2016.03.06 01:00 -"How Can Sane People Notice That?"

The Guardian for this meeting was Wol.

Wol Euler: Qt, I am so sorry
Wol Euler: I was reading a book over breakfast (an hour ago) and completely lost track of time
Wol Euler: swallowed up in the story
Qt Core: That's good, and i was in another room ;-)
Wol Euler smiles
Wol Euler: the book I'm reading is called "The Three-Body Problem"
Qt Core: Intriguing title, i home it is not just a lover triangle
Wol Euler: no :)
Qt Core: *hope
Wol Euler: I'm just starting, and the style is oblique and non-revealing, but it seems to be apocalyptic sci-fi
Wol Euler: set in China, starting during the horror of the Cultural Revolution

Qt Core: how much sci-fi is apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic
Wol Euler: sign of the times
Qt Core: this i think: http://www.amazon.it/Three-Body-Prob...e+body+problem
Wol Euler: yes, that's it
Wol Euler: we were talking about it at my Saturday evening dance/chat party a few weeks back, and I happened to see it in a bookstore yesterday
Qt Core: it seems there are a couple sequel too (the dark forest and Death's End)
Qt Core: none of the three are translated in italian

--BELL--

Wol Euler: odd, given the success (sales and prizes) of the book
Wol Euler: but then it only became available in English (the language of prizes) in 2015
Wol Euler: perhaps they will follow
Qt Core: sf and fantasy aren't a big hit here... a movie or tv series may help
Wol Euler smiles
Wol Euler: I wonder why that is
Qt Core: (even if most of them will butcher the books they came from)
Wol Euler: why English loves scifi
Wol Euler: there's a PhD thesis waiting to be written on that difference
Qt Core: i've heard a friend speaking about the tv new series about Shannara... i don't know how they are approaching it but something that comes out around book 14 is already there in the first season...
Wol Euler nods
Wol Euler: that's the way, TV doesn't have the luxury of time that book series (or even single books) have

Wol Euler: I was about to say something that I changed my mind about while writing :)
Qt Core: i'm appreciating that tv series in past years (maybe even past decade) got plots that spanned more than a double episode)
Wol Euler: which is of course another major difference
Qt Core: that happens often to me ;-)
Wol Euler: an author can safely assume that a reader on page 178 also read pages 150-169, a TV show cannot
Wol Euler: unless it is a special-event like "Twin Peaks"
Qt Core: but then now with the pay-tv decoders with hd that would download for you all the previous episodes once you discover you like a series they can assume it
Qt Core: hd as in hard disk, not high definition
Wol Euler: true now, yes, and perhaps storytelling will evolve to take advantage of that. I hope so.
Wol Euler: I was going to say that TV is bound to linear time, continuous-present-moving-forward, in a way that books are not; but flashbacks seem to invalidate this. They do confuse TV storytelling more than flashbacks in books do, though.
Wol Euler: perhaps playing games with time is hard work. Readers know they are working, TV watchers do not wish to work
Qt Core: i was saying that in books there are verb tenses, but it is not a guarantee
Wol Euler: in a way, in fairness, TV has to do a huge amount of work that novelists do not
Wol Euler: novelist says "he walked into the room and looked around, his eyes focussed on the painting."
Wol Euler: tv has to make an entire room with all the stuff the novelist did not need to mention

--BELL--

Qt Core: laughing at the idea of a literal conversion from tv to screen now
Qt Core: only obnoxious boring authors may survive it
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Wol Euler: I wonder whether anyone outside the industry itself has studied the making of backrounds, scenery for TV
Wol Euler: the room has to be full of stuff so that it looks realistic (things the novelist leaves out and we fill in for him)
Wol Euler: but the stuff itself must be so dull that we are not distracted from the story -- and the one piece of stuff there that does matter to the story has to stand out somehow
Qt Core: well i've heard about the newspaper being almost always the same one (and once about a firm making personalized ones)

Wol Euler: yes, excellent example. People seeing it have to say "oh that is a newspaper"
Wol Euler: but not to think "I wonder what city that was published in, or what date it has"
Wol Euler: certainly not to read a headline and think "did that really happen?"
Qt Core: then one would wonder how often ornaments and knicks knacks are reused
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Wol Euler: it could be fascinating!
Wol Euler: to me anyway

Qt Core: and the there are the crazy directors that would put the strange things (and newspaper titles) around just for the fun of hardcore fans
Wol Euler: certainly sound effects are reused. Every film that has any excuse for somebody to die uses the Wilhelm Scream.
Wol Euler: like adult references in kids' comics
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_scream
Qt Core: ;-) good for an annoying ringtone (maybe for when the bank calls)
Wol Euler: "In what is perhaps an in-joke within an in-joke, one of the scenes from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom actually features a man being eaten by an alligator accompanied by the scream."

