Thoughts

Well, it is October, so I have a month to consider if I want to do the NaNoWriMo thing. If I do, then I want to have a chunk of the setting set out before I start. I'm planning on using my Earth's Empires setting, somewhere between the first wave of slower than light colonization and the collapse of the first Terran Empire. Here's a rough timeline of that era:


2226-2242 Spaceways Unlimited constructs forty automated Interstellar probes and 8 colony ships. The probes mass low enough to use gravetic propulsion. They use a bussard ramjet style fuel collection system. The Probes are launched in 2230, and each one is set to visit two star systems. The Colony ships are waiting for destinations. They are used as long term closed systems laboratories in the interim.

2227 the survey ship arrives at Alpha centauri

2232 The survey ship reports no habitable planets around Alpha Centauri. They are continuing on to Epsilon Indi, an estimated trip time of 21 years.

2251 the survey craft arrives at Espilon Indi

2250-2300 the probes begin reporting in. 80% report on their first star, 50% report on their second star.

2250-2300 Colony ships begin launching.

2263 The Survey Craft reports that Epsilon Indi has a habitable planet, and that they have decided to colonize. They claim the world in the name of Spaceways Unlimited.

Launch Dates (when a probe arrives at one of these systems, a colony ship is launched directly to it within a year):
2257 Epsilon Erandi Probe 7, 10.5 LY, .5C, 21 years

2260 Tau Ceti Probe 1, 11.9 LY, .5C, 23.8 Years

2264 Epsilon Indi (More colonists + Supplies) 11.83 LY, .5 C 23.66 years

2265 Procyon 2 Probe 21, 11.41 LY, .5C, 22.82 years

2277 Van Mann’s Star Probe 1, 14.37 LY, .6 C 23.69 years (While a probe did pass near this system, colonization was accidental, the result of a malfunctioning fusion plant. VM’s Star is a white
dwarf, a star past the end of the main sequence.)

2278 Sigma Draconis Probe 3, 18.81 LY, .68 C, 27.66 years

2278 Delta Pavonis Probe 28, 19.92 LY, .7 C, 28.46 years

2284 82 Eridani Probe 21 19.77 LY, .7C, 28.24 years

2320 First contact with Aldoni Trade Craft.

2325 Terra buys 45 Blacbox Hyperdrives, 33 of those are bought by Spaceways Unlimited. Limited to travel within a 20 LY sphere of Terra. Granted “Protected Culture” status as long as humanity remains within a 20 light year sphere.

2326 a Spaceways Unlimited Research facility is destroyed. They were trying to open one of the Aldoni Hyperdrives.

2345 Now all five Spacefaring races in the region are known to humanity.

2350 Humanity now possesses 200 planets within 20 lightyears of sol.

2355 All Spaceways Unlimited colonies are given independence on the condition that they use Spaceways craft for all of their transport. Spaceways is essentially the banking system of the human sphere. They are the major Exchange interface with the outsider races.

2400 Humans build proto-type Hyperdrive

2420 First long range hypercraft launched

2420 Aldoni warn humanity about coreward deadzone, a sphere with a radius of approximately 15000 LY where the Hyperdrive doesn’t work. It was created by one of the elder races before any of the current races were more than bacterial scums on CO2 worlds.

2440 Humanity now spans nearly 550 worlds.

2440 Sarthaki demonstrate the pleasures of protected society status by taking three human fringe worlds.

2440-2460 First Interstellar War. Humanity loses almost half of its worlds.

2460-2480 the weakened Terran League licks its wounds and begins rebuilding. Human Intelligence begins infiltrating the captured worlds in order to gain and edge on the Satharki.

2480-2620 Humanity fortifies its worlds, begins to spread again, several important Sarthaki tech are stolen, The Terran League becomes the Terran Empire

Year Zero of the Empire, The Terran Empire is recognized by all of the interstellar races but the Sarthaki. The Sarthaki respond to the declaration of the Empire’s borders by taking three new worlds. At the third world, the Imperial fleet shows up in time to stop the attack. With the blunting ot the Sarthaki Aggressive, they Aknowledge the new human government.

Year 0-15 Hostilities are mounting between the two races, and several disputed systems are patrolled by ships from both fleets.

Year 16 the Terran Warship ISS Justice comes upon a Sarthaki Heavy Taskforce preparing to bombard one of their captured colonies to suppress a local rebellion. The Justice’s captain opens fire upon the four superior ships, managing to destroy three before it is destroyed itself. The Sarthaki destroy all of its life pods and bomb the colony anyway. Both empires declare war on each other within 2 weeks.

Year 16-125 The Second Interstellar War

16-35 the various fleets Jockey for position

35-120 The war is fought mostly by fleets in planetary space. The worst fighting of the war occurs during these years. The Terrans manage to recapture nearly 200 of their stolen worlds, leaving only 20 in Sarthaki hands. The Sarthaki Fleets retreat back to their decreased borders.

