BioShock Infinite, and Other Necessities

Oops. Guess I should have warned some of you I'd be opening with a close-up of a spider. Sorry about that!

This is Emily, the big yellow spider who took up residence in our flowerbed. She keeps a tidy web and never plays her stereo too loud. Okay, sure, she dines by liquifying the internal organs of her prey and sucking out the resulting goo, but don't we all have one neighbor like that?

Here's another view of Emily, because I think she's pretty.

I took these images with my trusty Fuji Finepix, which I held about 4 inches from Emily before snapping the picture and then running away screaming like a leetle gurl. 

I'd never heard a spider snicker before.

WRITING NEWS

Markhat's fate, like that of Schrodinger's Cat, awaits the collapse of the quantum probability waveform. In one world, the new Markhat book sells and I indulge in jubilant celebration. In another, the publisher says no, and I bury myself in wet leaves and sulk until late November.

Never idle, though, I am hard at work on the new Meralda and Mug book, which is the sequel to All the Paths of Shadow.

I'm taking a slightly different approach to the writing of this book. I've often decried the use of outlines, because as soon as I outline a book I begin to lose interest in it, because I already know what happens and I have the attention span of a crack-crazed crow.

But this book needs structure. I can't just wing it and expect this one to work -- so I've stumbled upon a compromise.

This new book will consist of ten scenes. Not chapters -- a scene can easily encompass two or more chapters. No, a scene is a distinct piece of the story arc, designed to move the tale from here to there while accomplishing this, that, and the other thing along the way.

The great thing about working with scenes is that each scene can be summed up in a few sentences of very broad narrative brushstrokes. I don't go into much detail in the scene descriptions. It's very much a bare-bones affair, just hitting the high points and hinting at the rest.

The advantage to this method, at least for me, is that I don't get bored with it.

Here's an example (I'm not using any real ones from the book because I don't want to spoil any surprises).

SCENE 1:
Here: Tirlin
There: Halfway across the Great Sea

Meralda promises Mug she will not be aboard the airship Intrepid when it sets out for Hang across the vast Great Sea. Two months later, she is indeed aboard the Intrepid, a fuming Mug at her side. The Intrepid leaves the Realms behind, only to be beset by mishaps that look like sabotage. The crippled airship encounters a storm and falls, out of control, toward the storm-wracked sea far below.

This: Meralda resolves to resign her position as Mage as soon as the voyage is done, convinced she will never be allowed to complete any of what she considers her real work while matters of Court intrude.
That: Meralda's relationship with Donchen is strained, as he is not part of the voyage.
The Other Thing: Separated from the Royal Laboratory and its contents, show Meralda improvising with what few magical items she has on the Intrepid.

The loose structure lets me fill in the details as I write, which by the way is the only way I can write.

Why ten scenes? Why not twelve, or eight, or twenty-two?

Okay, you've got me there. And it might wind up being nine scenes, or eleven. Ten is just a nice round number, probably influenced by the books I've loved.

Did I mention I make all this stuff up as I go along?

Well, I do. If anyone out there has other ideas I would love to hear them.

CLICK ME: Blatant Plug O' The Day.

AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

I feel compelled to share this with you, my treasured readers (both of you guys, c'mere, here's a hug).

You know how a good book draws you in, makes you a part of its world, tricks you into cheering for the good guys and getting mad at the villains?

That's a unique experience. Up until now I'd probably have put music and movies and a very few TV shows in the same category of emotional experience sources, and my list pretty much stopped there.

But now I've found a game that plays just like a good book reads. Hard to believe?

Believe it.

I give you <drumroll please> Bioshock Infinite.

Set in a 1912 that never happened, the game puts you in the role of Booker DeWitt, a disgraced Pinkerton detective with a gambling problem, a tortured conscience, and a deft hand with a shotgun. As Booker, you are told your debts will be erased once you do a job for your nameless employers.

You are given a box containing a pistol and a photograph. The serious and unforgiving nature of your employers in punctuated by the dead man seated before you, who bears a sign reading DO NOT DISAPPOINT US around his bloody neck.

You are then whisked away to Columbia, a city held aloft my massive dirigibles.

Yes. A flying city, in 1912. Columbia, you see, was built for the World's Fair, as an example of American scientific and industrial prowess. And Columbia is a wonder -- buildings move, docking at certain places at certain times. Neighborhoods are connected by skylines, which look like the fever-dream of a roller-coaster designer brought to life up in the clouds. Airships great and small sail past, fans glittering in the high-altitude sun.

Even so, Columbia looks and feels like small-town America circa 1920. The kids wear knee-britches and chase rolling steel hoops. Brass bands tootle and hoot from red, white, and blue bandstands. You can buy popcorn and cotton candy from street-cart vendors while carnival barkers exhort you to sample their wares.

Despite all the wholesome Americana, Columbia is rotten to its technologically-advanced heart. The place is now run by a bearded religious fanatic who preaches a mixture of hellfire-and-brimstone rabid nationalism that rings eerily familiar today. It's as if Michele Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh sat down with Glenn Beck to design the ideal culture while slugging back Mason jars filled with whisky, mescaline, and LSD. Columbia split ties with the US soon after going airborne, and its whereabouts have been a mystery -- until you find yourself wandering its tidy brick streets.

I'll stop providing details now. But I will say this -- every other game I've played, no matter how much fun they were, were basically mere exercises in blowing off steam. I never really cared about my character in Oblivion, for instance. I just enjoyed sneaking up behind bad guys and putting arrows between their shoulder blades, because obviously I have a myriad of unresolved personal issues.

But BioShock Infinite is different. Like a good book, it punches you in the gut now and then. That's a first, at least for me, in the genre.

It shocked me.

Then it troubled me.

Now I'm angry, and ready to pour undiluted 100% pure weapons-grade murder over Columbia's smiling citizenry if that's what it takes to protect the object of my job.

