Pseudo Worlds

Watch it now.

I love Netflix because it provides me with a way to see movies that I would never have known existed without perusing a very large, very well-stocked dvd store.  Just now I finished Ink, which was apparently a sci-fi thriller.  I guess there’s no fantasy genre because that would have been more fitting, but then those two always get lumped together.  At any rate, this movie came out in 2009 apparently which makes me sad that I missed it.  I don’t know how popular it was, it seems like A Scanner Darkly which people either loved (like me) or hated (like my boyfriend).  Ink makes great use of makeup and computer effects as well as that neat thing where they make the film look like it’s skipping so a character walking across the room does weird little tele-hops in a terrifying fashion.  Fortunately there was a solid story to back those effects up and fragments of another world which you learn more of through the characters or by seeing glimpses of it.  One part of this world seems happy and idyllic while they other is cold and generally unpleasant and everyone wears a lot of black.  As for the story I got confused in some places, which could have been because I was working on “Kill K” at the same time, so I’ll be rewatching to see if what I didn’t understand the first time, falls in place the second.  I have to say that by far, the path finder dude was my favorite character.  That dude was fantastic.  And I actually liked the little girl, even though I don’t like kids and kids in movies usually aren’t interesting to me unless it’s Dakota Fanning.  But this one was very cute, and she had two great lines consisting only of “Roar!”

Go watch Ink, unless you’re a horrible person and didn’t like movies like The Dark Crystal, Labrynth, Pan’s Labrynth or Mirror Mask.  But in that case I don’t like you on principle.

More Steve Martin!  I actually saw the movie before I got to read the book so unfortunately I knew what was going to happen.  I’m trying to cut back on how much I say “the book was so much better than the movie” and I surprisingly don’t feel that way this time.  The thing about the book is that it offers a view into the minds of the characters who are complex and intricate and there’s no good way to do that in a movie without narrating or having the characters speak their thoughts aloud.  Fightclub almost got away with it, but it’s such an awkward thing to do that it didn’t completely fly.

Again, Steve Martin writes carefully and thoughtfully and it shows in his characters and the narration of the story.  Reading Mirabelle was fascinating.  Her full complexity didn’t come through in the movie for the reason I stated before, but on paper it was easy to relate to her and feel for her.  Not just a shy young woman, she truly doesn’t understand herself or the world she lives in and incorrectly believes that if she could find someone that loved her, everything would be resolved.  Really, she has to change and solidify herself before anything can get better, but through the relationships that take place in the story she does just that.  This is actually a major theme of the story: growing up or perhaps coming into your own.  Mirabelle’s foil, Lisa, became a sad favorite character, even though she was not major.  Her ideas about relationships and her own self worth made her tangible and made me care about her.  I had trouble relating to Jeremy, and I don’t think it was his writing but if he had been a real person I probably wouldn’t find him appealing in any sense.  Ray was another favorite, though there are so few characters that it’s a little pointless picking favorites.  He made sense, was logical but his hang ups were presented in a way that made him feel real.  Nothing felt as though he was created as a stereotype or a convenient plot device.

I mentioned that there are only a few characters that get much attention and this is what I like about Steve Martin’s writing: he focuses on a few lives, or even one life, for a brief period of time, shares it and then leaves it.  It’s like looking at a picture that captures one moment in time.  And there is nothing pushy about the ideas and lessons of his writing, merely an offering of them to look at, listen to and then tuck away in your brain so that later you might think of them.  I also have to say that if L.A. is as he presents it, I would be more willing to visit.

One last note: Shopgirl is a novella which means that it is a short novel.  It is not simpler because it’s short; there’s a lot to absorb and I imagine that this story should be reread later on so that you can refresh yourself and pick out new things missed before.

With that I’m finished praising Mr. Martin for a little while at least.

