amy34

Go on and mock my foolishness

Thu, 15 May 2008 21:54:31 GMT

I bought twin Indiana-Jones-style whips for the boys! (soft things, not real whips.) And as a bonus, they make noise!

Gaming video: "Just Loot It"

Wed, 14 May 2008 23:27:05 GMT

Gaming videos, though often hilarious, are hard to share with with non-gamers, because there's an argot in the gaming world that people outside it don't comprehend. But if you've played an MMORPG, especially World of Warcraft (WOW), you might get a kick out of "Just Loot It," a video parody of Eninem's "Just Lose It." It's really well done, especially the visuals.

Here's a little background that I'm hoping will make the video marginally comprehensible to non-gamers. In World of Warcraft, you create a character, and your goal is to make that character better by gaining levels and acquiring better equipment. The best equipment can only be found in dungeons that must be conquered by groups of 5-20 players working together.

Assaulting a dungeon in a group is called "raiding." Each dungeon will have multiple "bosses" (powerful monsters). When you kill a boss, it drops loot, which one player can pick up. But here's the thing. There may be 20 people who helped kill the boss--which one gets the loot?

The question of "who gets the loot" is the fundamental issue that drives the social workings of the game. Players form "guilds"--groups of people who raid together on a regular schedule. There are three common ways for loot to be distributed:

1. Random dice roll.

2. The raid leader chooses who gets it. This usually leads to a stratified guild with haves and have-nots, with the raid leader giving the best loot drops to his close friends.

3. A point system called DKP (Dragon Kill Points). You earn points by assisting in boss kills, and you spend points on loot drops. These systems tend to be fair, and are preferred by most serious players, though they take time and effort to administer.

So those are the three systems for loot distribution. But sometimes you'll get a player who doesn't want to play by the rules. He doesn't want to spend weeks earning DKP points, or hope for that lucky roll of the dice. So he may simply break the rules and STEAL the loot off the boss's corpse. There is a gamer term for this behavior: "Ninja looting." After a boss is killed and all the well-behaved players are discussing who gets the loot, the ninja looter grabs the loot off the corpse and logs off before he can be spammed with abuse from every player in the group.

The names of ninja looters are spread far and wide on gaming servers. They get booted from guilds and excluded from raids. It's an interesting phenomenon to watch, because ninja looters are thieves, and since the game administrators don't intervene, it's up to the player community to mete out what justice they can.

ANYWAY... after all that background, here's "Just Loot It," a tongue-in-check video saying to just go ahead and ninja-loot that body. (Zul Aman, mentioned in the video, is a raid dungeon.)

Brazilian cheese bread: victory!

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:19:42 GMT

I posted a while back about trying to find the two forms of tapioca flour needed to make the Brazilian cheese bread served at Fogo de Chao. I was able to mail order it from Amigo Foods. Then I made the recipe, and it turned out pretty good, but not exactly like what I remembered from Fogo de Chao.

I told this story to my Brazilian friend, Fabiana, and she informed me that first of all, I didn't need to mail order the flour. I could buy it from the Brazilian grocery Kitanda in Totem Lake. And second, the recipe was wrong--and she would show me how to do it right! Yesterday she did just that. I'm going to try to write down as much as I remember about how she did it. Unfortunately, she does not measure ingredients; she just eyeballs everything. So I won't have exact numbers. I would guess the proportions given in the Fogo de Chao recipe are a good starting point. These are:

4 eggs
3/4 cup corn oil
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sour tapioca flour (azedo)
1 cup sweet tapioca flour (doce)
3/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Fabiana poured the two flours into the bowl of my stand mixer. She didn't measure--just dumped in some of each type. She didn't use the same proportions as in the recipe above; she used 2 parts sweet to 1 part sour.

Then she put the milk, salt and oil into a saucepan and cooked it until it boiled. She insisted this was a necessary step, though it does not appear in the original recipe--it just doesn't taste the same otherwise.

After the milk boiled (and threatened to boil over!), she poured about half of it into the flour mixture and stirred it by hand with a wooden spoon. As it began to come together, she added a little more, and a little more, until the dough adhered and became a big, firm ball. She did not use all of the milk/oil/salt mixture.

She let it cool for a short while, then added the cheese. She used grated parmesan rather than shredded (I had both on hand). Again, she didn't measure; she just poured a bunch in. She used the stand mixer to mix it up. Then we added the eggs, starting with 2 and adding a third and a fourth when she decided they were needed.

The finished dough was sticky and soft, and had the consistency of a very thick cake batter. It would not pour.

She rejected my muffin tin and asked for a baking sheet instead. She coated the baking sheet with corn oil and melted butter in a dish. Coating her hands with melted butter, she scooped up a spoonful of dough, rolled it into a ball, and placed it on the oiled baking sheet. We fit about 24 cheesebreads on the baking sheet, and had some dough left over. Later I rolled up another 20 or so on a second baking sheet.

She had me preheat the oven to 450 degrees, then turn it down to 350 degrees and bake the cheesebreads for 20 minutes. They were not ready after 20, and I kept adding 5 minutes to the timer, until there were just a few hints of gold on the top of each cheesebread.

The results? Fantastic! Exactly as I remembered from Fogo de Chao! Now I just need to make this recipe a few more times over the coming weeks so I don't forget the details.

I have a feeling a fantasy incarnation of Brazilian cheese bread is going to make an appearance in "Soldier, Sage & Vagabond." (My protagonist is from a tropical country.)

Fabiana told me another thing they like to eat in Brazil is an avocado smoothie. You put avocado, milk, sugar and ice in a blender and mix it all up. Again, she couldn't give me quantities because she just eyeballs everything. I'm going to have to try that one someday.

Cilantro, how I loathe thee

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:52:12 GMT

One of the comment threads over on BookEnds went off on a tangent and someone said something about a gene that makes cilantro taste like soap.

Well, I can't stand the taste of cilantro. I wouldn't say it tastes like soap. But it tastes very bad, and it completely overpowers any dish it's in.

So I followed up with google. The "cilantro tastes like soap" gene may be a myth, because I couldn't find any solid evidence establishing its existence. More research is needed in this important area of study.

I did learn that there is a chemical called PTC that only some people can taste. Whether you can taste it or not is determined by a single gene, and that gene influences your dietary preferences. Some people think the ability to taste PTC, or the inability to taste it, is involved in cilantro sensitivity.