I have no idea what I'm going to do next, but it appears I'll be disappointing the kind of people who don't endure disappointment in calmly-measured stride. But that's fine, because if Booker DeWitt is anything, he's a guy accustomed to dealing with disappointment, quite possibly with a shotgun blast.

The visuals are stunning. I've spent as much time as I could between gunfights just wandering around, soaking up the sights. And my companion's AI is pretty impressive. She doesn't just stand there, waiting for me to do something. No, she's off poking into things or wandering off or even wandering into view of the Columbia police, which adds a level of realism to the game I haven't seen before.

Is BioShock Infinite expensive? Yes. The retail version is around fifty bucks. I got my copy from Steam for $39.99. But be warned -- the Steam download is nearly 20 GB in size. Yes, twenty gigabytes, that's not a typo. And check the system requirements carefully too. This isn't going to run on a tablet or an old machine.

But man, is it worth the trouble.

If nothing else, watch this...

BioShock Infinite Trailer

Oh, and the song in the trailer? I looked it up -- it's  'Beast,' by Nico Vega. And yeah, I've got it now...

LAST WORDS

My home-made X-ray machine is coming along nicely! My hair should grow back any day now...

Frank's Handy Guide to Building Your Own PC

Fig 1., the author's new machine. The blue fans are for verbs, the green ones for nouns.

If you're like me -- and let's hold a moment of silence and hope you're not -- you need a new computer every few years because your old machine is beginning to spew cooling fans and bits of germanium every time you turn it on.

My former machine, which could run the letters A through C in Word 1877 and add two digit numbers twice every year.

So, if it's time for a new machine, you've got a few decisions to make.

1) Laptop, desktop, or tablet?

2) PC, Linux, or Mac?

Let's tackle Question 1 above first. 

For me, a laptop was out of the question, because I need a monitor the size of a movie screen just to see lower-case letters now. Too, I've never met a laptop keyboard that didn't feel cramped and flimsy. My typing style involves a lot of pounding, and detached solid metal gaming keyboards are the only ones that hold up. 

But what about portability, Frank? What if you want to write away from home?

I tried the whole write-at-the-coffee-shop bit a while back. Hated it, too. For one thing, coffee shops won't lock the doors no matter how politely I ask, and people kept getting in and ordering coffee. Worse, these people hang around after ordering, talking and reading and breathing. 

I hate that. Too, my trademark black hipster author beret keep falling down over my eyes and making me miss the tiny laptop keyboard. 

Finally, I've got everything I need right here -- large dogs, privacy, peace and quiet. No one wanders in and orders a double-stuffed mocha latte horseradish shellac hibiscus Concorde or whatever it is they drink these days, and if they did, Thor the behaviorally-challenged German Shepherd will be happy to show them the door.

So no laptop for me. 

A tablet? Look, those are nifty for watching the Youtubes or Facing the Mybooks, but I've got work to do.

So, that's settled -- for me, it's a desktop, aka The Grandpa Box, with a solid-steel mil-spec keyboard and all the trimmings.

Question 2 evokes the eternal struggle between the People of the PC and the Masses of the Mac, while one bearded guy in hiking boots looks up from his Linux box and waves.

Look, I'm sure Mac machines are fine pieces of equipment. They're even cute with their spartan little keyboards and their clever hidden components and their animal-themed OS designations.

At this point in our discussion, you need to reach beneath you, and feel around under your seat for bags of money.

If you're one of my writer pals and you're reading this, don't bother, because while we might not have much else in common a distinct lack of cash-sacks is certainly a deficiency we share.  

Macs aren't cheap. Take the current Mac Pro desktop. It runs a cool $2499, and comes with a quad-core Intel processor, 6 gigs of RAM, and a 5770 video card with 1 GB of DDR5 RAM. 

Maybe those specs don't mean much to you. If that's true, allow me to look upon them and yawn in polite boredom.

My old machine boasts better specs.  6 gig of RAM? Puh-please. A 5770 video card? 2010 is on the phone, and it wants its hardware back.

$600 would be a bit steep for such a rig. $2499 is just nuts.

Another factor, at least for me, is the upgrade/replacement aspect. 

If a part goes bad in my new PC, no big deal. I open the case, remove the bad component, pop in a new one, and I'm back up and running.

I can upgrade, if and when I want. Since I chose a roomy case and a hefty power supply, I can just swap out the other parts for years to come, and still have a decent computer without a major expense. 

Apple doesn't exactly encourage you to open their machines, much less start poking around and sticking new motherboards in. 

So, for me, the choice is clear -- I'm going with a PC build, at least until I can afford to drive to the Apple store in my Mercedes with a quick stop at Oscar de la Renta's New York shop for a new black beret.

Why not Linux?

Linux is a free operating system that involves entering a lot of things like ./grep -r -al/wtf/dammitdammitdammit  and hoping that somehow makes BioShock Infinite start up. Linux machines are largely impervious to viruses and malware, mainly because there are only six of them running in the entire world outside of server farms and businesses and why bother. 

Now comes the time when you need to decide whether to buy or build.

I used to buy. I bought Dells, and was pretty happy with them, at first. But then I wanted to add memory. I had a fan go out. Finding memory or replacing a fan suddenly wasn't quite the trivial task it should have been, because in order to cut costs Dell uses proprietary components which are often hard to find, and expensive when you do. Buying a new PC instead of maintaining the old one quickly becomes the most attractive prospect.

Finally, I took the plunge and built my own machine out of parts I chose and assembled myself, and I've never looked back.

Oh, and did I mention how much money you can save my building your own machine?

Well, you certainly can.

My new build has a 6 core processor and 8 gig of RAM (soon to be 16) and a video card that, if plunged into a flood of red-hot magma, would produce a puff of vapor more powerful that any ten 5770 video cards. And it cost less than half of that ludicrous $2499 Apple wants.

