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Warning: critically disjointed post follows. No attempt at coherence has been made.
More sci-fi becoming reality: 'Can battlefield robots take the place of soldiers?'
On Friday I went to Worksop as a roadie/ugly groupie for Evil Scarecrow. I treated this as a bit of a work shadowing experience for learning about the gigging process. In this regard it was invaluable and I am now adequately prepared for the "standing around" part as well as the "dining at local chip shop" part. I also got mistaken for the singer in one of the other bands a couple of times and got some experience at turning down requests for autographs. All good stuff. For what it's worth the Worksop rock scene seems to be an interesting mixture of lipstick lesbians, weird obsessives, and rugby players. But the Bulmers was only £2.70 a bottle so it's not all bad.
I was sat in the pub with Becky yesterday discussing how there should be a children's tale of a primitive cave-dwelling boy who's come from a Lost Valley or something, befriends some local kids who have to keep him hidden, and who go on adventures together before he sadly has to go back home forever, riding on a dinosaur. Surely someone must have written this already? And on a similar line, does anybody remember the story where some guy has come from the past and - among other things - he gets angry at the weather forecasts on the television, calling them witchcraft? What was that called?
Before and after the pub yesterday I was working on music, more specifically mixing the vocal tracks for one of my 'songs' which we'd recorded on Saturday in a very cold and forbidding rehearsal room. The mixing process involved about 8 hours of chopping bits out and moving them around. I don't envy the people who had to record songs on magnetic tape. Hopefully the results will be available to the wider world soon.
It's Valentine's Day on Sunday. I'm not sure I received any cards in the last decade :) No doubt this is just because I am too good at keeping my address private... (which I'm not, really.)
More sci-fi becoming reality: 'Can battlefield robots take the place of soldiers?'
"A striking example of a robot in need of careful programming is a driverless vehicle developed by the Pentagon, called the EATR. It can refuel itself on long journeys by scavenging for organic material - which raises the haunting spectre of a machine consuming corpses on the battlefield."
On Friday I went to Worksop as a roadie/ugly groupie for Evil Scarecrow. I treated this as a bit of a work shadowing experience for learning about the gigging process. In this regard it was invaluable and I am now adequately prepared for the "standing around" part as well as the "dining at local chip shop" part. I also got mistaken for the singer in one of the other bands a couple of times and got some experience at turning down requests for autographs. All good stuff. For what it's worth the Worksop rock scene seems to be an interesting mixture of lipstick lesbians, weird obsessives, and rugby players. But the Bulmers was only £2.70 a bottle so it's not all bad.
I was sat in the pub with Becky yesterday discussing how there should be a children's tale of a primitive cave-dwelling boy who's come from a Lost Valley or something, befriends some local kids who have to keep him hidden, and who go on adventures together before he sadly has to go back home forever, riding on a dinosaur. Surely someone must have written this already? And on a similar line, does anybody remember the story where some guy has come from the past and - among other things - he gets angry at the weather forecasts on the television, calling them witchcraft? What was that called?
Before and after the pub yesterday I was working on music, more specifically mixing the vocal tracks for one of my 'songs' which we'd recorded on Saturday in a very cold and forbidding rehearsal room. The mixing process involved about 8 hours of chopping bits out and moving them around. I don't envy the people who had to record songs on magnetic tape. Hopefully the results will be available to the wider world soon.
It's Valentine's Day on Sunday. I'm not sure I received any cards in the last decade :) No doubt this is just because I am too good at keeping my address private... (which I'm not, really.)
relaxation?
Jun. 10th, 2009 12:24 amAfter a long and tedious day at work, I got home and expected - and wanted - just to relax for the evening. Instead, that started off as the oh-so-typical web-based procrastination, and then switched to me writing a 2000-word post for my game development blog. It's funny to think that I remember students struggling to reach 2000 words for their essays, but I was struggling to get the post below 2000 words, which is too many as it is. 1000 words per hour is a decent rate to be writing at, at least. It totally depends on whether I know enough about the subject matter, but my mind picks up so many assorted connections these days that it seems easy to get that far. So it bodes reasonably well for any future writing I might try to do.
I'm sure there's also something witty or insightful to be said about the fact that I'm writing a blog post about writing a blog post. (And of this sentence, writing about writing a blog post about writing a blog post. Ad infinitum...)
However it all reminds me that relaxation is not particularly easy when in front of the computer. Although I have more games than I can ever hope to complete, I often end up feeling the need to do something useful, or at least attempt it. As much as I rely on my PC and the internet at home and at work, some of the best times I've had were when I was away from computers and the web and email for several days, such as at Wacken last year or Matlock Bath the summer before. I thought I'd feel the need to get online and check journals and emails and the like... but no. Having a short but enforced isolation from technology is definitely liberating in its own way.
