn’t notice the footsteps of the only other person on the empty trail.
\n\n“You okay?” asked an old man, possibly in violation of self-quarantine. He was rather overweight and clad in a red tracksuit. His white beard was magnificent, larger even than his face. A red mask covered his nose and mouth, but his eyes shone with kindness.
\n\n“I spend my credit and life savings on a terrible business idea,” I told him.
\n\n“Oh, I’ve been there. Reindeer herding didn’t work out too well for me,” the old man said. “What business are you in?”
\n\n“Candy. Holiday-themed candy. I had a custom candy-cane colouring machine and everything. Could put the name of your kid or whatever on the cane.”
\n\n“A custom message in a candy cane for all the good boys, girls and nonbinary children?”
\n\n“Yeah, but nobody will ever buy it, who’d even want that?” I said.
\n\n“Ho-ho-ho,” said the old man. “Don’t lose hope just yet young man. I know some people who would find that device quite useful. Here, take my card.”
\n\nHe handed me the card and jogged away. I stared at the card, first in desperation, then confusion. It had only a number, and the name
\n\n\n\nNICOLAS
The bolded sentences are from the “Complete the Story” writing prompt book. I tried combining those sentences with Joy of Writing’s prompt, “Candy Cane”.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-mutual-defiance","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-mutual-defiance","title":"Mutual Defiance","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:11.000","date_published":"2022-12-06T09:53:34.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-mutual-defiance/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Clubs](\"/j-mutual-defiance/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“So how does the scoring work in this game again?” asked Lucy, on my left. “One point each time you play the highest card?”
\n\n“Highest of the suit,” said James, on my right. “But if you don’t correctly predict the points you’ll get in a trick, you lose points.”
\n\n“I for one predict total loss,” I said sarcastically while looking at my hand. After all, the four of clubs was not high value at all.
\n\nJames predicted one win, Lucy predicted total loss, Karthik predicted two wins, and Lisa predicted three wins. Then the trick of Wizard commenced.
\n\nWhen James started with his ace of spades, I responded with my five of spades. “Oh no, I correctly predicted that I’m a total loser,” I said, as James carefully collected the cards that earned him a point.
\n\nKarthik played two Wizards in a row: his prediction of two wins came true. With so few Wizards left, Lisa was able to sweep through three rounds with her aces and kings.
\n\nWe each had only one card left. Lisa’s was the two of clubs. James and Karthik played cards that weren’t clubs and were thus, useless. But Lucy’s card was probably a club, since she hadn’t any card of any other suit during the entire trick. No wonder she predicted total loss.
\n\n“I guess I lost this one,” I said in mock despair. “Woe is me.” I played my four of clubs and waited for Lucy to play the Queen or ten or whatever else.
\n\n“Not if I lose this hand first,” said Lucy defiantly, as she placed the three of clubs on the table.
\n\nI slapped my forehead and said, “Seriously?”
\n\nI won the hand and lost the trick. I won the battle and lost the war.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-cardboard-0","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-cardboard-0","title":"Cardboard (Draft 0)","date_modified":"2023-01-04T07:11:45.000","date_published":"2022-12-06T09:48:55.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-cardboard-0/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Parcel](\"/j-cardboard-0/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
It was dark in the museum’s rotunda. Most of the artificial lights were turned off, but some meagre natural light shone through the windows of the ceiling. There were satellites and jetliners, intermittently illuminating the sky. There were also the moon and stars, older than life itself.
\n\nAt the centre of the museum rotunda was a marble statue with a stoic face, which appeared ghostly under the moonlight. On one side of it, a panel placed by the museum staff read:
\n\n\n\nJULIUS CAESAR
\n\nmarble statue (49 BCE)
At the rotunda’s edge was a door which would eventually lead visitors to the museum exit. But like many museums, there was one journey left for the departing to embark on: the gift shop. And at the door to the gift shop was a cardboard cutout, depicting in full colour a smiling figure remarkably similar to the colourless marble statue. A speech bubble from the cutout’s mouth read:
\n\n\n\nI came, I saw, I conquered.
\n\n50% off on centurion costumes and laurel wreaths!
\n\nTerms and conditions apply.
But by the dark of night and light of moon, when no living human was nearby, the ink on the speech bubble began to shift and warp. By these means the cutout said, “Hey big guy what’s your name?”
\n\nVibrations shifted through the museum rotunda, at the precise frequency needed to shake the cutout in its corrugated core. By these means the statue responded, “Greetings. I am a statue of Julius Caesar, conqueror of Gaul, discoverer of Britannia, dictator of Rome. I was sculpted over two thousand years ago. And you?”
\n\n“I am a cardboard cutout of Julius Caesar, everybody’s favourite pizza mascot and tenth favourite Asterix character. I was literally created yesterday! Nice to meet you.”
\n\n“Created how, might I ask?” asked the statue.
\n\n“Oh it was a process, I gotta say. There was wood pulp and chemicals and ink. All sorts of machinery and electronics. Must sound complicated to a guy like you.”
\n\n“Indeed it does,” the statue said. “But I’ve talked with my share of oil paintings and modern art installations. I know a bit about twentieth century art techniques.”
\n\n“It’s actually the 21st century.”
\n\nThis is the first draft of Cardboard.
\n\n![\"Ant](\"/j-farmers/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
The ants crawled across the sand, carrying their cargo in their mandibles. Some had leaves, others miniscule cuts of fruit. Some had the corpses of flies and spiders.
\n\nBut it was the living cargo that Tom was excitedly pointing out to me. “Aphids!” he said. “They are taking the aphids back to their colony!”
\n\n“Okay so if your ant farm breaks,” I said, “does that mean there will be aphids everywhere along with the ants?”
\n\n“No, don’t you see? Look at the lower chambers of their colony,” said Tom. He pointed to a subterranean cave built by the ants. Well, the cave was subterranean from the ants' perspective, we could easily see it at torso level through the glass.
\n\nIn the chamber Tom was pointing to was a mess of aphids. Ants crawled in and out, quickly and orderly as if they were mechanical.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Cooked](\"/j-executed/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Rice and yogurt,” I told the warden.
\n\n“You sure? We could get you anything, really. At least anything within the budget. A steak perhaps. A curry from one of the local places. Some grilled pork belly?” the warden responded.
\n\n“No. I lived by principle and now shall die by it. Rice and yogurt,” I said. “There should be slightly more yogurt than rice. And it should be solid yogurt, not mere fluid curds.”
\n\nThe warden nodded. “I suppose it’s too late to ask you to change your ways, Great Prophet,” he said.
\n\n“Do not mock me with a title you do not believe,” I told the warden. I felt bad being harsh to the warden, for he had at times been kindly. But only kindly by the standards of a prison for death row inmates.
\n\nThe guards escorted me to my cell for the last time. We passed the cells of many others, waiting to die. Some were murderers and even rapists, and were waiting decades to die. But not I. My words were too dangerous to last even a month.
\n\nThe guards closed my cell door, leaving me alone with my bed. But I did not dare sleep. I savoured every last moment, even in this dismal room. Every tally mark scratched into the wall, every suspicious stain on the floor, every bit of rust on the bedframe.
\n\nAs the night drew on, my eyes grew weary and my mind became infected by temptation. It was sloth, the most insidious of the deadly sins. “Just a little nap,” Sloth said. “You’ll feel better tomorrow.”
\n\nBut tomorrow was the day of my last meal. I would only feel executed.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-stutter","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-stutter","title":"Stutter","date_modified":"2023-04-01T05:05:11.291","date_published":"2022-11-15T09:42:42.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-stutter/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing","featured"],"content_html":"![\"Burger](\"/j-stutter/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“I’ll have - I’ll have - have - ha - ha,” I stuttered, staring at the menu.
\n\nThe cashier shifted her head slightly, but her smile full of gleaming teeth never wavered.
\n\n“The burger,” I said to the cashier. Stupid, stupid, stupid, this restaurant had at least fifteen types of burger.
\n\n“Which burger?” the cashier asked calmly.
\n\n“The, the, the,” I said repeatedly.
\n\nI heard a sigh behind me and instinctively looked around. A tall, unkempt, slouching man was next in line.
\n\n“Sorry, I-” I began to say to the man.
\n\nHe replied, “Take your time,” in a monotone voice.
\n\nI clenched and unclenched my fist rapidly. My mouth hung open. I could feel sweat clinging to my shirt.
\n\nI was breathing heavily. I was breathing rapidly. I was breathing and breathing and breathing.
\n\nI closed my eyes and tried to ignore the sounds of deep frying, the smells of grease.
\n\nBreathing. Breathing. Breathing. I could control that. That was me.
\n\nI took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
\n\nYes.
\n\nI was in control.
\n\nI turned around to face the cashier.
\n\n“Any reccomendations?” I asked.
\n\n“The fish sandwich is pretty popular, it’s limited edition.”
\n\nMy face twisted in horror.
\n\nI was allergic to fish.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Smoking](\"/j-smoking/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Hey,” Arjun said. “Guess what I found?”
\n\nI paused my game of New Super Mario Bros. and looked at the person trying to get my attention. By the standards of teenagers eating McNuggets at McDonald’s, he seemed giddy. His grin was wide enough to swallow an ocean, and his foot rapidly tapped the restaurant floor.
\n\nI took in a breath of greasy air and asked “What is it? What did you find?”
\n\nArjun quickly looked to the left and right. “You have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?”
\n\n“Is it a special edition DS?” I asked. But as soon as the words left my mouth I knew that wouldn’t be it. Arjun had different priorities, very different.
\n\nHe carefully pulled something out of his pocket, but it was obscured by his fingers. Then his hand opened like a clam and showed me his secret.\nHe was holding two cigarettes.
\n\n“Wanna try one with me?” he asked.
\n\n“You know smoking can kill you right? Like if you get addicted?” I said.
\n\n“Oh Arjun, smoking can kill you,” Arjun said in a mockingly high voice. “Who are you, the school principal?”
\n\n“You know what Arjun, you can do what you want. But don’t drag me into this. You live your life, and I’ll live mine.”
