Tapped

I’m not sure if it’s positive or negative, but I’ve found myself with additional workload this term at the school.  It’s negative because it means less free time for me, but it’s positive because it means I continue learning.

I’ve been tapped as a learning resource down at the old college.  I’m not an official tutor; I had considered applying for that last term, for Introduction to International Business, but I never bothered going through with it.  This term I’m apparently covering a number of subjects, some of which I haven’t even taken.

Firstly, I’m doing some stuff with the International class.  Nothing particularly in-depth, but enough that it keeps it fresh in my mind.  I’m also tutoring three people in Financial Math (amortization tables FTW), two people for Microsoft Excel, one person for Entrepreneurship, and even one person in Modern History.  Funny thing: I shouldn’t even be in the Excel class, as I could have easily written a Prior Learning Assessment and gotten out of it.  I hate Entrepreneurship with a passion, as I have no particular desire to work 70-90 hour work weeks for limited income and the opportunity to watch my business tank within the first three years.  And I’ve never taken a college history course in my life; every paper I’ve discussed with the guy has done exceedingly well in the class, so it might be an idea for me to take it as one of my non-business electives.  Pad the numbers.

What’s the benefit of all this?  I get to feel smart.  Winning.

Wisdom

“A wise man can learn more from a foolish answer than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”     – Bruce Lee

 “Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.”     – H. L. Mencken

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things he has not, but rejoices for those that he has.”     – Epictetus

 “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”     – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Be as smart as you can, but always remember that it is better to be wise than to be smart.”     – Alan Alda

Easter Eggs

Easter eggs.  They’re where it’s at.

In working on this bit of writing I’ve decided to insert a bunch of these to make it a bit more interesting for the informed reader.  Besides which, it’ll allow me to add depth to the story; at least, it’ll allow me to add the illusion of depth.  I’ll be keeping a list of the eggs I drop into the story so that when I die someone can find my notes and everyone can remark on how terribly clever I was.

Thus far I’ve got but one juicy egg.  The main character of my story, and his cohorts, happen to be part of a numbered list.  They’re an odd bunch, these folks, so I’ve decided to do some odd things with them.  In this case, each member of the group will have characteristics based on what their number happens to mean in numerology.  Not that there’s anything terribly mystical within the story I’m writing, but I think it’ll be an interesting gem in the case that someone deeply involved in numerology happens to read my story.  I’ll probably send free copies to fortunetellers.

More gems will get dropped in there, I promise.  Each one a multicoloured wonder.

Iceland Explodes… Again

Damn, twice in just over a year?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13487858

This little country has some pepper, I’ll tell you what.  Last year a volcano I couldn’t possibly hope to pronounce (Eyjafjallajokull) erupted, knocking out air travel throughout a large portion of Western Europe.  This one isn’t quite as hot to trot, but it’s still imposed a relatively local ban on air travel.  Are the Icelanders concerned?  Doesn’t seem so.  I guess they’re used to pretty hillsides exploding.

On an obscure sidenote that I’m sure you all care very deeply about, CCP, the company that produces my favourite game, is an Icelandic company.  The game?  Oh, you didn’t ask?  I’m telling you anyway.  It’s EVE Online.

Internet spaceships are serious business.  So are volcanoes.

Preaching

“The nobler man first practices what he preaches and afterward preaches according to his practice.”     – Confucius

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tonnes of preaching.”     – Mohandas Gandhi

“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”     – Francis of Assisi

Kong Fuzi

More popularly known as Confucius.

Born in the mid-6th Century BCE in the Chinese state of Lu (now Shandong Province), Confucius was such a monumental figure that many of his philosophies were adopted by Chinese governments spanning multiple dynasties.  Even centuries after his death his wisdom helped guide the governing bodies of the Chinese states.  After his death his philosophy was codified into the form we know today, Confucianism.

While this body of philosophy does touch on esoteric realms, such as the afterlife and heavens, its primary focus is on ethics and how they apply to politics.  His ethical points focused on being an exemplary individual within oneself, regardless of the outside world, and one of the most famous of his proverbs has been transliterated into the Golden Rule learned by so many children in the West.