120-125 The Terran fleets begin their assaults on the last Sarthaki held human colonies. To the horror of the fleet, as the Sarthaki retreat they use nova bombs on the planets they were defending. Only three of the 20 worlds are saved. 12 Sarthaki colonies are captured within the recaptured region.

125-600 The Terran Empire rebuilds and begins expanding into unclaimed space. Scientific missions are sent to the Deadzone. Humanity possesses 1200 worlds in a sphere roughly 100 LY in radius. Confrontations with the Sarthaki are usually bloody, but never quite break out into war.

605-610, the Third Interstellar War. This time the Sarthaki attack another empire and humanity sends its fleets to help ward them off. Their attack is stopped before they can capture even one planet.

600-800 The worlds colonized by humanity are maturing, and several gain independence. Several small governments form, all of which maintain close ties to the Empire. Several Alien worlds Join with the Empire.

800-1100 The Empire and the Sarthaki make peace, humanity continues expanding, the only race not to have worlds as members of the Empire are the Aldoni.

1106, The 4 races form a Confedration

1110, the Aldoni dissapear, scout ships bring back tales of smoking blasted cinders where their worlds used to be.

1112, the Horde begins its invasion of the Confederation.

1113 Things aren’t going so well. A few Aldoni refugee craft make it into Confederation space. They say that the Horde was one of their greatest enemies 20,000 years ago. They had thought them defeated and confined until they rose again to destroy them.

1118 The combined might of the four races along with the technologies of the Aldoni are managing to hold the Horde back, barely.

1119 there is a great massing of the Horde fleet, a push toward Terra. The confedrate fleet falls back before it.

1120 The Horde Fleet arrives within 4 light years of Terra and prepares for a final Jump. Humanity Sends its allies away, tells them to get outside of a 75-lightyear radius of Sol.

1120 Immediately after the Horde Fleet Jumps, Terra broadcasts a warning, saying that a new Dead Zone, 75 LY in radius is about to form. They estimate that it will be stable for no more than 300 years.

1120 The Deadzone Forms Most of humanity falls silent. The Horde Fleet is nearly Destroyed, but both races must rely on STL tactics.

1120-1420 The worlds on the rear side of the Deadzone lose contact with everyone

Tomorrow/Today I'll start working on things like descriptions of all five of the space fareing races (not the Horde) and other similar things as well as throwing out story ideas.

product acqusition traces lead to <lj user="guipago">

X.x Basics x.X
[ Name ] Michael Guthrie Phillips
[ Nicknames ] I have answered to a hundred names, and will most likely answer to a thousand more.
[ Screen name ] voxpopuli42, Eliz Thann, ronin_kakuhito, voiceofthepeople
[ Birthday ] November 23, 1979
[ Age ] 24
[ Astrological sign? ] Sagitarious, I believe. I'd have to look it up.
[ Chinese zodiac sign? ] Goat, I think.
[ Religion ] Devout Agnostic
[ Status ] Single
[ Eye color ] green/brown bordering on hazel. With speckles sometimes.
[ Height ] 5'10"
[ Shoe size ] 12 or so, depends on brand
[ Parents still together? ] Not for years and years.
[ Siblings? ] 2 half sisters, one half brother
[ Nieces/Nephews? ] one of each
[ Kids of your own ] nada
[ Grandkids ] even fewer
[ Pets? ] Yes, A chocolate lab, a purebred mutt, the dumbest cat in the world, and three fish. I usually have more fish.

[ What do you drive? ] Don't.

X.x Favorites x.X
[ Color ] Deep and dark ones, reds, blues, purples, blacks.
[ Number ] eh? No idea
[ Animal ] Large dogs
[ Vehicle ] Anything that'll get to LEO. From there, you're half way to anywhere.
[ Flower ] the little ones that live on the margins, the ones that pop up first or that die last, the ones that come back and spread no matter what you planned.
[ Scent ] An old forest in the misting rain.
[ Soda ] Diet Coke
[ Book ] depends on the day of the year. Snow Crash or the Moon is a Harsh Mistress or any one of a dozen others.
[ Song ] Happy Phantom today, who knows tomorrow.
[ Cd ] I like the Armitage III sound track, REM's Document 5, BNL's Stunt, Amos' Little Earthquakes, any number of others.