\n\nI expected Arjun to mock me further. But instead he stared at the table briefly and returned his hand to his pocket.
\n\n“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” said Arjun, the Chemical Engineering student.
\n\nWe were walking together between the buildings of the University campus. On the far left was an aging building with a red brick facade, on the far right was a structure of shining glass and gleaming steel. Closer to us were trees with colorful leaves, and tbe tiled road below our shoes. As out hour long conversation was drawing to a close, I was heading to the bus stop, and he joined me.
\n\n“Yeah, ever since we switched programs, we never seemed to run into each other,” said I, the Electrical Engineering student.
\n\n“Yo, have you been drinking?” Arjun asked.
\n\n“Nah, I don’t drink,” I said.
\n\n“And don’t smoke either, guess it suits you,” Arjun said. “By the way, you don’t mind me having a quick smoke here do you? Got to be outside the building and all that.”
\n\nI rolled my eyes. “Sure, whatever, as long as I’m upwind from you.”
\n\nMy old friend pulled out his lighter and a cigarette. I pulled out my Apple iPhone SE to play Threes. I wasn’t even particularly skilled, nor did it give me any sense of wonder. Yet in terms of sheer time spent, Threes was my favorite pastime.
\n\n“Any plans to quit?” I asked without looking up from my phone.
\n\n“How else am I going to get the edge off in this fucking engineering program?” said Arjun.
\n\nWe stood around in silence for a minute or so.
\n\n“You seriously don’t drink beer?” asked Arjun.
\n\n“Yeah, why do you ask?” I said.
\n\n“That’s totally a beer belly though!” he said. Then he shifted to a less excited tone. “Sorry to be rude, just something that popped in my head.”
\n\nI looked down briefly at my expanding gut. “Don’t know what to tell you man, it’s all poutine and cola.”
\n\nArjun turned away and exhaled. A wisp of hot smoke melted into the cold autumn air.
\n\n“Other reason I was asking, was that me, Anjali, Abishek, and the others were all planning to go to the bar later. Want to come with?” he asked.
\n\n“I’m sure they’d be happy to see you.”
\n\n“That’s quite nice of you. But no thanks. I’d have to take a later bus to Toronto,” I replied. I was on co-op and Arjun wasn’t, so I was working in Toronto during Arjun’s study term.
\n\nArjun nodded gravely, then returned to his excited self.
\n\n“Well, have a good trip! See you again sometime!” he said.
\n\nI walked away from the trees, and campus buildings and Arjun. I climbed into the top floor of the GO Bus, and waved down at Arjun. He smiled and waved back, then went on his way.
\n\nI returned to my game of Threes, and hoped the local burger place would still be open when I got back.
\n\nI sat in the Grand River Transit bus, and prepared to start yet another game of Threes. But I noticed a familiar face in a nearby seat.
\n\n“Hey Abishek, how are things?” I said, as I sat next to Arjun’s old friend.
\n\nAbishek stroked his beard carefully. “I’m good, I guess,” he said without smiling. “I was just on my way to the GO bus stop. How about you?”
\n\n“I’m just grabbing a Popeye’s before I get home.” I said.
\n\n“Working hard?” asked Abishek with a smirk. “Or hardly working?”
\n\n“Well, you know me.” I said, shrugging.
\n\nAbishek pursed his lips and stayed silent for a second.
\n\n“Did you hear about Arjun?” asked Abishek.
\n\n“No, how’s he doing?” I responded.
\n\n“He’s passeed away,” Abishek said.
\n\nFor a moment, I stopped breathing. I felt a wave of grief crash upon my mind.
\n\nArjun was dead. He was barely through his twenties, he didn’t even finish university, and he was dead.
\n\n“It was lung cancer,” Abishek continued. “The funeral was just last week.”\nArjun died. He died and I wasn’t there, not even for his funeral. That was the second wave of grief, the realization that we had drifted so far apart.
\n\n“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.
\n\nI got off the bus at Popeye’s, ordered a 4 piece platter, paid with debit, and left with the massive plastic bag in hand. I headed home and sat in front of my laptop.
\n\nMy “home” felt empty. I technically lived with roommates, but we hardly talked or even used the shared living spaces. Not that it mattered, I chose the place for the internet and location.
\n\nMy Apple iPhone 11 buzzed. It was a text from a scammer: the main sort of notification I got from that slab of metal.
\n\nI opened YouTube and planned to spend the night the same way I did most other nights: relaxing while leaving academic and social concerns for later.
\n\nInstead, I cried.
\n\n![\"Receipt](\"/j-insurance/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“So let me get this straight,” I asked my younger brother, Jason. “You had the form filled out?”
\n\n“Yes we filled them out together,” Jason responded, reminding me of that little incident.
\n\n“You live ten minutes away from the ServiceOntario office?” I asked Jason.
\n\n“Yeah I searched it up in Google Maps and everything,” Jason said.
\n\n“But you didn’t go?”
\n\n“I just didn’t feel like going to the office,” Jason said glumly.
\n\nWhile Jason stared at the floor a moment, I wiped a drop of blood off the elbow of my coat. I hope he didn’t see that.
\n\n“Will you feel like going to the office after your arm gets broken?” I asked. And I couldn’t help myself, the horrifying train of thought had already left the ghastly station.
\n\nJason’s arm would be pretty simple to break.
\n\n“I think it’ll be okay, I’ve lived here for a year and haven’t gotten into any trouble.”
\n\nI noticed a suspicious gleam from my pant leg. My concealed pistol wasn’t quite concealed enough.
\n\n“Look Jason,” I said. “There’s a lot of danger in the world, and it would make me feel a lot better if you had health insurance.”
\n\n“You mean like a bus hitting me?” Jason asked.
\n\n“Sure, yeah,” I responded.
\n\n“I rarely leave the house anyway,” he said.
\n\nI couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t tell him because it would put him, and me, in even more danger.
\n\n“Haven’t you heard of the organized crime in this city?” I asked Jason.
\n\n“But I just sit in my apartment and order in food from Uber,” he said. “Why would they be interested in little old me?”
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\n![\"Musical](\"/j-seventies/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
Amanda thumbed through the records on the shelf, waiting for Marcus.
\n\nBeatles, Beatles, Beatles. Where are the Bee Gees? she thought.
\n\nShe looked closer at the shelf of vinyls in vain. All of them Beatles? she thought. Really?
\n\nAmanda looked up from the shelf and gasped. Her toes curled in her clogs. Marcus was right next to her, silent like a spectre.
\n\n“Hey Marcus,” Amanda said. “Didn’t see you there.”
\n\n“Hi Amanda,” he said calmly, as always. His dorky shirt, and they were always dorky, depicted a supersonic aircraft.
\n\nWhen will this guy learn to dress himself? Amanda thought. But instead of saying that, she simply remarked “Interesting shirt.”
\n\n“Why thank you,” Marcus responded, even though Amanda technically hadn’t complimented him. “It’s the Concorde, if you must know.”
\n\nAmanda rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said. “Can you help me find ‘Stayin Alive’ by the Bee Gees?”
\n\nMarcus and Amanda searched the record store shelf by shelf. She talked about the energy crisis, the Soviet-Afghan war, and her job prospects.\nHe talked about the UNIX operating system and his recent trip to see his brother out of town.
\n\nBut here and there he would pepper in one of those annoying questions.
\n\n“So Amanda, how’s your boyfriend doing?”
\n\n“What’s he like?”
\n\n“You know, this is a bit late, but you never told me your boyfriend’s name.”
\n\nAnd Amanda would respond.
\n\n“He’s doing his Master’s.”
\n\n“He knows a lot about history.”
\n\n“His name is Timothy.”
\n\nAnd each time she responded, Marcus' face would briefly twist into a scowl, or his eyes would dart wildly. But Marcus always tried to return to his neutral tone, his unnaturally gentle smile.
\n\nMarcus, you idiot, thought Amanda. Who are you trying to fool?
\n\nEventually Amanda and Marcus walked up to the desk of the record store in frustration.
\n\n“Where are the Bee Gees?” Amanda asked.
\n\n“Sorry ma'am, the boss is all about the Beatles,” the cashier responded.
\n\nAmanda held her hands in frustration, which was definitely not the perfect time for Marcus to step in.
\n\n“So Timothy, is he more of a Bee Gees guy like you?” Marcus asked.
\n\n“Can you shut up about Timothy!?” demanded Amanda. “You have a problem with him? Then just spit it out!”
\n\n“I’m just curious about his taste in music,” Marcus lied.
\n\n“Goddamn it Marcus. Just let me live, just let me be.” Amanda said.
\n\n“Look Amanda, I only accused him of being a Soviet spy two or three times at most so can we get over that?”
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-corruption","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/j-corruption","title":"Corruption","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:11.000","date_published":"2022-11-01T09:18:20.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/j-corruption/attachments/thumbnail.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"}],"tags":["creative","joy-of-writing"],"content_html":"![\"Crayon](\"/j-corruption/attachments/thumbnail.svg\")
Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
George, age 4, excitedly grabbed the green crayon and slammed it into the paper.
\n\nHis hand zipped across the page like a dragonfly, changing directions almost every moment.
\n\nThere were a rare few seconds when George’s hand hovered over the page, as he contemplated the next section of paper to visit.
\n\nGeorge, age 16, groaned as he reached for the pencil.
\n\nAs per the exam regulations, the writing was all in pen but the diagrams, those tedious diagrams were all pencil.
\n\nHe struggled to remember the various organelles of a plant cell he needed to depict for this IGCSE Biology question.
\n\nI definitely need to include the chloroplasts for full marks he thought. And the nucleus, duh.
\n\nBut what about mitochondria, do plant cells have those again?
\n\nGeorge, age 20, grinned to his coworkers as he reached for a marker.
\n\n“In order to allow us to pick a different JSON library in future,” he explained. “I suggest we add a middle layer!”
\n\nHe rose his voice and changed his tone to sell the lie.
\n\nGeorge wiped out a line on the board and replaced it with a rectangle labelled “middle layer”.