“Do unto others as you wish others to do unto you.”

The Ultimate Democracy

Spectacular!

I’ve found an old piece of work that I haven’t touched in an age.  The original draft that I had was submitted to a publisher, but not accepted.  Well, the three or so chapters I have so far.  It’s a bit hard-edged and graphic, but with a little work I can expand its scope and maybe take some of the more obscenely biological descriptions out.  It could be a good read, if I work it out properly.

The advantage to this is that I have a core idea, and that it fits within the framework of the themes I’ve discussed earlier in this section.  Being somewhat paranoid with my written word, it’s unlikely I’m going to post too much detail about it here, but we’ll see.  Hopefully I go a little feverish with it, because that’s when I do my best writing.

Time to brew some coffee and stack some smokes.  Winning!

Goldilocks

Not too hot, not too cold.  In fact, it’s just right.  This is an image showing what’s become popularly known as the “Goldilocks zone.”  In a given star system, based on the size and temperature of the primary, there will be a zone that is prime for allowing liquid water.  We think of this stuff as the elixir of life.

The number of exoplanets being found is incredible, and increasing every year.  Since 1995 five-hundred or so of these worlds have been found, though they almost never fall into the Goldilocks region of the stars they orbit.  With the technology currently available the best we can generally hope to find are extremely large planets orbiting very close to their stars.  To date we have found only a handful of planets that may be within the habitable zone of their primaries.

The astrophysicists aren’t the only ones having fun.  Us science fiction writers (or, in my case, wannabe science fiction writers) are loving it, too.  We can now create worlds that actually fit within the understood parameters of the universe, rather than making up fantastical places.  Not that making things up isn’t fun.  After all, it is fiction.

The genius of this is that, while previous stories were limited by the imagination of the writer, we now have all kinds of screwed up planets to pick from, along with the strange parameters they may fall within.

Historically, humans have thought like humans.  Strange but true.  The planets they’ve imagined are remarkably Earth-like.  Space opera is notable as an example; given that the genre is a story-driven one as opposed to a scientifically accurate one, I suppose it can be forgiven.

But what do we have now?  Well, we have genuine information.  The astronmers are filling up their databases with weird and wonderful worlds, and given the sheer volume of exoplanets thus far discovered, and the rate at which new ones are found, gleeful writers like me can cherry-pick the planets we want and simply write a story that matches the work that the real scientists have done.  Brilliant.  Expect to see planets with twenty-day years, or that never have a true sunset, or that do any number of other quirky things.  And expect it to all be viable within known science.

Astronomers, I love you.

Consistency

Another important part of writing a piece of work is making a coherent concept of the fictional universe in which you wish to couch your themes.  If the technologies, politics, and culture are not cohesive, the story will not be believable in any way.  Often times in science fiction you write things that are quite fantastical, but they become believable because of their internal consistency.  Frank Herbert’s masterpiece series, Dune, is a prime example of this.

So, I’ve begun piecing together some basic fundamental “laws” of the universe in which I intend to write.  Thus far I am very barely into it, with only the effects and repercussions of long-distance STL travel being down on paper.  It’s important to do this, however, because many of the things that are involved in such travel are also involved in other aspects of the universe.  Suspended animation, for instance.  How is it done?  How do the people recover from it?  Another would be the effects of long periods in a zero gravity environment.  What kind of things will it do to the human body?  These two tie together with a third concept: medical technology.  If you follow, you’ll see that ideas are interrelated, and internal consistency will make or break the story.  Hundreds of pages of notes, here I come!

On the plus side, keeping a record of notes such as these will not only allow me internal consistency in the thread of the story I am writing, but in any other stories based on the same conceptual universe.  The rules can be changed; humans may discover a method for FTL travel, as an example.  I will need the original notes to be fully aware of how that changes the way travel works.  Not only that, but I can then place commentary couched in dialogue between characters to highlight the differences, all while remaining entirely consistent within the body of work.

And I do mean work.  Damn, this is going to be a lot of notes.

Paladin