Since I'm also enormously sensitive to cumin--its presence in a dish even in small quantities disgusts me so much as to make me nauseous--I wondered if it was a relative of cilantro. Turns out it is! Cilantro and cumin are both members of the parsley family. (I have no objection to parsley, though.)

Here's a snippet from the wikipedia article on cilantro: "The leaves, and especially the stems, have a very different taste from the seeds, similar to parsley but 'juicier' and with citrus-like overtones. Some people instead perceive an unpleasant 'soapy' taste and/or a rank smell. This is believed to be a result of an enzyme that changes the way they taste coriander leaves, a genetic trait, but has yet to be fully researched."

I was amused by the extent of cilantro hate I found on the internet. Check out this blog entry as an example.

Even funnier, there's an entire website dedicated to cilantro hate: http://www.ihatecilantro.com/. It's a riot, full of stories and haikus disparaging cilantro. Like this little gem:

"Soapy flavor abounds
Did they not rinse the dishes?
No, it's cilantro."

I'm so happy I'm not alone in my cilantro hate! Who knew? I'm not weird after all. I just have weird enzymes.

"Soldier, Sage & Vagabond" status:

5500 / 100000 words. 6% done!

I have it!

Mon, 12 May 2008 22:03:54 GMT

At least I hope I do. Names are hell, and one thing that makes Finneas Trapp difficult is I need three different names for the guy, all of which need to not suck. I was using "Kestrel" as a stand-in for his name in thief circles, but I knew I couldn't keep that because I already have a shapeshifting osprey in this book, and I don't want to confuse things with unrelated bird-of-prey references.

I dedicated an entire afternoon to finding a replacement name for Kestrel. I don't have an organized way of going about this. I pull out my thesaurus, my synonym finder, my descriptionary, my name books, and of course my internets, and start looking up concepts related to the character. I started this search with "wanderer." Then as I searched, I jotted down any word that looked useful either as a name possibility or a search point for names, and continued the process, using new words as search points, until I found an acceptable name. If anyone's curious, here's the list I jotted down. It's kind of a stupid list, just notes that kept me on track.

wanderer
rover
roamer
vagari
wandrian
exile
outcast
pariah
unwanted
persona non grata
unwelcome
larkspur (I liked this one but thought it might sound feminine)
darnel
poison
veleno
attercop
atter
kelspur
danspur
iaspur
endspur
aldspur
spurius
feldspar
mauritius
blackspur
darkspur (you can tell I was really trying to find a -spur name that worked)
solospar
solitary
waff
forsaken
desert
island
tramontane (I wonder if this is the source of Kushner's Tremontaine--it means foreigner or outsider)
forastero
solus
danger
peril
trouble
sharp
keen
knife
rondel
shiv

90 minutes later I had "Shiv" and was reasonably satisfied with it. It took 90 minutes to dredge up the name, and all of 9 seconds to do the find-and-replace. Here's hoping the crit groups don't find any major faults with "Shiv" because I hate name searches. I can write a thousand words in 90 minutes, or I can come up with one name.

Meanwhile, my status on "Soldier, Sage & Vagabond":

4500 / 100000 words. 5% done!

Ship captains

Mon, 12 May 2008 05:10:14 GMT

I hope I'm not boring you guys too much with this ship stuff. I'll be done with it soon.

I'm now reading Life in Nelson's Navy by Dudley Pope. It's got all the details of how those 18th-century ships worked and what it was like to live on them.

I found the chapter on the captain's responsibilities particularly interesting:

"The captain's role in peace or war has to be understood before one can consider the powers he had. In the course of a voyage a ship could spring a leak, be becalmed in unexpected currents, run aground in darkness, lose masts through rigging failure and then, helpless, be driven ashore. An anchor could drag, or she could lose the wind while tacking through a difficult channel and drift ashore. The master could make a mistake with the navigation, a young lieutenant on watch might give the wrong orders in a sudden squall so the masts went by the board--there were scores of ways in which a ship could be lost, and in every case the first thing that happened after such a loss was an official inquiry into the captain's activities, often followed by a court martial."

So anything that went wrong was the captain's fault, and he would face the consequences, which could include death by firing squad. In return for total responsibility, he was granted almost total power:

"The captain had to be father and confessor, judge and jury, to his men. He had more power over them than the King--for the King could not order a man to be flogged. He could and did order them into battle and thus had the power of life and death over everyone on board. [...] He could indulge in almost any whim; he could be a sadist--mercifully there were very few--or a religious zealot; he could drink heavily or make every drinker's life a misery."

Apparently there were few tyrants among the captains, but the book gives examples of two of them.

The first, Captain Hugh Pigot of the frigate Hermione, was arbitrary and incompetent, and was murdered by his own men. Things came to a head when he became angry at his mens' slowness in reefing the topsail and ordered that the last one off the yard would be flogged. The men came down in such a panic that three of them fell to their deaths. Their bodies were thrown overboard, and when the men complained, Pigot had them flogged. That night, the men mutinied and killed Pigot.

The second example is Edward Hamilton of the frigate Surprise who, according to the book, was such a harsh disciplinarian that his ship's company were terrified of him. There's an account from a fellow named George Jackson who was 14 years old and brand new to sailing when he was assigned to Hamilton's ship. Hamilton invited him to dinner, which frightened Jackson because he'd heard stories. Hamilton's first words to him were, "Why, what the devil have we got here? He looks as if he had been swallowed and thrown up again." And things just got worse from there. Jackson, who eventually became an admiral and recounts this in his memoirs, writes, "The memory of the dinner haunts me still after the lapse of sixty and odd years."

After Pigot's crew mutinied, they handed over the Hermione to the Spanish. Guess who was assigned the task of recovering it? Hamilton! And he had only this 28-gun frigate:

Hamilton and his men went in boats into a Spanish port defended by three castles and over 200 guns, boarded the Hermione, cleared out her crew, and sailed her out, recovering her for the British. 119 Spanish were killed, and another 291 taken prisoner. Hamilton's losses? ZERO. Not one man killed. (For this he was later knighted.)