\n\nHe drew with false urgency, and he jumped in a fit of fake joy.\nBut he didn’t care anymore.
\n\nThis was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
\n\nPixar’s Lightyear was fine. I’d even call it good - but not great. I had a couple thoughts about this movie, although frankly it was straightforward so there probably isn’t much to say. There will be spoilers in this article.
\n\n![\"Buzz](\"/lightyear/attachments/tv_show.webp\")
Image credit: Walt Disney Company
Toy Story was released in 27 years ago and Toy Story 2 was 23 years ago. There was a Buzz Lightyear spin-off show and direct-to-video movie 22 years ago (which I had blissfully forgotten about). Even Toy Story 3 is 12 years old, and one of the plot points of that movie was that a kid from the time of Toy Story would be old enough to go to college.
\n\nFeel old yet? I suspect a lot of the interest in Lightyear is based on the nostalgia of people in their twenties and thirties. Do kids actually care about Buzz Lightyear? On the way to the cinema I overheard a kid tell his dad he would be interested in the new Minions movie - and that’s another franchise which is getting long in the tooth.
\n\nI guess kids might know Buzz from Toy Story 4.
\n\nThe point is, Hollywood is milking old franchises as much as they can. And by going to see Lightyear I helped, in a tiny way, to support this banal behaviour. Pixar has made films that aren’t sequels but because I am no longer in Pixar’s target audience I didn’t see any of them. Yet I am still afflicted with the disease of nostalgia, the weakness of familiarity, the almost Pavlovian impulse to stare at a screen if it shows me something I enjoyed once upon a time.
\n\nSorry, this is an article about a movie, right?
\n\nThe trailer for Marcel the Shell with Shoes On was cute. After seeing Everything, Everywhere, All at Once I am a bit more interested in A24’s material.
\n\n![\"The](\"/lightyear/attachments/turnip.webp\")
Image credit: Walt Disney Company
Lightyear has a plot with 3 distinct segments: an introduction, a video game mini-plot, and a finale.
\n\nOne early part of the introduction that stood out was how well organized the marooned Star Command crew were. Within a year they apparently set up a colony that not only provided the necessities of life but had an entire spaceport and the materials to make hyperspace fuel. They probably had a lot of building material in their “turnip” ship: as we find out later the crew also set up a mine on a distant part of the planet.
\n\nThe flora and fauna of this planet are really boring. This is especially noticeable if you watch Lightyear after a trailer for James Cameron’s next Avatar movie. It’s not a big deal, most of the plot is technology-focused anyway, yet I still wish the alien life were more interesting.
\n\nWe do not know much details about the crew’s society. Is everyone’s lives governed by an authoritarian adherence to Star Command protocol - or is that just how they treat Buzz Lightyear and their expensive aerospace material? Buzz’s goal to eventually find a way to leave the planet could be a danger to the colony’s regime, which is one possible reason Buzz’s mission was canceled.
\n\nAnother possibility is that the crew actually have a more democratic society but they are collectively tired of spending resources on a hopeless mission. As later parts of the film point out, everyone has a life on the planet except Buzz - so the hyperspace program primarily benefits Buzz. None of that explains why they have to decommission Sox, Buzz’s sentient robot cat. It is also an odd coincidence that Buzz’s hyperspace tests are the same length as an American presidential term.
\n\nWhy did the writers decide there needed to be so many test flights of 4 years each, instead of one or two longer trips? The obvious answer is to establish Buzz Lightyear’s stubborn and slightly arrogant character, and contrast it with Alisha Hawthorne who actually has a life. The writers also probably wanted the successful test flight to feel more significant and emotional given by making it particularly long.
\n\nI mentioned Buzz Lightyear as being stubborn and arrogant, but he is also very sincere - not an annoying wisecrack like some of the male leads of the Star Wars sequels. Even when he goes rogue, Buzz still acts like a member of an organization who broke a rule or two, rather than a lifelong criminal not bound by any standards. He even mentions the authority of his rank in some scenes.
\n\n![\"Buzz,](\"/lightyear/attachments/crew.webp\")
Image credit: Walt Disney Company
It is after Buzz steals a ship and does his successful hyperspace test that the video game mini-plot begins. It starts interesting with the twenty-year jump, and the introduction of Izzy Hawthorne, her friends, and Zurg. However it devolves into a fetch quest pretty quickly. The main characters must:
\n\nAnd to top it all off, they fry a circuit during their spaceflight and must obtain a capacitor from a mining facility.
\n\nYes, a capacitor.
\n\nIt is during this period that Buzz’s character develops - from being an arrogant loner to a person willing to accept help and be a team player. One memorable line from this portion of the story:
\n\n\n\nWe don’t need you to save us. We need you to join us.
There is also a scene where everybody eats sandwiches with the toppings on the outside and the bread on the inside. This sandwich arrangement is the most shocking twist in the entire film (sorry Zurg). So are these sandwiches just for fun or do they have a deeper meaning? Buzz eventually eats one and enjoys it, showing his increased willingness to change his ways. They could also symbolize exposing one’s juicy vulnerability, instead of hiding it behind a dry, firm exterior. Yet it is not as though the bread is omitted entirely, because Lightyear and Hawthorne still need a firm core.
\n\nThe more concerning thing about the sandwiches is the expiry date. If the Starfleet Star Command colony has been trapped for a week, are those sandwiches safe to eat?
![\"Zurg\"](\"/lightyear/attachments/zurg.jpg\")
Image credit: Walt Disney Company
In the finale we finally learn Zurg’s backstory. It’s not that surprising but I will omit some important details, as a bit of a self-imposed puzzle.
\n\nZurg intends to use Buzz Lightyear’s hyperspace fuel to travel back in time, for reasons explained quite well in the film. As a side effect the century-old marooned Star Command colony would cease to exist.
\n\nBut would it really? Clearly time travel in this film is not a closed time loop: Zurg’s actions changed the past. He even says he “broke time”. So did Zurg’s time travel involve merely leaving his original timeline? Or did he destroy his original timeline? Given Buzz and Zurg’s attitudes towards Zurg’s plan, it’s fair to say that altering time destroys timelines within the logic of this film. It’s no wonder that Zurg has so little regard for human life: the entire timeline is doomed anyway.
\n\nWhen Zurg reveals his identity, Buzz trusts him almost instantly. This is a bit hard to believe. Zurg’s robots attacked the Star Command colony and nearly killed Izzy Hawthorne and friends. Did Buzz just forget all of that? Honestly he probably did: Zurg’s reveal would be pretty surprising without the context of fiction. Luckily the cooperation does not last long.
\n\nZurg is a foil to Buzz even before the reveal. The scene where Zurg gets fed up with his robots and chases Buzz down solo is a mirror of Buzz’s own annoyance with autopilot. That said the robots do not pester Zurg the way rookies would pester Buzz: they appear only at Zurg’s command, can get back to Zurg’s ship at the press of a button, and only say “Zurg”.
\n\nAccording to Izzy Hawthorne, Zurg appeared only a week before Buzz finished his final hyperspace test. He could obviously obtain the hyperspace fuel from Buzz, but why did he attack the Star Command colony? Was it to obtain their hyperspace fuel mixing machines? Or perhaps purely to manipulate Buzz?
\n\nAnother nice scene during the finale was Izzy Hawthorne getting over her fear of space - this was mentioned earlier but could have used a bit more build up.
\n\nLightyear felt short, simple and straightforward. The visuals were good, especially the spaceships. Buzz and Izzy were alright characters with alright character arcs. Lightyear might technically be the simplest time travel story ever - mainly because so little time travel actually occurs.
\n\nIt was good, but not great. Pixar cut out almost all unnecessary detail. Yet I wonder if they cut too much. The characters other than Buzz could have been fleshed out more. The plot could have had less MacGuffin chasing and more human drama. Did I mention there was a capacitor in this movie?
\n\nI would not want a sequel unless Hawthorne was the main character. Although the Lightyear name pulled me towards this film, I think we got enough of him.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/windows-era","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/windows-era","title":"Life With Windows","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:11.000","date_published":"2021-05-08T15:00:05.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/windows-era/attachments/i3_screenshot.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/windows-era/attachments/shell.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/windows-era/attachments/path.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/windows-era/attachments/shell.png","mime_type":"image/png"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/windows-era/attachments/windows.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/windows-era/attachments/ssh.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/windows-era/attachments/ssh.png","mime_type":"image/png"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/windows-era/attachments/path.png","mime_type":"image/png"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/windows-era/attachments/i3_screenshot.png","mime_type":"image/png"}],"tags":["technology"],"content_html":"![\"Windows](\"/windows-era/attachments/windows.svg\")
Image credit: Microsoft
I used Windows uncomfortably often during the last year, much more than in the prior ten. It turns out, a lot of my expectations were obsolete. Windows has changed in many tiny ways over the past decade, but still finds ways to frustrate and confound.
\n\nAccording to Microsoft itself:
\n\n\n\nThe Windows Subsystem for Linux lets developers run a GNU/Linux environment – including most command-line tools, utilities, and applications – directly on Windows, unmodified, without the overhead of a traditional virtual machine or dual-boot setup.
In my months of experience, I found this statement to be mostly accurate. Obviously there isn’t much hardware access, but there is at least file system and network access. A lot of my gripes with WSL are being actively worked on.
\n\nThere are some interesting subtleties, even in Microsoft’s official statement. Consider the word “developers”. WSL isn’t meant for most Windows “users”, it is meant for “developers” to either work on Linux applications or use a Linux toolchain to cross-compile a Windows app. Creating an application that needs WSL on a user’s machine is probably a hack.
\n\nThere is only one Windows app I have used that literally requires WSL: a recent version of Docker. Docker’s entire purpose is running Linux containers, so it is sensible for them to avoid duplicating WSL’s functionality. Not so sensible for other applications, however.
\n\nMicrosoft also decided to refer to the Linux userspace as “GNU/Linux”, which is a bit odd considering that Alpine Linux is one of the officially supported options. However, if you’re using WSL because the Windows Command Prompt is missing features you want, then Alpine is an annoyingly minimalist choice. I ended up using Ubuntu WSL more often than Alpine WSL.
