Assessment Three, Creative and Professional Writing 393-8 "Writing and New Technologies" is now complete and to be found here: http://members.westnet.com.au/rboyd/index.html

It was an interesting and enjoyable task, the aim being to utilise non-linear hyperlinking techniques to improve the classic interactive role-playing game/novel that once took place in a paperback book. What the internet and html allowed is quick access to the disparate options of the role-play, whereas in the old hard copy scenario, the reader had to turn to page 123 or whatever to pursue the option of their choice. But with an online exercise, one click and you're there. One click and you're back.

It might not be considered enormously non-linear, not in the way that some students have used hyperlinks to produce such a multiplicity of directions as to be virtually anarchic. Which works fine for their projects, I hasten to add. But because mine was at heart a traditional narrative, while some of the options could be interchanged chronologically without affecting the narrative flow; others depended on being viewed in the correct sequence and in that regard its non-linearity was limited.

The downside of the project was that the scope of the exercise really exceded the size required for the assessment. I think that the semi-completed work I submitted on Thursday would have satisfied the requirements, but it didn't satisfy me, and I continued and finished the complete work by the weekend. Unfortunately that had now blown out to over 5000 words, and that's considering just one narrative stream (which, arguably, is what should be considered) and not the whole project which must be double if not triple that, although a lot of that is simple duplication.

Anyway, it's all done and was a lot of fun, as well as being a lot of hard work that required several charts and diagrams and a few pages of notes. I've done a lot of work on the internet so I don't know that I pushed my boundaries very hard with this one, but doing fiction on the internet and using online technologies in a new and innovative way (for me anyway) was enjoyable and interesting.

A writer never stops learning so in that sense this was another worthwhile educational exercise to hone the craft, although I can't pinpoint any actual writing improvements from the unit -- after all, I have been writing professionally for much of my 30 plus years of employment, so if I don't have a decent handle on the skill by now, I probably never will. But the unit did present a few different ways of thinking about and viewing writing and publishing, and maintained an awareness of the possibilities of new technologies, so it's all good.

Lord of the Rings (abridged version)

“Here we all are and here is the Ring,” said Gandalf, “but we have not yet come any nearer to our purpose. What shall we do with it?”

“Would Tom Bombadil not take the ring and keep it within the bounds he has set, forever harmless?” asked Erestor.

“NO,” said Gandalf, “Not willingly. And he would soon forget it, or most likely throw it away.”

“Power to defy our enemy is not in him,” said Galdor, “What power still remains lies with us, here in Imladris, or with Cirdan in the Havens, or in Lorien.”

“I have not the strength,” said Elrond, “Neither have they”.

“Then let us cast it into the deeps,” said Glorfindel, “ In the sea it would be safe.”

“Not safe forever,” said Gandalf, “We should seek a final end to this menace.”

“Now at last we must take a hard road, a road unforeseen,” said Elrond, “There lies our hope, if hope it be. To walk into peril – to Mordor. We must send the ring to the Fire.”

Boromir stirred, fingering his great horn and frowning.

“I do not understand all this,” he said, “Why should we not think that the great ring has come into our hands to serve us in the very hour of our need? Wielding it the Free Lords of the Free may surely defeat the enemy.”

“Alas, no,” said Elrond, “We cannot use the Ruling Ring. It belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone and is altogether evil. I will not take the ring to wield it.”

“Nor I,” said Gandalf.

“Thus we return once more to the destroying of the ring,” said Erestor, “And yet come no nearer.”

“The road must be trod, but it will be very hard,” said Elrond. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us very far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong.”

The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke. Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought.

“Excuse me,” he said at length.

Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance.

“Are you all completely thick?” asked Frodo. Outraged and angry faces surrounded him amongst the council of the mighty and wise.

