Eddie Izzard is going to be the next Dr. Who? Okay, that's... different.

Warning: this post may will probably bore you.

To avoid the problem I had last year, I decided to start researching and working out the backstory before the start of the 1,667-words-per-day torture that is NaNoWriMo. Probably a good move, as I've found myself getting mired in, of all things, economics.

The novel will be set on a generation ship, a slower-than-light interstellar vessel en route to a star system containing a planet suitable for human colonization. Obviously, with limited resources (and no natural resources), a radically different socioeconomic model will have to be set in place.

It is the ultimate job of everyone on board, crew and passengers alike, to reproduce, in order to maintain both a diverse gene pool and a specific population density. To that end, certain things must be guaranteed to everyone: food, living space, medical care, childcare, education. Such things are essential to the survival and stability of the community, so charging money for such things — and denying them to those unable to pay — would ultimately be detrimental in the long term.

Yet money can't be abolished altogether; humans aren't by nature altruistic. If the basic needs are automatically met, why would people bother to become educators, doctors, crew members — especially the more work-intensive jobs such as the mechanics and maintenance workers who keep the ship in top condition for hundreds of years? They'll have to have some incentive to work at such jobs. And though many Earth-based professions will suddenly become irrelevant aboard ship (realtors, architects, miners, automobile manufacturing, all of the agricultural-based industries, most resource-based industries such as oil and steel refining), there'll be other professions necessary in a population as large as I'm projecting (entertainers, lawyers, law enforcement, and so on). So anything above and beyond basic subsistence-level needs ("gourmet" foods, entertainment, literature, recreational facilities and so forth) should incur a cost to encourage the passengers to contribute work.

Some science-fiction authors have proposed "work units" as a basis for pay, with one hour of work resulting in one "wirr", "wu" or "credit", but I doubt the jealousy of the human spirit would make that workable. I think it's pretty unlikely that someone whose job involves a high degree of learning and skill wouldn't resent someone who gets the same pay for cleaning the nozzles on soup vending machines. So some jobs would pay higher than others, which would quite probably result in a class (or even caste) system. Which undoubtedly wouldn't lead to optimum conditions at the journey's end, when everyone will have to pitch in equally in order to establish the colony. So the "government" of the ship (probably the crew) would have to level things off somehow — preventing the inheritance of credits, for example — which would naturally lead to friction (or possibly worse).

Grrr. I don't want to make this a political novel, but even if the societal structure is relegated to the background, it'll have to be worked out. Hopefully it won't turn out as naïve as Marx's philosophy, which though it sounds nice and warm and fuzzy on paper, entirely neglects to take human nature into account.

On the other hand, utopian societies don't make for tremendously great storytelling. The trick would be to find a balance between using the pitfalls of an enforced economic system as a basis for storyline conflict, without being either expressly political or dry and boring (like this post).

According to this article, after John Paul II dies, the Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church will not strike him in the head three times with a hammer and shout his family name into his ear.

Furthermore, the Cardinals will not be cooped up in a cramped space until they choose a successor, with only a small hole in the wall through which to receive food; they'll have more spacious accomodations from which they will be transported to the Sistine Chapel twice daily to vote.

Over the weekend, I:

• Went to an SCA event on Saturday. It was one of those deals where the autocrat put me on the bid as the site herald without actually asking first. Since I'm the baronial herald, I felt obligated to do it, but I wasn't thrilled at the lack of basic courtesy. Spent part of the day holed up helping Karen review geometry for her GRE. Heralded court, and found myself wondering if I'd gotten caught in a time warp, as both the scrolls were dated anno societatis xxxvij rather than xxxviij.
• Cleaned up the house in anticipation of guests on Sunday. I'll admit it, my environs tend towards a bit of clutter. I didn't manage to tackle the kitchen table (which, like all horizontal surfaces in our house, tends to be a repository for miscellaneous items), but I got the computer room, the parlor, the den and the kitchen looking fairly good. Naturally, when guests arrived, nobody left the parlor, but at least the rest of the house is pretty clean. Now if we can just keep it that way!
• Went to Jasmine Thai for Karen's birthday lunch, with Sev, Lisa, Brian, Sid and Ken, where I was bad and had two glasses of Thai tea and didn't even think about how many points were in the Amazing Chicken (and yes, it is amazing). At one point, I was talking about something — I don't even remember what anymore — and my right thumb suddenly spasmed and every joint from the tip of my thumb through the wrist contracted and locked. That's only happened to me once before, but this time there was no apparent cause. I find myself slightly concerned.
• Went bowling with Karen, Sev, Lisa and Brian. I had a hard time keeping a grip on the ball, as my right hand still hurt from lunch. Karen beat me the first game (good for her!). It's been about seventeen years since I last bowled (and my muscles are still protesting their sudden return to now-unfamiliar positions). For the third and fourth games, I switched to a left-handed ball (though I bowl right) and my score improved by about 20 points.