I think Hamilton is more interesting than Pigot. Most assholes--like Pigot--are run-of-the-mill incompetents. Far more rare are the sort like Hamilton who, either in spite of their assholeness or because of it, accomplish amazing things. Hamilton sounds like future book material for me, if I ever have a story in which a character like that fits. (Actually, he reminds me a little bit of Finneas, though to make Finneas marginally likeable I made sure he showed no tendency towards sadism.) Hamilton was later court-martialed for cruelty towards a seaman, and dismissed from the service.

There's a nonfiction book written about the events surrounding the Hermione, called The Black Ship. I ordered a copy.

Sailing ships!

Sat, 10 May 2008 23:31:56 GMT

I sort of want to use galleys in my book, because it would be convenient to avoid gunpowder, but they may not fit with the story. I need true ocean-going vessels, and galleys can only hug the shore, because ships powered by human sweat (galleys are propelled by oars) must be frequently resupplied with fresh water. And you can't get that on the open ocean.

So perhaps I'm looking at broadsides. Broadsides are the great triple-masted sailing ships with guns mounted all along their sides. The guns are heavy. If placed on the deck, they would make the ship too top-heavy, so the heaviest guns are placed as low as possible, just above the waterline. To shoot at anything, the ship has to turn so that its side is facing its target. The ship is much less dangerous when facing something head-on.

To fight with a group of these ships, you want to put them in a single-file line so they can fire their guns without hitting each other. Because of that, they're called "ships of the line."

Tactically, they're kind of boring--at least from what I've read so far. Many battles between ships of the line ended in stalemate. Out of range of each other, the fleets would each form a line, so that you have two parallel lines of ships in the water. Then the fleet that has the wind on its side (this advantage is called the "weather gage") must engage the other by moving into firing range. The advantage for the fleet with the weather gage is they get to choose when to engage, and at what range. The disadvantage is that to close with the enemy fleet, they have to turn their ships to face the opposing ships, which will then rake them with fire while they are turning again to get their guns facing the enemy. When a ship runs out of ammunition, it's unable to attack further. Battles between equal-sized fleets often had inconclusive outcomes, with both fleets damaged but neither destroyed.

I read this terrible story about the Battle of Minorca, where (British) Admiral John Byng engaged the French fleet and, because of a couple snafus, came off badly. He decided to sail back to Gibraltar to repair his fleet. Byng was court-martialed for this and convicted of "failing to do his utmost" against the enemy. So the Admiralty SHOT him! Can you believe that? Capital punishment not for a crime, but for unintentional failure? Maybe making the consequences so severe was part of what made the 18th-century Royal Navy as successful as it was, but I thought Byng's story rather sad.

Four book reviews

Fri, 09 May 2008 22:09:04 GMT

Shards of Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold (science fiction/space opera)

This was, I believe, the first book Bujold ever wrote, and she wrote it over 15 years before The Curse of Chalion. I bought it because people have been recommending the "Miles" books to me, and this is supposed to be the first of the series. So I was surprised when Miles didn't even make an appearance. This was about two other characters. I think they're going to turn out to be Miles's parents.

This book doesn't have the sophistication and polish of Chalion. Some of the character interactions seemed flawed to me, like Vorkosigan's proposing so quickly. And the structure's a bit off, with the climax occurring 2/3 of the way through the book, leading to a too-drawn-out resolution. Even so, the seeds of Bujold's talent are there, and I enjoyed this book despite the flaws. Couldn't put it down, in fact--and immediately ordered the next in the series. It's just the right mix, for me, of romance and character interaction and world-building and action. Very similar to what I attempt to write myself.

Bujold's early writing reminds me a lot of Hambly's early stuff, which I devoured in my teen years. I don't think there's anything in my library more dog-eared than Hambly's Silent Tower and Silicon Mage (and James Hogan's Code of the Lifemaker). So why is that Hambly's work declined in quality over the years, while Bujold's just got better and better?

Private Arrangements, by Sherry Thomas (historical romance)

This book has the awesomest setup. Lord and Lady Tremaine have been married for a decade--but they live on separate continents. Lord Tremaine abandoned his wife immediately after their wedding night. Lady Tremaine finally requests a divorce, and the story proceeds from there. The book is almost un-put-downable because right from the start, you have to wonder, why did Lord Tremaine abandon his wife? And how can this estranged couple possibly be brought back together?

This book does a lot of switching time periods, from the current time period to 10 years prior. Usually, I can't stand when books do that, but in this case it works beautifully, because the flashbacks happened at points when I was dying to know what happened 10 years ago. Both characters are smart, conniving sorts--for those who've read my work, essentially they're both Finneas :). At times they bordered on unlikeable, but I managed to develop enough affecton and respect for them to care what happened. The setup is ambitious--this had to be a tough novel to pull off--but the author did pull it off. I believed both the reasons for the estrangement and their reconciliation, which surprised me, because halfway through the book, I didn't think it was possible.

The Kestrel, by Lloyd Alexander (YA fantasy)

I bought this because I adore Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series, which is so fabulous, everyone should read it. This is book 2 of his Westmark series. I meant to get book 1, but got book 2 by mistake. I was interested in this series because the author based it partly on his experiences fighting in WWII (in Europe).

Unfortunately, the book just didn't work for me. It's supposed to be about the horrors of war and how wars affect the people who fight in them, but the author glossed over so much of it. For example, we're told one character does horrible things and becomes progressively more traumatized, but all of that happens offscreen (perhaps because the book is YA?). There's a reference to the rape of a civilian woman by "friendly" troops--again, completely glossed over. Everything happens at such a surface level that I never felt like I got inside anyone's head, and there were too many characters to follow anyway. I think this book needed to be adult fantasy, not YA, and it needed to be twice as long to deal with the themes it wanted to deal with. It's too bad, because I think the themes could have been very interesting (though disturbing).

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie (short story collection; literary)

I adore Sherman Alexie, ever since I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, which was so funny and sad and heartfelt. I think it's amazing that he's a successful poet AND a stand-up comic. How often does someone have the talent for two such disparate things? I guess I prefer the humor, though, and this short story collection was too bleak and literary for me. The title led me to believe there'd be as much humor in this book as in Part-Time Indian, but that wasn't case. The stories are well done, just not my cup of tea. I did like a couple of them, especially "The Approximate Size of my Favorite Tumor," about a guy dying of cancer, which, believe it or not, was the least depressing story in the book.

Best image, though, was from a story about a guy who got drunk and passed out at a carnival. His friends paid one of the carnies to strap him into one of the cars on the rollercoaster, which he rode continuously until he woke up. A cruel practical joke, but the image was really funny.