That still out of your budget?

I could put together a modest writer's work machine (hardware only, Windows 7 is another hundred bucks) for a little more than $300. It wouldn't run the latest games on the highest settings or store the entire contents of the Library of Congress, but it would run the crap out of Word 2010 and get you on the net and let you Face the Mybook and anger the crunchy candy birds while you're supposed to be writing.

Curious about how all this is done?

It's not as complicated as it sounds.

You need eight (maybe nine) components to build your own PC. Here they are:

1) A case, to hold everything together and provide ventilation.

2) A motherboard, which houses the CPU, the memory, and other vital components.

3) The CPU. The brain of the machine. You can opt for any of the CPUs made by Intel, which are excellent but relatively expensive, or you can chose a CPU made by AMD, which are still bloody good and a lot cheaper than Intel. Those are your choices.

4) RAM memory. RAM is what the CPU uses for fast operations. You want at least 8 GB (gigabytes). You could get by with 4. 6 is just silly. 8 is great, 16 is mahvellous, dahling.

5) A hard drive (HD) or a newer, faster solid-state device called an SSD. This is where your programs and files are stored. Hard drives are cheap and fairly fast. Get at least 500 GB. SSDs are super-fast but uber-expensive. I haven't bought one yet. Send me money, and I'll try one.

6) An optical drive. Yeah, I know, who uses CDs anymore. You might only use it once, to install the OS (operating system). But you'll need it, so get one, and since they can be had for $20 or less why not?

7) The OS (Operating System). Windows or Linux. If you read that and thought 'Linux? What's that?' forget it and shell out the hundred bucks for Windows 7, the 64-bit version. 

8) The power supply. Unlike Macs, which apparently run on unicorn giggles and the innocent 8-bit dreams of children, your PC will need power. Power supplies are rated in watts. A bare-bones strictly-business PC would be just fine, probably, with 350 watts. Start adding video cards and fancy motherboards and multi-core performance processors, and you'd better start looking at the 550 to 650 watt range. Two big video cards? Better get a kilowatt. Oh, and bring your wallet.

9) A video card. Look, you might not need this. Most motherboards come with onboard video features. AMD's new chips come with onboard video processors; they're called APUs. I wanted a video card because I have this fantasy that someday I might be able to start and actually finish a PC game (which I've never done). I don't need the card to run Word, but I like knowing it's there. But it is an extra expense, so weigh your needs carefully.

The list above assumes you have a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse handy. If not, you can get them too, but I won't be including them in my discussions.

I buy all my components from two places. They are:

Tiger Direct

Newegg

Both are excellent, trustworthy online merchants I've used for years. They've both got great selections, fast shipping, and prompt customer service.

They're also good places to learn about what really goes into a computer. I learned just about everything by looking at what they call 'barebones' systems. With a barebone system, they've selected components which are compatible with each other, they tell you what performance to expect, and there are videos which show you what each part does and how to put it all together.

I've never ordered a barebones machine myself, but I did learn the basics of what works when paired with what, and what goes into a basic machine as opposed to a fancy gaming rig.

Just remember the following tips as you proceed:

1) Some motherboards like Intel chips. Some like AMD. None like both. So you'll have to choose either Intel or AMD, and stick with it. Intel chips are faster. AMD chips are cheaper. How deep are your pockets, Sunshine?
2) That $20 power supply? Yes, it's cheap. And yes, it will BLOW UP IN YOUR FACE the instant you take it out of the box. Forget it. I use Cooler Master power supplies because I once saw a Cooler Master PS take a direct lightning hit and then climb out of the case and PUNCH THE CLOUD. 

3) You can get a decent case for $40 bucks, $30 if it's on sale. I like Cooler Master cases. Don't go any cheaper. You'll regret it if you do.

4) For motherboards, stick with ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte, or MSI. I stick with ASUS, myself, and have never had one fail.

5) For RAM, I suggest Corsair, Kingston, G.SKILL, or Crucial. You get some really cheap no-name stuff, but I have to assume it's made from the toenails of unidentified corpses and bundles of Fukushima asbestos. 

6) Worried about what CPU chip will fit in which motherboard, and what memory will work with both? Not a problem. Go to pcpartpicker.com and build your system there -- if you choose the wrong parts, you'll be told what won't work, and why, all for free!

7) No, do NOT choose Windows 8. Just. No. Windows 7, 64 bit, so you can pile on the RAM (the 32-bit version can't access much RAM).

8) Both Newegg and Tiger Direct have 'Memory Finders' which match RAM to your motherboard. Use that, and you can't go wrong!

9) Stop looking at Windows 8! Honestly.

There is a vital rule of thumb to consider when choosing between AMD and Intel CPU chips, and that rule is this -- whatever you choose, you have chosen poorly.

That's because there are Intel fanboys who will hurl acrimonious bile you way if you go AMD, and AMD fanboys who will do the same if you select Intel.  Both camps have benchmark test figures to back up their claims.

I suggest you ignore both camps entirely and buy whatever you can afford. Without a bench crammed with test gear, you are never going to see any real-world difference between comparable Intel or AMD products. I can hear furious fanboys rushing my way now.

Here's a link to a great video series that shows you, step by step, how to build a PC. Yeah, it was made in 2011, but while the hardware has changed the build procedures have not. You can find much more recent how-to videos out there -- just Google your MyFace toward 'DIY PC build video' and start watching.

PC BUILD VIDEO SERIES

Here are the parts I used in my new build.

Here are the specs:

CPU: AMD A-6300 six core CPU, ASUS MA597 LE motherboard, 8 GB Kingston HyperX 1600 MHz RAM, 500 GB WD Black hard drive, Cooler Master case, Cooler Master HyperX CPU cooler, Cooler Master 650 watt Bronze power supply, ASUS optical drive, Rosewill wifi interface card, Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS, and an XFX Radeon 7850 Core Edition video card with 2GB of DDR5 memory. There are also 3 Cooler Master 120 mm lighted case fans, because if I'm ever wandering around inside the case I'll be happy I installed some lighting.