--BELL--

Qt Core: silly things like the use of 47 in star trek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_(number)
Wol Euler smiles.
Qt Core: (and J.J. Abrams surely qualify as weird)
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Wol Euler grins.
Wol Euler: reasons to love the Internets, number 288: we can all get all of the in-jokes
Qt Core: From the article: "There were 47 chimneys built on the Hobbiton set for Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy."How can sane people notice that ?
Wol Euler: heheheheh
Wol Euler: I take issue with the statement that "JJ Abrams directed 'Star Trek'." that statement is imprecise
Wol Euler: JJ Abrams was a baby in diapers, or not even born yet, when the original ST was made
Qt Core: but directed the first reboot movie
Wol Euler: ah
Wol Euler: perhaps I will amend that wikipedia page to be more specific
Qt Core: maybe even the second

--BELL--

Qt Core: i refused to watch the second movie just for the title "Into the Darkness" star trek is an utopic future (with its problems and wars but still utopic)
Qt Core: so no darkness, please
Wol Euler: right
Wol Euler: as Nimoy said
Qt Core: if i want dystopia i buy newspapers
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: that said in thes past saturdays i stumbled on the matrix movies ;-)
Wol Euler: what, only now?
Wol Euler: :)
Qt Core: ;-) oh, no, i even saw the first two at the cinema when they got out
Qt Core: one of the rare movie i go out to see
Qt Core: the addiction to tv (and its ads interruptions) and youtube (and its short videos) ruined entire movie sighting for many i think, starting with me
Wol Euler: perhaps :)
Qt Core: and channel surfing too
Qt Core: i was a channel surfer even when my tv didn't have plus/minus channel buttons ;-)
Wol Euler: when you had to stand up to change the channel, and so a significant number of people never changed form one evening to the next

--BELL--

Qt Core: the first tv i remember, black and white, no remote was even placed over a 1.80 meter high wardrobe
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: so as i was aged 0-9 in those time it was quite outside my power to change channels... but then there where only two or three of those
Wol Euler: we had a b&w too, fairly small, with a pair of antennae that had to be adjusted to get a clear signal
Wol Euler: I remember when cable TV arrived, it was like paradise
Wol Euler: such a clear picture -- on ALL channels
Qt Core: with already phone and electricity cable around i'm just scared at the isea of having even cable tv around
Qt Core: (it never came to italy, we got pat tv with satellite dish and now with digital air transmission and broadband)
Qt Core: *pay
Wol Euler: that was the first freely positionable data cable, when I think of it
Wol Euler: landline phone didn't count, that was always in the kitchen, screwed into the wall
Wol Euler: in every house I knew
Qt Core: interesting, in italy hallways or at most sitting room wah the favored place for phone (as is where it would not disturb so much)
Wol Euler: another PhD thesis waiting to be written
Qt Core: ;-)
Qt Core: Phone outlet placing patterns in western cultures and the concept of privacy and lunch rites
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Wol Euler: social expectations, micro-geographic and privacy-wise

--BELL--

Qt Core: now we just have to do this for some quiet: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/...ir-cell-phones
Qt Core: or this (more dietetic): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/1...n_6172082.html
Wol Euler: trying to recover from the Public Relations disaster of their opposition to gay marriage rights, and LGBT lives generally
Qt Core: didn't remember that (i was searching for a news like that but about an hungarian restaurant i recently read but the idea is the same)
Wol Euler: it is an intriguing idea
Wol Euler: right, dear Qt, I shall have to move on and start the day
Wol Euler: I wish you peace and contentment and good food
Qt Core: ok, me too.
Qt Core: :-) ty, enjoy the day
Qt Core: it must be a good day, im' floating ;-)
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: take care
Qt Core: ok, bye Wol