Galley warfare!

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:21:35 GMT

I've been reading a textbook called Sea Power: A Naval History, as part of my research for "Soldier, Sage & Vagabond." I thought it would be really boring, but holy crap, it's not. Some of this naval stuff is so fun I'm considering putting one of the naval battles "onscreen" in the novel (previously, I'd meant to have the war offscreen, as a backdrop to the real story I'm telling).

One decision I need to make is whether or not to set set my story in the gunpowder age. If I set it before gunpowder, the ships will have to be galleys.

Did you know galleys were in use for nearly five thousand years? They first showed up in 3000 BC, and were used in naval battles as late as the 16th century, at which point they carried guns at the bow. 4 and a half millenia before they were finally replaced by England's broadside sailing ships!

What's also striking is how naval power correlates with the power and influence of a nation in general. For example, the first great naval power was the Phoenicians, who were replaced by the Greeks, who were then supplanted by the Romans. After that, the battle for the Mediterranean got complicated, and power shifted between Muslims, European Christendom, the Byzantines, and the Turks. But then the English, who could not adopt galleys because they were unsuitable for the rougher waters of the Atlantic, developed their broadsides. The Mediterranean became less important, and power shifted to the Atlantic nations (England, Holland, Spain, France). It seems the nations that ruled the sea ruled the world--or at least, were the cultural centers and great powers of their day.

Galleys would work for my story, as they are tactically interesting. Some nations preferred hand-to-hand fighting (by means of boarding), while others preferred to use the ships themselves as weapons. I found the Battle of Salamis--Persians vs. Greeks--the best example of galley tactics. The Persians preferred hand-to-hand fighting and their ships were designed for grappling, while the Greeks had more agile ships with archers at the bow and bronze-sheathed underwater rams that could sink opposing galleys.

The Persians had a superior force, but the Greeks, through use of a double agent and a ruse, lured the Persians into a narrow strait. The narrow confines eliminated the Persians' advantage in numbers, and the nimble Greek ships outmaneuvered the Persian ones and broke them up with their rams. They sent the still-larger but demoralized Persian fleet into retreat, breaking up the Persian supply lines. Later, they pursued and destroyed what remained of the fleet, and that was the beginning of the decline of Persia and the rise of Greece.

This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for--a way for a small fleet to defeat a larger one through smarter tactics and knowledge provided by a spy--so something similar may just work its way into "Soldier, Sage & Vagabond." Though I'm continuing to read the textbook, because there may be even better stuff in the chapters ahead.

What I've learned about writing action scenes

Mon, 05 May 2008 23:03:23 GMT

When I started submitting my first action scenes for critique, I was surprised when people said things like, "No tension," or, "I never felt like the characters were in danger." Come on, it's action! There's fighting! There's running for one's life! How can there be no tension?

I understand now. The protagonists went into the battle with a plan. They executed that plan, and the battle went according to plan. Oops! Boring!

I've since figured out that the cardinal rule for writing action scenes--at least for me--is, the protagonist's plan must fail.

It's easy if I mean for my protagonist to fail in the first place. In chapter 15 of Finneas Trapp, Dalin and Finneas get into a fight with a couple Shifters, and for story reasons they need to screw up so that Finneas is captured. So I wrote that scene to make the protagonists fail. Tension was easily maintained.

But it's trickier when my protagonist needs to succeed. Looking at a couple of well-known examples: Luke needs to blow up the Death Star. Frodo needs to drop the ring into the volcano. If they don't succeed in those tasks, their stories aren't satisfying. But if Luke just flies up to the Death Star, drops his bomb, and BAM! the thing explodes, that isn't satisfying either. Similarly, if Frodo just walks up and drops the ring into the volcano. Boring.

So their plans go awry. The first bomb launched into the Death Star misses. Darth Vader shoots all the ships down, until only Luke remains, and then he gets a lock on Luke's ship. Frodo gets to the edge of the volcano and decides at the last minute he can't give the ring up. Luke and Frodo both eventually succeed (in both cases, because of the surprise intervention of a 3rd party!), but not in the way they intended.

So now that I've figured this little detail out about action scenes, that is the phrase I repeat to myself whenever I need to write one. The protagonist's plan must fail. Not in every way, necessarily, but it must fail in some respects, or it won't be an exciting scene.

Book review: Little Brother

Mon, 05 May 2008 05:09:21 GMT

(All the cool kids are reading this one...)

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow (YA science fiction)

An amazing book, the kind that will keep you lying awake at night staring the ceiling, because you can't stop thinking about it.

Little Brother is set in San Francisco in the near future, and I mean very near future, as in maybe 5-10 years out. Our protagonist, 17-year-old Marcus, resents the increasing use of technology to spy on U.S. citizens, and finds ways to hack around it. But then there's a major terrorist attack in San Francisco, and in its wake, an overzealous Department of Homeland Security spirals out of control, establishing a secret prison for "enemy combatants" and treating every American citizen as a potential terrorist. Marcus and his hacker friends, watching their country devolve into a police state, start an underground revolution to restore their civil liberties.

You know how lots of YA SFF novels are about a kid who saves the world, and it's not terribly plausible, but readers don't care about that because it's a fun story? Well, this book is about a kid who saves the world... and it is plausible (he has a lot of help). Everything in this book felt like it could really happen, and that's what made it terrifying.

It's also riveting from the start. If anyone's not thoroughly hooked on this book by the end of chapter 4, I'll be shocked. I could hardly put it down.

I'm a good audience for this book because (1) I love YA and (2) I have a computer science degree and worked in the computer industry. There's lots of information in this book about technology and hacking, crypto and security, and while those aren't my specific areas of expertise, what I read struck me as accurate. Also, the author does a great job of explaining tricky concepts in language that's easy to understand.

This book is a creative cousin to 1984 (the title is a riff on Big Brother); I wouldn't be surprised if it's eventually recognized as a classic. Shorter term, I think it'll be showered with awards. It certainly should be.

It's the kind of book that makes me want to run out and buy a bunch of copies and give them to people.

While it's a wonderful book for teenagers, I wouldn't put it in the hands of younger kids. My 9-year-old, I think, is not ready to cope with the idea that the government could someday be his enemy; it's too scary a concept for that age. And this book doesn't do any mincing about; Marcus, with his underground rebellion, gets into very serious trouble. But I tell you, when my son is old enough, I'll either be sticking this book in his hands or reading it to him myself.

