Filed under: Architecture, Augmented Reality, Wales, YouTube | Tags: augmented reality, blogging, CADW, Darnell Sidwell, jim downey, menhir, neolithic, Pentre Ifan, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, video, Wales, www youtube
I’ve mentioned Pentre Ifan, a wonderful neolithic site (which is also the title of a chapter in St Cybi’s Well) before. It really is an amazing site, see for yourself:
And here’s the passage where Darnell sees it in SCW:
He continued on. Along a tumble-down wall separating fields, partially overgrown with hedge and briar. Past cattle in the field, grazing and occasionally lowing to one another, who took little interest in him as he walked along. Through another kissing gate, and almost suddenly he was standing there before the structure, bare to the sky. One great slab of stone several meters long and a couple wide, supported by three menhir, high enough that he would have to stretch a bit to touch the underside of the capstone. There were a couple of additional uprights at the south end, and several largish stones which had tumbled over. He just stood there for a moment, taking it all in.
Well, CADW has just released a new ‘digital restoration’ that’s very cool:
Neolithic Burial Chamber digitally restored
An ancient structure synonymous with the Pembrokeshire countryside has been recreated using the latest CGI technology.
Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic environment service, has digitally restored the Pentre Ifan burial chamber in the latest of a series of videos available on its YouTube channel.
Fun to see that interpretation of it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Health, Humor, Wales | Tags: blogging, cats, health, humor, jim downey, St. Cybi's Well, Wales
(See postscript at the bottom.)
This is Hillary: 
She’s named after Sir Edmund, because when she was young she always wanted to climb things. She’s no longer a youngster, and just turned 14.
For the most part, she’s been in good health, though in the last year she started losing her eyesight, and just recently she’s had some minor strokes. The results of this are that she’ll just get confused for a while, sometimes tend to walk in small tight circles, and occasionally throw up. But our vet says that she’s not in any real pain, and as long as she continues to bounce back from those episodes, there’s no reason why we can’t keep her and love her with a little extra care. We’re used to caring for people and pets which need a little additional attention, so it’s no big deal.
This is Mel:
As you can see, she also likes climbing on things. But she’s named ‘Melyn’ for the color of her eyes. It’s Welsh. Yeah, as you might gather from St Cybi’s Well, we enjoy Wales, and my wife has been learning the language for a decade or more. Mel’s about 4 years old, and a bit more of a rascal. The two cats get along tolerably well.
Our bed is on top of a stack of drawers. One of Mel’s favorite games is to pull open those drawers. And in particular, the one which is right where my foot needs to go when I swing my leg out of bed. This is especially fun when it’s the middle of the night and I’m just getting up to go to have a pee (ah, the joys of middle age … ). I’ve cracked the side of my bare ankle on the side of that drawer too many times to count. But even *I* will learn eventually, so I’ve gotten into the habit of swinging my leg out even further, and then sweeping it in slowly so as to push the drawer closed if it has been left open by dear Mel.
Sometime last night, Hil seems to have had another minor stroke. And after getting down from the bed, threw up. Fortunately, she did so on a small throw rug (hmmm … ). It woke my wife up, so she dealt with it, and then took Hil in to where the litter box is, thence to the water bowl in the bathroom. Since Hil was a little confused, and my wife wanted to get back to sleep rather than sit and watch the cat while she decided whether or not to have some water, she just left Hil there. This is fairly normal — give Hil a reference point, and she’ll manage to sort out where she wants to go eventually.
Usually, by the time I get up in the morning (I get up first), Hilary has made her way downstairs and is politely waiting for breakfast. Mel is more … demanding. And serves as a very effective wake-up clock if I try and sleep in. As the saying goes, there’s no snooze button on a hungry cat. So this morning we went through the usual routine. I got up, swung my leg over, closed the drawer, and put on some clothes. My wife told me that Hillary had had an episode earlier, but that she had dealt with it. Mel noisily demanded breakfast.
