Filed under: Astronomy, BoingBoing, Connections, Fireworks, Galaxy Zoo, Humor, Religion, Saturn, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: astronomy, beer, black holes, BoingBoing, brewing, corvids, crows, explosions, Galaxy Zoo, humor, jim downey, Saturn, science, Science Fiction, space, St. Cybi's Well, video, wine, writing, www youtube
Some quick links, none of which really warrant a full blog post.
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Wanna be a black-hole hunter? Sure you do! The Galaxy Zoo folks have just launched a new project you should check out:
Black holes are found at the center of most, if not all, galaxies. The bigger the galaxy, the bigger the black hole and the more sensational the effect it can have on the host galaxy. These supermassive black holes drag in nearby material, growing to billions of times the mass of our sun and occasionally producing spectacular jets of material traveling nearly as fast as the speed of light. These jets often can’t be detected in visible light, but are seen using radio telescopes. Astronomers need your help to find these jets and match them to the galaxy that hosts them.
We live in the glorious future, where beer concentrate is a real, practical thing!
For fans of craft beer, enjoying a decent brew while hiking or camping away from the car usually involves lugging around heavy cans of beer, which can turn a lovely trek into a grueling slog through the woods.
But now the folks at Pat’s Backcountry Beverages have created a solution – their new Brew Concentrates come in featherweight 50ml packets and can be reconstituted with carbonated water (courtesy of their trail-ready 16-ounce carbonator bottle).
Well, actually, the past wasn’t so bad in some ways, either …
When you think of illicit substances that are shipped in brick form, wine probably doesn’t come to mind first. And no, boxed wine doesn’t count. During Prohibition, however, drinkers got around laws that banned alcohol by dissolving bricks of grape concentrate in water and fermenting them into wine.
Of course, conscientious makers of grape bricks didn’t want to contribute to bad behavior, and responsibly warned buyers that, “After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty days, because then it would turn into wine.” The makers of the Vino Sano Grape Brick even dutifully indicated what flavors one’s careless handling of grape bricks would result in: burgundy, sherry, port, claret, riesling, etc.
And a friend had to share this:
Via BoingBoing, this vid of a crow using a jar lid as a snowboard.
And also via BoingBoing, a bit of explosive seasonal fun:
I’ll leave it at that for now. I need to get back to work on St. Cybi’s Well. (Oh, and if you’re interested, I often post snippets from daily writing on the Facebook page, just for fun.)
Jim Downey
Filed under: Arthur C. Clarke, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Brave New World, Expert systems, Humor, Marketing, movies, Paleo-Future, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society, tech, TIME Magazine | Tags: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke, artificial intelligence, blogging, Communion of Dreams, HAL, HAL9000, humor, jim downey, movies, predictions, Science Fiction, Seth, St. Cybi's Well, technology
One with an ‘expert’ like Seth from Communion of Dreams?
Or maybe, a little closer to our own time, say one which includes something like HAL from 2001?
Ha! Sucker. You should know that reality would prove to be more … banal. And corporate. Like this:
The phone call came from a charming woman with a bright, engaging voice to the cell phone of a TIME Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer. She wanted to offer a deal on health insurance, but something was fishy.
When Scherer asked point blank if she was a real person, or a computer-operated robot voice, she replied enthusiastically that she was real, with a charming laugh. But then she failed several other tests. When asked “What vegetable is found in tomato soup?” she said she did not understand the question. When asked multiple times what day of the week it was yesterday, she complained repeatedly of a bad connection.
Over the course of the next hour, several TIME reporters called her back, working to uncover the mystery of her bona fides. Her name, she said, was Samantha West, and she was definitely a robot, given the pitch perfect repetition of her answers. Her goal was to ask a series of questions about health coverage—”Are you on Medicare?” etc.—and then transfer the potential customer to a real person, who could close the sale.
Hmm, I think I can still work “Samantha” into St. Cybi’s Well …
Jim Downey
Filed under: Augmented Reality, Brave New World, Civil Rights, Comics, Connections, Constitution, Government, Humor, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Privacy, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Terrorism, Writing stuff | Tags: augmented reality, blogging, comics, Constitution, Edward Snowden, government, humor, jim downey, Non Sequitur, NSA, politics, predictions, privacy, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, technology, Washington Post, writing
As I’ve noted before, it’s hard to keep up with the steady trickle of revelations about what the NSA has been up to, and how the reality of what has actually been going on keeps surpassing the dystopian aspects I have been writing about in St. Cybi’s Well. For example, here’s this passage from the beginning of the book:
He turned the hand-held on, did a quick check to make sure it had the software and apps he’d asked for. Everything was there. He’d pick up a burner phone later, and swap the SIMM card into the hand-held. He turned off the hand-held, dropped it into a special pocket inside his vest – one which was RF-blocked. He had another such compartment in his satchel. These, like the wallet/holster, were prohibited items and grounds for arrest in the States, but while they would raise an eyebrow in the UK they weren’t technically illegal.