If you’re the sort of person that reads books that is.  Otherwise, wait for these to come out as movies.  In between working and playing Eve and rotting my brain on the internet, I’ve had the pleasure of reading two wonderful novels, The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin and Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See.  Steve Martin is one of my favorite authors so I was biased before picking up the book.  He has a neat way of writing, it’s careful and easy-going at the same time.  Despite the title, it’s not about a narcissist, which is what I figured at first.  Actually it’s about a very sweet and caring protagonist that deals with several neroses that command his life.  The thing I liked about the story was that it never delved into the psychology or psychiatry of his conditions to a point where it would weigh things down trying to explain them.  Sort of like Asimov never tried to write at length and in detail about positronic brains, Martin just presents the character and his behaviors and lets them mold the story because they are character restraints and so dictate the way he may or may not behave which makes everything that much more charming.  The protagonist goes through the story and interweaves his life with those of other characters, considers them, helps them and is in the end better for the relationships he builds with them.  By the time I finished the book, I felt happy and very content, and I really recommend it for people that like Steve Martin’s movies, especially those that he wrote the screen plays for.

Snowflower is a very beautiful story.  I will admit that I have a passion for Chinese and Japanese literature (I would say Asian but I haven’t read enough from all the Asian countries to say something that general).  Most basically, the story is about two Chinese women who are very dear friends, sisters really.  Yet as soon as I think of the story like that I have to mention a caveat: it’s not a story about these women changing the face of China or even the way their families view women.  What I’m trying to say is that it’s not a story shitting all over men and empowering women and rights and other feminist ideas.  It’s very true to the time and place and traditions.  The facts were that women were lowly and had to be obedient and were used and overlooked and treated without respect.  The story doesn’t try to go against any of these facts or bring up the protagonists as rebellious, fire-hearted heroins.  Their rebellions are small and quiet.  I think I’ve spent too much time on this warning.  My frustration with feminism as I know it is showing through.  Anyways, Snowflower is about an amazing friendship that carries on through the lives of two women and carries them through good events and bad ones (marriage, children, death, disease).  It’s sad at times but because of their love, these women are endearing to read about and it’s a powerful motif.

Hopefully my recommendations lead to someone going out and reading these books.  They are very well written and despite being very different, definitely worth adding to your library.  And with the way movies are going, will probably get turned into films sometime soon.

Because www.pseudoworlds.com is down…again, this will be it’s second home.  I’m looking forward to being able to ftp into the server to retrieve the files in there, as MMS also lives at that domain.  Because spacesocket has turned out to be a pretty poor host, I’m moving the site over here until I decide what to do next.  It really sucks but as I’ve said before, I know who runs this server and I can threaten him if it goes down.  How does the new theme look?  Awful?  I know, I’m not a designer.  Because I’m trying to do more in the way of development and writing down the road, I thought maybe an easier to read site would be better; white on dark background is a little eye straining.

In other news, MMS Chapter Third is about 64% done.  It’s been awhile but I look forward to being able to put it up very soon.  This is the first time I’ve drawn a fight scene and I have mixed feelings about it, but I think it’ll still be okay.  Kill K is building up a little momentum as well, though it’s become black and white due to my tablet dying.  With any luck I’ll be able to buy a new one not too long from now.

That’s it.

I just started doing Android development.  It’s a lot of fun and easier than it looks, probably because it’s just Java and anyone can do Java, right?  Disregarding the fact that no one in my “Learn to Program Java” class actually finished the final project that is…

Never mind that.  I decided to write up tutorials to achieve different things when making an Android application, partly so that I could better learn through writing out the process and because if you’ve never touched Android before it can be overwhelming.  Eventually I’d like to make a series of tutorials but I haven’t written enough applications to feel comfortable doing that, so it will be piece-meal for awhile.

Remember that you will need the Android SDK and an IDE that supports the SDK such as Eclipse to develop.  It can be downloaded at: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html.  If you find that these instructions are not in-depth enough, go to http://developer.android.com/index.html for official documentation.  Above all, have fun.