Updates and links

Mon, 05 May 2008 04:22:45 GMT

I know the cause, now, of that 4am helicopter search and the road closure. A drunk driver, going 100mph down a 40mph road without a seat belt, crashed into a tree and died at the scene. That was at 3am. When the police investigated, they found an empty child seat in the car. Not knowing if a child had been in it or not, they launched a search. Hence the helicopter. Fortunately, it turned out there was no child; the seat had been empty from the start.

Gacked from Smart Bitches, here's a great article about how romance novels can teach you to engage the reader's emotions in your writing.

Gacked from Scalzi's Whateverettes, here's a bit of hilarious radio news from The Onion about a discovery in the blogosphere. (NOTE: not safe for work)

And finally, behind the cut, gacked from wtf_nature, a video on fainting goats. Having been involved somewhat in animal breeding, I'm not comfortable with people deliberately breeding animals with genetic defects because of the amusement value (to the human!) of the defect. But I guess it's a free country. I feel sorry for the goats, but they are pretty damn funny:

Something's going on (or was)

Fri, 02 May 2008 22:53:49 GMT

Last night I was awakened at 4am by a helicopter buzzing my house. It was moving in a search pattern, back and forth, back and forth, very low in the sky, very loud. At times, it was directly overhead. This went on for 20 minutes or so, and then it suddenly left. No gradual fading away as the search progressed to other areas, just zoom, it was gone. I hope whoever or whatever they were looking for was important, because I'm sure they woke the entire neighborhood.

Then this morning, the arterial near my house was closed. Completely shut down. Peter called to warn me about it, as he'd been redirected in taking the boys to school. Some hours later, the road was reopened, and I traveled up it. I saw a policeman at a retirement center across the street rolling up crime scene tape (as in, taking it down). I saw a patrol car further up the street with its lights flashing.

I have no idea what went on, or if the two events are related. But clearly something was up.

Made in Japan?

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:19:12 GMT

Which two of the following go together?

panda, monkey, banana

(This comes from a book called The Geography of Thought by Richard Nisbett, which I haven't read)

Apparently, in studies, Japanese pair monkey and banana, while Brits pair monkey and panda. The idea is that Asian minds see the world in terms of relationships (monkeys eat bananas), while Western minds see the world in terms of categories (pandas and monkeys are mammals).

Well, I'm Western (native Texan, Caucasian), and I chose monkey and banana. So, what, I have a Japanese brain?

Done

Fri, 02 May 2008 04:02:36 GMT

Well, it's done. I'm officially unmarried. Divorced.

My lawyer was supposed to meet me in court this afternoon so I could testify, but he was held up in mediation on someone else's case, so in desperation he sent my husband's lawyer (!) in his place. That was weird. But since the papers were already signed--aside from a few things I had to initial 5 minutes before going in the courtroom--it didn't really matter. I was reminded, though, of my first obstetrician, who saw me through 9 months of pregnancy but didn't show up for the birth.

Oddly enough, this does not end the process. Now that the papers have been filed, the real work begins. Finances have to be moved around. I have to write a new will and set up 529 plans for the kids' college expenses. My name has changed, and you can probably imagine what a bureaucratic nightmare that will be.

I managed to hold it together in court, but later on, almost broke down when a paralegal announced, "You're a free woman now!" I don't consider the finalization of the divorce to be a happy event. But then the paralegal started telling me about her own divorce, and how well her kids had adjusted, in time. Actually, all through this process, women I assumed were on their first marriages have been coming up to tell me about their prior divorce. It's an unhappy event, but many people seem to find a happy ending later on.

If I were the drinking type, I'd be sloshed by now. But I don't drink, so instead I'll go write stories about people in worse situations than me, and give them all happy endings.

Conformity and the "cool kids" at preschool

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:26:03 GMT

Ethan has definitely joined the "cool kids" clique at preschool. In fact, he had to be separated from them at circle time today because they were being so disruptive. I've noticed that at this age, high-status boys are always disruptive. Instead of sitting quietly at circle time, they talk to each other, crack jokes, and, in general, put their resistance to authority on display. It seems to encourage the other boys to look up to them as leaders, and they know just how far they can push it without getting into trouble.

I find there's a difficult balance between wanting my boys to obey the rules, but knowing that if they obey them 100%, they will not be accepted by their peers. So I tolerate some resistance--and pick my battles for the things I consider truly important.

Ethan is beginning to mature socially. It took him a long time, especially compared to Sean, who at age 3 could make friends with just about anybody. I was amazed at how he did it. He was a social chameleon. He would see a kid playing some sort of game, watch for a little while, and then join in the game, conforming to the other kid's rules. Once accepted, he might try to change the game to something he liked better. What he did not do was barge in and start telling everyone what to do--a mistake made by many socially-immature preschoolers.

It appears that at this age, extraversion + peer conformity = popularity. (For boys, it helps to have advantages in size and age--but Sean did extremely well despite being one of the smallest boys in the class.)

Here's an example of a social negotiation I saw Ethan engage in yesterday. His friend Max (one of the "cool kids") was using chalk to draw blue X's on the play structure. Ethan grabbed an orange piece of chalk, settled down next to him, and began drawing X's as well [peer conformity--he's mimicking Max's behavior]. Max yelled, "No! Only blue X's!" Instead of getting upset--which he would have done, 6 months ago--Ethan just said, "Ok," moved to the other side of the play structure, and started drawing orange X's there. "Yeah," said Max. "We'll put blue X's here, and orange X's over there." (Note that after Ethan made a concession, so did Max.)

I have mixed feelings about conformity, when it comes to my kids. On the one hand, I want them to have the ability to adapt to the norms of a group when necessary, and gain acceptance. On the other hand, I want them to be strong enough inside to resist conformity when it doesn't benefit them, or when the norms of the group conflict with their values. Put more simply, I want them to be the kind of kids who can make friends, but are strong enough to say no to drugs and other dangers.

The new novel! And how do you name your characters?

