tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17944343663009305922024-02-07T23:48:19.141+00:00The Fantastical Devices of Pete the Mad ScientistThings of eclectic and geeky interestPete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-11068137488370145942023-01-06T08:35:00.001+00:002023-01-06T08:35:17.772+00:00Peter Gabriel: PanopticomPeter Gabriel has just released the first single from his long-awaited new album, <i>I/O</i>.<div><br></div><div>Let's just reflect on the significance of that. When I say "long-awaited" about a Peter Gabriel album, I really mean it. This album has been 20 years in the making. Peter Gabriel is the Leonardo da Vinci of rock - an absolute genius, but he takes forever to get anything done.</div><div><br></div><div>Anyway, here's the song. It's called <a href="https://youtu.be/KIDu6a9COmg">Panopticom</a> .</div><div><br></div><div>Lyrically, it's about how information is more available than ever before. Peter recognises the sinister side to this - the title refers to Jeremy Bentham's idea of the panopticon, the perfect prison where all prisoners are under constant surveillance (so presumably have to change their ways because they can't get away with anything) and there's a reference to the Stasi in the second verse. But Peter Gabriel is an optimist, and the song is mainly about the potential of citizen journalism to make us all better informed and hold those in power to account (as his charity <a href="https://www.witness.org/">Witness</a> seeks to do). The key line of the chorus is <i>Let's find out what's going on</i>. Having worked in two media organisations and done independent research on <a href="https://playfultechnology.co.uk/the-grammar-of-truth-and-lies-nb.html">Fake News Detection</a>, I find this resonates with me, and it's good that the optimism of the early Internet is still alive.</div><div><br></div><div>Musically, Peter's in fine voice, there's some nice guitar work from David Rhodes, and Brian Eno adds some atmospheric synths.</div><div><br></div><div>I'd say it's worth keeping an eye on Peter Gabriel.</div>Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-41887121449886936362022-12-22T16:17:00.001+00:002022-12-22T16:17:24.317+00:00Social Media with Fewer Narcissists If you encountered this post via a social network that was recently acquired by a narcissist, you may be interested to know that I have <a href="https://wandering.shop/@PeteBleackley">a presence on Mastodon</a> . I'm putting the link to it here because, while Noel Skum has been forced to backpedal on banning links to other social networks (which would have made him editorially liable for everything on the platform), I'm not daft enough to trust him, and besides, I don't expect that platform to survive more than a year (yes, I know he's stepping down as CEO, but he'll still own it, and he's not likely to appoint anyone other than a yes-man to run it as his proxy). Decentralised, non-commercial systems look to be the way forward for social media.Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-51751004503813286212021-12-22T19:54:00.001+00:002021-12-22T19:54:26.347+00:00VaccinesWhen I was little, there was a scare about the safety of the whooping cough vaccine. My mum had had whooping cough as a child - she had a bad chest for the rest of her life (you could identify her by her cough) and she eventually died of bronchiectasis - so I was thought to be at risk of complications. So instead of the whooping cough vaccine, I got the real thing when I was about 3. Fortunately, I had some protection from maternal antibodies, so I only got what Mum described as a very mild case, but even the mildest case of whooping cough is an illness you never forget.<div><br></div><div>So when I had my own children, I made sure they got all their vaccinations, and when I got offered my COVID-19 vaccination, I didn't hesitate. My wife had had a very mild case of COVID-19 early on, and by a very mild case, I mean she was flat on her back feeling utterly miserable for two weeks.</div><div><br></div><div>I've now had two doses of Astra Zeneca and one of Moderna (apparently that's a good combination). I had some side effects after the first dose (cramp, fever, vomiting), but I'd take that over COVID-19 any day, No problems at all with the second dose, and the wooziness I got after the booster was probably down to the flu jab I got at the same time.</div><div><br></div><div>So, if you know anyone who's reluctant to get vaccinated, tell them my story. Tell them not to be afraid of vaccines, because the real thing would be far worse. Tell them that no soldier would go into battle without his gun. And tell them that the sooner everybody's vaccinated, the sooner we beat this wretched disease and get back to normal life.</div>Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-68272454751453870852021-09-29T15:55:00.001+01:002021-09-29T15:55:21.380+01:00Why I Hate GenderflippingMy daughter, who was originally the one of my family most in favour of a female Doctor, once said, "You know, I feel sorry for Jodie Whittaker, because I've seen her in other things, and she can actually act."