It worked the first time I powered it up. Total build time was probably five hours, including Win 7 installation.

Anyway, if you're interested in building your own, check out the links I posted above, and have fun!

WRITING NEWS

I have very little to report. THE FIVE FACES is still under consideration by the publisher. Work on the new Mug and Meralda didn't see much progress this last week because we were on vacation.

But tomorrow it's back to the usual routine, so I should have a decent word count to report next week.

So get out there and build something!

 

Glowing Plastic Werewolf Heads

Fig. 7A: The author, before coffee.

The image above may explain a few things.

That photograph was taken a half-hour ago. Yes, it's a werewolf head. Of the glowing plastic variety. 

I bring your attention to it because it is an artifact from my childhood. I thought Wolfie was gone forever, buried deep in a landfill somewhere, quietly decomposing. But he must have found a good hiding place instead, because I found him just this morning after my father unearthed him from whatever remote corner of the house he's been haunting since I was nine. 

Woflie had a body once. A tall, furry, raggedly-dressed body, arms upraised, talons gleaming with plasticine menace. Sadly, the life of a plastic werewolf is fraught with danger, especially when BB guns and cousins become involved. But Wolfie's head survived, and he spent many a night glowing faintly on my bed, keeping the other monsters at bay.

He still glows, as you can see. I think he was even pleased to see me again, after all these years. 

He now perches atop my PC case, where he can once again emit a pale yellow-green glow and make sure the zombies don't sneak up behind me.

Welcome home, Wolfie. It's good to have you back.

IN WHICH I OBTAIN MILLIONS OF US DOLLARS IN A SAFE AND 100% RISK FREE BUSINESS TRANSACTION WHICH IS PERFECTLY SAFE AND LEGAL, YES SIR, SAFE AND LEGAL.

In last week's blog, I posted a couple of emails from a scammer calling himself Wang. Dear old Wang promised me a sizable hunk of some sweet, sweet Chinese cash, if only I would agree to help him out.

Well, being an agreeable fellow, I emailed Wang back and explained that I would be more than happy to collect a few million dollars for a good cause. But, in the interest of full disclosure, I let Wang in on my own little secret -- I confessed to him I am in reality the crime-fighting super-hero known as THE NIGHTCRAWLER.

Now, such a revelation might have sent many business associates running for the hills. But not Wang! Oh no. Friend Wang is made of sterner stuff. Even after my Nightcrawler email, he's not only willing but eager to do business with me, as witnessed by his reply to my Nightcrawler email, which I'll post below:

Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 17:27:05 +0800 [08/16/2013 05:27:05 AM EDT]

From: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book China

To: franktuttle@franktuttle.comAdd franktuttle@franktuttle.com to my Address Book

Subject: YOUR DETAILS INFORMATION NEED

Dearest Friend and Partner, 

It has indeed been a great honour and privilege having you as a friend and business associate and I have decided to take you as a very close and prospective partner in this venture with hopes that we would meet someday and shake hands together. I want you to be fully assured that you are dealing with a man of absolute integrity and honesty and want to sincerely assure you that you would never have any cost of regrets doing business with my person. I want you to trust me like a brother which I have taking you to be.  I want you to be sincerely assured that you have met the right and appropriate person to do business with and also assure you that this transaction is 100% legitimate which you will not be exposed to any form of risk for partnering with me in securing this noble effort.

BLAH BLAH BLAH Another page of scammer-speak deleted it's all crap anyway.

Will you still help? If you are willing to help,   I will need the following information’s from you as soon as possible.  

Full names:

Contact address:

 Country:

Telephone/fax number(s).

A copy of any form of valid identification / international passport or id/, driver’s License sent by email as an attachment.  

As I will know who I am dealing with we need to build trust, As soon as you provide this information I will process with the legal document and the shipment of our package with the money inside to you 

Note the Diplomat will contact you.

Furthermore, I would like you to introduce me to lucrative domestic investments in your location and I will welcome proficient advice on terms and procedures of investments, okay?  Be rest assured that all facilities for the successful transfer of the fund have been carefully arranged provided that you maintain secrecy follow my advice and instruction on transfer of money as I may do same when time for our investments come. Thank you once again and I look forward to a good business relationship with you which would be of much benefit to both parties. 

Looking forward to your urgent response

Best Regards to you and your family,

Wang Xingwu

Okay, so Wang wants my name, contact info, a scan of an ID card, all the usual nonsense.

Well, I've come this far, and I do need forty million dollars to pay off my bookie after a series of bad tips on the hamster races, so here goes. I sent all the following information and documents to Wang:

NAME: Frank F. Frank

ADDRESS: 419 Batmannish Groin Drive

                   Gotham City, GC 909423

COUNTRY: USA

TELEPHONE: (redacted -- it's a legal brothel in Nevada, have fun with that Wang)

And for my 'identification,' here's what I sent:

Like my new beard, and my piercing Russian stare? And bonus points to anyone who can name the motto on the Gotham City seal.  

I predict Wang will indeed respond, despite the ridiculous nature of my credentials.

Once he does, I'll post that here too. 

WRITING NEWS

The new Markhat novel is still under consideration.

The new Mug and Meralda is still underway. My word count this week stands at last week's total, give or take a couple hundred words, because I deleted nearly as many as I wrote. 

That happens sometimes. I don't consider it time wasted, because I did explore a path I simply decided not to take. 

The book proceeds, though!

GHOSTLY GOINGS-ON

Hope to do more EVP work with my fancy new germanium microphone this week. If I do, I'll post the results here on the blog, as always.