X.x Do you... x.X
[ Color your hair? ] nope
[ Twirl your hair? ] seldom
[ Have tattoos? ] nah
[ Piercings? ] no
[ Have a boyfriend/girlfriend/both? ] nope
[ Homework? ] I wish
[ Like roller coasters ] yeah
[ Wish you could live somewhere else? ] Yes.
[ Want more piercings? ] not at the moment
[ Like cleaning? ] gah, no
[ Write in cursive or print? ] I type.
[ Carry a donor card?] Yes
[ Swear a lot? ] occasionally, but not as a general thing
[ Own a web cam? ] nada
[ Know how to drive? ] the state thinks I do
[ Diet? ] *looks at gut* well, I should be, but no.
[ Own a cell phone? ] No
[ Ever get off the damn computer? ] In recent experience? No.
[ Hablar Espanol? ] No. Watashi wa nihongo ga amari jouzu dewa arimasen.

X.x Have you ever.. x.X
[ Gotten a speeding ticket? ] no
[ DUI? ] no
[ Been in a wreck? ] several, only the one on the bike was my fault or even with me in controll of one of the vehicles.
[ Been arrested? ]never been caught
[ Been in a fist fight? ] one or two
[ Kicked someone in the nuts? ] nah.
[ Stolen anything? ] nope
[ Held a gun? ] Yes
[ Drank? ] Yes
[ Been so drunk you couldn't remember your name? ] nope
[ Considered a life of crime? ] daily
[ Considered being a hooker? ] no
[ Cheated on someone? ] nope
[ Been married? ] No
[ Cried over a girl? ] Yes
[ Cried over a boy? ] no
[ Lied to someone? ] Yes
[ Been in love? ] Yes
[ Fallen for your best friend? ] Yes
[ Made out with JUST a friend? ] no
[ Been rejected? ] who hasn't?
[ Been in lust? ] really now, I'm a guy. of fucking course.
[ Use someone? ] try not to
[ Been cheated on? ] no
[ Been kissed? ] a time or two

X.x Now x.X
[ Current mood ] centerd
[ Current music ] the hum of my case fan
[ Current taste ] salt and sunflowers
[ Current hair ] short, brown, inbetween straight and kinked.
[ Current annoyance ] words
[ Current thing I ought to be doing ] putting words in order
[ Current windows open ]Trillian, Gmail, Schlock Mercenary, Live Journal, Live Journal (on mom's computer so I keep the window count low. hers crashes too much.)
[ Current desktop picture ] ranma and ranma-chan
[ Current favorite band ] hum, no idea
[ Current book ] Broken Angles
[ Current cds in stereo ] Venus Still Orbiting
[ Current crush ] no one at the moment.
[ Current favorite celeb ] Wil Wheaton all the way.
[ Current hate ] I try to avoid that. Hate means that the person matters enough to hate, and anyone I'm going to hate isn't going to matter to me.
[ Current job ] Substitute Teacher/Writer

X.x The last time x.X
[ Last book you read ] Altered Carbon
[ Last movie you saw ] Riddick Chronicles maybe?
[ Last thing you had to drink ] Diet Coke
[ Last thing you ate ] Sunflower seeds
[ Last person you talked to on the phone ] Sherri Mattson, one of mom's priests.

X.x Do you x.X
[ Do drugs? ] nah
[ Have a dream that keeps coming back? ] no, I wish
[ Play an instrument? ] trumped, but I'm really rusty.
[ Believe there is life on other planets? ] Well, duh
[ Remember your first love? ] yeah
[ Still love him/her? ] probably, depends on your meaning of love
[ Read the newspaper? ] rarely
[ Have any gay, lesbian, or bisexual friends? ] well, yeah, no shit, I have more than 10 friends.
[ Believe in miracles? ] nope
[ Believe it's possible to remain faithful forever? ] Yeah
[ Consider yourself tolerant of others? ] unless I'm bored
[ Consider love a mistake? ] nope
[ Have a favorite candy? ] either Andys mints or Symphony Chocolate Almonds and Toffee
[ Believe in astrology? ] nope
[ Believe in magic? ] nope
[ Believe in God? ] neutral against
[ Do well in school? ] usually
[ Go to or plan to go to college/University? ] got one degree, hoping for at least one more
[ Wear hats? ] only my bamboo pesant's hat
[ Hate yourself? ] nope
[ Have an obsession? ] several
[ Have a secret crush? ] none active

X.x Love life x.X
[ First crush ] Jasmine, 1st grade
[ First kiss ] a ways back
[ Single or attached? ] single
[ Ever been in love? ] yeah
[ Do you believe in love at first sight? ] nope
[ Do you believe in "the one?" ] nope
[ Describe your ideal significant other ] I have no ideals, merely things to avoid. She definately needs to be her own person.
[ Have you ever played a game that required removal of clothing? ] not that I remember
[ Have you ever been intoxicated? ] Yes
[ Favorite place to be kissed ] no particular favorites
[ Shy to make the first move? ] yeah

X.x Word association x.X
[ Rock ] garden
[ Green ] grass
[ Wet ] day
[ Cry ] tear
[ Peanut ] butter
[ Hay ] fields
[ Cold ] days
[ Steamy ] towel
[ Fast ] seconds
[ Freaky ] moi?
[ Rain ] mists

Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.