With this item from yesterday’s Washington Post revelations that the NSA and related agencies are basically tracking every cell phone on the planet:
The NSA’s capabilities to track location are staggering, based on the Snowden documents, and indicate that the agency is able to render most efforts at communications security effectively futile.
Like encryption and anonymity tools online, which are used by dissidents, journalists and terrorists alike, security-minded behavior — using disposable cellphones and switching them on only long enough to make brief calls — marks a user for special scrutiny. CO-TRAVELER takes note, for example, when a new telephone connects to a cell tower soon after another nearby device is used for the last time.
Now, see, I was thinking I’d use something exactly like that as the ‘rude surprise’ which would trip up my protagonist later in the novel, since he wouldn’t expect that the NSA would have that level of data-collection ability.
*Sigh.* So much for my trying to come up with a dystopian reality …
And this is timely:
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Bad Astronomy, Feedback, ISS, Kindle, Marketing, Music, NASA, Phil Plait, Promotion, Science, Science Fiction, Space, YouTube | Tags: Amazon, Bad Astronomy, blogging, Communion of Dreams, feedback, ISS, jim downey, Kindle, music, NASA, Phil Plait, promotion, reviews, science, Science Fiction, space, video, www youtube
Yeah, what Phil said:
Stop whatever you’re doing (unless you’re performing brain surgery) and watch this astonishing and enthralling time-lapse video, showing the Earth from space using photographs taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station
Ahh …
Oh, there’s a new review up for Communion of Dreams. Here ’tis:
I rarely read sci-fi anymore, but this reminds me of the best I read when I was younger. There’s a lot of background on the worlds the author is creating, followed by a resolution to multiple problems in the worlds. I truly enjoyed it.
If you’ve read the book and haven’t yet gotten around to posting a review, please consider it. It’s a little thing that does more than just massage my ego — it helps others have some idea what to expect from the book. And every so often I do things like give away nice hand-bound copies of the book . Thanks.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Connections, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, Health, Hospice, Kindle, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, health, Her Final Year, hospice, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, literature, predictions, promotion, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writing
So, without a lot of fanfare I went ahead and scheduled a two-day promotion for the Kindle edition of Communion of Dreams the other day, as mentioned. After I posted something about it on Facebook, John Bourke, my primary co-author on Her Final Year asked whether we might as well do a similar promotion for the Kindle edition of that book. D’oh! An oversight on my part.
But, I think, an understandable one. Right now I’m focused on writing St. Cybi’s Well, the prequel to Communion of Dreams. So there’s that.
And there’s something else. This passage from a post last February sums it up for me:
I am frequently struck just how much of our life doesn’t make sense until seen from a distance. Just recently I was surprised at the revelation of *why* the failure of Her Final Year to be more successful bothered me as much as it did: it was because I had seen the book as being a way to create something positive (for the world) out of the experience of being a long-term care provider. To have the book only reach a limited audience was, in my mind, saying that our roles as care-givers didn’t matter.
Yeah, that. In a word: disappointment.
And when things disappoint, it is only natural to disengage somewhat from them, to not sink a lot of additional emotional energy into it. At some point you just say “well, OK, that’s done — time to move on.”
Except moving on isn’t always the best course, or even possible. John reminded me of that. So I went ahead and scheduled the promotion for Her Final Year to run the same time as the one for Communion of Dreams did.
And guess what? Her Final Year, for the very first time, did better in terms of the number of downloads than Communion of Dreams did. Not by a lot — just a dozen books — but still, it did better. Whereas in the past when we did promotions for the two books at the same time, CoD almost always did better, by upwards of a factor of 10. And for the first time, one of my books was downloaded through the Amazon Australia portal. Guess which one it was. Right: HFY. And I think that’s pretty cool.
Now, the numbers in either case aren’t huge. Just 271 copies of Communion of Dreams, and 283 copies of Her Final Year. But I find myself somewhat surprisingly pleased.
I hope you had a similarly good Thanksgiving holiday.
Jim Downey
PS: If you missed this promotion, don’t worry. For people who get new computers/readers/mobile devices, we’ll repeat in shortly after Christmas. And of course you can always just go to the links above and buy either book for only $3.01.
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Connections, Feedback, General Musings, Health, Hospice, Kindle, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, care-giving, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, health, Her Final Year, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, promotion, Science Fiction, Thanksgiving, writing
As those close to me know, I’m not really “into” holidays the way many people are. Oh, I’m happy to have an excuse to eat and drink more, to visit with family & friends, to relax a bit more than usual. And I can appreciate the rituals which surround the holidays, and how those rituals can give some definition and context for things. Marking birthday milestones. Taking time to remember loved ones and Veterans. Observing the change of seasons and acknowledging the passing of years. Giving thanks.
