Dimensions of Office

Microsoft Office is a multidimensional suite of applications.

Word is one-dimensional. Its primary purpose is to manage the construction and display of a stream of words. It can include a table of contents, charts and pictures, etc, but those are only part of the display of the most important part: the words. Most documents, like books, go in order from start to end, although digital documents can have active hyperlinks to other parts of the work or even to online sites, like a string tied to various places.

Excel is two-dimensional. Its primary use is as flat spreadsheets that can construct diagrams and calculations. Each file can have multiple spreadsheets, but only one can be activated at once. Like a piece of origami, information can be linked to multiple places in the file or even to other files.

Powerpoint is two-dimensional in a different way. It organizes information as a linear set of screens, like a graphical form of Word. Then it displays the information over time when the presentation is run.

Access is three-dimensional. It can display data in two-dimensional tables, but it can also manage the input and output of data via forms and can combine data from multiple tables using queries to produce custom results. It can handle multiple users, but it usually does so sequentially. In that mode, it isn’t always stable, so it isn’t good for very large groups of people.

Outlook is four-dimensional. Email notwithstanding, its primary purpose is time management. It sends and receives messages over time through a server and manages meetings and events on calendars. Those messages are often for the purpose of tracking who needs to do what when. It also sends scheduled reminders and tracks tasks.

Sharepoint is also four-dimensional. It has most of the theoretical capabilities of Access, because it can simulate a web-based database. It acts as a server of information to any number of people, so its temporal dimension involves people adding or editing data over time. It can interface with any of the other pieces of Access to provide a unified place to organize information in any mode.

“Get Lamp” documentary event

Yesterday I traveled for over five hours to get to this event. Granted, at least an hour of that was the result of having missed almost every train I tried to catch, due to parking, train delays, or fare card issues. I only caught the final planned train, the 8:40 out of the city, because I ran like crazy for half an hour from the Google building back to Union Station, making it with four minutes to spare. I live in the suburbs, so this sort of thing is exactly why I don’t go downtown very often.

Despite all that, I’m glad I went. It was very inspiring to see the genesis and growth from the earliest machines that could respond to typed commands all the way to modern IF and the annual competition. Plus it was the first time I’d ever been in the same room with any of the people involved in this crazy hobby other than my father, who had been one of those avid players endlessly drawing maps and beating his head against the puzzles until he cracked them. Not that I actually got to meet anybody per se, but I was handed a flyer by I think David C himself.

And the chance to visit the Google building was itself something I didn’t want to pass up. The final inbound stage of the trip from standing outside the Google building to settling down to watch the documentary felt like being in an IF. A sample transcript of my experience might look like this:

Outside the Google Building
The building looms high above to the north, with the dark street extending off to the east and west.

>n

Reception Area
A huge reception area stretches all around, taking up nearly the whole ground floor of the building. A small desk with two receptionists sits along the north wall. The elevator bays can be seen in a hallway to the north.

>n

One of the receptionists stops you as you head toward the elevators. “Where are you going?”

>tell receptionist about documentary

“I’m here to see the documentary,” you explain, gesturing vaguely at the sign posted near the elevators.

She looks at you blankly. “The what now?”

>tell her about get lamp

“I’m here for the Get Lamp event,” you try to clarify.

At that her expression clears. “You want the eighth floor.”

>n

You pass through to the elevator bay.

Elevators
Elevators line this narrower area on both sides, each one with a call button.

>press button

You pick a button and press it to call the elevator, which you ride to the eighth floor.

Vestibule
This elevator vestibule is about the same size as the hallway on the ground floor, but it is capped at each end by a set of glass doors.

>x south door

Through the glass you see a cubicle area. A sign warns about having badges visible at all times.

>x north door

Through the glass you see a cubicle area that also looks playful somehow, with colorful decorations.

>n
(opening the door first)

Cubicles
You stand in a maze of cubicles, with exits northwest and northeast and a glass door to the south. The walls are colorfully decorated.

>listen

You hear voices faintly to the northeast.

>ne

Breakroom
You round a corner and enter a breakroom area, beyond which is a darkened area with rows of seating. Colorful chairs are scattered all around small tables.

>take chair. ne. drop chair. sit on chair

You pick up a blue chair.

Projector Room
The room is lit only by the glow of the video being projected on the east wall and the light spilling from the breakroom area. Pizza boxes cover the tables at the back. One wall displays “google” in large letters arranged in two haphazard vertical lines. The rows of chairs contain a few dozen people all intent on the video.