Which cult classic badass are you? by rook901
Name/Username
Sex
Favorite Eating Utensil
You are:
Quiz created with MemeGen!

and also

Hey, it's Banned Book Week
*edit*
from
Top 100 banned (or challanged) books.
I've bolded the ones I've read for various reasons.

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel (I read the first three and part of the fourth. No plot after number two.)
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell (yeah, actually, in a highschool lobrary, a text with that much info on how to get yourself blowed up in the kitchen is maybe a little questionable)
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras Hee, I brought that to school and shared it.
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What? by Mem Fox
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford (I so missed the itty bitty titties in this one)
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Stuffes mark X

I just reread the second set of three Valdemar books. Well, mostly. I did skip most of the flashbacks, but other than that I read them.

I'm currently in the middle of Richard K Morgan's Altered Carbon. Sort of a cyberpunk detective novel. Not bad, but for parts of the plot to work he had to set it too far in the future. Some of the technology is not at all advanced enough. (Biggest danger about writing science fiction more than 20 years in the future, the odds are that in day to day technologies you are going to way underestimate their advancement.)

*Edit*
It has a flying whorehouse called "Head in the Clouds" There is no way in hell I could have pulled that off in my writing.

continuation

So, on the 25th I wrote that I'd write more today.
Last thing on the bad list was that my Grandfather has been brought to the Hospital with some sort of leg problem that they were initially calling celluitis. Not sure what it is now. He was in ward one of the icu which is where they put the folks who they figure they may need to operate on immediately at some point in order to save a life. Had the man on morphine. When he became pseudo-stabilized they kicked him out because he is too noisey. I suspect that isn't groaning and moaning, I suspect that it is griping and bitching. I would have mentioned this on the 25th, but my sibilings didn't know, and I didn't want to ask Vanessa to not tell Brie since the entry could wait. Well, he isn't getting worse at least.

Oh, and I now have a sunburn on my scalp, under my thick brown hair. I hate the god damned glowey sky-orb.

So, three days in the sun and I finally have a bit of a sunburn. Oh well. Obnoxiousa part is that I tan red and I burn the same color.
Hung out with Vanessa for a while. She's my little sister's best friend. She got to rant about the vapidness of her age group, especially her sister and sister's friends, and I got to listen to someone talk who wasn't the voice in my head. (She didn't complain the whole time, or even most of the time, but sometimes a good long gripe is therapudic. That's part of why I keep this journal.) Good kid, she is. (She's too old to be a kid, but then I occasionally call people as much as a year younger than me that, so she has to stand in line to claw my eyes out over that one. Eva has dibs.)

I had sesame chicken last night for dinner and general tso's chicken for lunch today. Mom thought both were quite spicy. Not really. Maybe a B-dubs level three or less. I am considering asking if they can make it extra spicy next time.

Didn't get a funnel cake, even though I was sorely tempted. I didn't decide not to because of health issues (though I could afford to drop an awful lot of pounds) but because they are four bucks now. 4 dollars for 30 cents worth of flour water oil sugar and salt. No skill involved in preparation. *Sighs*

Went to the booksale again, got more books, nothing wonderful, but it was a buck a bag. Waited outside the library with Vanessa until her mom showed up to get her. It is just one of those things you do, sort of like never letting a girl walk alone across campus at night, no matter how much you just want to go to sleep before you forget the O-chem that you two just sent 5 hours cram.. studying.

JET Applications became avaliable yesterday I believe. Need to do something about that.

More things to say, not enough recent hours of sleep to remember what they are.

hee hee mumble

Well, some good and some bad.

Good:
Art Show mom's in went well today. We cleared booth cost plus some.
Went to library sale. I spent three dollars and ten cents. Backpack wasn't uncarriable after that, but it is a small backpack. (11 books, most big.)
Had a Wendy's Bacon Cheesburger and Fries ('cause Howard Taylor's web journal reminded me that wendy's has the best fast food burgers in my town.
The friend I had a fight with, well, things are better now. Not bestest, but better.
Did I mention buying books? I did, huh? Oh, well I bought some books.
I went to Staples with mom today. I was going to buy three sets of one hundred blank white index cards with which to play 1000 blank white cards, but mom bought them for me instead. I also saw a spindle of 100 cdrs for 14 dollars, a spindle of 25 dvd rws for 15 dollars, and a DVD RW Drive for 80 bucks after mail in.

Neutral
I'm still making freaking lists.