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:56:39 GMT

Well, I've started! The new novel has the working title "Soldier, Sage, and Vagabond," and I'm a thousand words in. It's been a year since I've written first draft copy. I forget how long it takes to write just a thousand words. It's the damn details. I had to come up with names for both protagonists and two countries. Then I had to establish and describe one setting on a warship (I know nothing about ships!), and another on a riverbank. Then physical descriptions for three characters, and other details, like what the soap they use would look like and smell like.

For the most part, I don't do research at this stage. I wing it with the details, and in my second draft, I go back and fix everything. But coming up with it all still isn't easy.

I gave my protagonists tentative names. I get my names from books (I have several name books on my writing shelf), baby name websites, and occasionally the Fantasy Name Generator. Usually I choose names that have a meaning appropriate to the character (Finneas, for example, means "serpent's mouth" in Hebrew).

I named my male protagonist in the new novel Janus, for the Roman god of gates, doorways, endings and beginnings. This character is an agent of change, and the "two faces" concept applies to him because he essentially lives in two worlds. I'll probably change Janus at some point to a derivative name, Jan-something, so the origin is less obvious.

I named the female protagonist Rhianne. I first went looking for a female name meaning "courage" or "bravery," but there were few of those, and none I liked. So I opted for a variation on Rhiannon, the goddess/sorceress from Welsh mythology. Back in college, I translated parts of the Mabinogion from its original medieval Welsh (all y's and w's!), and I consider Rhiannon a surprisingly strong female character given the time period in which the Mabinogion was written.

Most names I begin a novel with will change during revision. We'll see if these two names survive.

How do you come up with your character's names?

Time to move on?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:15:28 GMT

It's official: I'm sick of Finneas Trapp. Sick to death of it. Hating it.

I don't even know, exactly, what remains to be done. I still need OWW feedback on the last 4 chapters before I can be certain the ending is right. I've spent a lot of time cleaning up the beginning, which had problems with confusing, contradictory character motivations. That's because when I wrote the beginning, I was still figuring the characters out! Now I'm straightening out the tangles, but it's a mess, and will require another round of review for just those chapters. Ugh.

There's work to be done, but most of that work is waiting on feedback.

Meanwhile, my subconscious has completely moved on to the new book. Ideas are flinging themselves at me unbidden, when I'm lying in bed or in the shower. Mornings find me frantically scribbling them down. This novel's got a larger cast than Trapp. In addition to my hero and heroine, I've got 3 separate antagonists (all antagonizing the protagonists in different ways), and 3 important minor characters. Like all my stories, this one involves two protagonists in a relationship with a lot of internal conflict, and an external conflict putting pressure on them, forcing that relationship to evolve.

I haven't written a word of the thing yet, but I'm itching to. It's hard because I have trouble working in two worlds at once. It's like there's this room in my head where stories get built, and for one story I need the furniture arranged this way, and for the other I need it arranged that way, and it's not practical to be rearranging the furniture all the time.

What to do with a stray dog?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:26:08 GMT

Saturday's chess tournament fell on a visitation weekend, which meant the kids were with their dad. The plan was that he would bring the kids to the tournament, and I'd show up a little later to support Sean. But I'd forgotten to hand off Sean's ADD medication, which he takes before tournaments. Peter called me about it early that morning. I checked the time and decided there was just enough time for me to take my morning walk, and then I'd have to go straight to the tournament to deliver the medication in time for Sean's first round of competition.

So I went for my walk, with my dog Serri, and as we were nearing home, a strange dog came running at us. This is not a common situation in my neighborhood, but it's not rare either, and I did what I usually do when I encounter a loose dog. I stood straight and tall, looked the dog in the eye, and took a couple steps towards it. That's dominant behavior, and will discourage most dogs from coming closer. But not this one; it was too irrepressibly friendly.

The dog ran up to Serri for mutual sniffing. I'm not sure what kind of dog it was--perhaps a Basenji mix. Medium sized with a curly tail, a stiff, short coat, and the coloration of a coyote. He was obviously a friendly dog, but I'd never seen him before. I feared he might be lost. So I held out my hand. The dog sniffed it, came a little closer, and I darted out and grabbed his collar.

I brought him inside the house on Serri's leash, then examined his collar and tags. He had a single Avid tag--that's a microchip company. Somebody cared about this dog enough to chip him. I called Avid with his ID number, and they referred me to another number, a local veterinarian's office. I called that number, but the office was closed for the weekend. Hmm.

I looked at the collar again. Why only an Avid tag? Why no ID tag? And then I found it--the ID information was printed flat on the collar itself. There was a name, a phone number, and an address, plus the dog's name ("Cooper"). I called the phone number. No answer. I left a message on the machine. Now what?

Either the dog was lost, in which case the owner might be out actively looking for him--hence no answer when I called their house--or he was routinely allowed to run free, and by trying to help him, I was being a pest. If he was lost, I was protecting him from a couple of possible bad outcomes--being hit by a car, or getting so freaked out he runs from his owners--but I was also interfering with his owners' attempts to recover him. I'd brought him into my house and out of their sight.

With sufficient time, I could have sorted this out. Either kept the dog in my outdoor kennel until the owners returned my call, or gone looking for their address. But by now I was late to the tournament, and Sean still didn't have his medicine. I was torn between my son's needs and the dog's needs, and the possibility that my attempts to help the dog were creating unnecessary problems. Sometimes trying to do the right thing is hard--what is the right thing in this situation?

I went back outside with the dog, considering just turning him loose. And then, salvation! A blue sedan was crawling along the street with the passenger-side window open. The driver was yelling something out the window. She was too far away to see me, and turned into a street I knew ended in a cul-de-sac. I parked myself with the dog at the intersection, knowing she would have to come back that way. She did, and I returned her dog. Yay!

On to the chess tournament, where unfortunately I delivered Sean's medicine too late for the first round of competition. But he won the first round without it! Sometimes--not always, but sometimes--when you try to do the right thing, things just work out.

Flingin' the casual misogyny

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:11:36 GMT

I was happily reading a book, enjoying it, when the author flung a bit of misogyny at me through the mouth of his protagonist. The protagonist is a detective of sorts consulting on a brutal double murder, and he speculates that the killer was a woman. When asked why, he explains, "Because you can't do something that bad without a whole lot of hate. Women are better at hating than men."

(Yeah, we're so much better at hating. And that's why the vast majority of violent crimes are committed by women. OH, WAIT.)