Monday night was a waste; I watched a Battlestar Galactica two-parter that I'd taped from the SciFi Channel's BG marathon, then got sucked into the Stargate SG-1 Monday Marathon. Stupid cable TV...

Last night, a bunch of us went to see Gigantic at the Tampa Theater. Good movie, but apparently I was a bit harsh on John Linnell; that's just his typical live-concert demeanor, markedly different from his animated antics in music videos.

While waiting for the cops to arrive, I played around with Karen's new digital camera. This one is for Moira and Lory: The Leather Trenchcoat of Doom. With built-in leather turtleneck to keep out the chill Florida winters. Ha.

This one is to allay any suspicions that I've become any less of a geek: but you're a little geeky yourself if you recognize it.

I know a number of guys who own firearms. I guess, technically, I do too.

And here's a frog, which at first I thought was albino. I discovered it sitting on top of our garbage can; when I moved the can, it jumped onto the door.

Among my collection of instruments is an electric bass guitar. Due to my lute habits, I find it most natural to alternate between the thumb and index finger when playing runs, rather than using the index and middle fingers as most bassists do.

Last night, when playing somewhat enthusiastically, I broke off a corner of my thumbnail. Yeek. Time to start learning proper electric bass technique. And to start taking vitamins, perhaps.

Hooray, Rooster Spice is back!

With comments, even!

Three years ago, Karen and I married. I've said before that it doesn't seem like it's been that long, yet it seems like it's always been.

I had a big schmoopy entry written, but decided against posting it. I guess I'm just a private person. Anyway, here's to the best three years of my life.

There's an attorney in Tampa with the last name of Fee.

That goes into the file along with Dr. Smiley the dentist, and Dr. Cockburn the urologist. I wonder, do their names influence their choice of profession?

A couple of days ago, I got an email from the producer of a film. He'd seen some of my computer graphics work, and explained that they'd bitten off more than they could chew and needed people to do special effects for the film.

He mentioned some of the cast members attached to the project: John Astin (The Addams Family), Richard Hatch (Battlestar Galactica), Richard Biggs (Bablyon 5), Jason Carter (Babylon 5).

In return for my work, I'd get... (drum roll, please!) a credit on the DVD.

Sorry, but I'll pass. I wish him well in his venture, but I'm not going to put in hours of blood, sweat, toil and tears for nothing more than my name scrolling by at the end of a straight-to-video release. If it's not worth paying money for, do it yourself.

Out of the blue, a song jumped into my head, and it's been bouncing around in there for a couple of hours now. It's Johnny Cash's The One on the Right was on the Left, and the last time I heard it, it was playing on the 8-track stereo in the family car, and I was too young to know what the heck the chorus meant.

Where did that come from?

Well, the one on the right was on the left,
And the one in the middle was on the right,
And the one on the left was in the middle,
And the guy in the rear... was a Methodist.

Thanks to gamera_spinning, some more information on Longhorn.

The major features, and my reaction to them:

More system self-tuning, and not just in terms of the placement of tasks on menus based on how often a user selects a given option. Think of all menus becoming more like the Favorites option that would be applied to more than just Web pages;

Oh, yeah, that's just what I want — menus which change on me. I hope this can be disabled, because I know where items are in the menus; when I open up a menu I automatically move the mouse pointer down to the area where the item is located. If I have to hunt for it every time to find out where it's moved to based on frequency of use, I'm going to be severely pissed.

Better multi-monitor support, including support for displaying the Windows Taskbar across multiple systems simultaneously;

This would actually be a nifty feature, if I had the room for two monitors on my desk.

More explicit error messages, especially around copying/moving files and handling documents and digital media, in general;

Windows has been around for how many years now, and they're just now getting around to making the error messages explicit and (presumably) helpful?

Easier application installation;

Because double-clicking setup.exe is just so hard to do! (Personally, I don't want "easier application installation". I always choose custom setup, if it's offered, so I have complete control of what components are installed and where they go.)

More stringent user permissions. In the same way a parent can control a child's account via MSN 8 Parental Controls, system administrators will be able to use the latest Passport and security controls to lock down users' machines;

Observation #1: Microsoft equates end-users with children. Observation #2: Hey, have they fixed Passport yet so that crackers can't get your credit card information? Observation #3: While it was difficult, but still possible, for me to avoid signing up for Passport under XP, I'll bet it'll be required under Longhorn.

More self-healing and automation of daily operations. The ideal: Insulate average users from having to do any routine system maintenance tasks;

Apparently Microsoft considers end-users to be idiot children. I hope this can be turned off as well, so that people who know what they're doing can continue to set such tasks up on a specific schedule.

Better management of plug-ins and ActiveX components, beyond what is done in the system registry.

So are they keeping the system registry? (Worst "innovation" ever. I'd like to see an innovation where a clean system reinstall will preserve the application data from the system registry, so you don't have to reinstall every smegging application.)

I could have sworn I saw ninjas wearing Strong Bad masks in the preview for next week's Angel.