My 10 Most Popular Posts

The number of hits I get on a post on my blog can vary quite a lot. Of course I like it when I get a large number of hits. What is it about my popular posts that makes them so popular?

In addition to my own blog, I post on Blogger and FaceBook. The popularity of my posts are quite different on each of these sites. I picked the top 10 based on my own site, and will mention some popular posts on the other sites.

10. Return to Blogging

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/return-to-blogging/

In this post I talked about restarting my blog. I had stopped because I had to help take care of my wife while she was sick. As such, this was a more personal post than I usually write. It was also the most popular post, by far, on FaceBook.

A closely related post: My Own Conflicts http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my-own-conflicts/ was the second most popular on FaceBook.

I don't feel comfortable writing posts that are too personal, but it is also clear that those kinds of posts are usually more popular.

9. I Finally Brought A Long Held Dream to Fruition

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/i-finally-brought-a-long-held-dream-to-fruition/

This is my post to promote my Doc Savage novella: "The 89th Key". http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/

The release of a major piece of work does attract more attention that a progress update. Of course, I need to have something to release in order to do a post like this.

8. New Ideas for Transportation Planning Stories

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/new-ideas-for-transportation-planning-stories/

I've worked on several projects that have transportation planning as a background. While my movie "The Barrier" is still at version 0.6, I wanted to start on a new project. I am glad to see that the topic does still attract some interest. As it was, I got side tracked onto other projects. Maybe I can get back to this next year.

7. The Lester Dent Master Fiction Plot Test Drive

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-lester-dent-master-fiction-plot-test-drive/

I first posted this in December of 2010, so despite being an old post, it still draws new visitors.

Lester Dent was a prolific pulp writer back in the 1930s and 1940s and is best known for writing most of the Doc Savage stories. I came across an article he wrote about what he called his master fiction plot. It is a formula for a action adventure pulp story. I found that it helped me improve my writing.

I've experimented with variations of the formula; mostly by trying to adapt it to other types of stories. Some people denigrate "formula writing", but I find it a valuable tool. Certainly at some stages of writing, it can really get things going. I find that when I don't follow this structure, it becomes very difficult to write.

The popularity of this post reflects the interest that writers have in tools they can use for writing. In the original post I included a link to the article, but the link went dead, so I added a copy of the article to the end of the post, so that it is available to people who find my post.

6. My New Website Theme: As The Goals Change

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my-new-website-theme-as-the-goals-change/

Late last year I started to develop a new WordPress theme for my website. I'm not sure why it should be so popular. In the end I abandoned my new theme and picked one of the free themes that are available. I did make a few modifications, and would like to make some more, but this is a low priority for me.

5. "2001: A Space Odyssey"  and H. P. Lovecraft

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/2001-a-space-odyssey-and-h-p-lovecraft/

2001 was and is my favourite movie. I've also had an interest in H.P. Lovecraft. One day I was struck by the idea that there was a connection between the two, so I wrote up my thoughts on it.

I posted this back in April of 2014, so this is another old post that keeps drawing in readers.

4. My Film Equipment Repair Adventure

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my-film-equipment-repair-adventure/

I have an old Sankyo Dualux 1000 super 8/ regular 8 projector that belonged to my parents. Unfortunately, the drive belt wore out and broke. I tried to find a replacement belt, but they are expensive. I experimented with using an O-ring and a rubber band.

It seems that a lot of other people have the same projector, and the same problem with the drive belt. I posted this in February 2012 and still get hits on this page frequently.

2. and 3. Experiments With the Trial Version of nawmalMAKE and The New Nawmal: Good News for "The Barrier"

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/experiments-with-the-trial-version-of-nawmalmake/

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-new-nawmal-good-news-for-the-barrier/

I wrote these two posts about NawmalMake. It is a rerelease of the old Xtranormal program that I used to make "The Barrier" and "Make ’ em Squirm: The Sharkbiter Way".

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/make-em-squirm-the-sharkbiter-way/

I was quite glad to see it rereleased, so I could do a final version of "The Barrier". Unfortunately, the timing isn't good for me, so I haven't been able to take advantage of the new release. I did some tests though.