<div><br></div><div>Now, Chibnall's writing is mediocre at best, but that wasn't the only problem. There's an intrinsic problem with genderflipping. I've seen a couple of other productions that used it, and found them problematic.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Twelfth Night</i> is my favourite Shakespeare play. In a subplot, the pompous steward Malvolio offends some other characters by spoiling their fun. In revenge, they forge a letter from his employer, the Countess Olivia, claiming that she's in love with him, trick him into wearing yellow stockings and cross garters to impress her (he looks ridiculous, and she hates that style to start with) and convince her that he's gone mad. (Note, Malvolio claims to be a Puritan, the Puritans wanted to close down theatres, Shakespeare's audience would have seen him as the bad guy).</div><div><br></div><div>I saw a production of Twelfth Night at the National Theatre, with Tamsin Grieg as a genderflipped Malvolio. Portraying Malvolio as a woman made the prank come across as unpleasantly homophobic. Worse still, the yellow stockings and cross garters became a yellow corset with propellers on the nipples - not merely stupid but degrading.</div><div><br></div><div>I also saw a production of <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i> in which Lysander was portrayed as a woman. Again, Egeus' opposition to Lysander marrying Hermia became implicitly homophobic, not merely putting his paternal authority over his daughter's happiness. The production couldn't resolve that problem, because it was never in the text - they had created it themselves.</div><div><br></div><div>So back to <i>Doctor Who</i>. Chris Chibnall presents the 13th Doctor as a great leap forward for the representation of women, but that's sheer hypocrisy coming from him. Steven Moffat wrote compelling female characters - Clara, Amy, River. But 13 is a vapid chatterbox who spouts inane platitudes and corporate slogans, Yaz is just bland, and Grace was fridged in the first episode. Chibnall has always been a mysogynistic writer - his writing for<i> Torchwood</i> and <i>Camelot</i> shows that, so he doesn't get to call anyone else sexist when they criticise his worthless gimmick.</div><div><br></div><div>If you want good female characters, write them as women from the outset. It worked for Dana Scully, it worked for Emma Peel. If you want good male characters, write them as male from the outset. It worked for The Doctor. But if you gendeflip an established male character (nobody would suggest doing it the other way round) you're just replacing a good male character with a poor female one, plus some awkward subtext.</div>Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-83407000092260318752020-07-03T15:58:00.001+01:002020-07-03T15:58:16.036+01:00Playful Technology Limited: Lobbying with data - how can data help businesses influence policy?<a href="https://playfultechnology.co.uk/PlayfulTechnology/news/lobbying-with-data-how-can-data-help-businesses-influence-policy">Webinar on how to influence with data science</a><br />
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Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-72030354819790319672020-06-15T09:58:00.001+01:002020-06-15T09:58:04.098+01:00Playful Technology Limited: Video: NLP vs Filter Bubbles<a href="https://playfultechnology.co.uk/PlayfulTechnology/news/video-nlp-vs-filter-bubbles">Using Topic Modelling and Sentiment Analysis to find common ground between people of differing opinions</a><br />
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Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-31535796111751903772020-06-08T09:58:00.001+01:002020-06-08T09:58:05.266+01:00Playful Technology Limited: Video: Part of Speech Tagging<a href="https://playfultechnology.co.uk/PlayfulTechnology/news/video-part-of-speech-tagging">Three approaches to Part of Speech Tagging</a><br />
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Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-80450600639334523892020-06-01T08:58:00.001+01:002020-06-01T08:58:04.753+01:00Playful Technology Limited: Video: The Grammar of Truth and Lies<a href="https://playfultechnology.co.uk/PlayfulTechnology/news/video-the-grammar-of-truth-and-lies">Using NLP to detect fake news</a><br />
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Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-60017207384864818852020-05-26T09:58:00.001+01:002020-05-26T09:58:07.645+01:00Playful Technology Limited: Video: The Entropy of "Alice in Wonderland"<a href="https://playfultechnology.co.uk/PlayfulTechnology/news/video-the-entropy-of-alice-in-wonderland">Video explaining an entropy-based keyword extraction technique, using "Alice In Wonderland".</a><br />