“Look, you cretins,” went on Frodo, “If you think I’m going to walk all the way to Mordor with this bloody thing, you can just forget it. All you need to do is summon Gwaihir the Windlord, Greatest of all the Eagles of the North, give him the ring and tell him to drop it in the crack of Mount Doom. And before you can say “Oops I never thought of that”, the ring will be destroyed, Sauron will be comprehensively stuffed and we can all have a nice dinner, a few drinks and a good night’s kip.”

“By the beard of Thorin Oakenshield himself, I think the halfling has it!” cried Gloin.

“Not all giants are extremely large,” noted Aragorn enigmatically.

“And then you can all come to Gondor for a massive party,” suggested Boromir, fingering his great horn excitedly.

And so it came to pass.

Non-linear non-sense

Although, to be fair, it's not really all that non-linear. By brain just doesn't do non-linear. I tried, I really did. I started going up and down the same page but I started seeing double, so I ended up with a whole bunch of linked pages. It's kind of juvenile but I don't see the point in being old if you can't be juvenile.

No, that can't be right.

Anyway, pit your wits against the Boyd YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED poetic hyperlinked riddle.

http://members.westnet.com.au/rboyd/numbered1.html

I confess -- I'm a Collaborator

On Wikipedia anyway.

The somewhat underpowered entry for RugbyWA, the governing body of rugby union here in Western Australia, has been enlarged and updated by your humble scribe and rugby journo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RugbyWA

I Drink Therefore I Am

Who am I?

The hard ones first eh?

What does ‘I’ even mean? And what is a “fixed, fully-centred identity”?

‘I’ is an expression of myself as an individual, an acknowledgement of the human person as separate from others, an establishment of an individual identity.

And what is identity? Identity and the sense of the individual are concepts of the Age of Enlightenment. Before that, people saw themselves as part of a divine cosmology, created by God or Gods and powerless before fate or destiny dictated by divine plan. The Age of Enlightenment proposed individuals as independent, conscious entities, controlling their existence through free will and reason, and possessing a centred identity from birth that developed as the individual experienced life.

As Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am”. Or as Monty Python said, more appealingly and a whole lot funnier, “I drink, therefore I am”.

The modern definition of identity expanded to acknowledge the effects of culture or society on individuals, and how their identity was shaped by the meanings and interactions of the culture they existed in. Modernity has also raised questions about the crisis of identity – whether the fragmentation of modern society from its traditional, established base roles of class, gender, race and belief has led to a destabilisation of identity as individuals no longer have fixed classifications to belong to.

The concept of a fixed, fully centred individual is of limited value. There are the questions of defining what fixed and fully centred actually means to different individuals, and then there is doubt whether individuals can evaluate themselves with anything other than complete subjectivity, which arguably makes the evaluation of limited worth.

Do I know who I am? Do I know who anyone else is? Do I know the culture that we all exist in, that influences so much of our understanding of ourselves and others? Arguably, no to all three. At best, I know what my behaviour is, and the behaviour of others, the behaviours expected and tolerated in the cultural context; and must draw conclusions from that.

Convergence

In a replay of last year's grand final, Associates defeated Cottesloe 13-6 at Perry Lakes in the first round of the Rugby WA Home Building Society competition.

Nothing else about the match was similar. The game was not a spectacle but a dour grind peppered with penalties from referee Brendan Fitzgerald, littered with errors, and featuring just one try.

Cottesloe scored first when a prodigous 60 metre Todd Feather penalty kick raised the flags after four minutes. But Associates made most of the early pressure but by half time had nothing to show for it. Instead Cottesloe increased their lead with a second penalty to Feather after 32 minutes.

Associates finally received reward for their hard work when flyhalf Mark Solomons landed a penalty kick just before half time, for a 6-3 lead to Cottesloe going into the break.

Cottesloe improved their possession and territory in the second half but were no more successful on the scoreboard.

Associates had less of the play but mid way through the spell, halfback Robbie Barugh popped a short pass from the base of a quick ruck close to the posts and hooker Adam New burst through to score behind the posts. Mark Solomons converted and Soaks went out to a 10-6 lead.