FINAL WORDS

Wolfie bids you all a good night, and pleasant dreams...

Ectoplasm Stew

My fearless Writing Team at the ready.

First of all, as promised, a word count!

The new Mug and Meralda book stands at 9,001 words. Assuming a finished length of 80,000 words, that would indicate I am currently 11.25% done with the first draft of ALL THE TURNS OF LIGHT.

Eleven percent done. When I write it out like that my right eye starts twitching.

Only 89 percent to go.

Pardon me while I go outside and scream incoherently for a bit.

MARKHAT NEWS

No news yet on THE FIVE FACES, not that I expected any so soon. Will post as soon as I know, though, so watch this space!

GHOSTLY GOINGS-ON

I've left the departed pretty much alone this week. It's been so hot I imagine even the most determined spectres, haints, haunts, and free-floating vapors took cover in deep shade anyway. I was planning a run to a cemetery this afternoon for some EVP work, but the heat brought on thunderstorms, so that will have to wait. Walking through rainswept cemeteries holding metal gear while lightning flashes about sounds like a good way to experience the afterlife first-hand, and I'm not quite ready to extend my research in that direction.

I did read that long before Konstantine Raudive accidentally recorded his first EVP voices, other people were actively trying to record ghost voices. In 1941 a photographer named Attila von Szalay tried to catch ghost voices using 78 RPM records as a recording medium.

That didn't work, but Attila kept trying. He switched to reel-to-reel tape and in 1956 finally had some success. My favorite bit is the "Hot dog, Art!" snippet, which he captured from a microphone which was housed in a sound-proofed box.

Someone asked me if I ever tried using a Ouija or spirit board in the course of my investigations.

The answer is no, I do not. Mainly because unless the planchette is able to move itself about, I figure any motion is due to the ideomotor response, or one of the participants fooling about. Dark room, candle-light, spooky mood -- is it any wonder that the planchette 'mysteriously' moves?

Show me one that scoots around by itself, and I'll take note. And look for magnets, but that's because I'm a suspicious sort myself.

There's another less scientific reason I won't use a spirit board, and it is this -- the things creep me out. Irrational, I know, but there you have it.

Yeah, this is me. Been working out.

IN WHICH I REVEAL MY SECRET IDENTITY AS .... THE NIGHTCRAWLER!

I get a lot spam email, including more than my fair share of dim-wit con-artists out to sucker me into an advance fee fraud scam.

You've seen the emails too, I'm sure. Some yo-yo claims to have a huge sum of money, and they want you to help them move it. you are promised a generous cut of 70 million dollars, or some similar nonsense.

Of course, there is no sum of money. The people dumb enough to fall for the scam wind up sending the scammer hundreds or thousands of dollars in 'lawyer's fees' or 'storage fees' or 'international steel-plated demurrage fund stacking charges' or whatever made-up gibberish is en vogue at the moment. The money is sent Western Union, of course, so there's no tracing it, and no chance of recovering it.

Well, I'm no dummy, but sometimes it amuses me to play with these morons. So when I got the email below, I couldn't resist. Here's the first email:

Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 22:11:05 +0300 [08/08/2013 03:11:05 PM EDT]
From: Xingwu Wang <wang.xingwu15@gmail.com>Add wang.xingwu15@gmail.com to my Address Book
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Reply-To: wxingwu@yahoo.cnAdd wxingwu@yahoo.cn to my Address Book
Subject: GREETINGS TO YOU
-- 
Dear Intending Partner
would like to discuss a project with you. Please email me back.
via: xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn
(1) Can you handle this project?
(2) Can I give you this trust?
I expect your urgent response if you can handle this project.
Best Regard's,
Thank You
Wang Xingwu

Wang, Wang, Wang. Mass-mailing strangers in hopes of finding a dunce among them is no way to go through life.

Here's the email I sent back:

Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 15:38:16 -0400 [08/08/2013 03:38:16 PM EDT]
From: franktuttle@franktuttle.comAdd franktuttle@franktuttle.com to my Address Book
To: wxingwu@yahoo.cnAdd wxingwu@yahoo.cn to my Address Book
Subject: Re: GREETINGS TO YOU

Dear Exalted Significant Xingwu Wang,

I can handle this project. I can be given this trust. Let not your underpants pout, my friend, for together we shall amass and/or acquire vast sums of currency, see also moola, loot, cabbage, cash, greenbacks, Benjamins, coin. I see us as lifelong friends, Wang, lifelong friends who shall not want for fancy cars, new ice trays, and all of those little wax bottles of sugary candy water we can ever desire!

Yes. It was Fate that brought us together, to conduct this spiny, quartz-encased business. You see, Wang, who is called Wang, I have made a decision -- I shall put my trust, my whole trust, all eighteen English pounds of it, in you. I shall see this business through, come Hell, high water, surly waiters, or inclement humidity! Nothing shall stop us from achieving the achievement of having achieved that to which we aspire to achieve!

Trust me to handle this important project, which requires much trust. Trust is a weighty word, my friend, but it is a word I know how to spell. T - R - U - S - T. Trust. Not truste or truust or trooste or even terust, but trust, plain and simple.

Let us discuss details so that we might work for our mutual linear fully clothed gain.

Frank F. Frank, Director
Frank Global Industries

Now, you might think most scammers would be put off by the tone and content of my reply. But not friend Wang, who is only to eager to get things started! 

Here is his reply to email. I'm deeply hurt, because it's obvious he didn't even read my reply. But decide for yourself:

Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 18:09:00 +0800 [08/10/2013 06:09:00 AM EDT]

From: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book China

To: Undisclosed Recipients

Reply-To: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book

Subject: GREETING FROM WANG XINGWU

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your reply to my first email. I needed to be very sure of you before I disclose my identity for confidentiality purpose. I would also like you know that this transaction is 100% risk free and legal.