So I went downstairs, Mel close at heel the whole way. Got the catfood out, took it to where their feed bowls are. Mel dug in, but Hil wasn’t to be seen. I checked around, didn’t see her downstairs, but figured that since she had been sick in the night, she might not be hungry and was probably curled up somewhere in the upstairs, would come down when she felt like it. No biggie — I could check on her later if she didn’t appear.
I got coffee, and went about my wake-up routine. Normally this includes getting in a walk, but today we have heavy thunderstorms and I am not THAT dedicated to getting in my exercise. Same for my wife, who thought she’d just catch a little extra sleep after her disrupted night.
After an hour or so of coffee and reading online, including a lot of attention from Mel but no sign of Hil, I figured I’d pop upstairs, see if I could find Hillary, and see how she was doing and whether she wanted some food yet.
I went upstairs. My wife was waking up, doing a little reading in bed. She said she hadn’t seen Hil yet this morning. I checked around upstairs in all her usual haunts. No luck.
Hmm.
Yeah, you guessed it. I thought to check the drawer below our bed, which I had closed without looking earlier. There she was, happily snoozing in amongst the clothing.
I brought her downstairs, got her some food. Mel watched, yellow eyes glinting. And I think I detected a slight smile on her face, as well.
Jim Downey
A postscript: Hillary had another and much larger stroke about 12 hours after I posted this. She passed away peacefully in the early hours of the next morning.
Filed under: Connections, Emergency, Failure, Flu, Government, Health, NPR, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Survival, Travel | Tags: blogging, CDC, Ebola, flu, health, Homeland Security, influenza, jim downey, NPR, pandemic, predictions, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, survival, The Atlantic, TSA, WHO, writing
… St Cybi’s Well, what with an incompetent theocratic government in place:
So imagine the scenario. A deadly flu pandemic is beginning in the northeast. TSA agents are asked to report for work in the germ incubators that are airports to keep the transportation system running. And while their bosses in Washington, D.C. can’t supply them with reliably functioning respirators to protect them from infection, they’re keeping thousands that may not work on hand, thinking they may hand them out for “employee comfort,” like security theater karma for those who make us remove our shoes and take our water.
But sadly, scarily, it isn’t. Rather, that passage is from the following news item:
The Department of Homeland Security Is Not Prepared for a Pandemic
As the Department of Homeland Security endeavors to prevent another 9/11, a terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, it is worth remembering that there are far deadlier threats out there. I speak not of ISIS or Ebola, but the influenza virus. The flu pandemic that began in 1918 killed 675,000 Americans. That is to say, it killed about as many Americans in a couple years as the AIDS virus has in decades. Worldwide, that same flu pandemic killed an estimated 30 to 50 million people. It would take 16,000 attacks like 9/11 to equal that death toll. Those figures powerfully illustrate the case for redirecting some of what the United States spends on counterterrorism to protecting ourselves from public health threats.
Of course, money only helps if it isn’t squandered. Take the extra $47 million dollars that Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security in 2006 to prepare for a pandemic. As a recent Inspector General report explains in depressing detail, a lot of that money was wasted. And one darkly hilarious passage in the audit reveals what may be the most galling example of security theater ever.
Oh, joy.
But it’s OK, because the rest of the world is ready to step up and fight against a viral threat which could explode into millions of cases in just a few weeks, right?
Um …
Dire Predictions On Ebola’s Spread From Top Health Organizations
Two of the world’s top health organizations released predictions Tuesday warning how bad the Ebola outbreak in West Africa could get.
Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization agree that the epidemic is speeding up. But the CDC’s worst-case scenario is a jaw-dropper: If interventions don’t start working soon, as many as 1.4 million people could be infected by Jan. 20, the agency reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
*sigh*
Sometimes it feels less like I’m writing a cautionary work of fiction and more like I am looking back and writing an historical account …
Jim Downey
Filed under: Feedback, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, feedback, jim downey, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, travel, Wales, writing
It’s a funny thing. I feel like I am making solid progress on St Cybi’s Well. It’s going slower than I would like (hell, I should have been done with the book over a year ago according to the original plan). And I have the usual minor blockages and set-backs that anyone trying to write something substantial is going to experience from time to time. I freely admit that getting another rejection from an agent was more of a blow than I expected. But in general I am happy with the way the writing is going, and excited to keep working on it.