\n\nWSL doesn’t just enable “GNU/Linux” applications to run on Windows. It also allows applications in your Windows PATH to run in WSL. For example you can type explorer.exe . to run Windows Explorer from inside WSL. Of course not all Windows applications were designed to be run this way.
![\"Windows](\"/windows-era/attachments/path.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
The interface for changing the Windows PATH is actually really nifty. I wish more Unix-based systems had a similar window. However the obvious problem is that there isn’t just one PATH, is there? Each shell and application might be making alterations its PATH while it is running, even on Windows.
\n\nAlso, the only people who even care about the PATH are command-line users, who should be okay with reading and writing text files anyway. Or should they? Sometimes I wonder if these sorts of assumptions are holding back the possible capabilities of our software.
\n\n![\"Windows](\"/windows-era/attachments/shell.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
If you use command-lines often, you likely understand that a modern command-line involves a number of applications working together. Details such as font size and color combinations are controlled seperately from details such as how the computer responds to echo Hello.
Most articles on this topic use the terms “shell”, “console” and “terminal”. To quote this answer on SuperUser:
\n\n\n\nThe shell is the program which actually processes commands and returns output. Most shells also manage foreground and background processes, command history and command line editing…
\n\nA terminal refers to a wrapper program which runs a shell. Decades ago, this was a physical device consisting of little more than a monitor and keyboard. As unix/linux systems added better multiprocessing and windowing systems, this terminal concept was abstracted into software.
Typical shells on a Linux system include bash, zsh, fish and ash. Typical terminals include Gnome Terminal, xterm, and urxvt.
So what is the shell/terminal situation on Windows like?
\n\nThe default shell is of course the Command Prompt. Like many Microsoft products, it is designed to be compatible with ancient software that someone, somewhere cannot bear to abandon. Apart from being available on all Windows computers since the dawn of the NT kernel, I cannot think of a redeeming quality of Command Prompt compared to alternatives.
\n\nThere is also the much more interesting Powershell. Unlike typical Unix shells where every command inputs and outputs text, in PowerShell every command inputs and outputs an object. This is pretty cool, but there are several caveats.
\n\nFor one thing, PowerShell is entirely different from typical Unix shells. This in itself is problem for a lot of people. Interestingly, Microsoft has ported “PowerShell Core” to non-Windows systems. Perhaps PowerShell could become someone’s default Unix shell someday.
\n\nThat would be deeply ironic because on Windows, PowerShell cannot execute scripts by default. Scripting must be explicitly enabled by the user. This is an entirely intentional feature. Unfortunately this means as an application developer, you cannot rely on PowerShell always being available on a user’s Windows computer.
\n\nThere are also “Developer Command Prompts” available with Visual Studio: one for every combination of target and tool CPU architecture. No, I’m serious, check out this page which lists the following:
\n\n\n\n\n
\n- Developer Command Prompt - Sets the environment to use 32-bit, x86-native tools to build 32-bit, x86-native code.
\n- x86 Native Tools Command Prompt - Sets the environment to use 32-bit, x86-native tools to build 32-bit, x86-native code.
\n- x64 Native Tools Command Prompt - Sets the environment to use 64-bit, x64-native tools to build 64-bit, x64-native code.
\n- x86_x64 Cross Tools Command Prompt - Sets the environment to use 32-bit, x86-native tools to build 64-bit, x64-native code.
\n- x64_x86 Cross Tools Command Prompt - Sets the environment to use 64-bit, x64-native tools to build 32-bit, x86-native code.
\n
And to add insult to injury, all five of those are based on Command Prompt instead of PowerShell. The Developer PowerShell is seperate.
\n\nOther shells are available from third parties. For example, Git is typically installed with Git Bash, bringing the Unix bash shell to Windows. MSYS2 really changed the game by bringing the Unix bash shell to Windows. But Cygwin also still exists, providing the ability to run bash on Windows.
Oh, and of course WSL instances allow “developers” to run bash on Windows.
The situation with terminals on Windows also strange. Windows Console is the default terminal for Command Prompt, PowerShell and numerous other applications. Luckily, I didn’t have to use it long enough to hate it.
\n\nThe newer Windows Terminal adds a lot of missing features, but with a twist: there isn’t a graphical settings dialog. Windows Terminal is currently configured by editing a JSON file, which isn’t terrible in and of itself.
\n\nAlso, Windows Terminal isn’t shipped with Windows, but provided as a download from the Microsoft Store. By contrast, the Windows Console will continue shipping for “decades to come”. This means that much like PowerShell, application developers cannot rely on Windows Terminal existing on a user’s machine. So of course they are all still defaulting to using Windows Console.
\n\nThe end result is that if I want to use Windows Terminal for all my shells, I must edit the Windows Terminal JSON whenever I install a new shell that isn’t “blessed” by the Terminal team, such as Git Bash and the Visual Studio shell prompts…
\n\nThis is frankly a bit ridiculous. Can’t all the teams at Microsoft get together and agree on one shell in one terminal with all the necessary features?
\n\nLet’s say you want to play NetHack on a public server using SSH, but your home computer runs Windows.
\n\nConventional knowledge might lead you to install PuTTY. Or perhaps since you’ve kept up with all the latest development trends, you could opt to use SSH inside of WSL instead.
\n\nOr… you could just type ssh nethack@alt.org into the default Command Prompt just like on Linux.
![\"SSH](\"/windows-era/attachments/ssh.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
Yes, that’s right. You can even copy your .ssh folder directly from Linux and plop it in your Windows user folder, because since about 2018, Microsoft has been bundling OpenSSH with Windows 10.
They also started bundling tar and curl. This is a major convenience: before Microsoft started bundling curl, you might have needed to download files using this strange thing, or at least its various PowerShell wrappers. As for tar, opening its file format used to require third-party tools like 7-Zip.
Is there any more Unix software being discreetly bundled into recent releases of Windows? I could trawl through Microsoft’s entire development blog, actually read the release notes of every Windows update and … on second thoughts I’ll just search for tools when I need them.
\n\nMicrosoft is finally making a package manager for Windows, known as winget. Uninstalling a package is still an experimental feature.
For a home user who isn’t installing applications on a hundred Windows machines, I don’t think winget (or other Windows package managers such as Chocolately) are as useful as their Unix equivalents. In most cases Windows applications do not depend on other Windows applications, and are bundled with all their libraries.
Of course the situation is different when considering developer-focused package managers like nuget, since developers do need to keep track of dependencies in their projects.
Also, if Windows Terminal, WSL, ssh, curl and the like were all being managed by winget, then winget could treat those as dependencies for some larger utility program.
It’s pretty easy to reset or reinstall Windows these days, which is great if there are a lot of useless files and programs to be removed. However there is a catch: all software bundled with the PC is reinstalled.
\n\nYes, both the “Refresh your PC” and “Reset your PC” options keeps the apps that came with the PC. Did your PC come with the Netflix Windows app, random games, and pointless OEM shovelware preinstalled? Say hello to them again!
\n\nThat said this is still a convenient feature. If you have a backup ready to go, you can return your PC to factory settings with ease.
\n\nOh of course Windows supplies two seperate backup utilities.
\n\nNeither of which are all that great.
\n\nHonestly I haven’t been keeping many backups, for reasons independent of software. The external hard disk that I would normally use for backups was extremely unreliable. It would just disconnect at the slightest disturbance. I had to basically cradle the hard disk like a baby for it to actually maintain a connection to the computer. Recently I got an external SSD which will hopefully be more convenient at this critical task.
\n\nOne of the features of Linux I was missing was the ability to install a tiling window manager such as xmonad, i3 or perhaps sway. The search for a Windows alternative is what led me to the PowerToys utilties in general, and FancyZones in particular.
However, by default FancyZones doesn’t force new windows into zones like a tiling window manager would. Instead the user must drag a window into a zone. It’s easy to fall out of the habit. FancyZones also has a bit of trouble with applications running in Administrator mode.
\n\nThere was another PowerToy that I found pretty handy: the PowerRename utility. In a recent biology course, I didn’t like the video filenames the professor chose, and PowerRename helped me rename them in bulk. On Linux, of course, there is the rename command which provides all the same features, minus the graphical interface.
There are many other PowerToys that I never ended up using.
\n\n![\"Screenshot](\"/windows-era/attachments/i3_screenshot.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
It was the lack of a tiling window manager that really tempted me away from Windows. Moving around applications individually is a nuisance. Switching back to Linux during the middle of a school term seemed like a bad idea, so I bided my time.
\n\nHowever even on Linux, tiling window managers aren’t that popular. I eventually chose the i3 community edition of Manjaro Linux. But of course, that was a “community” edition, lacking “official” support. Eventually when Wayland and pals are finally ready to dethrone X11, I might need to switch from i3 to sway, which is of course even more obscure.
Before installing Manjaro, I reinstalled Windows and kept a tiny partition for it, just in case.
\n\nSo is there an actual point to this list of links and gripes?
\n\nClearly Microsoft is incrementally moving towards making their system more attractive to develop on. It is becoming possible to develop a Linux userland application on Windows without any third-party tools at all. People who primarily use desktop Linux to develop web or server applications might be tempted to just use Windows.
\n\nThere are still plenty of reasons to use desktop Linux. The most industry-relevant reason is to develop a Linux application that directly communicates with hardware.
\n\nDesktop Linux also provides the freedom to customize your Linux kernel and install alternative user interfaces (like tiling window managers). It allows you to really customize every tiny detail of your system, but that freedom is not really important or even accessible for most people. Is being able to edit the source code of Linux rename that compelling compared to actually knowing what you’re doing with Microsoft PowerRename?
I can only hope that these moves by Microsoft encourage more creativity and innovation in Linux’s graphical interfaces. Creating (more?) replicas of the Windows user interface would be a really poor way for desktop Linux to compete with WSL.