I could not give you my true details in my first contact because I felt it would be huge surprise for you to receive such email from a serving customs controller of the People Republic of China Customs. Now that you have replied the correspondence with interest I will give you more information about myself and the business.

My name is Wang Xingwu (customs controller of the Peoples Republic of China Customs).

<BLAH BLAH BLAH I cut a page of scammer-speak nonsense here >>

Thank you Once again and I look forward to a good business relationship with you which would be of much benefit to both parties. 

Looking Forward to your Response

Sincerely,

Wang Xingwu

Wow. What a sweet deal. I get thirty percent of forty million dollars. I could use an extra 12 million bucks -- I have expensive tastes where socks are concerned -- so here's my heartfelt reply:

Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 16:26:21 -0400 [08/10/2013 04:26:21 PM EDT]

From: franktuttle@franktuttle.comAdd franktuttle@franktuttle.com to my Address Book

To: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book

Subject: Re: GREETING FROM WANG XINGWU

Dear Trusted Sequential Combine Wang,

I was so excited to receive your email. And I understand your need for a trusted and reliable partner in this business.

I believe I am the very person you seek.

Can I be trusted? Yes. Yes I can. You see, although the world knows me as Frank F. Frank, wealthy philanthropist and corporate giant, my secret identity is that of....

....the Nightcrawler.

Yes. That's right. By day, I run a successful multinational conglomerate specializing in the manufacture of volatile chemicals and flimsy lingerie. Or maybe its flimsy chemicals and volatile lingerie. I'm so busy rolling in enormous heaps of cash I seldom get down to the manufacturing floor these days. 

By night, I don the black body-armor of the Nightcrawler, and I venture forth from my secret lair to fight crime. Perhaps you have heard of my heroic exploits against the Gang of Elderly Pensioners, or my mighty triumph over Mrs. Baker's Second Grade Art Class?

I thought so. My defeat of the Surly Parking Lot Attendant on Fifth and Holmes street was particularly impressive. He will never again insist on exact change while I have a rubber mallet and a stingray in my utility belt, I can tell you!

So I have already shared with you a secret. I did so because I trust you. I am the Nightcrawler, champion of Justice, defender of the weak, part-time library assistant (paid). 

Do you trust me now?

I ask that you keep my secret identity safe. My life is in your hands now, friend Wang. If the evil crime-lords of the Dark Brotherhood were to learn the Nightcrawler's secret identity, I would be dead before sunset.

Now, as to this business.  How do we proceed? I have the resources of Frank Industries at my disposal.

I await further instructions.

Be safe, my friend.

The Nightcrawler

Will I hear from Wang? Will we proceed with this 100% legal and totally non-criminal enterprise unmolested by the evil forces of Cub Scout Troop 66A, or the staff of Larson's Big Star Grocery Store?

I'll keep you all posted!

Now I should get back to work. I suppose I'll have to keep my day job until Wang comes through with my twelve million...

Things That Go Bump, Mad Science Edition #2

Yes, that's cardboard and aluminum foil. Can I please get a research grant?

As you may recall from last week's blog, we were delving into what serious paranormal researchers call 'spooky stuff.'

Because A) it's cheap fun, and B) even I get tired of listening to me rattle on about writing.

So this week, we'll continue with the spooky stuff. First of all, I promised you a video of my experiment with ITC (Instrumental Trans Communications), and I'll (finally) post the link below. But first, a brief introduction, for any newcomers.

ITC is the practice of aiming a video camera at a video monitor and then feeding the camera's output right into the monitor. You get video feedback, which looks weird. Some people claim you can also capture images from the Great Beyond. 

Below is a photo of the setup I used:

Oops, no, that's what the neighbors do when they hear I've been messing with ghosts again. Wait, here's the ITC rig:

Simple, right? A humble video camera aimed at an old CRT television (with no antenna or other inputs).

Now, the question you're probably asking is this -- did you capture any ghostly faces? Apparitions? Free-form non-terminating repeating spectral vapors? Gozer the Gozerian?

Nah. Feel free to watch the video, but if you see any faces in that mess you've got better eyes than me. 

Here it is, in all its barely-edited glory:

http://www.franktuttle.com/ITC1.mp4

And here are a couple of typical screen-shots.

The Afterlife is NOT in HD.

Green is the new ectoplasm.

Meet Mister Screamy Face.

I do see why people believe they can see images in the visual noise. Heck, sitting down here alone in the middle of the night, I thought I saw things too.

But they vanished on playback. 

I certainly didn't capture anything like the image captured by the Scole Group, which I call Bubble Man.

But I'll keep trying.

Which brings us to the EVP portion of our program. I built two brand new toys to play with, both designed to capture EVPs. 

One is a Raudive microphone in a box with a built in audio amp. That's the first image I used, and yes, it is a box covered in aluminum foil. Because I didn't have a metal box handy, and the foil will act as an RF shield.

It works, too. I recorded a long session with it today, and got nothing but static. 

Now, if you'll look below the foil-covered box, you'll see an odd-looking dingus with a coil on one end.

What is that, you ask?

This is a germanium EMF mic. You need not Google it, because I made that up. 

I took a metal shaft and ran a length of copper wire through it. Insulation keeps the copper away from the steel. The business end of the copper wire sticks out, and is soldered to a 1N34A Germanium diode. The other end of the diode is soldered to the copper coil thingy, which returns to the steel casing and winds up soldered to that.

At the other end, a pair of wire leads connect to the steel shaft and the back end of the copper wire. The leads connect to a mono mic jack. That gets plugged into my voice recorder, or into the small battery-powered 200 milliwatt audio amp (the white box in one of the pics above).

Why the tube and the copper wire and the coil and so forth?

I wish I could say the design came to me in a mystical dream, but honestly those were the first things I grabbed in my junk drawer.