On the screen, the discussion is still about the earliest sorts of machines capable of responding to text. Maybe you haven’t missed much.

You quietly put down the chair at the back of the room to avoid blocking or distracting anyone.

Settling yourself on the chair, you begin watching the video along with everyone else.

*** You have won. ***

Refiner’s Fire: Christian fiction on the Civil War

I recently finished a trilogy of books, the Refiner’s Fire trilogy by Lynn Austin. I’ve read several of her books now, but this trilogy is particularly noteworthy because it is Civil War fiction, as well as written from a Christian perspective. The three books are loosely related, containing some of the same characters while giving an excellent picture of both sides of the war.

The first book, Candle in the Darkness, follows Caroline, the daughter of a wealthy Virginian slave-owner, as she deals with the effects of slavery on her black slave friends. She has to decide what side of the war to be on when the Union army approaches her town of Richmond. Betrayal and romance complete this engrossing book.

The second book, Fire by Night, tells the stories of two very different girls. There’s Julia, a wealthy Northern girl who is shamed into becoming a Union nurse and discovers her calling there, and Phoebe, a tomboy who, abandoned by her brothers, decides to join the Union army by pretending to be a man. Their stories eventually intertwine in what becomes a great story of compassion, romance, and mystery.

The third book, A Light to My Path, illustrates what being a slave was like through the stories of Kitty, originally called Anna, and Grady, the man who became her husband. They must deal with the whims of Claire, the spoiled daughter of the plantation owner, and the effects of the war and the Union army, including chances to escape.

I was actually inspired by this trilogy, and particularly by the third book, to write a tiny story called Cotton Blossom. It was submitted as part of a contest to write flash fiction, stories of 300 words or less. It’s slightly gimmicky, relying on a twist of meaning, but it was fun to write, anyway.

Adam Smith’s economics according to O’Rourke

I just got in the mail a shiny new book which I decided to wade into today. It’s a book called On the Wealth of Nations by P. J. O’Rourke, who seems to be rather more of a comedian than an economist, at least in writing. (Is there another name for that kind of writer?) The economist part is important because he’s basically giving a capsule summary (in two hundred pages) of Adam’s Smith’s massive book on economic theory.

One particular quote near the beginning caught my attention. O’Rourke says, “Productivity of every kind can be increased by specialization. And the specialization of politics at least keeps politicians from running businesses where their stupidity and ignorance could do even greater harm to economic growth.” (p 7)

The only problem with this is that politicians happen to be running the state, or nation, or whatever. If they do a bad job at running a business, well, that’s their problem and their employees’ problem. The bigger the business, the more of a problem it is. If the nation goes bankrupt though, that’s everyone’s problem. And you know what? The nation is already bankrupt, so I think we already have a problem anyway.

O’Rourke is amusingly sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek about the whole thing. This isn’t exactly a scholarly treatment of the subject, but it’s certainly an interesting one. I’ve only read through the first chapter, but I’m looking forward to the rest of it, and hey, maybe I’ll learn something along the way.  At a retail price of $22, while I paid about $8, it was a pretty good deal.

Suite101 new articles: Interactive Fiction

My goal of bringing interactive fiction to Suite101 will slowly be realized. I’ve got two of the articles about interactive fiction I’d planned written and submitted now. One is just a basic overview of the various commands that are used to play IF. I figured a more general article was a good way to start before writing more detailed and specific articles. Maybe I should have written more about the actual gameplay itself, but that really depends on the individual game, I think. Different games have different sets of commands that they rely on to carry the action, and it takes trial and error and reading the responses carefully to figure out what a game wants sometimes. Knowing the standard commands allows some experimentation, and from there more possibilities will usually appear.

The second one describes the results of IFComp 2006, with brief reviews of the top seven games. I played all but one of the games myself in the process of judging for the competition, so it was easy to write, especially because I’d already written fairly detailed reviews of all the games I did play. The one I didn’t play that made it to the top seven was The Traveling Swordsman, which was written in Hugo, and I didn’t end up bothering to get a terp that would work on Hugo games until the comp was already over. I should probably play it eventually. It’s supposed to be quite good.

Spring Thing 2007 is the next competition that’s coming up fairly soon. I’m planning on playing and judging that one as well, and writing about it at the same time. It’s a more difficult competition to judge, I think, because the games aren’t time-restrained the way the IFComp games are. Some of them can end up being quite large, in fact. But, there’s also much less of a chance of getting poor games, deliberately or not, due to the entry fee, so each game is worth it to play. I’m looking forward to it.