Then something comes along which makes me realize just how much a small boost can be an encouragement.
Specifically, I got a note from one of my ‘beta readers’ yesterday, giving me some feedback on the book through Chapter 9 (I’m about to finish up Chapter 10. There will be 19 chapters total.). With permission, here’s an excerpt:
I decided to go back to the beginning, and have read all the way through the book. Wow. Obviously I’m a fan, but I love where you are going. The flow is really good – it feels as if the path Darnell is following would be one that the reader could easily take as well. And now I have to add Wales to my must see list!
I like the characters in the story. Each seems drawn from life – as if you could meet someone just like them if you found the right pub or site. Darnell’s character fascinates me. I want to know more about him, yet I don’t feel like I would *have* to know more. The bits of mystery surrounding him only enhance his appeal.
Encouragement, yeah. And a bit unexpected, since it had been a while since I sent out the last batch of chapters to my pool of ‘beta readers’, and have only heard back from a couple of them. I don’t like to bug people, and I don’t want to have them just send me positive feedback to get me to leave them alone. So having this unsolicited note show up was most welcome.
Onward. And hopefully, upward.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Augmented Reality, BoingBoing, Brave New World, Connections, Cory Doctorow, George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, Predictions, Preparedness, Privacy, RFID, Science Fiction, Society, tech | Tags: A Scanner Darkly, augmented reality, blogging, Boing Boing, BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow, Dave Lewis, Forbes, George Orwell, jim downey, John Dodge, Philip K. Dick, predictions, privacy, RFID, Science Fiction, security, smartphone, St. Cybi's Well, technology, writing
When you see news like this in the mainstream press…
Rogue Cell Towers Could Be Intercepting Your Call
It seems rather far fetched at first glance. There is news that came out last week that rogue cell phone towers around the US are forcing mobile devices to disable their encryption making it possible that someone might be able to listen in to your call. “That could never happen to me,” you think out loud. But, apparently it could.
In 2010 at the DEF CON in Las Vegas, security researcher Chris Paget did the unthinkable. He built a cell tower of his own so that he could spoof legitimate towers and intercept calls.The device would mimic the type used by law enforcement agencies to intercept phone calls. In this case, he was able to build it for roughly $1500 US. Paget’s device would only capture 2G GSM phone calls. Carriers such as AT&TT -0.06% and T-Mobile would be vulnerable as they use GSM, unlike Verizon which relies on CDMA technology.
… it’s easy to feel a little paranoid. But is this a real threat? Has anyone actually seen things like this ‘in the wild’?
Yup:
Rogue ‘Cell Towers’ Can Intercept Your Data; At Least One Found In Chicago
So-called rogue cell phone towers, the type that can intercept your mobile calls and data, are cropping up all over the United States, including here in Chicago, according to a company that specializes in developing highly secure mobile phones.
* * *
CBS 2 security analyst Ross Rice, a former FBI agent, said it’s likely being used illegally.
“I doubt that they are installed by law enforcement as they require a warrant to intercept conversations or data and since the cell providers are ordered by the court to cooperate with the intercept, there really would be no need for this,” Rice said.
“Most likely, they are installed and operated by hackers, trying to steal personal identification and passwords.”
Great. Just great.
Well, what can you do? There are some smart phones out there which are designed to thwart this kind of security threat. And I’ve mentioned another option previously. And now there’s a company with a whole line of clothing based on similar RF-blocking technology:
Kickstarting a line of Orwell-inspired clothes with radio-shielding pockets
“The 1984 Collection” is a line of clothing for men and women with removable, snap-in pockets that act as radio-shields for slipping your devices and tokens (cards, phones, etc) into to stop them from being read when you’re not using them.