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Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-22135669837571737472019-11-18T20:39:00.001+00:002019-11-18T20:39:15.609+00:00War of the Worlds: Part 1The BBC's adaptation of <i>The War of the Worlds</i> is a fantastically produced adaptation, and definitely had some impressive moments - seeing the invasion ships launch from Mars was a brilliant opening. But one major problem became apparent over the course of the episode - the adapter had written more of it than HG Wells.<div><br></div><div>Peter Harness has previously written for <i>Doctor Who, </i>a show strongly influenced by HG Wells. Unfortunately, his episodes tended to be a bit heavy-handed. Here, he moved the time frame forward from "the last year's of the 19th century" to "the first years of the 20th", and introduced a diplomatic crisis involving Russian attacks on fishing boats that quickly became irrelevant. Most of the episode was taken up with a soapy subplot about the relationships between the protagonist George, his mistress Amy, (not in the original), his estranged wife Lucy (perfectly happily married in the original), and George's brother (another new character). At one point Lucy (who will be conveniently killed off so that George and Amy can live happily ever after once the invasion's over - it has been clumsily foreshadowed) complained that she'd been replaced by someone younger and prettier, despite looking identical to Amy. All of this was based more on Wells' life than his novel. </div><div><br></div><div>There were also confusing scenes of two human figures wandering round what appeared to be Mars. These later turned out to be a flashforward to a Mars-like Earth, some years later. Again, not in the original.</div><div><br></div><div>There's a bit of a trend amongst adapters at the moment to take big liberties with the source material. ITV recently adapted Jane Austen's <i>Sanditon, </i>of which she had written so little when she died that it was all used in the first episode. And I gave up on the BBC's adaptation of Agatha Christie's <i>The ABC Murders</i> after a subplot involving Poirot having a shady past turned into a Message From Fred - "He's not Poirot." The overall impression is that adapters are more interested in telling their own stories than those they're working from. But if that's what you want to do, write an original story, not an adaptation.</div><div><br></div><div><i>The War of the Worlds</i> is a classic for good reason. It's a foundational text of Science Fiction, the original alien invasion story, and a principled critique of colonialism. The best bits of the adaptation were those that stuck closest to the original. Peter Harness and the BBC should have had more faith in the source material.</div>Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-25594400144402787442019-11-12T13:10:00.001+00:002019-11-12T13:10:22.861+00:00Playful Technology Limited: Apple, Bias, Credit<a href="https://playfultechnology.co.uk/PlayfulTechnology/news/apple-bias-credit">The importance of understanding your data before using it to train a model.</a><br />
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Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-17051624967339699472019-10-06T10:15:00.001+01:002019-10-06T18:59:22.156+01:00Speculative Grammarian Needs You<p dir="ltr">A few years ago, I found myself thinking, "Children don't know any linguistic theory when they learn to speak." Then I imagined <a href="http://specgram.com/CLXVI.2/05.mcmosky.frameworks.html">the sort of person who thought they jolly well should do.</a> I sent this in to <a href="https://specgram.com">Speculative Grammarian</a>, and I've been writing for them ever since. Indeed, I've now written so much that as of the November issue, I've reached the dizzying heights of <i>Contributing Editor</i>.</p>
<p dir="ltr">However, it's not just about me contributing — we're always on the lookout for fresh blood, as Count Dracula said. So, if you've ever fancied writing something funny about linguistics, send it to us. Unlike Dracula, we don't bite.<br>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><;p lang="en" dir="ltr">Hey Linguists! Got a paper to write — or many papers to grade — this weekend? Looking for a way to procrastinate? Work on something for SpecGram! Articles, reviews, letters, poetry, cartoons, ads—we want it all! <a href="https://t.co/ihxFbSMlXf">https://t.co/ihxFbSMlXf</a> (You can also help by sharing this call!)</p>&mdash; Editors of SpecGram (@SpecGram) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpecGram/status/1180252425803960321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-90138309765335266012019-05-18T11:17:00.001+01:002019-05-18T11:17:08.148+01:00Playful Technology Limited: The Grammar of Truth and Lies<a href="https://playfultechnology.co.uk/PlayfulTechnology/news/the-grammar-of-truth-and-lies">Using computational linguistics to detect fake news</a><br />