Bad
No one to play 1000 blank white cards with.
Library sale didn't have half the selection that it did last time. Or more accurately, it had a selection, just not of anything I want.
Forgot completely to get a frosty to use as french fry condament.
No money for CDrs, DVD RWs, or DVD RW drive.
Missed chance to eat fast food ish Chinese
Backdrop to friend and I making up is her having a similar arguement with other people in her journal. Which really sucks and I can't do anything about it. I really wish the topic didn't upset her as much.
One other thing that I'll talk about monday that fairly heavily weights the bad side.

Well, good night and peace all.

As always,
Michael

about my last entry, the line about pseudosocial contact... yeah edit that to five people. Every time I list the three people I'm talking about I get a different set which implies to me that I left some out.

Hum... (expanded as of the next day)

Words are an all together inadequate method of expressing thoughts.
That's (of course) not exactly what I mean, but it will stand in for the moment. After all there are a shitload of thoughts that can be adequately expressed in words like "Hey, let's get some pizza" or "I need to pee, tell me where the bathroom is" or "Why don't we get drunk and screw?" (Two points for the first person to tell me where that's from without looking it up.)
On the other hand, other thoughts are so involved in the conceptual matrix surrounding them that there is no way to really get them across in words. Sort of sucks, that.
For example, I have four things I want to write about here, and the connections between them are important, but putting them into words strips away the connections.
1. I've just spent two days subbing at a vocational highschool.
2. I've been thinking about the methods and requirements for colonizing star systems other than our own under a particular set of restrictions and I wish I knew more people who would be interested in that who were online more often.
3. I've come to realize recently that entirely too much of my pseudosocial interaction is with exactly three people, none of whom I've been able to communicate with very much recently. Oh, and missing that is rather distressing, even when I'm regularly around other people.
4. Actually I thought I had four, but it looks like three, but in light of the last one, I've come up with a partial answer to the question asked by several of my friends "Doesn't it get boring there without anyone around (excepting my family, of course) and how do you stand it?
(Answer to number four is No/Yes, and another one of those concept thought things that doesn't transfer to words well. I was thinking maybe it was Yes/No, but I'm fairly certian that the answer really is No it doesen't except when it does, not yes it does occasionally.)


I'll try to finish this thought tomorrow.

Well now it is tomorrow and I'm not a lot more sure where I'm going with this than I was last night. I've started to try but it just isn't working right. I reread what I've written and it focuses on the themes too much without giving a feeling for the (perhaps more important) connections and subthoughts that are part of this. There lies the problem with linnear forms of communication, like language and especially writing. Problem is that all of the alternatives are just as bad if not a lot worse outside of their specific realms of competence. I guess the biggest problem is that concepts are nonlinnear, though the thoughts that we use to express them come about in a linnear fashion. Though as a thinker, I am bound by time to have the thoughts in some sembelence of a linnear order, I am aware that in a conceptual matrix many of the concepts that come later when I talk about a thing were already there before I became aware of them by focusing on them, that if you remove them they leave a hole in the set of thoughts that from the first step would have brought the conceptual framework into a different shape. And before someone starts talking about circular justification/regression, I want to mention that it is completly acceptable. It is like a bamboo sphere. You can get bamboo skewers from the store and weave them together to form an inclosed space. It can be rather tricky to do so and most likely you'll end up using more of the little bamboo poles than is absolutely necessisary, but you can build a structure that is entirley self supporting, one that if you remove a given piece will fall apart, or at least start to unravel. (Damn, I wish I had thought of this when I was taking epistemology, I think it would have been a useful analogy when we were talking about justificatory structures. I bet I could have even built a meshwork.) When you are done, you have a structure that is made up of many discrete units, each of which interacts with all of the others, even though one in the front never contacts one in the back. (By the way, closed sufaces are much harder to create than open surfaces like a meshwork fence.) I've been working on trying to come up with a method of presenting ideas in a similar manner, where the entire idea is visible from the first while allowing an indepth analysis to start from any part of the structure.
I'm done now. Bye.

a shirt

http://www.zestuff.com/product.php?productid=19&cat=0&page=

stuff

I need a word. Below, I've used angry and upset and possibly other words, but none of them are entirely right.
I was going to post last night about being upset with someone, but my browser crashed and I decided it wasn't worth the effort. Oh well, it really still isn't. Long story short, a friend of mine got mad at me over a difference in world views and decided that since I disagreed and my arguement was focused on logical errors in her arguement, I was ignoring her arguement and marginalizing her personhood. She decided to be pissed off (yes, decided, if you are over the age of twelve, you can decide to get angry or not) and I decided to be consolitary. It seemed to be pretty much the only non-inflamatory possibility at the time. Probably was, and due to the disproportional scale of her previous response, that is probably for the good, but there is a little problem. Ever since the event, I've been thinking it over. The problem is that while I seldom allow being pissed influence how I write or speak, except for effect, this has managed to make me rather angry. This wouldn't be a problem had I voiced it, had I answered her accusitions, but I decided to appologize for what I felt I could instead. Now, if I were like I wish to be, that would have ben it, and I would have been able to let go after I made a choice of actions. Problem is that I can't, and that makes me upset as well. If I were where I want to be, even if I were unable to completely forgive and forget, I would be able to accept that failing. Guess I'm not there yet. Oh, as a side note, I really have forgiven, but I'm still rather upset/angry/dissapointed/whatever the damned word is. Not a lot of upset, but some, and that bothers me.