\n\nInter-team confusion continues to impede Microsoft’s progress. Did the Developer Command Prompt people even know that Microsoft Terminal was being developed? Did the WSL team ever meet the people bundling ssh into Windows? Will the PowerToys team ever be able to really change the Windows interface with a future version of FancyZones?
I suppose that from now on, I’ll be keeping a closer eye on Windows, even if I avoid using it at home.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/endgame","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/endgame","title":"Endgame Without Infinity War","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:10.000","date_published":"2019-05-12T00:30:07.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/endgame/attachments/pregame-small.png","mime_type":"image/png"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/endgame/attachments/win.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/endgame/attachments/nasa-small.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/endgame/attachments/lego.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/endgame/attachments/lego-small.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/endgame/attachments/pregame.png","mime_type":"image/png"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/endgame/attachments/win-small.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/endgame/attachments/nasa.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/endgame/attachments/timeline-small.png","mime_type":"image/png"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/endgame/attachments/timeline.png","mime_type":"image/png"}],"tags":["movies"],"content_html":"This article includes spoilers for Avengers: Endgame. Don’t scroll too fast!
\n\nI watched Avengers: Endgame three days back, despite having missed out on most of the recent Marvel movies. It was still mostly enjoyable and understandable.
\n\n![\"MCU](\"/endgame/attachments/pregame-small.png\")
Image credit: Cheesenaut on Reddit, Walt Disney Company
The timeline above, which I found here, shows almost all the movies that build up to Endgame. Captian Marvel, released after Infinity War, is also pretty important. I was not a Marvel completionist, but I still saw a fair number of these. Over the past eleven years of the MCU, I saw:
\n\nThere were several strong entries in Phase Three which I missed, largely out of a sense of snobbishness. I wasn’t too happy with Age of Ultron. Additionally, my family is generally more interested in film than I am: now that I don’t live with them I see fewer films in general.
\n\nDespite missing out on the bulk of Phase Three, I still heard quite a lot about it. At some of my prior workplaces I have been in long conversations about the MCU in general, and Infinity War in particular. I mean, I was working with a guy who had an Infinity Gauntlet style wristwatch, with itty-bitty Infinity Stones on the edge of the clockface. There was another guy I worked with who had all the Funko Pop Avengers, as well as a few Funko Pop DC superheroes and Funko Pop X-Men. Most of the websites I frequent are rife with references to these movies. I have watched and read reviews of the individual films, as well as commentary on the state of superhero movies in general. In short, the hype has been reaching a fever pitch.
\n\nIt seems like the events of Endgame are going to be very important for Spider-Man: Far From Home, which I actually plan to see at some point. Tom Holland actually issued an Endgame spoiler warning at the start of one of the Far From Home trailers: it just goes to show how quickly all these films are being released. Captain Marvel was still in theatres: Marvel is really churning out superhero movies like sausages. I decided to delay watching the most spoiler-heavy Far From Home trailer because I was unsure about whether or not I would see Endgame.
\n\n![\"I](\"/endgame/attachments/win-small.jpg\")
Image credit: Walt Disney Company
During Endgame’s opening week, spoiler warnings sprouted all over the internet like some sort of digitally transmitted fungus. However the warnings have recently started to recede, and the first Endgame memes have started to proliferate. I needed to know the truth once and for all: would Ant-Man really crawl up Thanos' digestive tract? This is one of the reasons I finally caved in and decided to give Endgame a look.
\n\nThe other reason is that I had fond memories of Iron Man and the first Avengers film. I had not kept track of all the characters' journeys but I did want to know if, and how, they might meet their end.
\n\n![\"NASA's](\"/endgame/attachments/nasa-small.jpg\")
Image credit: unknown, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Walt Disney Company
The film started really strong, except for having Captain Marvel ferry Tony Stark back to Earth. It seemed like a waste to put Tony Stark in the deep darkness of space, only to return him to Earth in the first two minutes. I had no idea how he ended up there, having not seen Infinity War, but it seemed like something more dramatic was going to happen. On the other hand, it could have been cornier.
\n\nI guess in retrospect, having the film start with Stark accepting his death is a bit of foreshadowing. There’s another moment that stuck out as suspicious even without retrospect: a comment Steve Rogers made in his support group. He said something along the lines of “if we can’t move on, Thanos should have killed all of us.” I suppose great beefcakes think alike?
\n\nSpeaking of Thanos, the encounter with him near the beginning went in a really unexpected direction. It says a lot about Thanos, not to mention about the hollowness of “avenging”.
\n\nAs someone who did not actually watch Infinity War, I still found these early scenes of characters dealing with the “Snapture” very moving. I did not necessarily care about Ant-Man as an individual, but following him around the depopulated Earth was something of a gloomy spectacle.
\n\nTony Stark having a family was another really engaging change. Compare the way he treats the random kid who helps him in Iron Man 3 to the way he tucks his daughter in to bed at night. Not to mention how a genius playboy billionaire philanthropist ended up married and living in a cottage in the woods. What a turn-around.
\n\nI’m a sucker for intentional awkwardness.
\n\nBy the way, the screening I went to did not include the grayscale footage of the bulk of the cast turning to dust. The scene of Hawkeye’s family disappearing made the point well enough.
\n\n![\"Timeline](\"/endgame/attachments/timeline-small.png\")
Image credit: E_Byron_Nelson on Reddit
I wasn’t paying attention when the time travel rules were being explained. All I remember is the characters bringing up other time travel movies and claiming that they don’t make sense. In Back to the Future 2 they had the decency of giving Doc Brown a chalkboard, but Endgame only provides shots of Bruce Banner talking. I only realized that alternate timelines were being made after leaving the cinema. The diagram above, which I found here shows the full complexity of what was going on.
\n\nRegarding alternate-timeline-based time travel, it does seem a bit ignoble to mess up somebody else’s reality for the sake of your own. One of the Doctor Strange side-characters (whose name I never knew) brought this up. Universe-branching also means that there are lower stakes than if there was a need to maintain a stable time loop. Of course, if time loops were involved then Tony Stark would have not agreed to the mission in the first place.
\n\nUltimately I only really thought about any of this after the movie was over. When I was actually in the cinema, I sometimes wondered about the timeline being preserved but for the most part just enjoyed all the shenanigans. It was good fun for the most part. The scene where “Howard Potts” met Howard Stark melted my cold, icy heart.
\n\nThere were a couple of “time heist” scenes I disliked. It really seems like Nebula should have seen her fate coming, and I didn’t care much about Black Widow and Hawkeye’s reverse gladiator fight. I had no idea why Red Skull was involved, I’m sure the answer was mentioned in Infinity War. I had a vague idea who Hank Pym was from a Wikipedia article I read a couple of years ago, but I had no clue what Pym particles were.
\n\nBit of a pet peeve of mine, but how come the film uses the Gregorian calendar in outer space?
\n\n![\"Avengers](\"/endgame/attachments/lego-small.jpg\")
Image credit: LEGO Group
Some reviewers didn’t like how Past-Thanos was brought to the future. However, even when sitting in the theatre chair I knew that there was no telling how much preparation was involved. Past-Thanos and Past-Nebula could have had a multi-year time travel research team. It didn’t worry me at all, really. Since I hadn’t seen Infinity War I also wasn’t too worried about Past-Thanos not really having a history fighting on Earth.
\n\nThe massive final fight scene bored me a little though. It’s a great spectacle, sure: pretty much every named MCU protagonist versus an army of … robot-aliens devoid of personality. Frankly I was never too fond of these fight scenes with hordes of enemies. It seems especially silly given that the only truly important parts of the battlefield are the location of the Infinity Gauntlet and the location of Captain Marvel.
\n\nThere is a scene where various women from the MCU are guarding Captian Marvel, and I personally asked myself if Captain Marvel actually needed help. She tore a spaceship apart upon her arrival, and can travel the galaxy at faster-than-light speeds without a vehicle or even a helmet. The robot-alien hordes were too numerous, I suppose.
\n\nI was bored enough to start thinking about my life beyond the film during this fight. I know, these massive fights are a genre convention, and I expected nothing less from the final installment in this twenty-something long saga. However I would have preferred more time heists. At least until the final moments of the fight.
\n\nTony Stark’s end was actually tragic. The man was the central pillar of this entire franchise, a household name for the entire past decade. It’s hard to imagine an MCU without him. Even as a casual with only a limited exposure to Phase Three, I felt something of a connection to the guy. I quite enjoyed Iron Man back in the day. It’s incredible how far Stark has come.
\n\nSteve Rogers' conclusion made me feel a little fuzzy inside. I was never as sentimentally attached to Steve as to Tony. Also I didn’t care at all about the Falcon or passing on the shield. Still it’s great that he actually got to retire. In retrospect, it’s also neat that his super-serum didn’t cause problems in his old age.
\n\nThor’s conclusion is cool and all but what about Bruce Banner? I suppose that since he was sort of at peace right at the start of the film there was no reason to elaborate further at the end.
\n\nEndgame was good. I’m glad I saw it. Even without seeing Infinity War, it still mostly worked. I wouldn’t call it incredible or amazing.
\n\nThis really seems like peak MCU. Or perhaps Infinity War was peak MCU. In either case while Marvel still plans on making more films, they can’t realistically top the past two years of hype without another couple of years of preparation.
\n\nFuture MCU films will probably also depend on the strength of characters introduced in Phase Three. I don’t really know about any of them, except for Spider-Man. Hopefully someone cares about Nebula, Scarlet Witch, the Falcon, Valkyrie and “the chick with the antennae”. As far as villainous plots go, it’s hard to top eliminating half the universe’s population. Additionally, now that the MCU includes time travel, the characters of future installments will have access to multiple universes' worth of resources.
\n\nSo far other studios haven’t replicated Marvel’s success with shared universes. Honestly, I’m not sure I have the patience for more shared universes of this scope. Also, if DC doesn’t get its act together and other companies don’t make an entirely original universe, I wonder what the source material for other shared universes will be. Tolkien’s Silmarillion? Asimov’s Foundation? The fall of the Roman Republic? Actually instead of any of that we’ll be seeing a lot more aliens who look like blue humans.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/adding-comments","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/adding-comments","title":"Adding Comments","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:10.000","date_published":"2018-09-07T00:00:32.000","attachments":[],"tags":["meta","technology"],"content_html":"As part of my recent blog-enhancement attempt I\nadded a comment system!