I'm sure there's also something witty or insightful to be said about the fact that I'm writing a blog post about writing a blog post. (And of this sentence, writing about writing a blog post about writing a blog post. Ad infinitum...)
However it all reminds me that relaxation is not particularly easy when in front of the computer. Although I have more games than I can ever hope to complete, I often end up feeling the need to do something useful, or at least attempt it. As much as I rely on my PC and the internet at home and at work, some of the best times I've had were when I was away from computers and the web and email for several days, such as at Wacken last year or Matlock Bath the summer before. I thought I'd feel the need to get online and check journals and emails and the like... but no. Having a short but enforced isolation from technology is definitely liberating in its own way.
Robert Jordan
Sep. 17th, 2007 07:13 pmIn more sombre news, Robert Jordan, the author of the Wheel of Time series of fantasy books, died yesterday of cardiac amyloidosis, a rare and almost always deadly disease. I had been following his medical progress via his blog, but was still surprised to hear of the news.
The Wheel of Time series remains unfinished with Jordan having been in the middle of writing the twelfth and final tome when he took ill. Thankfully, he was able to pass on his vision for the story's ending to his family, so that they may eventually release the final book for him and bring the 17 year long saga to a fitting end.
Back in my days of geekery at college - yes, even more geeky than today - we played an RPG based in the Wheel of Time world, and I took the role of an exceptionally talented Blademaster who could defeat almost anyone in hand-to-hand combat, but who still preferred to hide behind horses whenever possible instead. (You had to be there.) That weekly activity was possibly the only thing I regretted leaving behind when I came to university. Good times.
RIP Mr. Jordan.
The Wheel of Time series remains unfinished with Jordan having been in the middle of writing the twelfth and final tome when he took ill. Thankfully, he was able to pass on his vision for the story's ending to his family, so that they may eventually release the final book for him and bring the 17 year long saga to a fitting end.
Back in my days of geekery at college - yes, even more geeky than today - we played an RPG based in the Wheel of Time world, and I took the role of an exceptionally talented Blademaster who could defeat almost anyone in hand-to-hand combat, but who still preferred to hide behind horses whenever possible instead. (You had to be there.) That weekly activity was possibly the only thing I regretted leaving behind when I came to university. Good times.
RIP Mr. Jordan.
jack of all trades
Aug. 6th, 2007 08:00 pmFor quite some time, when attempting to describe myself, I keep coming back to my three main interests that have stuck with me for almost 15 years now: writing music, designing games, and 'normal' writing (eg. fiction, journalism, etc). I now get to half-do one of those as part of my job, but generally speaking my other creative output has been pathetic. However, I find myself now with a little more free time for the forseeable future, no lack of resources, and a little more motivation. So, I'm setting myself some concrete goals, to be completed before the end of the calendar year.
I expect my friends to support and encourage me during this process, maybe even assist if you have skills to offer. And I expect my acquaintances to point and laugh if I fail. ;)
- Writing - I will get something written and put out into the public domain. I am unlikely to be able to write the novel I have in mind within 5 months, so this will probably be a game development article of some sort, probably for Gamedev.net. I have 3 or 4 ideas waiting, some partly planned out, so this shouldn't be too difficult a task.
- Music - Before the end of December, I will get a finished 'work' available for all to hear. Ideally this will be the 3 track demo for my Twilight's Embrace metal project, but that will depend on how well the search for a vocalist goes over the next 2 months. Alternatively I could go back to doing some orchestral-style soundtrack stuff, perhaps for a computer game. I have enough software and equipment now to make this practical without being limited by technology.
- Game design - I've been designing various games - computer, board, card, roleplaying, you name it - for almost 20 years. And I don't think I've finished a single one yet! This is going to change in the next five months. This is the hardest one to choose, as although it will almost certainly be a computer game I develop, I have existing large game projects that 'just' need finishing off, and several small projects yet to be started but which might require a similar amount of work. I'd not be aiming at the AAA blockbuster market, but at a niche area, such as text-based games, or something web-based, or a very simple but innovative idea like Armadillo Run, innovation permitting. Suggestions welcomed.
I expect my friends to support and encourage me during this process, maybe even assist if you have skills to offer. And I expect my acquaintances to point and laugh if I fail. ;)
hack and slash
Feb. 21st, 2007 06:03 pmI am rather intrigued as to why several writers and fans of slash fiction have been reading this journal. I've had about 4 or 5 of them visit in the last month, comprising about 90% of the drive-by hits. Feel free to post your amusing and mildly insulting hypotheses below. Feel even freer to post if you are one of these people, or you know why this is occurring...
Reading, writing
Dec. 10th, 2006 01:41 amI finished "The Lords of the North" by Bernard Cornwell earlier. It's possibly the best in the series so far, in terms of emotional content, but I must admit to wanting to shake the author by the neck a few times. Did nobody ever teach you back in primary school that stringing 6 clauses together joined by "and" is awful? Too often I found myself jerked out of the immersion of the story, finding myself instead trying to reword his sentences with more appropriate conjunctions.
George R. R. Martin and Robert Jordan have no such problems with their prose. I'm still waiting on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grrm's "A Dance of Dragons", the 5th book in the 7-part "A Song Of Ice And Fire", while Robert Jordan's final book in the Wheel of Time series is being held up by his unfortunate fight with amyloidosis. I started reading the Wheel of Time back in '95, when the 6th book in the series had just come out. Now we're waiting for book 12, and I refuse to read (and in a couple of cases, buy) books 8 to 11 until I know that the saga is actually finished, as the action dwindled away to nothing as the series went on. The premise is good, the writing is good, but it feels like he deliberately stretched it out.
The other day I found my notes on a book I've been planning to write. I was pleasantly surprised at how interesting it was, as I'm quite used to abandoning my projects due to their lack of quality, and there's a lot more emphasis on characterisation than I would have put in the stuff I wrote when I was younger. Still, it's just an outline for now, and there's a bit of a dull patch in the middle that would need spicing up. Also, there may be too many central characters, which will need some work somehow. Finally, I also need to flesh out the setting a bit more, as Generic Fantasy World just won't cut it. It would have been good to have had a go at this during NaNoWriMo, but arbitrary and artificial deadlines were never much use to me, and I really have had so many other things to do.
I got some writing software, too. I know most people might prefer to just plunge in with little or no planning and just do it linearly, but I work best when I do things methodically, and having some sort of timeline and outline helps. The things I wrote when I was younger tended to be all improvised - I wonder if I was more creative back then, or if it's just that I'm more used to planning everything now.
George R. R. Martin and Robert Jordan have no such problems with their prose. I'm still waiting on
grrm's "A Dance of Dragons", the 5th book in the 7-part "A Song Of Ice And Fire", while Robert Jordan's final book in the Wheel of Time series is being held up by his unfortunate fight with amyloidosis. I started reading the Wheel of Time back in '95, when the 6th book in the series had just come out. Now we're waiting for book 12, and I refuse to read (and in a couple of cases, buy) books 8 to 11 until I know that the saga is actually finished, as the action dwindled away to nothing as the series went on. The premise is good, the writing is good, but it feels like he deliberately stretched it out.The other day I found my notes on a book I've been planning to write. I was pleasantly surprised at how interesting it was, as I'm quite used to abandoning my projects due to their lack of quality, and there's a lot more emphasis on characterisation than I would have put in the stuff I wrote when I was younger. Still, it's just an outline for now, and there's a bit of a dull patch in the middle that would need spicing up. Also, there may be too many central characters, which will need some work somehow. Finally, I also need to flesh out the setting a bit more, as Generic Fantasy World just won't cut it. It would have been good to have had a go at this during NaNoWriMo, but arbitrary and artificial deadlines were never much use to me, and I really have had so many other things to do.
I got some writing software, too. I know most people might prefer to just plunge in with little or no planning and just do it linearly, but I work best when I do things methodically, and having some sort of timeline and outline helps. The things I wrote when I was younger tended to be all improvised - I wonder if I was more creative back then, or if it's just that I'm more used to planning everything now.
Season's beatings
Oct. 31st, 2006 10:02 amHappy Hallowe'en, people. On that note, when did costume for this festival cease to be about zombies and witches and the like and begin to be "dress up as anything"? This seems a bit odd to me.
The local council is erecting ("hur hur Beavis, he said erect") Christmas lights in the city centre. Why do we celebrate Christmas for 1/6th of the year? Isn't that overdoing it a bit? In temperature terms we're only just starting Autumn. It seems rather odd to be bringing out the fake Chrimbo conifers when the deciduous trees still have their full complement of leaves.
Finally, it's NaNoWriMo in November, or at least it would be if the Na in NaNoWriMo didn't mean National or I was in the same nation as the people who organise it. But that's beside the point. Since so many others are doing so, I may take the opportunity to write a novel, hopefully of 50,000 words, in November alone. Shame I don't know of any interesting writing software, and no, MS Word does not count.
The local council is erecting ("hur hur Beavis, he said erect") Christmas lights in the city centre. Why do we celebrate Christmas for 1/6th of the year? Isn't that overdoing it a bit? In temperature terms we're only just starting Autumn. It seems rather odd to be bringing out the fake Chrimbo conifers when the deciduous trees still have their full complement of leaves.
Finally, it's NaNoWriMo in November, or at least it would be if the Na in NaNoWriMo didn't mean National or I was in the same nation as the people who organise it. But that's beside the point. Since so many others are doing so, I may take the opportunity to write a novel, hopefully of 50,000 words, in November alone. Shame I don't know of any interesting writing software, and no, MS Word does not count.