Both teams worked hard, although not always effectively, to add to the score as the half wound down. With ten minutes to play Cottesloe conceded a penalty for a head-high tackle and Soaks' prop Damien Elton knocked it over from in front of the posts to set the winning score at 13-6.

It was a typical stop-start round one match with neither side shining, but Soaks were deserved winners for applying more of the pressure, and scoring the game's only try.

O'Lympic Games

It's refreshing to know that naive individuals still exist who believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Olympic games. Individuals such as Dennis Altman, in his article "The Olympic spirit? It's a simple, shared global experience" on http://www.onlineopinion.com.au of 22 August 2008.

"The real importance of the Games is that it brings together almost every country in the world," says Dennis.

And he's right. It does bring them together, in one place at one time, where they can indulge in an orgy of nationalistic strutting, braying and one-upmanship. The competition between individual athletes in pursuit of sports excellence, personal best achievements and world records is lost in a cacophony of international posturing.

And who wins? OK, Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt (a case for nominative pre-determinism if ever there was one) did great things as individuals, but right up there with their achievements is the trumpeting that one is American, and one is Jamaican. And everyone knows the Americans are there to get more medals than anyone else. And Jamaica wants to show how wonderful it is for winning so much as a small country.

“Yo, Jamaican sprinters [are] taking over the world!' " Bolt said after his team won the gold medal in the 4x100m relay, "We're taking over forever.”

But it was all for nothing, the Chinese swamped the event in a gold avalanche. Britain did really well too after mediocre showings in recent years. They didn’t get there on chariots of fire though, but on a massive A$1 billion dollar Olympic budget. Because you can just forget all about the virtues of amateur competition, money doesn’t just talk, it shouts.

Who can guess how many zillion yuans China poured into their Olympic team to change them from ping pong specialists to table-topping world beaters. They won’t be telling us any time soon, you can bet on that. The East Germans knew all about that during the Cold War, 40 gold medals from a population of 16 million -- even the Brothers Grimm could have seen through their amateur status.

And don’t think Australia is squeaky clean. After failing to win a single gold medal in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the government created the Australian Institute of Sport, chucked a whole bunch of money at anything promising and before you can say Crikey! the old lucky country finds a pot of gold medals at the end of its well-funded rainbow.

But if there’s one thing dirtier about the Olympics than filthy lucre, it’s drugs. Sure, they test all the athletes for all sorts of detectable performance-enhancing substances, and they probably even asked Scottish pentathlete Stephanie Cook for a wee sample. Unfortunately there’s more than one way of skinning a dope and history shows us old tired, cynics that some of those medals will be handed back in disgrace when it turns out that someone’s mum gave them weight loss pills that perhaps they should have checked more closely.



Just look at some of those Chinese swimmers at the Asian Games in 1990 (pictured left -- yes, it's a she). Quicker than a plate of Sang Choy Bow arriving at the Golden Dragon, Chinese chicks with shoulders like rugby front rowers are knocking over records left, right and centre. Actually, more like left and far left. As soon as they started testing for steroids, wallop, they're back down the bottom of the table. They've obviously learned a lot since then.

Then there was Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis, Marion Jones – you can be excused for wondering if there was anyone at any recent Olympics who WASN'T on drugs!

Just before the Olympics, a whole bunch of Russians were banned. Drug testers became suspicious of how co-operative the Russians were until they found out that Russian customs was tipping the athletes off when the testers arrived for their “surprise” visits. The authorities started DNA testing the supplied urine sample and found none of them came from athletes who had supposedly been tested. The 13th commandment -- thou shalt not get caught.

Usian Bolt? London to a brick....

The Olympics are a travesty of nationalism, money and drugs. The only thing they bring together is spin doctors, bankers and drug pushers. Put the trillions into a few peripheral luxuries like food, medicine and shelter for people who can’t afford a TV to watch overpaid teenagers splash gaily around in high tech swimsuits that cost more than a third world farmer earns in his lifetime.

Either that or go back to the original Olympic games of 400BC. And I’m not just saying that so the beach volleyballers have to perform naked.