On a completely different note, I'm runnign a deskop copy of TikiWiki on my other computer now. I had to download appache, php, and mysql to run the software so I'm running an isolated webserver just to run a wiki, but still it is pretty cool. I really like the connectivity (and I am aware that I could do it in html, but it is a lot faster with the wiki interface.)
I'm using it as an interconnected knowledge base for my writing. I'll be putting research for stories into it, information about story settings that are shared between multiple settings, personal writeups of information, all of that sort of thing. Of course before I get my computer back on the internet, I'll have to figure out how to keep this webserver thingy seperate from the net. Currently my entire protection is the fact that there is no phone cord (of course, it may not be set up to be accessed from the internet anyway, I don't know. While I was in the middle of learning to be a modern comoputer geek, I killed my computer and went a year and a half with only my 486. I never went back to learning how things work.

Currently I'm mostly just sketching out the eventual form of the database, but even now the connections are starting to gain form. This is very cool.

Heh, I've been trying to think of messages to embed in my writing. Nothing drastic, nothing so obvious that it will make what I have to say age poorly, but things and causes.
Pretty much all I've got at the moment is second wave feminists and relativists.

Astually I'm sure I could find other groups to speak against, I'm just being lazy.
Ooh, actually, append to second wave feminists all hardcore liberate-the-oppressed groups who won their battles and won't move on. Oh, and the relitivist/subjectivist factions of groups like the post-modernists.

And anyone in any of the humanities that are taught in english who complain aobut how hard their courses are. Yeah, I took your 400s, give me a break.

hum, any other suggestions?

*blinks*

This is something out of science fiction. Specifically Robert Heinlein's story from the early 1940s, Let there be Light.
It is a radio antenna for visible light. They mention that you could use it as an efficient solar electric collection system or to recieve light based radio. What they fail to mention is that every antenna is also a transmitter. You can hook these beasties up to a power source and give off light, probably at high efficiencies and lowe temperatures as well as extrememly long lifetimes.

gah

A while ago I brought you the story of a british reporter detained by our security forces.

Well guess what.

We aren't just abusing friendly foreign nationals anymore.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/09/17/Hillsborough/Tourist_s_crime_Totin.shtml

A fucking bookmark.

Our oh so wonderful peerless leader needs to step on the toes of his SS a little and get them to back the fuck off.

The funny

Okay, so I read Something Positive. Today's strip is part of a continuing arc where the main character is directing a play, but the funny is in the background art. Drew, I think you'll appriciate the soda machine.
the strip

Oh, and to top all of this crap off, I now have a cold sore. I really hate the fact that I get them about half the time when I'm distressed.

A ray of sunshine

I guess if I get to talk about the bad, I should talk about why the day was going well before then too.
Well today I went through my files on the other computer, searching for partial stories, things to finish or rewrite or just get ideas from. In my mind I had a bunch of 250 word stubs sitting there, mostly an introduction to settings. In reality, there were actually a number of the stubs, but the majority of the storylings are at least a thousand words long and have enough that I should be able to do something with them.
You know what, I wish that you could get away with writing a two or three chapter introduction to setting like in earlier days. I enjoy writing that part so much, but it just won't work today. A whole chapter on pea soup? No way. (Okay, so I never managed to read that far into that particular monstrosity.)
On the down side, I have two stories that I have a problem with. The first is just missing a funny line that I had put in there origionally and apparently cut. The second I had notes on paper for and they are now missing. I was still setting the stage and can't remember all of the plot I wanted to use.

Splat Whoosh

Today just went down the shit tube.
A friend of mine just got really pissed off at me and some how I doubt that an honest appology will do any good. It mostly works out to a radical deviation in our conceptual frameworks which happens to be in a region of particular importance to the other party. It probably wouldn't have happened if we'd been having this discussion face to face. First off, I would have altered the tone of my arguement to fit the other party's resonses. Empathy is much less effective in letters. Secondly she would have cut me off before I managed to dig a hole that deep and either rerouted the conversation to the things I left out or required an explanation of the things I said that she was upset about.
(See, I manage to burn the candle at both ends, both pissing people off with what I do say and with what I don't say. *sighs* A few of the people who read this know what I'm talking about. Believe it or not, I'm even worse in static formats like e-mail. Well, okay, John already knows that.)