The one big worry I have is that the new company will not be able to make a go of it and the program will no longer be available when I have time to use it. The fact that these two posts are attracting a lot of hits even months after it was posted tells me that there is some interest in the program. This is a positive sign for the future of the program.

1. Conversational Films: A Small Genre

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/conversational-stories/conversational-films-a-small-genre/

One of my favourite films is Linklater's "Before Sunrise". I've had the urge to make something similar. In this post I look at similar movies that would call conversational films. I only identified a few, but I suspect there are some more I am unaware of.

I'm not sure why this post should be so popular. Even though it was posted back in March 2012, it was still my most popular post this year. Maybe there is a desire out there for similar movies.

I wrote my story "The Crying Woman" as the basis for a movie like this, but I haven't followed up on it yet. http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-crying-woman/

Honourable Mention: Do Ancient Alien Probes Watch Earth?

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/do-ancient-alien-probes-watch-earth/

While this post did not attract much attention on my site or FaceBook, it was very popular on Blogger. No one made any comments, but I think that may be a good thing. Many of the people who would be interested would be interested in the conspiracy theory aspects of the idea, and would not be very positively disposed to my more sceptical approach to the idea.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Hal and The Starchild in 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey has fascinated me since I first saw it back in 1968. I didn't understand it and I've tried to gain a better understanding ever since. There were times when I thought I understood it, then later realized that there was more to the film than I had thought.

I want to explore one aspect of the film in this post. It is an idea that has floated about in my head for many years and I really don't know if I read it somewhere, or came up with it on my own.

The thrust of the story is the evolution of man from ape-man to starchild. I would expect that with Kubrick and Clarke would have everything in the movie relate to that in some way.

What bothered me about the sequence on the Discovery that involves the astronauts and HAL is that it doesn't seem to relate. It felt to me as if it were merely a bit of story action to take up time.

There does seem to be an explanation that links HAL's story to the larger story. At the end of the film the aliens/monolith appears to transform Bowman into something new: the starchild.

This is paralleled in the HAL story where Bowman disconnects HAL. HAL reverts to a child like state. HAL's last words are "I'm ready for my first lesson." Like the aliens with human, humans have created HAL's intelligence. In the end they realize that this intelligence has its dangers, so Bowman must reset HAL. Humanity has failed in its attempt to create intelligence.

This brings up the question of exactly what happens to Bowman at the end. Do the aliens, as I originally thought, elevate Bowman, and therefore Humanity, to the next level? Or, do they, like Bowman, realize that they have failed to create the intelligence they wanted? Are they then, as with HAL, reset Bowman to a new starting point.

The parallels between HAL and Bowman/Starchild suggests a different interpretation of the ending. It is not that Bowman has moved on to a new higher level, but rather that he has been sent back to start over again. At the end of the Dawn of Man story in the book, it says of Moonwatcher: "He would think of something." At the end of the book the same words are used in reference to the starchild. This sounds to me as more of a reset than a elevation.

I think the question about what happens at the end brings a focus on the ability of the aliens. Are they so advanced that they make no mistakes? If so, then they would elevate Bowman to the next level. If they can make mistakes, then what happens to Bowman is a reset. The aliens are so advanced beyond our level of understanding, that we humans are unlikely to be able to tell the difference. Punishment and reward are indistinguishable to us.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

It's Time To Pick My Next Project

Now that my story "Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" is done, it is time to think about my next project. What with Christmas coming up and snow on the ground, I might not get started until the new year.

I completed four projects this year:

·         "Summer's Too Short" http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/summers-too-short/

·         "The 89th Key" http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/

·         "Pete's Plan" http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/petes-plan/

·         "Tom Swiftly ..." http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/tom-swiftly-and-his-incredible-traffic-model/

All of these were projects that I stated long before this year. In the case of "The 89th Key" it was some 43 years before! I did start on one project, "The Disruptors", but didn't get far with it. So I haven't really started a new project for quite some time. I concentrated my efforts on some of my unfinished projects.