Going to a New Screen

This was more challenging than I thought it would be.  I couldn’t say why, maybe it’s my not being used to the language or not being able to keep track of the process of opening a new screen.  Because I had trouble with it, I decided to focus on it first and get it out of the way.  Making a new screen will also familiarize you with other parts of an application.

Open your IDE of choice and create a new project.  I named mine “learning” because I like to be straightforward.  If you use Eclipse you’ll find that your main class is automatically generated for you:

package us.lucky.learn;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;

public class Learning extends Activity {

/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
}

}

If you run this in the droid emulator you’ll see that it spits out “Hello World, <application name>” and that’s all.  That’s your first screen, which will load with the application.  So how do we get to a different screen?  To do this we will:

• Create a new activity
• Create a new layout
• Create a new intent
• Add a listener to take us to the new screen

To create a new activity make a new class under the same package your main class is in.  You’ll get more generated code.  That’s fine, let it alone for now.  You’ll need to tell the AndroidManifest.xml file that it needs to display more than one activity as well as set up an intent-filter.  In AndroidManifest.xml add the following lines, using whatever your screen is called for “name”:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<manifest xmlns:android=”http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android”
package=”us.lucky.learn”
android:versionCode=”1″
android:versionName=”1.0″>
<application android:icon=”@drawable/icon” android:label=”@string/app_name”>
<activity android:name=”.Learning”
android:label=”@string/app_name”>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name=”android.intent.action.MAIN” />
<category android:name=”android.intent.category.LAUNCHER” />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=”.NewScreen”
android:label=”@string/success”>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name=”android.intent.action.VIEW” />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion=”2″ />

</manifest>

I added a string here that will display when the new screen is reached.  As well as writing it in this file we need to go to res->values->strings.xml and add a new string.  I named mine “success” and set it’s value as “You are on a new screen, well done.”  Now that the activity and intent-filter is declared, we need to create a new intent which will store information about the activity we are going to next or the site that’s being opened and be passed to startActivity(). Go back to your main class and import a few libraries:

package us.lucky.learn;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.view.View;

public class Learning extends Activity {

/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
}

}

Then declare the intent and pass it to startActivity:

public class Learning extends Activity {

Intent nextIntent = new Intent();
nextIntent.setClassName(“us.lucky.learn”, “us.lucky.learn.NewScreen”);
startActivity(nextIntent);

Setting a class name tells the application where it needs to look to find the next class that will draw the new screen.  In this case it’s NewScreen.java in the us.lucky.learn package.  Now that the intent has that information it can be passed off.  The only thing left to do is create a button that will take us to the next screen.  The button will be a listener that waits for someone to click it before triggering startActivity().  Because the intent needs to be declared and set up before startActivity() can do anything we should wrap those lines up in a function.  Start by importing more libraries:

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
import android.widget.Button;

Then declare the new listener and a function that will fire when the listener is triggered:

private OnClickListener Listener = new OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
Intent nextIntent = new Intent();
nextIntent.setClassName(“us.lucky.learn”, “us.lucky.learn.NewScreen”);
startActivity(nextIntent);
}
};

Almost done.  Before we can run this we need to declare the button.  Go to res->layout->main.xml and add these lines:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android=”http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android”
android:orientation=”vertical”
android:layout_width=”fill_parent”
android:layout_height=”fill_parent”
>
<TextView
android:layout_width=”fill_parent”
android:layout_height=”wrap_content”
android:text=”@string/hello”
/>

<Button android:id=”@+id/Button01″
android:layout_width=”wrap_content” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:text=”@string/button01″></Button>
</LinearLayout>

And then to res->values->strings.xml and make a new string called “Button01″ with the value “Click Me”.  And now if we run the application we’ll see this:

Congratulations, you transitioned from one screen to another.  Thanks for reading the tutorial, please feel free to leave feedback and hopefully the next one will be better.