Splat Whoosh factor 7 or 8 if I can be allowed to confine splat whoosh to personal effects. I think that is fair as good and bad thins are good and bad to different degrees ad differelevels of focus.
Splat Whoosh is the sound of fecal material striking the rotating oscillator. It is usually a metric of the impact of an event on world affairs, so pretty much any conflict on a personal scale has a splat whoosh factor of zero or one (okay, so assisinations of political figures can be a lot higher, but...)

On the other hand, on the personal scale, I may have just lost a friend. And perhaps worse than that is having hurt a friend unintentionally.

WhooT

There is a Live Action Aeon Flux movie in the works!

*shakes head*

You know what I miss most about school?

Homework.

Homework used to be the focus of my productivity.

I used to get more crap done while avoiding my homework than I can imagine getting done now.

It has been literally months since I've beaten a video game, but with homework, I'd beat twelve or fifteen a year.

Biggest strides I've made on the cookbook? Avoiding Homework.

Most research into interesting things? Avoiding Homework.

Beating Lego Junkbot? Avoiding Homework.

Going to the local used book stores, grocerie stores, and comic book shops? Avoiding Homework.

Practicing Japanese? Avoiding Homework.

the list goes on.

stuffes (edited, but not importantly)

Okay, things going on in my life.
1. I owe less than 100 dollars directly to Oregon State. This is not student loans, this is money I owe the school. This is a big deal because last year at this time it was nearly 2000 dollars.

2. I currently have 27 dollars and some odd cents. This is dreadfully short of the hundred dollars I need. I'm working on bridging the gap.

3. I've been playing Master of Orion 2. There are a lot of things I like better about that game as compared to the third. On the other hand, the fact that it hates NT and likes to stop working at random blows, as does the relitively small size of the galaxy.

4. In the above mentioned game, the racial trate "telepathic" is awesome. I believe that it gives you +10 percent on your spy rolls which is cool, but it also lets you take over planets without troops and without having to worry about little things like converting them to your way of thinking with alien management centers and the like.

Here's my racial loadout currently (you subtract point values):

10 points to start
Trellarian Picture (They are the most annoying race in the game, so I use them to get rid of them.)
Feudal -4 (this govenrment has few perks, but your ships cost 2/3rds what they usually would and if you research the advanced form they now cost 1/3rd of the normal price.) It does hurt research, but that is really only a problem if the Psilons are in the game.)
Research+1 +3
-20% Ship Attack -2 Tech fixes this.
-20% Ship Defense -2 You will be getting tech to take care of that.
A space academy cancels this penalty.
-10 Ground Combat -2 Don't really need it, tech and telepathy take care of it.

Creative +8 This is expensive, but damn it is nice to get all of the tech for any research tree.

Telepath +6 It improves diplomacy and spying, allows immediate use of captured ships, and allows the instant troopless capture and assimilation of enemy colonies. Oh, the spying bonus is the same as the 3 point spying trait.

Lucky +3 this is not a great ability, but I like it. It cuts antaran attacks and makes good random events more likely for you.

Omniscent +3 This ability lets you see all of the ships and planets on the map. With omniscent you never have to scout, you know when the opponents are massing, and you can target your expansion at special sites early on (like splinter colonies and artifacts worlds.)

Oi, I was going to talk about other tings too, but that will have to be for later.

A little something by Spider Robinson

I was talking to a friend and he mentioned Callahan's Bar. Got me thinking. Any of you ever watched the shuttle launch? Or even just a rocket carrying a satalite? I've watched a couple. Robinson has the best description ever:

Okay, you've probably seen film or video footag on TV. But if you haven't been to a launch, at least as close as the thousands of cars stacked up back out on the highway, you just don't know anything about it.

At first the world is nothing but horizon, endless ocean and sky, all of it still, tranquil, serene. Three-hundred-and-sixty-degree Spielberg, rich and vivid. Lazy clouds overhead, a flight of birds just visible gliding low over marsh flats in the distance, a few boats out on the water. The stillness is not perfect - there is the countdown bellowing out of those superb speaker horns, and there is the internal thunder of elevated pulse - but basically the world is as it has always been: at rest, indifferent to anything any of the scurrying ants on its surface might come up with.

Then Hell breaks loose.

A dirty white explosion spreads in all directions. At its center, beneath the stacked array, a Beast is born. It is mighty. And angry. Its roar shatters the world, splits the sky, echoes up and down the Florida coast and miles out to sea. You thought you knew what to expect, but this is louder. The sound is tangible, hits you with physical force, vibrates up your legs from the ground beneath your feet, scares the living shit out of you. Your first thought is that you are witnessing a disaster even more awful than Challenger: an on-the-pad explosion.