Hmm … let’s see, there’s a passage from Chapter One of St Cybi’s Well that comes to mind:
Darnell stepped close to her, said in a low voice, “Give me your hand-held.”
She looked at him, raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I don’t want to make it too easy for anyone to listen in.”
“Really, Dar, or is this some kind of joke?”
“Really.”
She looked him in the eye, pulled her phone out of her small purse, held it out to him. “Here.”
“Either turn it off or put it into offline mode.”
She fiddled with it a moment then handed it over. He took it and dropped it into the RF-blocking pocket in his satchel. “Thanks.”
“Couldn’t I just have turned it off?”
“Nope. They can still turn it on remotely and activate the mic. This pocket,” he patted the satchel where he had put the phone, “blocks the signal. It isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good protection.”
I guess I need to get back into the habit of using my RF-shielding pocket.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Augmented Reality, Connections, Faith healing, Psychic abilities, Religion, Science Fiction, Synesthesia, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: augmented reality, blogging, faith healing, Gumfreston Church, jim downey, psychic abilities, religion, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Wales, writing
Today’s excerpt from St Cybi’s Well. The scene takes place at Gumfreston Church, outside Tenby:
He glanced up the way to the parking lot beyond the wall. His was still the only car there. Then he turned and followed the walkway further down the hill, past the church building. Partway down the hill a modern bench sat amongst the ancient graves, overlooking the secluded little niche containing the group of three wells. They were all clustered together, with fairly recent fieldstone platforms and walk around them.
Darnell went down directly, paused just before the first of the three. There were simple little white crosses painted onto some football-sized rocks beside the path. Small ribbons and bells were tied to trees and bushes nearby. On some of the rocks, and on the edges of the platforms, were the burnt-ends of candles. Clearly, this was still a place of pilgrimage.
He stepped onto the narrow platform, and once again could feel that strumming, that flowing energy he had felt in St David’s. Some yards away, sheltering the site from the outside world, were thick curtains of vines, still full leafed and deep green from summer, draping down from massive ancient trees. This added to the sense of the place being somewhat apart, special.
He knelt down, reached his hand to the surface of the first well. It bubbled slightly, but was otherwise clear and without a strong odor. He could feel a brightness, a clear sparkling energy to it.
The middle spring was slightly cloudy, with a ruddy kind of moss all along the bottom and sides of the pool and the little stream which left from it. Placing his hand lightly on the surface, he could feel a deeper, somewhat darker energy. Not darker in a negative sense, but one of earthiness, like the rich loam of a well-cared-for garden.
The third and lower spring had some element of that ruddiness to it, but it also had a distinct aroma of sulfur – distinct, but not overpowering. Touching the surface of that pool Darnell felt what could almost have been heat, though the water was still cool to the touch. Rather, it was as though the energy was intense, as if it were coming from a fire.
Kneeling there, reaching down, it almost felt like praying. He smiled to himself, and got up. Going back up the path, he sat on the bench overlooking the wells, and considered them.
Brightness, sparkling, as in the air. Richness, as the loam of the earth. Intense, as in fire. All bound together with water, flowing and mingling.
Little wonder this site was still on the pilgrim’s path.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Connections, Emergency, Failure, Flu, General Musings, Government, Health, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Violence | Tags: blogging, Ebola, Elliot Hannon, fire-flu, Foreign Policy, health, influenza, jim downey, Laurie Garrett, pandemic, predictions, science, Science Fiction, Slate, society, St. Cybi's Well, writing
Sorry for my absence here — I’ve been very busy with a another big project, one which I can’t discuss publicly just yet. But soon.
Without wanting to buy-into the complete panic in some corners about Ebola, here are a couple of very sober articles to consider, which are less about the actual disease and more about what such a pandemic does to the society it hits:
Looters Attack Liberia Ebola Quarantine Center, Patients Under Observation Return Home
Battling the deadly outbreak of Ebola in Liberia has been a mammoth task for the country’s government and international aid agencies. Over the weekend combating the virus’ spread got even harder when a quarantine center in Monrovia was attacked, and 17 patients being monitored for possible infection fled the medical facility. The Liberian government initially said all of the patients had been relocated to another facility after the West Point health center was looted on Saturday, but later admitted that 17 patients had gone “back into their communities,” the BBC reports.