I'm not going to name the book or the author, because the point is not to pick on him. I just want to talk about how casual misogyny is still getting thrown around in this modern age. Some guys who don't think of themselves as sexist will say "women are more vengeful than men" and intend it as flattery. Along the lines of, women are tough! don't mess with them!

But where I really think it comes from is some men's view of women as strange and alien and frightening. Don't let women into your life; they're hateful and mean! They'll make your life hell! That's misogyny.

And the weird thing is that the "women are more vengeful than men," "women are more hateful than men" crap comes from NOWHERE. Where's the evidence? It's certainly not in the crime rate. I saw a study once that showed women were more accepting of homosexuality than men--that is, were on average less homophobic. How does that translate to women being hateful? It doesn't! Are there hateful women? YES. Are there hateful men? YES. Are women more hateful, on average, than men? UN-FREAKING-LIKELY.

I don't know what the author's intention was--especially since the protagonist turned out to be wrong in the end (the killer was a man). That made me slightly less offended, since it opens the possibility that the author's views are not the same as his protagonist's. But I had to wonder, since the protagonist's statement had zero impact on the plot, why throw it out there? Why throw it out to impressionable young men (who I suspect make up much of the demographic for this book), some of whom have minimal experience with the opposite sex, who may seize on it and embrace it? We have enough problems already without authors making things worse.

The state chess tournament

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 05:34:19 GMT

Look what cosmic entity graced us with its presence today:

(That's the sun. No, seriously, we see it sometimes.) And here's where I spent the day:

State chess is always a lot of fun. The tournament is held every spring, and is open to any student who's earned a plus score (3.0 or higher) at a local tournament. While the competition is stiff, the tournament atmosphere is not cutthroat. It feels more like an end-of-year party for chess players. If you place anywhere in the top half, you get a trophy. If you place in the bottom half, you get a medal. I love how the emphasis is on celebration and encouraging these kids.

This year the tournament was held at a local megachurch. I was skeptical when I heard about the venue. I've seen the crowds at state chess before--how could they possibly fit us all in a church?

Well, it turned out mega meant MEGA. Or perhaps GIGA. TERA. Seriously, I was blown away by the size of this church. Can someone explain to me the appeal of a megachurch? Because to me, an important part of going to church is being part of a supportive community of people who share your spiritual values. But how can there be a community when it's so huge? It seems to me it would be very impersonal. I have no experience with huge churches, so do enlighten me.

This church had a hilarious parking lot. It was a really long, really thin rectangle. There are only four lanes for cars, but each lane is half a mile long. Here's a picture, though it does not capture the scale:

I know it's hard to see much in that photo, but see the "A" and the little covered area? If you look past that, there's another covered area marked "B." Beyond that are "C" and "D," which you can't see (said the cat). And see those narrow, empty roads on either side? Those are shuttle lanes. The parking lot is so huge, they offer shuttle service from one end to the other! Like at Disneyland! Only on Sundays, though. We chess folks had to hoof it.

Here you can see the party atmosphere:

My kids liked the miniature golf:

See that tie-dye shirt Sean's wearing? It's a tournament shirt. They did something cool with these--they made them to order for each kid. The downside was the process was really slow; I had to wait in line for an hour to get Sean's shirt. But it's got the names of all the tournament players on the back--actually, 1/6 of them, you have to pick the right back--and a star by your kid's name. It's a nice keepsake, and not a bad looking shirt, though it sure doesn't go with those pants Sean's got on.

The megachurch turned out to be a spectacular venue. These events are usually badly overcrowded, but not this time. We had reserved 3 tables for our team, and, incredibly, they gave us a private room. Check it out:

It may not look like the lap of luxury, but we're accustomed to being crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in an elementary school cafeteria where there are twice as many people as chairs and you have to shout to hear yourself. This room, by contrast, was paradise. I was so much more comfortable, I got through the entire tournament without a migraine.

And, of course, the kids played chess. Here, pairings have been posted. The pairing sheets for each round tell you who you're going to play, what their rating is, and what position you'll be sitting at. Here, Sean has just gotten his pairing and is hurrying to his chess board.

And here he is at his board:

At state chess, you play five games against opponents in your grade. If you win a game, you get a point. If you lose, you get no points. If you draw, you get half a point. So the worst possible score (all losses) is 0.0, and the best possible score (all wins) is 5.0. If you earn a 3.0 or higher, that's called a "plus score" (more wins than losses). If you score 4.0 or higher, you're likely to earn a placement. To win the tournament, you'll need a perfect 5.0. In tournaments of this size, it is common for several kids in each grade to earn a 5.0. The overall winner is decided by tiebreakers or blitz games.

Sean won his first game, but had an unlucky pairing for his second: he was paired against the kid who would go on to win the tournament. He lost his third game in an upset (a lower rated player beat him), and went on to win his last two games, achieving a "plus score" (3.0) and earning a small trophy.

For those who know the other team members, Trevor earned a 4.0 and 15th place, Jordan earned a 4.0 and 22nd place, Michael earned a 4.0 and 30th place, and Andy earned a 4.0 and 31st place. We also had a 3.5 and numerous 3.0s.

For team competition, the highest 5 scores are added together, and that becomes the team score. A perfect team score would be 25--5 kids each earning a perfect 5.0. Our team won 8th place in K-3 with a team score of 18.5. The first place team was the team that always wins state, a local gifted magnet school. Their team score? 25.

Here's our team collecting their trophy. They don't look happy in this shot, but trust me, they are! I think they were tired of standing there while we took pictures.

Go team! Another chess year is over and done. We'll start the process all over again in September.

More on Chalion. Also active vs. passive voice in description

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:03:28 GMT

I want to talk some more about The Curse of Chalion, because Bujold's writing is the sort I think I can learn a lot from.

First, in my review yesterday, I forgot to provide the hook, which I always write from scratch, for my own benefit. By writing hooks for other people's books, I learn to write better hooks for my own.

The funny thing is, when I tried to isolate the hook for Chalion, I thought, There isn't a hook. Because the most interesting stuff happens 200 pages in, and it's all spoilers. I think the real hook for The Curse of Chalion is "Hi, I'm Lois McMaster Bujold. Have you seen my shelf full of awards?" Just kidding. Here's the hook, as best I can isolate it without spoiling the story:

Two years ago, minor nobleman and military commander Lupe dy Cazaril was betrayed by a rival and sold into foreign slavery. Everyone believed him dead. Then he escaped his captors, and now he's returning to his homeland, broken and battered, seeking only a quiet life and a place to lick his wounds. But the man who betrayed him is still at court, more powerful than ever, and he's determined to make certain Cazaril can spill no tales.