Movies

I have almost 40 unfinished movie projects. Most of these are little more than a few notes about the idea, but I have four feature length scripts and one detailed outline. There are also a couple of my short stories that I think could be done as movies. I've decided to treat most of these as writing exercises. When I read them over I feel no urge to finish them.

There are a few exceptions.

I think that I'd like to do something with "Bright Freedom", and earlier I decided to turn it into a novella. I worked on it for a short time this year, but dropped it for other projects. (http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/category/film-projects/bright-freedom/)

"The Crying Woman" could make a good movie. At this point though I'm not sure where to go with it. I would like to do a new movie with Nawmal and I think this might work. On the other hand, it might be better if I worked with live actors and have them improvise. (http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-crying-woman/)

"The Barrier" is not really finished. I called the most recent version release 0.6. There are a few changes I'd like to make to the dialogue and story, but the main think I want to do is replace the artificial voices with actor's voices. (http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/)

These two movies are major projects and in my current situation, I really don't have the ability to take them on. I haven't had any ideas for shorter projects, which would be a more realistic goal. I would have to come up with some ideas first.

Stories

I have about 25 unfinished story projects. As with my movie ideas, most of these no longer inspire me to complete them. There are bits and pieces of them that I think are good, but a story isn't just a few bits and pieces tossed together. Maybe I can cannibalize some of this material in other projects.

I enjoyed writing my novella "The 89th Key" this year, and would like to do something similar. This lead to my idea for "The Disruptors". Before I can write that I really need to do some more research and develop the background and characters. I found that my familiarity with the background and characters in "The 89th Key" made it much easier to write.

I have drafts of both my "Bright Freedom" script conversion and my SF story "Felix".  I would like to have those finished. I have tried rewrites on both of these, but I got stuck on both. I've started to wonder if I should just abandon what I've done so far and restart from scratch on them.

I've wanted to do another transportation planning story, like "The Barrier", but I haven't come up with anything so far. I think that part of my problem is that I've tried to do a new story with the same characters as I had in "The Barrier". It maybe that I just feel like I've already told their story and there isn't really anything more I want to say about them. If I came up with some new characters that could get me started.

Video Presentation

There is another project I want to take on. I have been involved for many years with The Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities. (http://www.calgaryssea.ca/) They put on a series of talks on Ancient Egypt. I've felt I should contribute, but I am just not up to giving a learned talk. I do think I could put together a video instead.

My first idea  was to do a video about King Tut. After all, nobody has ever done much about him. ;) I did some preliminary research to see if I could come up with a story and some visual material I could use. My interest petered out and I dropped the idea.

I thought I should do something about how the pyramids were built. That would fit into my background in civil engineering. Again, after some preliminary research, I lost interest in the idea.

My current idea is to do something about Agatha Christie in Egypt. She visited Egypt and the middle east several times and these visits were an important part of her life. Three of her books are set in Egypt. I did a little research and found some material. I haven't delved into it yet, so I'm not sure that I can turn it into an interesting video.

I've never done a documentary, and never really had a desire to do so. Strangely enough I usually prefer documentary movies to fictional ones. That said, I think this would be a good project for me to pursue.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

"Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" Posted

My new story "Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" is now on-line for people to read. CAUTION: Story contains bad puns. Proceed at your own risk.

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/tom-swiftly-and-his-incredible-traffic-model/

"Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" is a sample of transportation planning humour. Puns and Tom Swiftlies count as humour don't they?

The story tells the tale of a transportation planner and his team as they struggle to convince the city council to accept their proposal.

The original idea actually came to me almost 20 years ago. I tried and abandoned several different approaches before I found the right one. I worked on that approach off and on for six years. Finally, in October this year, I decided to give it one big push and get it done. I feel it is now ready for release into the wild.

Let me know if you think I over did the puns a bit.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Five Random Thoughts on a November Afternoon

There wasn't much to report on my current project, "Tom Swiftly", so I decided to contemplate a few more ideas I've bounced around recently.

Lincoln Quotes

While Abraham Lincoln did contribute more than his share of important quotes to posterity, many quotes you see attributed to him on the Internet are simply made up. Often that is done with the intent of adding credibility to a questionable idea.