And this one from last week:
You Are Not Nearly Scared Enough About Ebola
Attention, World: You just don’t get it.
You think there are magic bullets in some rich country’s freezers that will instantly stop the relentless spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa? You think airport security guards in Los Angeles can look a traveler in the eyes and see infection, blocking that jet passenger’s entry into La-la-land? You believe novelist Dan Brown’s utterly absurd description of a World Health Organization that has a private C5-A military transport jet and disease SWAT team that can swoop into outbreaks, saving the world from contagion?
Wake up, fools. What’s going on in West Africa now isn’t Brown’s silly Inferno scenario — it’s Steven Soderbergh’s movie Contagion, though without a modicum of its high-tech capacity.
And from that second article, more to my point:
I myself have received emails from physicians in these countries, describing the complete collapse of all non-Ebola care, from unassisted deliveries to untended auto accident injuries. People aren’t just dying of the virus, but from every imaginable medical issue a system of care usually faces.
That’s the thing — a pandemic is bad enough in its own right, when a disease such as Ebola has a mortality of more than 50% under the best conditions. Consider how much worse the impact will be once the overall public health system collapses due to the death of doctors and nurses, when deliveries can’t be made to restock supplies, when whole cities are quarantined, when people begin to really panic.
That is the horror of a true global pandemic. Like the one in St Cybi’s Well.
Cheery thought, eh?
Jim Downey
PS: Two other unrelated things I want to mention. The first is thanks to all who participated in Helping Cassandra – you made a real difference. And the second is just to link to a blog post about some black powder shooting I did this past weekend with some very fun historical guns.
Filed under: Feedback, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, Cardiff, COPD, Dinas Maelor, feedback, Ffynnon Gybi, health, Helping Cassandra, immortality, jim downey, literature, Pennant Melangell, Pentre Ifan, Pistyll Rhaeadr, promotion, Science Fiction, Scrivener, Snowdon, St. Cybi's Well, St. Non’s Chapel, St. Seiriol’s Well, St. Winefride's Well, travel, writing, Y Garn Goch
I decided that I needed to go through and re-read the entirety of St Cybi’s Well so far, start to finish, just as a way to refresh all the different elements of it in my head and to get an overall picture. While I regularly bounce back and forth in the text to make sure I’m getting this or that specific detail correct, it’s good to get a complete overview now and then. Being at the halfway point in the actual writing (though with all the planning and prep work the book is more like 3/4 complete), this seemed like a good time to do it.
So over the weekend, I did.
I’m happy to say that I’m pleased with it. Perhaps to be expected, since I am the author. But usually I’m very critical of my own writing, and seldom think that it is as good as it should be.
Anyway.
A year ago I gave a preliminary chapter list, and said that I had about 23,000 words of notes and descriptions. Well, I still have the notes and descriptions (and I am still very happy using Scrivener for the organizational aspects), but I now have a solid 55,000 words of actual book done. Here’s the actual title list so far:
- Prelude: Cardiff
- Chapter 1: Pennant Melangell
- Chapter 2: St. Winefride’s Well
- Chapter 3: St. Seiriol’s Well
- Chapter 4: Snowdon
- Chapter 5: Ffynnon Gybi
- Chapter 6: Pistyll Rhaeadr
- Chapter 7: Dinas Maelor
- Chapter 8: Pentre Ifan
- Chapter 9: St. Non’s Chapel
And the title of the chapter I’m currently writing is Y Garn Goch. These are all real, actual places, and you can look them up online if you want. In fact, each chapter opens with a brief passage from an online site (cited) giving a description/history of each location. So far some of the ‘beta readers’ have really liked this , where others … haven’t. At least not so much.
Oh, speaking of that, I could stand to have a couple new people take a look at the book so far and tell me what they think. If you’re interested, drop me a note.
Just thought I’d share this little progress report.
Jim Downey
PS: Remember, there’s just until this Friday to get your bid in to be immortalized in St. Cybi’s Well!
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Connections, Depression, Emergency, Failure, Feedback, Flu, Health, Kindle, NPR, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: art, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, COPD, direct publishing, Ebola, feedback, Guinea, health, jim downey, Kindle, Liberia, Nigeria, NPR, predictions, reviews, science, Science Fiction, Sierra Leone, St. Cybi's Well, WHO, writing
For one reason and another, this past week has been a little rough, hence the paucity of posts. The rejection from the agent kinda took the wind out of my sails a bit, since I thought that the prospects were good. And continued news on the Ebola front* kept reminding me just how grim St Cybi’s Well is getting, in regards to the onset of the fire-flu (though I hope that other aspects of the novel more than balance that out for the reader).
But now the winds have shifted again, and things are looking up. We’ve gotten a bunch of bids in the auction to help my friend (though you can still pick up a hand-bound limited edition hardcopy of Communion of Dreams for a song). There’s a new review of CoD up on Amazon. And this morning I got word that a major new project I’ve been involved with helping to get organized is going to be implemented — more on that when there’s an official announcement in a couple of weeks. But it’s kinda a big deal and one which I am excited to be part of. Oh, and there’s a fun little item here about a recent book conservation job I did which might be of interest.
So, those are the latest developments. Watch for more to come. Oh, and go put a bid in on something on the auction site — there are a number of great items available! Thanks!
Jim Downey
*I do want to note that I don’t think that Ebola poses a significant risk to people in the US. We have the medical infrastructure to deal with isolated cases, which is likely all that we’ll see here. There’s no reason to get into a panic. But that doesn’t change the horror of the disease itself, nor the impact that it is having on people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.
Filed under: Art, Connections, Failure, Feedback, NASA, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Space, tech, Writing stuff | Tags: art, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, jim downey, NASA, promotion, rejection, science, Science Fiction, space, St. Cybi's Well, technology, writing
Good news! This morning the bidding opened on the auction I mentioned the other day, and I understand that there’s already something of a bidding war on some of the “become immortal” options I offered:
Be Famous! Have your name (or the name of a loved one, pet, etc) included in my next novel! Can be a character, a named place (manor/restaurant/pub), a book title/author, et cetera. Any sort of name you wish.
You have three choices:
-
Passing mention. Five available.
-
Name and some description. Three available.
-
Tertiary character, who will have some dialog & interaction with other characters. One available.
Yay! Thanks for the vote of confidence, and for helping out my friend!
* * *
I’ve seen several preliminary news items on this, and it’s … intriguing.
Nasa validates ‘impossible’ space drive
Nasa is a major player in space science, so when a team from the agency this week presents evidence that “impossible” microwave thrusters seem to work, something strange is definitely going on. Either the results are completely wrong, or Nasa has confirmed a major breakthrough in space propulsion.
Very intriguing. Basically, this is the third test conducted on a theoretical reactionless drive, with NASA (British publications consider it stylistically appropriate to just capitalize the first letter) doing the independent testing of previous claims. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of this.
* * *
From three months back:
…but the other is far enough along that I’ll share: there’s a literary agent who is potentially interested in representing me, something which I have been thinking about for a while.
***
I’ll keep you posted as to any concrete developments.
Well, I just got a very nice note back from said agent, who complimented me in several ways but said that he wasn’t going to represent me after all.
Rejection is part of the game, and any writer or artist has to come to terms with that, or you might as well just give up. As I told a friend earlier:
He’s gotta do what he thinks makes business sense – when I ran the gallery, I had to turn down hundreds of artists who wanted us to represent them. And as I told them, just because I wasn’t going to rep them didn’t in any way mean that their work wasn’t quality. So I understand the equation from both sides of the = sign …
Still … I think I might take the rest of the afternoon off.
Do something nice for my friend. Go place a bid on something which interests you.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 