--

You know one more small thing I loved about this book? It's that Cazaril is a military commander who's presided over numerous military losses. Now, you would think, given how many fantasy novels involve wars and military leaders, that would be a common thing to find in a fantasy novel. But it's not! I can't think of a single fantasy novel I've read where the protagonist was a commander who kept losing. The protagonist is always so-and-so who brilliantly won the campaign at such-and-such. The fact that Cazaril was an unsuccessful commander felt immediately interesting and different to me.

--

About Bujold's writing--I've noticed she goes to great lengths to avoid passive voice in description. Check out the following passage:

"The town of Valenda tumbled down over its low hill like a rich quilt worked in red and gold, red for the tile roofs, gold for the native stone, both glowing in the sun. Cazaril blinked at the dazzle of color in his blurring eyes, the familiar hues of his homeland."

Nice, huh? I love "tumbled down;" it presents a great image, and then quilt analogy is lovely. Another thing she does that I found really effective is to mix character reactions in with the description. I can't stand long blocks of dry description all by themselves, but here, the mention of Cazaril's "blurring eyes" makes the description relevant to the story. And note--there are no passive verbs in those sentences.

Another example (about a different town!):

"The town bulked black against a pewter sky, its deepening shadows relieved here and there by the orange flare of some torch or candle, faint sparks of light and life."

I'm not sure about "the town bulked"--I wonder if that's overkill, avoiding passive voice by turning nouns into verbs. I thought it was an interesting choice, though. And I love "black against a pewter sky." I question whether "sparks" should be plural.

Even if I didn't like her stories, I'd read Bujold just for the lesson in writing craft.

Book review: The Curse of Chalion

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:31:40 GMT

The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold (fantasy)

Somehow I never discovered Bujold, and I should have. Somewhere in the 90's, I stopped reading fantasy, because all fantasy books were starting to sound the same. Either the genre had stagnated, or I'd read too much of it. But in recent years I returned to fantasy and discovered the genre has lots of fresh material. And I've been checking out some of the authors I missed.

My understanding is Bujold spent a decade writing science fiction (and winning Hugo awards) before successfully breaking into fantasy with The Curse of Chalion. The Curse of Chalion won the World Fantasy Award, and its sequel, Paladin of Souls, won the Hugo and Nebula.

We've been talking on the OWW about the openings of novels, and how books these days need to open strong, with immediate conflict, or at least a good hook. But The Curse of Chalion has a quiet opening, and it stays at a slow simmer for a good while. I wasn't truly hooked until nearly 200 pages in. I suppose an author gets that kind of leeway when she has a Hugo or two under her belt!

Even though it wasn't the kind of book that compelled me to stay up late reading, it was the kind of book that, every time I picked it up, I enjoyed. The main character, Cazaril, is absolutely charming. I fell in love with him. I bet most female readers do, even though I'm not sure he's very realistic (he's so noble and self-sacrificing, he's practically a Christ figure). And the whole book is tight third on Cazaril--we never switch to another viewpoint.

What I loved about this book?

1. Cazaril

2. The worldbuilding. Often I'm indifferent to worldbuilding. I don't care if the weeks in somebody's world have 7 days, or 10, 5, or 13. I don't want to read some lame creation myth that introduces me to the pantheon of gods. But the worldbuilding in this novel was awesome, because it was about people and their customs. I adored the details of the Roknari language (its grammatical forms that change based on who is speaking to whom); the blessing of the animals; "death miracles"; the Bastard as the collector of lost souls. You can really feel Bujold's science fiction roots--in many ways, this is a novel of ideas.

It's a very religious novel--at least it feels that way. The passages where Cazaril is briefly able to see the world through the eyes of his god are breathtaking.

If you're looking for action or humor, there isn't a whole lot of either. It's a court intrigue sort of fantasy, with a little bit of magic sprinkled in. But if you want characters you can really attach yourself to, deft plotting with no logic flaws and several neat surprises, and amazing worldbuilding, this is your book. I ordered the sequel.

The OSBP

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:28:03 GMT

I haven't posted about the OSBP because everyone else has already made the necessary points. If anyone's curious, my feelings mirror those expressed by Tamora Pierce here.

As long as I'm posting links, I saw this in the comments trail of a Scalzi post. A gallon of milk listed on Amazon has garnered 990 reviews. I was amused.

And check out Editorial Anonymous's post about "My Beautiful Mommy," an incredibly creepy book for little kids about how to cope when mommy gets plastic surgery.

An early Earth Day post

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:17:48 GMT

You'll never believe this, but I'm thinking about installing solar panels on my house.

I know, I just got through saying we get 9 months a year of cold and rain here in Seattle, so why would I think this is a good idea? Because I read this article in my local paper. Apparently solar's not as unfeasible in Seattle as I thought. On gray winter days, yes, you may generate only a kilowatt or two, but in the summer you can generate quite a lot, and bank it with the electrical company.

The major downside is, of course, the expense of installation. It's very expensive--we're talking $20-30k. The article says you eventually recoup the cost of it, but not for 20-25 years given laws and incentives currently in place.

HOWEVER... the state has passed new incentives for utilities to pay solar owners 54 cents/kW for power produced by solar modules and inverters built in Washington. That can amount to $2000/year. I'm not sure I completely understand that bit from the article--I need to look into it more--but it sounds like the government might actually pay me for generating solar power. Yowza! And that, according to the article, means I could recoup the cost in only 7 years.

I worry about the panels being an eyesore. But I live in a neighborhood with no CCRs, and given the upsides of solar power, I'm not going to be too concerned about grumpy neighbors. The idea of running my house partially on solar power appeals not only to my sense of social and ecological responsibility, but to my Texan desire for independence and self-sufficiency. I hate being dependent on power generated elsewhere. And my inner geek, which loves efficient systems, is tickled at the idea of harvesting power from the sun--an energy source that will not be exhausted for 5 billion years.

It's not yet possible to take advantage of the new incentives (a factory has to be built first, to produce the panels locally), but I'll be keeping an eye on things and looking into this further. A year or two from now, who knows? I might just have a solar-powered house.