Fun with Xenosaga

Recently I’ve gotten into playing Xenosaga I again. Somehow, when I got it, I opened it up and played it for all of about six hours before putting it down and going onto other things.

I have no idea what I was thinking. This game’s fantastic. Sure, it has its flaws, but don’t they all? The PS2 has quite a library of really good RPGs now, but this one is definitely up there.

One of the best parts is the points system. There are no fewer than three different types of usable points for upgrading various stats and abilities for the different characters. It’s a very different system from Xenogears. The battle system, too, has more parts then the one in Xenogears. There’s the boost system, the turn wheel, the action menu, etc.

Sadly, one area where the system is simpler than Xenogears is in the deathblows. Part of the fun of Xenogears was trying different ever-increasing combinations to find all the different attacks. Xenosaga just provides them at regular intervals; no experimenting needed. Slight disappointment there.

Another good point is the way that previous areas can be revisited, in simulation at least. One big issue I had with Final Fantasy X was that it was so linear and you can’t go back to many previous areas. So if you miss something, sometimes it’s gone permanently. That’s much more rare in Xenosaga. The story may be linear, but usually you can go back if you’ve overlooked something. In fact, for some items, it’s necessary to go back.

And, finally, the graphics are extremely good. Comparing to Xenogears again, which had excellent cut-scenes, good battle animations, and decent backgrounds, but abysmal field models, the field and battle models in Xenosaga are both extremely detailed and beautiful, and they really match their still portraits as well. And the rendered scenes are beyond excellent. The whole game basically looks like an interactive anime.

Here’s KOS-MOS, the android weapon that Shion built to fight the Gnosis. Isn’t she pretty? She doesn’t have the wings during normal gameplay, but she’s still quite pretty. And much more dangerous than she looks, of course.

If it weren’t for the fact that it’s rather late already, I might consider playing a bit more tonight..

Suite101 new article: Angelic Layer

I decided that I had fun writing about Marmalade Boy, so I’d write another anime review, Angelic Layer this time. The anime section on Suite101 is pretty slim, really. There are some old reviews, and a couple of general articles by the guy who runs the Animated Film section, but there’s really not much there. If I write more about anime, I think I might write one about characters named Hikaru. There are several I know off the top of my head. There’s even one in Angelic Layer, Misaki’s Angel. There’s also the main character from Hikaru no Go; one of the main girls, Hikaru Shidou, from Magic Knight Rayearth; and probably others as well. Or maybe I’ll write about magical thief anime series. There are at least four I know about (Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Saint Tail, D.N. Angel, and Mouse).

I’ve actually got another project, though – bringing the world of interactive fiction to Suite101. :) I’ve already got two articles written and almost ready to upload, but I was inspired by an article about interactive fiction by the guy who runs the Video Games section. So I’m contacting him first to see if he already has anything planned, so I don’t interfere with what he’s doing. I hope he doesn’t have anything planned though, because I’ve got lots of things planned. :D I’m actually hoping that the staff might eventually make it a separate section, because I’m not convinced it really goes under video games. I mean, come on, text adventures? That’s like the opposite of video games.

Suite101 new article: Marmalade Boy

I’ve got another article up. I decided I wanted to polish the book review some more first, so I ended up writing a review of the anime for Marmalade Boy, instead. It can be found here: Anime Review: Marmalade Boy.

I’ve seen the whole series all the way through, but at one point, I was actually watching it raw, without subtitles, to practice Japanese. It was working pretty well, because I knew the story and all. Since I haven’t seen it in a couple years, and since my Japanese is rusty now anyway, it might not work so well if I went back to it now. I’d like to though, if I ever find the time…but Jeff’s wanting me to watch Eyeshield 21 for now, because it’s an anime about football, and he wants me to learn as much about football as possible. It’s actually a good anime, although I still don’t care about football. I guess it helps to understand it somewhat, anyway. If I watch enough of it, I’ll probably write a review of it too.

Suite 101 first article

I’ve just joined a writing site: Suite 101. My goal is to write at least one article per week, although the minimum for the site is ten articles in three months.

I’ve posted my first article today: Problems for Manned Mars Missions. It’s a discussion of various features of Mars that will be detrimental to the health of the crew on a mission there if solutions are not found to mitigate the effects. I mention things like the longer year and day, the cold, the gravity, and the dust. It’s something I could write quite easily because the senior design project for my major incorporates all of these things.

I’ve got another article ready to go already, a book review on a controversial topic, but I’m going to wait for a few days and see what happens to this first one first.

On a side note, it’s very cold here. :(