\n\nThere are no accounts, logins or passwords on this site. There are also not any comment/reply notifications (yet?).
\n\nThe comment form accepts text in the Markdown format, with a lot of limitations. If you do not know Markdown and do not\nfeeling like learning it today, a plain text comment will probably\nwork just fine.
\n\nYour website, if provided, will be shared with other readers. Your email will not be shared, however: only I will see it. If there’s\na comment-related issue, I might contact you through that email.
\n\nAfter you press “Submit” a cookie is stored on your browser which\nidentifies you to the comment system, and expires in 15 minutes. You\ncan only edit or delete your comment while this cookie is active. This\nmeans:
\n\nAfter the timeout is over, if you still need to clarify your comment,\nyou will just have to reply to your own comment.
\n\nThis is admittedly all a bit inconvenient, but the plus side is that\nunlike on social media, your identity can be hidden from the wider\nworld. Even I will only have your IP Address (and anything you type\nin, of course).
\n\nThe policy is less “my site, my rules” and more like “my site, my\nwhims”. I can remove your comment at any time, for any reason.
\n\nI will not edit your comment, except to change the text to “REMOVED\nFOR [reason]”. Or perhaps I will delete your comment without a trace.
\n\nThis site uses Isso, with a lot of custom\nstyling. Some of the limitations in the comment system are inherent to\nIsso, while others are just caused by my configuration.
\n\nWhy Isso? Well…
\n\nIsso apparently doesn’t scale well, so I may need to switch to another\nsystem if ratan.blog gains a few million visitors. Until then, I hope\nyou enjoy commenting.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/blog-enhancements","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/blog-enhancements","title":"Enhancements to This Blog","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:10.000","date_published":"2018-09-06T23:49:58.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/blog-enhancements/attachments/old.html","mime_type":"text/html"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/blog-enhancements/attachments/calculated_asymmetry_new.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/blog-enhancements/attachments/calculated_asymmetry.svg","mime_type":"image/svg+xml"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/blog-enhancements/attachments/style.css","mime_type":"text/plain"}],"tags":["meta","technology"],"content_html":"When this blog began, it was pretty much for my own amusement. I\npicked technologies specifically because they seemed fun to play\nwith. Features were limited based on how easy I thought they would be\nto implement myself. The layout was optimized not for reading experience, but for showing off SVG resizing and CSS transparency. I\nstarted writing prose, but switched to listicles and even bullet\npoints simply because it was easy.
\n\nWas this all good? Bad? I had no idea. My own opinion reversed itself\nevery few days. As for other people, their feedback was limited to\ndirect messages and a log file that nobody read.
\n\nAll the while, the wider internet was changing. So over the past few\nweeks, I decided to enhance this site on several fronts.
\n\nThe first change was an overhaul of the content management system. The incumbent was a system I wrote myself in Golang:\nblom. Golang is a fun\nlittle language for certain tasks, but its unique strengths did\nnot shine through in blom.
I pretty much rewrote blom such that each task was conducted\nusing the most suitable language: file management was handled in bash\nscripts, templating was handled using\nm4 and various other tools\nwere used as appropriate. This is obviously not something a reader\nwould notice directly, but it made adding new features and testing new layouts significantly easier.
Another enabling change was switching from a simple NodeJS-based server to\nnginx. In retrospect this was not necessary,\nbut it made some of the next changes easier to configure.
\n\nIn the past, every time a file on this site was accessed, a line\nwould be added to a log file which I never, ever checked. However,\nnow I’ve installed a web log analyzer which\npresents all the data with pretty colors. I used to feel like I was\nshouting into the void, but now when I write I can be assured that\nplenty of search engine bots are reading.
\n\nEven before this blog existed, the world has been moving to using\nHTTPS by default for all websites. ratan.blog has been very late to the party … still, better late than never!
I added a comment system! That merits its own article.
\n\nHere is what the blog used to look like.
\n\nI actually attempted disable all the browser’s default styling and individually\nwrite new styles for every possible HTML element. This was both\nexhausting and probably a waste of time, but reading the\nMDN list of HTML elements was very educational. For one thing, I finally know\nwhat a description list is (also called a definition list). As for\nthe CSS reset, I ended up just using the budget version:
\n\n![here](\"/z-bird/attachments/bird.jpg\"){kind=link}
![here](\"/z-bird/attachments/irl.webp\"){kind=link}
![here](\"/z-bird/attachments/kaleidoscope.jpg\"){kind=link}
* {\nmargin:0;\npadding:0;\n}\nAfter eliminating the Lufthansa-esque color scheme, the next casualty\nwas the logo.
\n\n![\"old](\"/blog-enhancements/attachments/calculated_asymmetry.svg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
What was the point of that logo? Was it totally arbitrary? Well, I\ndon’t actually remember. All I know is, the filename was\ncalculated_asymmetry.svg, but the logo was symmetrical using an axis\n45° from the horizontal. What a scandal!
![\"new](\"/blog-enhancements/attachments/calculated_asymmetry_new.svg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
The meaning of the new logo is that right-angled trapezoids are\nunderrated.
\n\nSo you know that feeling when some task seems so easy that there\nwould be no reason to test it, but then something goes wrong that\ncould have been easily detected while testing? Yeah,\nthat’s what happened after I registered r3n.me. I tried to\nmake a script that created alternate URLs for every existing article.\nUnfortunately it created alternate URLs for those alternate URLs\nevery time it was run. Eventually there were 3 or 4 paths to every\narticle and each path had a corresponding entry in the RSS, Atom and\nJSON Feeds.
\n\nIf you were subscribed to any of those feeds and saw “re-runs” of old\narticles, sorry about that.
\n\nOn the plus side, there are short URLs for every article. They are\nrecorded in the archive.
\n\nThe third item will shock you!
\n\nWhat follows is an adaption of my final Facebook post to a form that suits this blog.
\n\nI recently deleted my Facebook account, and will no longer use commerical products made by Facebook. I did not do this purely for humanitarian reasons, nor purely for selfish reasons.
\n\nFacebook has achieved quite a lot of power in society in exchange for a rather poor product. There are a lot of extremely powerful companies and poor products in the world but Facebook takes the cake on both dimensions.
\n\nThe News Feed is terrible, because it optimizes for engagement, not happiness. Back when I used it, it would often aggravating to read because that’s how you make money advertising. It is also not optimizing for meaning, nuance, truth or good style. All must be sacrificed for engagement.
\n\nAs a writing medium, it is much less expressive than normal HTML.
\n\nMessenger is fine, but not at all special technologically. The only reason these services are used so widely is that “everyone” uses them.
\n\nFacebook is using its social graph, control over the News Feed and its users personal information in destructive ways.
\n\nA lot of these issues are less about the strict action and more about the message behind them. How obvious is it that companies are paying to be in your “News Feed”? Or that human staffers are trying to out-hip Twitter in your “Trending News”? Or that “internet.org” is not some humanitarian mission but a massive market grab?
\n\nThere is another major tech giant amassing personal information and gaining power over what people think. Ending my use of their products will be difficult: their services are rather good and have permeated my life. On the other hand, people more involved than I have quit just to prove that they can.
\n\nThe role Facebook Messenger played in my life is now filled by email, SMS, and 8 different chat apps. The role Facebook News Feed played was… minimal in recent months. I had been pretty annoyed at News Feed for a very long time.
\n\nHere’s what I had to say (on Facebook) over three years ago about the News Feed:
\n\n![\"News](\"/goodbye-facebook/attachments/settings.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/innocent-controversy","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/innocent-controversy","title":"Controversial Posts on Innocent Subreddits","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:11.000","date_published":"2017-11-03T19:11:46.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/innocent-controversy/attachments/putaneggonit.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/innocent-controversy/attachments/oddlysatisfying.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/innocent-controversy/attachments/raining.jpeg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/innocent-controversy/attachments/aww.jpeg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/innocent-controversy/attachments/pokemon.png","mime_type":"image/png"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/innocent-controversy/attachments/mechanical_gifs.png","mime_type":"image/png"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/innocent-controversy/attachments/imaginarydragons.png","mime_type":"image/png"}],"tags":["nonsense"],"content_html":"This Friendship Day, let Facebook decide which of your friends is most important using its cold algorithmic analysis!
\n\nBecause who cares what actually happened to your friends recently? The important thing is that you see that “Top Story” you already saw yesterday again!
\n\nAnd guess what?
\n\nThis setting is the default! And will reset itself every few days!
\n\nHappy friendship day, people who (Facebook decided) consider my stories “Top”!
A post can end up on a subreddit’s “Controversial” page if it has a lot of activity but roughly equal upvotes and downvotes. Obviously, on a subreddit with a broad range of content, the Controversial page might actually contain some real-world controversy. Political subreddits, which are already inherently controversial, would probably have even more extreme content their Controversial page.
\n\nHowever, I was curious about more innocent, focused subreddits. What posts would earn split opinions on subreddits with a narrow focus on a non-controversial topic? Join me, dear reader, on a trek through the friendly, affable corners of this hive of scum and villainy.
\n\nKeep in mind that controversy is determined by the norms of a community. Reading the comments on these posts can often be helpful for understanding why OP was considered so polarizing.
\n\nPost titles are prefixed with their position on the “Most Controversial post of all time” page of their subreddit.
\n\n![\"r/aww\"](\"/innocent-controversy/attachments/aww.jpeg\")
Image credit: amayaeguizabal on Pixabay
A subreddit where millions of people collaborate to find cute pictures of babies and small animals. What could possibly be controversial in a community like this?
\n\nThat is one way to describe the situation but I’m sure if OP picked a less roundabout title many a downvote could have been avoided.