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Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-10193359343593228302018-11-28T12:36:00.001+00:002018-11-28T12:36:49.946+00:00Stock Photography<p dir="ltr">The contract market has been a little too quiet recently, so I have decided to diversify my business a little. I've set up a <a href="https://www.istockphoto.com/gb/portfolio/peterbleackley">portfolio</a> on IStock, which has some of my photos (mainly nature and landscapes, some buildings). I'm quite proud of some of these, so please take a look, and if you know anyone who might need some stock photos, pass it on.<br><br></p>
Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-52144194024521084462018-10-10T09:39:00.001+01:002018-10-10T09:39:04.670+01:00Playful Technology Limited: Neural Isn't Always Better<a href="http://playfultechnology.co.uk/PlayfulTechnology/news/neural-isnt-always-better">Neural networks don't match the performance of the Viterbi algorithm for Word Sense Disambiguation.</a><br />
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Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-64817378817077078732018-09-17T09:19:00.001+01:002018-09-17T09:19:14.308+01:00Kæshroþrast summons a king (Khangaþyagon)<div style="width: 480px; height: 270px; overflow: hidden; position: relative;"><iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" seamless="seamless" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitAllowFullScreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" id="okplayer" width="480" height="270" src="http://youtube.com/embed/-mHKeeuujlQ" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 480px; height: 270px;" name="okplayer"></iframe></div>
Happy St Hildegard's day! This is an original story, written in Khangaþyagon, that describes the wizard Kæshroþrast casting a spell to summon a king to himself. This story should give you a good sense of how magic works on Huna. Text and translation available at https://ift.tt/2D08Nih
Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-69354757411777652012018-07-30T13:38:00.001+01:002018-07-30T13:38:22.552+01:00The Student, the "Raven" and the Ice Ship<div style="width: 480px; height: 270px; overflow: hidden; position: relative;"><iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" seamless="seamless" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitAllowFullScreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" id="okplayer" width="480" height="270" src="http://youtube.com/embed/DMezTwAOBm0" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 480px; height: 270px;" name="okplayer"></iframe></div>
This is from Conlang Relay 13, https://ift.tt/2LzYohf Translating this text gave me a feel for the folklore and legends of the Leyen, so it's quite an important text in the development of iljena.
Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-17251790352907509552018-05-27T13:09:00.001+01:002018-05-27T13:09:12.775+01:00Tales From Other Worlds- The Tower of Babel (Khangaþyagon)<div style="width: 480px; height: 270px; overflow: hidden; position: relative;"><iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" seamless="seamless" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitAllowFullScreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" id="okplayer" width="480" height="270" src="http://youtube.com/embed/E_jskdhEEB4" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 480px; height: 270px;" name="okplayer"></iframe></div>
The Babel Text is a de facto standard comparison text for conlangers, and I translated it into Khangaþyagon a few years ago. It proved quite tricky to read - the word "gatafakufsher" (we shall not be scattered) was a particular stumbling block - but after a few practices I decided to just go ahead and record it anyway. To read it (either in the romanisation or in Bukstav runes), go to http://www.frathwiki.com/Khangaþyagon_Babel_Text
Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-34535843407738172302018-01-04T12:53:00.001+00:002018-01-04T12:53:26.221+00:00Playful Technology Limited: Ontologies for Named Entity Recognition<a href="http://ift.tt/2CGlZbH">Semantic relationships make an ontology useful for Named Entity Recognition</a><br />
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Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-50053000240496638442017-11-25T13:11:00.001+00:002017-11-25T13:11:13.643+00:00Tales From Other Worlds -The Echo Song of the Merchant's Fall (iljena)<div style="width: 480px; height: 270px; overflow: hidden; position: relative;"><iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" seamless="seamless" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitAllowFullScreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" id="okplayer" width="480" height="270" src="http://youtube.com/embed/buCGA3lPM5g" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 480px; height: 270px;" name="okplayer"></iframe></div>
This is the starting text of Conlang Relay 22. It's an iljena poem, written in couplets, where the second line of each couplet echos the word shapes of the first. Text and translation can be found at http://ift.tt/2hR8iK1 Watch out for the last line.
Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-57105545215643751892017-10-01T20:17:00.001+01:002017-10-01T20:17:38.389+01:00Tales From Other Worlds - A Riddle<p dir="ltr">Here's my second Tales From Other Worlds video. This time I'm reading Khangaþyagon. It's a riddle that I used as the starting text for Conlang Translation Relay 15.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Discerning hidden meanings is an important skill for a wizard, so they use riddles like this to train their apprentices in the art. Can you discern the meaning of this one.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://youtu.be/aB-qXrO7cjw">Tales From Other Worlds - A Riddle (Khangaþyagon)</a></p>
Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-14919688408108254212017-09-17T11:59:00.001+01:002017-09-17T12:04:14.468+01:00Tales From Other Worlds - The Boats of the Dead<p dir="ltr">To celebrate St. Hildegard's Day, I'm launching <i>Tales From Other Worlds</i>, a video series in which I read passages in my conlangs. The first one is in iljena, and tells the legend of <a href="http://www.frathwiki.com/Iljena/Corpus/The_Boats_of_the_Dead">The Boats of the Dead</a>.<br>
My pronunciation isn't perfect - despite a few rehearsals, I stumble over my words a few times, and I'm not sure I've got all the sandhi and labiovelars right, but I hope you enjoy it <u>anyway</u></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://youtu.be/Cpq_Y87AW8c">The Boats of the Dead</a></p>
Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-78699766540714660582017-09-06T09:18:00.001+01:002017-09-06T09:44:55.687+01:00Transcribing the Conlangery Podcast<p dir="ltr">I've managed to get a reasonably accurate speech recognition system up and running, and it's now posting <a href="http://sources.conlang.org/Conlangery%20Podcast">Transcripts of the Conlangery Podcast</a> on Conlang Sources Wiki. This is something I've been wanting to do for some time, since there's quite a lot of interesting stuff on there, and it becomes a lot easier to search and reference if it's available in text form. In particular, it's one of the best sources of third-party discussion of conlangs, which is exactly what the Conlang Sources Wiki is for.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Having been automatically transcribed, it is in need of human editing, so I'd be very grateful to anyone who could help out in that way.</p>
Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-44811139476113493432017-08-25T13:32:00.000+01:002017-08-25T13:32:30.729+01:00The Conlang Sources Wiki<p> J.R.R. Tolkien famously called conlanging <em>A Secret Vice</em>. It was the sort of thing where, if you had to do it, you certainly weren't expected to tell anybody about it - they'd think you were at least mad.</p>
<p>The Internet changed all that. For the first time conlangers were able to form communities where they could share and discuss their work. At first, of course, this discussion centred around the descriptions of conlangs posted by their own creators, and conlanging still wasn't taken seriously by many people outside the community, but over time things began to change. There was a feeling among some conlangers that to develop the craft would require us to make constructive criticisms of each others work. Academics realised that making a language was an excellent way to learn linguistics, and that constructed languages were worthy of study in their own right. And as more and more media franchises began using conlangs, journalists became interested in the art.</s>
<p>So now, there's more scholarship, journalism, criticism and other third party discussion about conlangs available than ever before. I felt a need for a site that would easy to find it all, and encourage more of it. Therefore, I've used my LCS webspace to create <a href="http://sources.conlang.org">The Conlang Sources Wiki</a>, and I'd like to invite my fellow conlangers to join in. Please take a look. Links to new sources are welcome, as are original articles about other people's conlangs.</p>
<p>Thanks to <a href="https://audmanh.wordpress.com/">Jan Strasser</a> for being the first person besides myself to contribute.</p>Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794434366300930592.post-24768073218097831652017-07-19T20:47:00.000+01:002017-07-19T20:47:31.619+01:00The Trouble With Chris Chibnall<p>Chris Chibnall's writing for <em>Doctor Who</em> has generally been of poor quality. <em>Dinosaurs on a Spaceship</em> was basically silly. It was never explained why The Doctor would want to get together a posse including Nefertiti and a big game hunter (people who kill for pleasure aren't The Doctor's usual choice of friends), nor why Nefertiti would chose to elope with the big game hunter (who seemed the sort of man who'd treat a woman like another trophy) at the end.