Look, that would be a Bad Idea if I was trying to build a working FM radio. But when one is building a microphone suited for use by ghosts or extradimensional entities, there is no design book. I figure random junk has as much chance to work as carefully-designed circuitry, because nobody has any idea how we might communicate with ghosts anyway, if they even exist.

Also, I thought it looked cool in an old-school B movie sort of way.

Why germanium? Why a 1N34A diode? Why not a Zener or a switching diode?

I don't have any of those.

I wasn't expecting much out of this, um, device. 

I waved it around at Karen. It picked up our cells phones buzzing and clicking.

I plugged it into my recorder, and then went to help feed Max and Fletcher. Fletcher is our diabetic dog, and he likes it when we both feed him. 

So the EMF mic and the recorder were out here in an empty room. 

I got two pretty good EVPs. The first says, at least to me, 'It's a trick.'

It sounds best with headphones, but here it is, looped so you can hear it better. Foljks, please, max out your volume on this one. Not joking, and I promise this isn't a prank!

http://www.franktuttle.com/podcast1/itsatrick.mp3

And here's the second one. I cannot make out the words, but I hear what sounds like a male voice mumble, and a female voice respond.

Reduce your volume to normal for this one!

http://www.franktuttle.com/podcast1/cowsee.mp3

Again, there was no one here when those voices were recorded.

I can't wait to take my EMF mic to a couple of the places I've gotten EVPs before. Maybe this week I'll have time.

By the way, if you want to try the EMF mic trick yourself, 1N34A germanium diodes can be had from Amazon for a buck. The mono mic jack is a Radio Shack product, which will set you back $3.19. The shaft and the copper coil is more decorative than anything; the diode is the heart of the thing.

WRITING NEWS

The new Markhat novel, THE FIVE FACES, went off to Samhain for their consideration last week. 

Which is big news, to me at least. 

I'll be perfectly honest with you. Every time I finish a book, I'm surprised. 

I am the laziest person alive. I kid you not. There are slime molds with more influential work ethics than me. My base state of being is that of reclining, preferably on a bed, while True TV airs another episode of 'World's Dumbest' and I watch by snoring my way through it.

But another novel has appeared. It's a good one, too. Markhat doesn't just get lucky this time. He fights his way through, and --

-- well, you'll have to wait for the book.

If there is a book, of course. The publisher might say no. It's always possible I've written a stinker and just don't know it.

I can't entertain that line of thought. Instead, I've started the new Mug and Meralda book, which will be entitled ALL THE TURNS OF LIGHT.

And I have a surprise for all you Meralda and Mug fans out there -- THEY LEAVE TIRLIN!

That's right, no more puttering around in the Royal Laboratory with holdstones and calculus. Meralda is on the road, baby, and hating every minute of it....

My plan it to get this one done and out before Christmas. If my courage holds, next week I will start posting weekly word counts, so that you, my friends, can brow-beat and guilt me into actually doing some work.

TECH NEWS

If I counted up the hours of my day and what I do with them, pounding away at a keyboard would doubtlessly marshal the majority of my time. 

The PC at which I work was built in late 2010, which means it's beginning to show its age. I've been collecting parts to build a new rig for months now, and I'm nearly done acquiring components.

When I am done, I'm going to build the new machine, piece by piece, in front of a camera. Karen has graciously agreed to film the build, and we hope that watching me build a new PC from scratch might help anyone else out there who wants a solid machine at a bargain-basement price. I'll post parts lists, suppliers, and technical notes, of course.

Building a machine isn't as hard as you might think. And oh, the money you can save! 

I'll make sure everyone gets a heads-up before we post that.

Okay, it's almost time for FALLING SKIES. And I need to get in my word count. Enjoy the voices, people!

And check under your beds...bwahahahaha....

Things that Go Bump: Mad Science Edition

I always knew infinity was blue.

Put on your vortex goggles and hide the unstable isotopes, kids, because tonight we're going to rip away the very bed-sheets of Space and Time and peer right up the skirts of Infinity itself.

The image above? It's a screen-grab from a video I made last night. But more about that later.

Right now, let's take a brief detour back to 1993, and pay a quick visit to a little enterprise which has come to be known as the Scole Experiment.

What was the Scole Experiment? Let me use their own words to describe their efforts:

The Scole Experiment chronicles the extraordinary results of a five-year investigation into life after death. At the beginning of 1993 four psychic researchers embarked on a series of experiments in the Norfolk village of Scole. The subsequent events were so astounding that senior members of the 
prestigious Society for Psychical Research asked to observe, test and record what took place.

-- From the Scole Experiment website

Okay, by now you may be thinking to yourself 'Aha. Tuttle isn't normally very enthused about psychic researchers. He must be short of blog ideas.'

Nay, nay. It's true I'm not usually a big fan of so-called psychic researchers. But this bunch captured some truly extraordinary evidence, and they did so in the presence of a professional magician on the lookout for fakery.

You can peruse their website and decide for yourself. But I would like to call your attention to a few intriguing photographs they obtained.

Click here for a page containing video screen grabs from various ITC (Instrumental Trans Communication) sessions. Two in particular caught my eye. Here's the first one:

Man in the Bubble

Blue

As I understand it, these images were obtained using a 90s-issue VHSC video camera aimed at a television screen. This setup is the basis for ITC, or Instrumental Trans Communications.

The Scole group produced a volume of fascinating material. There are circuit diagrams. There are images. There are drawings. Copies of newspapers. Odd little scribbles. You name it, they got it.

They also had a long conversation with a being claiming to be an extra-dimensional entity. Not a ghost. Not a spirit. Just an energy creature hanging out in its crib, playing with the 33rd dimension's equivalent of a HAM radio.

Of course not everything they present is thrilling. I'm still puzzling over this screen-grab. They see a face in the image. I see -- stuff. Video noise.

Even so, I couldn't get that 'Man in the Bubble' image out of my head. It's either genuine evidence of the paranormal, or it's fake.

Bubble Man.

At this point, I came to the same decision I came to years ago, when I first became intrigued by EVP recordings.

I decided to try and gather ITC evidence on my own, so I'd know it wasn't faked.

Furthermore, I built a special ITC rig of my very own. But that's for later. Right now, let's look at a standard ITC setup, and see how it works.

Standard ITC setup

It's simple. You aim a video camera at a television screen. The camera's video output is connected to the television's video input. Thus, you wind up with the camera filming its own output.

That creates feedback. Hold a live microphone up to the loudspeaker. That awful shriek is also feedback.

Here, we have video feedback instead of the audio version.

The theory behind ITC video images is similar to what some people say about EVP voices. The random video noise created by the feedback loop somehow allows spirits or other entities to create images, which are then recorded and can be replayed at will.

Okay. Regardless of how far-fetched all that sounds, the purely physical setup is pretty easy. Here's how my own ITC experiment looked:

That's a Sony Handicam on a tripod aimed at an ancient Sanyo CRT TV. The camera lens is about two feet from the TV screen.

That TV is old, people. It's pre-digital, which means it can't even get broadcast signals anymore. I use it to watch the occasional concert on DVD, but I disconnected the DVD player for the session. My point is that the TV isn't going to just randomly display images of people, for instance, because it is essentially a brick without a video source.

Here are a couple of static images I took when I started the experiment:

Stay away from the light, Carol Ann...

One quick note here -- I tried this first during the day, and I immediately spotted several fairly obvious reflections in the glass of the TV screen. There was me, for instance. The window behind me. A few other objects, none ghostly or extra-dimensional as far as I could tell.

So I dumped all that video and waited for dark. 

When the feedback loop is established, you get a strobing effect that takes about two seconds to move from full black to bright white. In between the extremes, you'll see mobile, indistinct shapes blossom and shrink and darken and die. 

It's these shapes that seem to hide the faces and other images.

And these are also the places where our old friend pareidolia comes out to play.  Pareidolia is what lets you see faces in the wood grain of cabinets, or in the clouds. We are hard-wired to make out faces, and do so quickly.

So my criteria for what constitutes an actual face is pretty high. A pair of dark spots and a slit for a mouth isn't going to cut it. 

No, I want to see an image like that of Bubble Man.

Old dude with glasses. That image isn't pareidolia. It may well not be real, in that someone may have cut out a perfectly mundane photo of a man with glasses and stuck it to the TV screen for a single frame, but it jolly well isn't pareidolia.

"Come on, Tuttle, quit stalling! You said you held an ITC session. Did you get anything, or not?"

Well. Yes and no. Mainly no. 

See for yourself:

If that image is the result of an extra-dimensional communicator, he needs to try a little harder. Yeah, okay, two eyes and a mouth, but that's obviously just a random formation of lights and darks. Bzzzzt, better luck next time.

What about this next image, which is a lot more complicated?

I asked for an image of a dog, and that's not actually a bad image. I believe it's nothing but pareidolia, but I can see where some might not.

But we're a long way from photographic-quality images such as the Bubble Man, aren't we?

Yes we are.

The truth of the matter is this -- analyzing ITC data is a lot more laborious than doing the same for EVP recordings. You have to wade through the video files one frame at a time. Let's see, at 30 frames per second and 60 seconds per minute that's 1800 frames per minute, or over 21,000 frames for the single 12 minute video I shot last night.

I'm about four minutes in. And I've been at this for seven solid hours.

So a complete analysis will have to wait. Sorry about that; I know I promised a good blog entry today, but the sheer math of it has overwhelmed me.

We won't even talk about trying to use Windows Movie Maker to do a frame-by-frame analysis of a longish video clip. We won't talk about that because I don't like to use those kinds of words in public. Suffice it to say I will be on the lookout for a basic cheap video editing package.

Again, my apologies for not finishing all this today. I will finish analyzing the video. Until then, these screen grabs will have to suffice.

The image I opened this blog entry with doesn't look at all like the blobby grainy green images I've shown, does it?

That's because this image was generated using the same camera in a device I built myself Saturday afternoon, after seeing the first grainy strobing pictures produced by the old-school CRT tube.

Televisions work by refreshing the screen 60 times a second or so. I think that's part of what causes the strobing effect we saw earlier. So, I decided I'd eliminate that by using four mirrors placed at ninety degree angles to reflect the camera's unblinking little lens right into its own viewfinder.

That way, I'd create an optical feedback loop, without all that headache-inducing strobing.

Here's how my 'infinity mirror' array works:

And here's what it looks like, without the camera.

And with the camera:

The screw assembly on the right is there to make minute changes to the pitch of Mirror 1, to keep the image centered.

Running it is simple. Just hit record. It doesn't matter whether the room lights are on or not; I zoom in until the viewfinder fills the screen, and that's that.

Here are some screen grabs. Turns out infinity is blue, just like we all suspected.

A screen within a screen within a screen....

Everything seemed to rotate slowly, counterclockwise...

Then things would (literally) spin off into the distance.

The little screen icons on the camera viewfinder, repeated to infinity...

What I didn't see were any faces. No faces, no dogs, no big text messages reading HI WE ARE FROM THE AFTERLIFE.

Looks like the process needs the strobing and the noise to conjure up faces and so forth.

I have an idea for a modification of the mirror array which will add some noise without strobing. If I can, I'll add it for next week's blog.

Until then, I'd like to hear your comments on the matter.

Did the Scole group fake their results? Is the Bubble Man image paranormal, or the result of scissors and rubber cement? What do you think?

I'm on the fence. But I need to shoot a lot more video before I have a strong opinion either way.

EDITED TO ADD:

Got the mirror array video uploaded. Click below to view:

http://franktuttle.com/podcast1/ITCmir3.mp4