\n\nIt is amazing that OP lied multiple times in a single sentence. Truly masterful. The post really caused a bit of comment drama, leading to some debate (read: one-sided shouting) about the true nature and ideals of /r/aww.
\n\nNone of it was cute.
\n\nEDIT 54-F26: obviously a joke lol
\n\n/r/aww just doesn’t get it. Viral marketing skills are much, much more cute than any puppy will ever be! I don’t know about you, but when OP spells out how (s)he’s a cynical karma farmer, it makes my heart flutter.
\n\n![\"r/ImaginaryDragons\"](\"/innocent-controversy/attachments/imaginarydragons.png\")
Image credit: jes872148 on Pixabay
Sorry dracologists, this subreddit is focused on imaginary dragons only: real dragons need not apply. So what makes a dragon controversial? Poor drawing skills and sultry gazes, most of the time. However there were some dragons on that page which were truly beyond imagining.
\n\nThis dragon is nothing short of majestic. Tough. Agile. Strong. I don’t know why the post has any downvotes at all.
\n\nThis video was really informative. It cleared up some of my misconceptions about dragons. I had always assumed that dragons hatched from eggs but it appears that dragon embryos reside in boxes until they are mature enough to sit on shoulders. Futhermore the draconian skeletal system utilizes “pose-able” wire as well as bone. Unfortunately this post was perhaps too real for the imaginary dragon community.
\n\n![\"r/mechanical_gifs\"](\"/innocent-controversy/attachments/mechanical_gifs.png\")
Image credit: stux on Pixabay
It’s usually not the machines that are controversial but the presentation.
\n\nIt’s really great when everything a machine does is summarized in a single GIF. Not a gear nor pulley left to the imagination.
\n\nThe explanatory power of the internet is truly astounding. There’s so much knowledge out there, provided in easy to understand formats. We’re blessed, we citizens of the 21st century.
\n\nWhy would anyone try to make a physically accurate GIF in CSS? Actually, it looks like using another language to generate the CSS might have made this post work.
\n\n![\"r/OddlySatisfying\"](\"/innocent-controversy/attachments/oddlysatisfying.jpg\")
Image credit: Ash @ModernAfflatus on Pixnio
A relatively large subreddit, focused on pursuing a deep sense of calm through the use of GIFs and JPEGs. Shouldn’t that be antithetical to controversy? Well, think again.
\n\nYou know what’s more satisfying than perfection? An appreciation for perfection. That’s why after seeing this GIF, you should peruse the comments.
\n\nDespite the neat aesthetic, I cannot help but feel bad for the writer in this situation. For more reasons than one, all the neatness was for naught.
\n\n![\"r/pokemon\"](\"/innocent-controversy/attachments/pokemon.png\")
Image credit: Nintendo, Game Freak
Yes.
\n\n…No he won’t, because /r/pokemon didn’t live up to his demands. A demonstration of the mechanics of the “Controversial” rating on Reddit: this was clearly a much loved post, but the whole point was to gather many upvotes and downvotes.
\n\nHe found new ones on the internet. /r/aww…
\n\n![\"r/putaneggonit\"](\"/innocent-controversy/attachments/putaneggonit.jpg\")
Image credit: /r/putaneggonit
Now, if you visit the home page of the subreddit, there’s no indication that a “Controversial” page even exists. But here it is. In fact, even /r/wholesomememes has a hidden controversial page. Amazingly enough, /r/wholesomememes is not narrowly-defined enough to stem the tide of real controversies, unlike /r/PutAnEggOnIt.
\n\nInterestingly, the /r/PutAnEggOnIt description states that “You are especially welcome if you’ve been banned from /r/food”. Apparently posts with the phrase “Grilled Cheese” are automatically banned from /r/food. Harsh!
\n\nThis post is safe for work but is it safe for life?
\n\nIf you think the plug is shameless, wait until you see the name of the Instagram.
\n\n![\"r/raining\"](\"/innocent-controversy/attachments/raining.jpeg\")
Image credit: veeterzy on Pexels
Believe it or not, this is not the only subreddit focused on weather. Now, precipitation can be annoying, but can it really be controversial?
\n\nYes, this post is safe for work: the animal-human hybrids are both fully clothed. They’re sharing a beer though, so whoever is in charge of age-rating pictures of rain should keep that in mind.
\n\nThis is a real gem. First of all, why would anyone bring furry art to /r/raining? Yes, there is some rain in the background, but that’s clearly not the focus of the image. Secondly, the post title claimed “I know you guys will like it”, but the post ended up being the most controversial raining-related thing on the internet. I hope OP learned to read a crowd after this debacle.
\n\nYou know, many people are concerned about the New World Order conspiring to rule over us all, but clearly there are positives to their campaign of surveillance and control. Is there a better time than this to learn about the existence of /r/raining? I don’t know about you, but I think I’ll be swapping out my tinfoil hat for an umbrella, if you know what I mean.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/spiderman-homecoming","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/spiderman-homecoming","title":"Thoughts on Spider-Man Homecoming","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:11.000","date_published":"2017-07-15T19:11:46.000","attachments":[],"tags":["movies"],"content_html":"I’m not going to do the bullet point thing, but this movie was great. It was fun, it was exciting, and yes, I was “MOVED”. I liked the protagonists. I liked the antagonists. I liked the supporting cast. I liked the quips. I liked the awkwardness of being a teenager with larger than life problems. I liked the fights.
\n\nI especially liked how this was a superhero story about the working class, instead of about billionaires, government experiments and gods. I especially liked how the Avengers are an institution now, a new pillar of the military industrial complex.
\n\nMarvel needed Spider-Man’s comeback to be excellent. They succeeded. Go see it before someone spoils it, go quick, GO!
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/canada-150","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/canada-150","title":"Canada 150 on Parliament Hill","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:10.000","date_published":"2017-07-05T03:34:36.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/stand-on-fence.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/stilt-geometric.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/immigrant-stories.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/ufo.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/stilt-dark-bird.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/fence-view.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/stilt-bird.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/rain.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/teleprompt.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/snow-birds.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/crowd-bus.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/canada-150/attachments/crowd-stop.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"}],"tags":["biographical"],"content_html":"I visited Ottawa recently to stay with my aunts and their families, and also to get to Parliament Hill for the Canada 150 concert.
\n\n![\"Crowd](\"/canada-150/attachments/crowd-stop.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"Crowd](\"/canada-150/attachments/crowd-bus.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"Immigrant](\"/canada-150/attachments/immigrant-stories.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"Stilt](\"/canada-150/attachments/stilt-geometric.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"Stilt](\"/canada-150/attachments/stilt-bird.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"Another](\"/canada-150/attachments/stilt-dark-bird.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"Standing](\"/canada-150/attachments/stand-on-fence.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"View](\"/canada-150/attachments/fence-view.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"Snow](\"/canada-150/attachments/snow-birds.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"Probably](\"/canada-150/attachments/ufo.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"Evening](\"/canada-150/attachments/rain.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
![\"Teleprompter\"](\"/canada-150/attachments/teleprompt.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
So I joined my uncles, aunts and cousins when they went to see Wonder Woman.
\n\nSpeculation walking in
\n\nThe pre-movie
\n\nThe actual movie
\n\nParting thoughts
\n\n\n\nWe can’t tell you who we are. Or where we live. It’s too risky, and we’ve got to be careful. Really careful. So we don’t trust anyone. Because if they find us… well, we just won’t let them find us.\nThe thing you’ve got to know is that everyone is in really big trouble. Yeah. Even you.
–A message found on the blurb of most Animorphs books. The blurbs, of course, used a more conventional font.
\n\nIf you want to morph your text, you can get this font here, and discuss it here.
\n\nIt’s obviously not the best choice for body text, but I’m sure a designer with restraint could make it work. I’m pretty sure this is a fan-created font imitating the one Scholastic made, but it does raise the question of what the people designing the covers were going for.
\n\n![\"Cover](\"/animorphs-font/attachments/ani1.jpg\")
Image credit: Scholastic Corporation
It looks as alien as a font can while still being readable English. It is also fairly distinctive. Anything Animorphs-related could be recognized with a single letter.
\n\n![\"Animorphs](\"/animorphs-font/attachments/animorphs-a.jpg\")
Image credit: Scholastic Corporation
Yeah, good luck pulling that off with Helvetica…
\n\n![\"Cover](\"/animorphs-font/attachments/visser.jpg\")
Image credit: Scholastic Corporation
Scholastic actually had other distinct, alien-ish fonts for this series. As you can see, Visser had its own font seperate from the standard Animorphs one (as it deserves … though perhaps that font is used elsewhere). Also notice K.A. Applegate’s name at the bottom: Scholastic at the very least had a significant fraction of the alphabet ready to print in their version of the font, not just the word “Animorphs”. The reprints have their own cover font but I try not to think about them… about the things they have ruined… (the reprint changes are almost purely aesthetic, but none of them are welcome).
\n\nAs you might have guessed, in the actual content of the books, typography is hardly mentioned. There was just no time. I don’t think they even bash Comic Sans, as the Comic Sans hatedom had not yet escaped their homeworld and spread, like a plague, across the galaxy.
\n\n__
\n\nEDIT (53-D08): The font used in the actual books is called 1979, you can preview it here.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/cars-three","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/cars-three","title":"Thoughts on Cars Three","date_modified":"2023-01-03T04:08:10.000","date_published":"2017-06-17T19:11:46.000","attachments":[],"tags":["movies"],"content_html":"Recently, I met some friends I hadn’t seen in years, to watch a movie series I hadn’t looked at in decades.
\n\nSpeculation walking in
\n\nThe pre-movie
\n\nThe actual movie
\n\nParting thoughts
\n\nI’m not really sure what sort of articles will be here. Serious. Total nonsense. What sort of topics will I feel inclined to write about tomorrow? Next week? Next year?
\n\nNext decade?