Then the Beast's two big brothers wake up - the giant solid rocket boosters - and Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and Limbo all break loose together and start to argue. The sound is indescribable, just short of unbearable. So insensate is the rage of this new Beast that the world itself will not have it. No matter that something the size and weight of an apartment building is sitting on its back: it lifts from the ground on a raving column of its own fury and rises impossibly into the air, becomes a thick growing tower of white smoke, the 128-ton Shuttle stack balanced on top like a Ping-Pong ball on the stream from a fire hose. The bonds of Earth can be as surly as they like: the Beast is surlier, shrugs its terrible shoulders, and slips them clean.

You realize that you are pounding your hands together and screaming 'Go, baby, go!' like an idiot at the top of your lungs, and you gather that everyone around you is doing the same, but you can't hear any of it. Part of you wishes you had control of your hands so that you could take photos like you planned to, and another part is amused at the audacity of the notion that this literally earthshaking event could possibly be squeezed through a pinhole and captured on a piece of celluloid smaller than a matchbook. Instead you watch in reverent terror as a utensil built by bald apes flings ninety-seven tons of metal and plastic two million miles.

With five live men aboard.

You can read about something like that, and see it on television, and spend a large portion of your leisure hours trying to imagine what it must be like and thinking about what it means, and you think you get it. You're a space buff: if anybody gets it, you do. And I suppose you do - as an intellectual concept. Then you go there and see it with your own eyes, feel it with your own bones . . . and are astonished to discover that only now, for the first time, do you really Get It. Until now space travel had been real to me in the same sense that World War II was real to me, or China: I'd been told about it and had no reason to doubt what I'd been told. Now I got it.

For two million years it had been only a fantasy, a monkey dream. For the first fifteen years of my own life it had still been only a fantasy, something a teacher or a scientist might laugh at you for believing in. For the next quarter century it had been a news story - one that seemed to bore most of my fellow citizens silly. But now it was reality - real reality; that is, the part experienced by me - and the two-million-year-old dream had really come true:

The species I belonged to had figured out how to climb the biggest tree there is. We were already becoming familiar with its lowest branches.

In that moment, I knew, as fact, with utter certainty, that one day we were going to climb all the way to the top. Nothing was going to prevent us. Not presidents, proxmires, press, public opinion, economic forces, or nuclear winter.

No, it could be delayed, but it could not be stopped. This was evolution in action, before my eyes. As surely as we had come down out of the trees, as surely as we had crawled up out of the tidal pools in the first place, we were going to do this thing.

Spider Robinson - Callahan's Key

Cookbook stuff

Hey, I just finished a little piece of the cookbook. It's just the equipment list, but anyone who wants to take a look and see if I left anything out, I'd appriciate some feedback.
I've selected the items below to provide maximum flexibility without taking up a lot of space or costing a lot of money:

Equipment List
The first thing that you are going to need is a set of cooking utensils. Since you are probably living in a dorm or an apartment with limited kitchen facilities and space, we’ve settled on a fairly small list of things that you should acquire. One of the main themes in this book is multiple use. The recipes in the first two sections can be prepared with no tools other than the ones listed below and all of the ingredients used are used in at least one other recipe. The final chapter includes a number of recipes that were too good to leave out, but which required tools that either were too big for easy storage in a dorm room or weren’t useful or cheap enough to include on this list, or the recipe needs ingredients that aren’t used in any of the other recipes.

Things to buy:
Pans and such:
Stainless Steel or No Stick Stir Fry Pan
1 or 2 Quart sauce pan, preferably one with a lid
Large glass or aluminum bread pan
Round Pizza Sheet, just a little larger than the stir fry pan.

Utensils:
Pairing Knife
Large wooden spoon
Plastic Spatula
Disposable bamboo chopsticks. You can use a metal fork too.
Measuring cup, either a wet measure one or a dry measure set.
Measuring spoon set.
Can Opener

Containers:
1 large plastic mixing bowl. This is also good for carrying things into the kitchen.
1 small plastic mixing bowl.

Miscellaneous:
Cutting board, either a flexible plastic one or a small one with a liquid groove.
Oven mitt or dish towel (I prefer the towel)
Sponge

Consumables (things you will run out of, not to eat)
Dish Soap
Zipper Seal Plastic Bags. I’d get sandwich and gallon sized ones.
Paper Plates
Aluminum Foil
Plastic Wrap (optional)
Wax Paper (optional)
Round Toothpicks (optional)

Things to borrow from mom or the dining hall:
Two soup bowls.
A couple of plates.
2 coffee cups.
Metal Forks.
Metal Teaspoons.

Things to save:
Brownie tins and pie pans from the store.
Glass Containers (like spaghetti sauce or pickle jars)
Butter and Margarine containers.

gah.

I've realized something. My brother thinks the prat fall is the height of humor. He spends countless hours watching bad comedic sitcoms, Fear Factor, and America's funniest video. Yeah, he's in like 8th grade. I was past that by then.