<em>The Power of Three</em> started with an interesting premise (the Slow Invasion), but ironically the ending was rushed - The Doctor just waved the Sonic Screwdriver at a control panel and everything was all right. <em>42</em> revolved around a gimmick and doesn't stick in the mind. Even his best story, <em>The Hungy Earth / Cold Blood </em> was a by the numbers Silurian story (human activity awakes the Silurians, they want to reclaim their planet, The Doctor attempts to broker a peace, negotiations are botched, Silurians forced back into hibernation) with no original ideas in it.</p>
<p>He was even worse as the showrunner on <em>Torchwood</em>, the "adult" (as in very, very childish) spin-off from <em>Doctor Who</em> which followed the misadventures of an alien-hunting squad so top secret that everybody in Cardiff knew who they were, apart from the heroine's boyfriend. Said heroine was granted immunity from character development, as this was a terminal disease in <em>Torchwood</em>. The show never really found a tone that worked. Two episodes written by Chibnall personally made you wish you had a vial of Retcon handy. <em>Countrycide</em> was a nasty cannibal hillbillies story, transferred to Wales. <em>Cyberwoman</em>'s premise contained a massive plot hole - Ianto Jones has supposedly smuggled a cyberconversion unit containing his partially-converted girlfriend (this was before Ianto was gay) into the Torchwood Hub without anybody noticing. Even worse, while <em>Doctor Who</em> consistently portrays cyberconversion as a painful and dehumanising process, <em>Torchwood</em> portrayed it as fetish.</p>
<p><strong>WARNING: YOU CANNOT UNSEE THIS</strong></p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcicznHOsBDwBol2YGzSjU9jKBYZPKhZnu5z31beicodHkxHmZw0E6Kiu8yYWOtBQZwY5cAmM5CXI2qZRUY-kxdsHA02rinI9CFqFf_ruLYBs_8Q8LljD0YqupKzQLYSgjdsuSc4C5J_E/s1600/torchwood_epguide_s01_e04_01_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcicznHOsBDwBol2YGzSjU9jKBYZPKhZnu5z31beicodHkxHmZw0E6Kiu8yYWOtBQZwY5cAmM5CXI2qZRUY-kxdsHA02rinI9CFqFf_ruLYBs_8Q8LljD0YqupKzQLYSgjdsuSc4C5J_E/s320/torchwood_epguide_s01_e04_01_web.jpg" width="320" height="180" data-original-width="1280" data-original-height="720" /></a>
<p>I did warn you.</p>
<p>Chibnall's defenders will say, "But <em>Broadchurch</em> was good." Well, it was if you like relentlessly depressing contemporary crime dramas. But in terms of tone, story, setting and intended audience, <em>Broadchurch</em> has nothing in common with <em>Doctor Who</em>. It seems that what he's best at writing is stuff that's nothing like <em>Doctor Who</em> at all.</p>
<p>More relevant is <em>Camelot</em>, which I don't think was a great success. I only saw one or two episodes, but the writing on it didn't seem that great. One thing I do remember is that one character (I think it was Guinevere) was introduced in a dream sequence in which she was seen dancing naked on a beach for no readily apparent reason.</p>
<p>So, when this second-rate writer, with a history of objectifying women, is made showrunner on <em>Doctor Who</em>, what does he do to make people love him? He resorts to gimmicks, of course, and his chosen gimmick in the unfortunate Josie Whittaker. She faces the prospect of having to carry an impossible burden of expectations while struggling with ropy scripts and misjudged tone, and possibly an inappropriate costume. It seems like the Tardis is taking us back to 1984.</p>
<p>When Colin Baker took the role, he wanted to portray a dark and edgy Doctor, something along the lines of Peter Capaldi's portrayal. However, the writing team at the time weren't up to the job, and interpreted it as brash, unlikable, and prone to dangerous mood swings. <em>The Twin Dilemma</em> is one of the few stories that can claim to be anywhere near as bad as <em>Love & Monsters</em>. Few of Colin Baker's stories were any good, but instead of laying the responsibility for this with John Nathan turner, where it belonged, the BBC made a scapegoat of Colin Baker, and sacked him. It didn't really help, and while some better writers came along later, <em>Doctor Who</em> was cancelled in 1989.</p>
<p>That's why I've started a <a href="https://change.org/p/simon-winstone-sack-chris-chibnall-from-the-position-of-doctor-who-showrunner">petition to remove Chris Chibnall</a>. Please sign it.</p>
Pete Bleackleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877180624445232713noreply@blogger.com0