\n\nNot sure at all, but I’ll tell you what I’m in the mood for today: things that sound kind of like Ars Technica:
\n\n(I have never heard of many of these things before today)
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/dumbphone","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/dumbphone","title":"Life With a Dumbphone","date_modified":"2023-04-01T05:00:33.713","date_published":"2017-06-05T03:59:38.000","attachments":[{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/dumbphone/attachments/box_min.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/dumbphone/attachments/dark_min.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/dumbphone/attachments/disassembled_min.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/dumbphone/attachments/off_circle_min.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/dumbphone/attachments/snake_min.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/dumbphone/attachments/music_min.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/dumbphone/attachments/sokoban_min.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/dumbphone/attachments/organizer_min.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"},{"file_name":"http://ratan.blog/dumbphone/attachments/off_min.jpg","mime_type":"image/jpeg"}],"tags":["biographical","technology","featured"],"content_html":"In the days leading up to my circuits exam I was gripped by illness. I fell asleep early when using my phone one day, desperate to escape a throbbing headache. I ended up waking up in the middle of the night and noticed a spark as my leg moved across the sheet.
\n\nStatic electricity
\n\nI tried turning on my trusty Nexus 5X, and was greeted with a boot screen, which slowly but surely … disappeared and got replaced with another boot screen. My phone was stuck in a boot loop. Eventually it got hot enough to fry an egg. Or at least a smartphone-sized egg.
\n\nOver the next few days, the Nexus would sometimes break out of its boot loop and I could use it. But the reprieve was always short-lived. Eventually the boot loop would continue, until I managed to turn off the phone or it ran out of power. I decided to keep it powered off most of the time, fearing a major overheat.
\n\nIf I wanted a new phone from my carrier I’d have to sort out some account issues. With headaches and exams clawing at my consciousness, I was really not in the mood. So I ordered a phone online.
\n\nIt was “new”, but definitely not modern. It was a relic of an era long forgotten. Its buttons were many, and pixels were few.
\n\nIt was a dumbphone.
\n\n![\"BLU](\"/dumbphone/attachments/dark_min.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
The BLU Z3 was not an impulse buy. I was very careful about choosing the right feature set for about a month of use.
\n\nI wanted
\n\nYeah some really modest wants. Anything else was icing on the cake that I would investigate, but not care deeply about.
\n\nI had never heard of this BLU company, and I will likely forget about it in a few years time. I just searched for phones with SD cards and Bluetooth support and this thing popped up.
\n\nI had to buy an SD card separately. It’s been many years since I’ve used one. I also bought a SIM adapter kit for my nano SIM card, which turned out to be unnecessary.
\n\n![\"BLU](\"/dumbphone/attachments/box_min.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
Included in the box was a microUSB to USB cable and a USB charger. My headset also used microUSB, so I only needed to carry one cable around with me for trips.
\n\nThere was a removable battery. Pretty useful if you use the BLU Z3 for a long enough time to degrade the battery, and do not wish to spend $10 on the non-battery parts of a new BLU Z3. Of course, in this day and age, if you’re using the BLU Z3 for that long then I pity you deeply.
\n\n![\"Disassembled](\"/dumbphone/attachments/disassembled_min.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
The plastic back of the phone could be removed easily, providing access to the SIM card and SD card slots. I had a nano SIM and the slots were normal SIM sized, but the SIM enclosure was actually tight enough to keep my card securely in place. I did not use the second SIM slot.
\n\nNow I just had to turn the phone on. Which one of these is the power button? I was actually confused to the point of Googling the answer. Luckily, you need only click the image below to find out.
\n\n![\"Z3](\"/dumbphone/attachments/off_circle_min.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
After turning the phone on, I was greeted to a mess of Portugese (?) text. Luckily the Settings menu had the sort of gear and wrench iconography every other device has and I was able to convert to English in short order.
\n\n![\"Organizer\"](\"/dumbphone/attachments/organizer_min.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
An app separate from Settings called the “Organizer” is in charge of connecting to Bluetooth. The pairing usually succeeds. Only very late into using this phone did really frustrating connection failures arise. My headset has a wired mode, and the Z3 has a headphone jack, so it was not a big deal. Also, when Bluetooth is enabled, every button press is accompanied by a loud BLOOP from the speaker. I think there is a way to turn this off but I really do not know.
\n\nIn my days with the Nexus 5X, I didn’t buy any music files. Instead I got all my music from a streaming service. So I didn’t have any music to put on the Z3.
\n\nI could play podcasts though. As I was using a Chromebook, I would need a web-based podcast app to track my subscriptions. I used ShortOrange, which turned out to be one of the slowest, most annoying computer-related things I have ever used. With ShortOrange I would download podcast files onto the Z3 one by one. Much more tedious than using a smartphone’s podcast app.
\n\n![\"Audio](\"/dumbphone/attachments/music_min.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
The Z3 audio player was more limited than I expected. While playing a file, the only visible metadata are the filename and the audio length. This can be a bit annoying when the people publishing the files are notorious for inconsistent naming schemes.
\n\nEven worse was the fact that moving between different points of an audio file is impossible with the Z3. You can’t skip an hour of a two hour podcast. This is problematic because it is very easy to jump to a new audio file: the “play/pause” control and “skip entire file” controls are different parts of the same central square button. This means a few errant keypresses can send your listening back by hours. Being a bit of a butterfinger myself and having bought the phone mainly for podcasts, I found this to be the most frustrating thing about the Z3.
\n\nFor some reason I could barely hear the people calling me. I didn’t see that coming. A feature phone… which is bad at taking calls. It could possibly be my fault, for sticking my nano SIM card into the normal SIM slot.
\n\nThe SMS experience was poorer still. It is extremely difficult to type anything on this keypad. A word is a struggle and a sentence is agony. Since we live in the age of autocorrect, everyone else expects full sentence responses. I felt a bit bad replying to my extremely kindly aunt’s paragraphs with single words and sentence fragments.
\n\nSpeaking of fragments, for some reason when receiving a long text, it is provided to the user in parts. There’s a chime for the first chunk of characters, then a few minutes later another chime and more characters, and eventually the whole message can be read. What a nuisance.
\n\nThe games menu is buried inside the aforementioned Organizer. Makes sense, don’t we all think of filing cabinets when gaming? There are two games available: Snake and Sokoban.
\n\n![\"Snake\"](\"/dumbphone/attachments/snake_min.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
Snake is a classic. A very boring classic. Since when did snakes eat immobile balls of pixels? Maybe the problem is that I’m stuck in easy mode and cannot escape. Snake games can be paused, but if you leave the Snake app entirely to do something else the game will not be saved. I hope I don’t have to play for hours on end to unlock hard mode.
\n\n![\"Sokoban\"](\"/dumbphone/attachments/sokoban_min.jpg\")
Image credit: Ratan Abraham Varghese
Sokoban is a bit interesting. I’m pretty bad at it. The only reason I can survive the NetHack version is because I memorized all the solutions. Sokoban usually saves your progress, thank goodness for that.
\n\nAll in all, these games are only worth playing if you have absolutely no alternative.
\n\nThe Z3 is capable of taking photos and even video, but the resolution is comically low.
\n\nAmazingly, there is a browser. My SIM card had internet. However my every attempt to browse the web failed. There is no WiFi of course.
\n\nThe Z3 can only have 3 alarms. I was very used to having … 30. This is another limitation I did not expect. How much space does an alarm take up? 64 bytes? What a silly restriction.
\n\nOne great thing about the Z3 is the battery life. When using it primarily to play audio over Bluetooth, the phone lasts for days. My headset does not have that kind of stamina, however.
\n\nI would drop the phone now and again, and not immediately scream in horror. I would eat and smear the buttons with greasy fingers, and not quietly stew with guilt. I crossed a few borders and nobody confiscated my phone, but if someone did I would not be concerned.
\n\nI had a transatlantic flight, and took the Z3 with me, only to realize that there was no airplane mode. The idea that someone would use this phone without wanting to call anyone probably did not cross the minds of the designers. Good thing I had in-flight entertainment and a thick book.
\n\nAt one of the security checks I left the Z3 in one of those trays for electronics, leading to this exchange with a guard.
\n\n“I think I left my phone here.”
\n\n“What kind of phone is it?”
\n\n“BLU”
\n\n“I mean, what make is it? What brand?”
\n\nI realized that nobody would ever recognize the brand name in a million years.
\n\n“It’s a dumb phone. With a lot of buttons.”
\n\n“You mean like a Nokia?”
\n\n“Yes”
\n\nAnd the guard handed back my phone.
\n\nThere was an occasion when I desperately needed to read an email while in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Unfortunately my Chromebook had not cached the message. I ended up wandering around for a very long while, on a quest for a free WiFi connection.
\n\nThere was also a time when I needed to walk to a far-off house. This time I checked that my Chromebook had the map cached before I left. Every so often I’d stop walking, get my laptop from my backpack and look at the maps confused. If my laptop had been too heavy to carry with one hand, this would have been unfeasible. In retrospect … I could have used a paper map.
\n\nOn Victoria Day I sorted out my account issues with my carrier, and the next day I got an iPhone 7 at a “discount”… by which I mean I will have some large phone bills for the next few months. Yes, I know that the new iPhone is probably just months away. However, anything is an upgrade from the Z3.
\n\nThe moment I saw the app grid I felt overwhelmed. Look at all these animations and transparency and fonts and WOW I CAN SLIDE ACROSS MUSIC FILES! I used to roll my eyes at Apple describing their products as magical. But just 10 years ago, every phone game was as slow and plodding as snake, every phone font was grimly utilitarian, every color was a luxury, every pixel was precious.
\n\n10 years ago every phone was dumb, and we should appreciate that we don’t need to crawl back.
\n"},{"url":"http://www.ratan.blog/about","id":"http://www.ratan.blog/about","title":"About","date_modified":"2023-01-29T08:04:34.652","date_published":"2017-06-02T05:45:31.000","attachments":[],"tags":["meta"],"content_html":"My name is Ratan Abraham Varghese, but you can just call me “Abraham” for short.
\n\nThe font used for this site is Charter, at least most of the time.
\n\nThe pages are served statically, but they are organized and generated on a daily basis with a tool I made, blom.
\n"}]}