When I first noticed this tendency, I thought that the primary reason for misquotes was that people would remember a quote from someone is the 1800s, but forget who said it. Since Lincoln was someone they did remember, they would give him the credit. I thought of that as "The Lincoln effect" and I wondered if it was common with other famous people.

At one time I thought of using a made up Lincoln quote to promote my work. Something like: "James Morison is one of the most creative people on the Internet and you should support him with a donation." I felt a bit guilty about making such a bold statement, so I decided to add in a qualifier: "Lincoln really did say this, albeit the words were not in the same order and he didn't say them all at the same time." I know that Internet  is a bit of stretch, but I'm sure he used both "inter" and "net".

Thoughtless Tank

About six years ago I came across a number of small think tanks in the course of my work. In reality they were one person operations. I wouldn't really consider a one person organization a think tank, but it made me wonder if I could set up my own think tank.

I never did, but the idea I developed was to create a "Thoughtless Tank". It would be a satire of some of the low value think tanks that vie for our attention. I think there is a lot of very superficial work done by some of these think tanks. I never developed the concept any further than that. Maybe if I had come up with a good name for it, I would have moved forward.

I want peace, justice and prosperity for everyone in the world, but can't find them anywhere on Amazon

I really mean this. If you can find them on Amazon, please let me know. I just hope they are cheap enough for my budget.

The secret cabal running the world isn't doing a very good job. Maybe it is time that they step aside and let another secret cabal try.

Many conspiracy theories posit the existence of a secret group that runs the World's affairs. What struck me about this theory is that if there is a secret group is running things, they don't seem to be doing a very good job. Even if you assume they are totally in it for their own aggrandizement, they don't seem to be doing that well for themselves.

Some people assume that the secret cabal is evil. I think Hanlon's razor is a better explanation: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

If this secret cabal does exist, it should seriously consider turning things over to another secret cabal who can do a better job.

If aliens visited earth in ancient times, where are they now?

This is one of the things I've thought about the ancient astronaut theory. While it is a plausible hypothesis that alien beings visited Earth in the past, I haven't heard of anything that doesn't have a more plausible explanation. Namely, people in ancient times were just as smart as we are now.

I know some people will say that they are still here, but hiding. I suppose that is possible, but if that were the case, then why were they so open in ancient times?

Maybe this idea could be the basis for a story. These are some of the questions we could ask when we develop such a story:

-       Did they leave?

-       Why did they leave?

-       Where did they go?

-       When did they go?

-       How long did they stay?

-       Did they die out?

-       What killed them?

-       How long were they here?

-       Did they hide?

-       Where did they hide?

-       Why did they hide?

-       Why did they come here in the first place?

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

"Tom Swiftly" and Puns: The Bad and the Lame

I completed the second draft of "Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model". It is an improvement, but there is a problem I haven't decided how to deal with yet.

I'm not sure if Tom Swiftlys are considered puns or not, but I would lump the two together. They are both words at play. As it stands, most lines of the story are either a Tom Swiftly or a pun. Maybe that is a bit of over kill.

The problem I have is that in order to have the story follow a plot, I needed to create some new Tom Swiftlys. I was fortunate in that I was able to find a fair number of pre-existing Tom Swiftlys I could repurpose. However, many of the ones I created were not of the same quality.

Now, bad Tom Swiftlys and bad puns are often what you want. They both provoke the groans that the punster desires. While some of my Tom Swiftlys are bad, many might be better described as lame. I fear that they cannot elicit the groan I aim for. I don't want readers to think "that's awful" and really mean it.

The dilemma for me is what I do about them.

·         I could simply remove the Tom Swiftly and leave the sentence as a straight line to move the story forward. My goal with this story was be to have every sentence be a Tom Swiftly or a pun. I am reluctant to lose too many Tom Swiftlys, even if they are lame.

·         I could just leave them as they are, publish and hope that the readers will accept the occasional clunker. While this keeps up my Tom Swiftly count, I worry that too many clunkers will disappoint readers and drive them away.