Those forms are important. I understand why holidays exist even unto this modern age, when everything seems to exist in a constant froth of work, commerce, and entertainment.
But it is easy — far too easy — to come to think of those holidays as things in themselves, rather than reminders. The meanings of the rituals are lost, and only the rituals themselves become important.
And there, I just did the same thing. I just fell into the ritual of bemoaning how holidays have lost their meaning.
*sigh*
What I want to say is this: thank you. Thank you for being family, thank you for being a friend, thank you for just reading my stuff. I try to remember to be appreciative for all this, and for so much more, to make that appreciation more of an attitude than a holiday.
Jim Downey
And a different kind of reminder: both Communion of Dreams and Her Final Year are available for free download today and tomorrow. Please help yourself and spread the word.
Filed under: Amazon, Connections, Constitution, Feedback, Humor, Kindle, Promotion, Publishing, Religion, Science Fiction, Society | Tags: Amazon, blogging, Christians, Communion of Dreams, Constitution, direct publishing, Edenists, feedback, free, highlights, humor, jim downey, Kindle, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction, Thanksgiving
I was scheduling a “free Kindle copy” promotion of Communion of Dreams a while ago, and as part of that I was poking around a little deeper into the Amazon ratings/rankings/comments. Something they evidently added a while back that I hadn’t noticed is that people can “highlight” passages in the Kindle edition, and share that info with other readers.
Anyway, about a year ago someone highlighted a passage (in italics below) and added a comment which I find rather amusing, and I thought I’d share it:
JohnB: I resent the author’s allusion to Christians in this negative light. More unConstitutional bashing.
Take your worst nightmare right-wing Christian fundies,
Really makes me wonder if he continued to read the book at all past that point.
You can find all the highlights here. Oh, and the Kindle edition will be available for free this Thursday and Friday.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Blade Runner, Connections, movies, Music, Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott, Science Fiction, YouTube | Tags: Anders Ramsell, art, Blade Runner, blogging, jim downey, movies, music, Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott, Science Fiction, video, watercolor, www youtube
Wow:
I am staggered by this thing: a 35-minute “paraphrasing” of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner from 12,597 animated watercolor paintings. It’s beautiful and insane—who would do this? A really big Blade Runner fan, I guess.
That fan is Swedish artist Anders Ramsell, who hand-painted each of the thousands of 1.5 by 3 cm paintings that make up the film, then synced them up to audio from the movie. The results are moody, and dreamily gorgeous.
Judge for yourself:
For me, this presentation/interpretation works, because it fits so perfectly with the theme and style of the movie. Very impressive.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Failure, Feedback, Predictions, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, jim downey, Kickstarter, predictions, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writing
I just put up the following update on my Kickstarter page:
13 months ago this Kickstarter project was successfully funded. You guys did your part in supporting it. I wish I could say that I’ve completed my end of the deal.
But I haven’t, in spite of my best intentions and hard work. This happened for all the usual reasons creative projects get delayed, some of which I have discussed on my blog — you can find them under the tag St. Cybi’s Well if you are interested.
Now, I am actually making great progress working on the book. The structure and format is all laid out, and presently I am working through writing the text systematically. I’m excited about it, to the point of being a bit obsessed, and when I’m not having panic attacks about being a complete hack of a writer (I’ve yet to meet a writer who doesn’t occasionally have such attacks) I get the sense that this may be the best thing I’ve written to date.
But progress isn’t completion. So this is my mea culpa, and an offer: if you backed this Kickstarter in good faith, and want a refund, just drop me a note to jim@communionofdreams.com and we’ll work things out. Now, I hope that you won’t. But I will understand if you do. We had a contract, and I have not fulfilled my obligations.
For those who don’t want a refund, here’s as realistic a progress report as I can offer: I think I’m about a third to halfway to completion of the book, and I hope to have it ready for editing in three or four months. One good aspect of how I am creating this book is that the manuscript should require much less reworking/redrafting when done. So, ideally, it should be ready for publishing sometime in the Spring of next year, with the various hand-bound editions and whatnot to follow.
Like I said, that’s my best estimate. But I also honestly thought when I launched this Kickstarter that I could have the book completed and rewards out by this point in time. The last year has taught me that sometimes you can’t force or predict creativity, no matter what your best intentions are.
One last thing: for those who decide to stick with the Kickstarter, I’ll find some way of enhancing your chosen reward. Not sure what that will be at this time, and I am open to suggestions.
Thanks, everyone!
Just thought I’d share that.
Jim Downey
PS: I just want to add that I’m not beating myself up over this missed deadline. Publishing has *always* had to take into account the fact that writing a book is a necessarily unpredictable process, and that it is foolish to try and be too hard-nosed about time schedules. But as I told another friend, in this case I felt that I had a direct relationship, a contract if you will, with the Kickstarter backers and that they deserved both an explanation and a option for making adjustments. So don’t worry.
Communion Of Dreams 