·         I could take my time to develop bad Tom Swiftlys to replace the lame ones. When I did the second draft, I was able to eliminate replace some of the lame Tom Swiftlys with bad Tom Swiftlys. This would be the best option,  but would may take a long time and many rewrites before I can publish.

I am not sure how reliable my judgement is when I decide if a Tom Swiftly is bad or lame. Maybe the ones I worry about will work, and the ones I think are bad are really lame.

What I lean toward now is to publish and have readers tell me which are bad and which are lame. Since it is all on-line, I can always do a release 1.1 or 1.2 to address the lameness problem.

I should end this post with a bad Tom Swiftly, but I wasn't able to come up with one.

Note: I wasn't sure the proper way to pluralize Tom Swiftly. In the end I decided to use Tom Swiftlys rather than Tom Swiftlies. Maybe someone who knows for sure can give me some advice.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

5 Unrelated Thoughts Masquerading as an Article

Like most people who think of themselves as creative, I write notes about the ideas I have. I pulled together a few of these ideas to discuss.

My ideas list isn't well organized and I am always surprised by what I find written on the backs of envelopes. Some times it is hard to tell if it was my own idea, or something I read and forgot to attribute when I wrote it down. I usually do that, but I sometimes forget.

I wonder what other people think about these ideas.

Where Do You See Yourself in 3 Millennia?

This is a very recent idea. I'm not sure exactly how it came about, but I think it was the juxtaposition of something I saw about job interviews with something I saw about ancient history.

The line suggests to me the title of a Science Fiction story. A common theme of SF is the idea of life extension. Will we be able to live for hundreds or thousands of years. What would that life be like?

Many people find it a struggle to imagine where they would see themselves in 10 or 20 years. Some people can't imagine where they want to be this afternoon. How can people imagine what they want to be in a thousand or three thousand years.

Clue Deficit Syndrome (CDS)

I thought this was a nicer way to say some one was clueless. While I occasionally feel this way about some people, I think it really isn't a good thing to do. All of us, at one time or another, think we understand things better than we actually do.

Fact Resistant Decision Making

This is similar to CDS, but I think it is a more valid criticism, since it involves a conscience effort to reject valid information. Many times in my life I have been very angry with people who are too quick to dismiss relevant information, or even avoid possible exposure to anything that might conflict with the decision they want to make.

I've fallen into this kind of behaviour more than once. Every time I did, I ended up regretting the decision. Often your emotions are in conflict with your intellectual side. While some people say "go with your heart", when you reject your own analysis, you may find yourself further from achieving what your heart desires.

I think this might be an idea I picked up somewhere else, but I think the wording is my own.

Happy "Excuse To Be Nice" Day

This is a more positive thought than the two above. When I went through a difficult period in my life I made a vow to find an excuse to be happy every day, even if it were for only a few seconds. That was a big help to me.

Later I ruminated on how people will wish people a happy birthday. Why, I thought, don't we do that every day. No one really needs an excuse to be nice, but maybe if there were an "Excuse To Be Nice" Day, more people would be nice.

I think we can pretend that every day is "Excuse To Be Nice" Day.

Confidence in Uncertainty

A couple of the classes I took for my master's degree focussed on operational research. The title of a chapter in one of the text books was something like "Decision Making Under Uncertainty". Throughout my engineering career I found that the biggest technical obstacle was always uncertainty.

For most people, uncertainty is something that undermines confidence. As my thoughts matured I began to feel that I should try to see uncertainty was something that would give confidence.

It may not be a very realistic goal, but the fact is, you need to make decisions when you don't know everything that could affect your decision. This uncertainty can cause you to hesitate to decide, or even never decide.

The best approach I was able to come up with was to make your decisions with the clear understanding that they could be wrong. Then, you watch how the world unfolds. In time, it will often become obvious if you made the right decision. If you make the wrong decision, you may be able to change your decision, or mitigate the effects of the wrong decision.

I found many people were very uncomfortable with this view of reality.

When I started to write this blog post, I believed that these ideas were all unrelated to each other. After I reread what I wrote, I think they may have more in common that I thought.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog