Bring it November! Bring it.

Posted by: Dytalus; November 1, 2011; Uncategorized
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Last month was a pretty simple one for me. Nothing to report. I’m not terribly big on Halloween, so I didn’t get up to anything once it rolled around. We never have trick or treaters around where I live, so all the sweets we bought just got eaten by me. Good times.

November is NaNoWriMo, for those not in the know. Alas, I don’t have the time to do it this year. College eats up your life like some kind of horrible daemonic parasite of doomy doom doom. Yes that’s a real thing, shut your face. I’d love to get involved in the event, mainly because it means I’d finally get a frikkin’ novel finished for once and not just a thousand half finished short stories. But until my design and college work is done, I just don’t have time to devote to a full novel. Never mind getting it finished in a month. Still, I applaud everyone who is getting involved, and if you are partaking in the event be sure to leave a comment and let me know.

Game Design has stagnated. I have a terrible computer for it, and it’s difficult to code a game when your computer can barely handle five year old games. It’s a shame, but at least I can still write stories and work the mechanics out on paper so that when the coding comes my project will be well thought out and easy enough to implement. Hopefully. Programming never works out as you’d expect.

I’ve a busy month lined up, even setting aside the birthdays people have been kind enough to throw my way. I need to finish a bunch of assignments, and I’m trying again to submit some work to short story magazines in time for the Christmas schedule. Aesthetic Perfection are finally coming to Ireland, and I will most definitely be attending the concert. Great act, people need to get the albums now. A couple of nerdy things too, like the release of the update to Codex Necrons and as a result more models for me to buy and paint and lose battles with. Huzzah! Plus I have an evil plan for a Minecraft map. Lots of work, lots of projects to get done before Christmas. Time to get started, eh?

This should be an interesting month.

 

Evolving the Alien

Posted by: Dytalus; October 11, 2011; Uncategorized
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I’ve spent the past two weeks working my way through a glorious book called Evolving the Alien. As a result, I’ve also spent the past week rewriting and reworking the various species present in my (under construction) fictional universe. Gotta keep things at least semi-realistic, right?

Ha. I crack myself up.

But the book does raise some interesting points regarding the evolution of life and all that good stuff, typically how we shouldn’t assume that aliens will need water, or carbon. Or heck, even a planet. It drives home the point that we are unlikely to ever see a humanoid alien, let alone one we should be capable of contacting in any meaningful way, shape or form. The book is far too long to go through everything it explains and discusses, but for anyone looking to write science fiction, or alternate earth history, this is a must-have.

I’ve been focusing mainly on humanity and their erstwhile allies the Maekari (WiP name) in said universal construction, given that they’ll be the ones most encountered. Evolving the Alien has somewhat thrown a spanner in the works with my original image of the Maekari, making me realise how silly it is to have a race as human looking and acting as the Maekari were. Despite living on an Earth like world.

I’m not normally one to stick to hard science fiction, but I also like having some semblance of thought put into my races. I don’t want to take the somewhat typical route of everyone being anthropomorphic animals, or humans with bumpy heads, and construct races which are humanesque, complete with leaders, cities and defined social castes. I’m trying for something really crazy with this. While the Maekari are (and need to be, for various plot based reasonings) easily understandable and still unnaturally human like, the other races of the galaxy (the Saethians, the Angels and the Arkhosim) are all quite different. From magnetic based creatures born inside stars, to crazy sulfur based organisms, the Black Horizon universe is (hopefully) going to be one hell of an interesting place.

Assuming I can pull this off.

 

Big Balls and a Sore Hand

Posted by: Dytalus; October 3, 2011; Uncategorized
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Bowling, obviously. What did you think I was talking about? Perverts.

Was a slightly more eventful than usual weekend for me, between one thing and another I was decidedly busy from Friday to Sunday. Bowling on Friday, free too which was nice. Free arcade games (I suck at racing games, but goram I’m an awesome sniper) and free pool. Fridays at bowling are awesome. Sunday brought along the longest single period of time I have sat in front of a tv in a long time. Not that that’s too bad. Pizza + comedy tv = awesome.

Onto more important crap you probably care about.

I’m considering a new website, being pushed into it more like. An online short story magazine of sorts. It’s still very much in theory only, I don’t even have the money saved up for the URL or hosting, which tells you how far along the plan is. I’ll be sure to keep you informed, since I’ll be looking for authors to submit short stories as soon as it shows up. Assuming it shows up. It’d be pretty cool if it did, since I love working on websites. Gives me something to do with all that time I should be being more productive.

That’s all my news. Also, everyone should check out the Dabbler’s Archive. Because goram the info there is awesome. Explosives, Personality Disorders…what’s not to love? Thus far this one on nuclear weapons is my personal favourite. Because NUKE IT FROM ORBIT! It’s the only way to be sure.

 

CERN Breaks Science

Posted by: Dytalus; September 23, 2011; Uncategorized
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Congratulations CERN, for you have broken many many years worth of Physics by accident. Sort of.

A lot of noise has been regarding CERN’s most recent announcement regarding their OPERA experiment between them and Gran Sasso in Italy. To put it simply, CERN is of the impression that their scientists have witnessed Neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, which is supposed to be the universe’s speed limit.

“This result comes as a complete surprise,” said Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for OPERA and a professor a the University of Bern, in a statement.

But he didn’t dwell on the research’s implications: “The potential impact on science is too large to draw immediate conclusions or attempt physics interpretations.”

Read more

Obviously this is pretty huge news, and science fiction fans are already crying out about the possibilities of Warp Speed and colonisation of space by humanity. But let’s slow down and examine this closely. I’m as excited as anyone, believe me. This is massive and I love the advancement of science. The fact that physics could be shaken apart is immensely interesting to me, but I also don’t want to be disappointed.

There are a lot of things which could be wrong with this. CERN are NOT stating this is definite. Even they admit they’re probably wrong, they just can’t figure out how. They’re asking the scientific community to check and see if CERN have missed anything. If, and only if, do things turn out to prove this true, then the world of science is going to explode with excitement. I don’t expect a significant answer within the next 6 months at least. Probably much, much longer than that.

And even if it turns out to be true, and repeatable, that doesn’t mean we suddenly have access to faster-than-light technology. These are Neutrinos, they don’t interact with matter so it’s not like we can build things out of them. Especially considering they’re tiny. It would be like building something out of electrons. Neutrino ‘sails’ are also probably out, again because neutrinos don’t interact with matter in any meaningful way. This is starter knowledge, there’s no discernible way we can use it.

But that’s where everything starts. Useless, but interesting knowledge.

If Neutrinos can accelerate to faster than light speeds, breaking the rule that matter shouldn’t be able to do so, why can’t other things? If neutrinos are circumventing Special Relativity in some way, we might be able to find out how and replicate the occurrence. Things build up from there, and eventually we have usable large scale technology.

I’m not going to pretend that’s the likely outcome, but I am hopeful that it is. I hope this is the start of something amazing, I hope that physics advances in a new way, and I hope that our understanding of the universe is shaken to its foundation.

 

New Musics: Anthem for the Great Self Destruct

Posted by: Dytalus; September 15, 2011; Reviews
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I actually got this a good while ago. Like…months ago. When it first came out. Pre-orders BIATCH!

It’s really good. Like really really good. Considering this is Cryogen Second’s first full length album, it’s damn near perfect. I won’t write a full, multiple paragraph review of it. I’ll save that for when I eventually get off my ass and finish that review section of my website. Which will be done eventually, I swear it. Instead, I’ll give some unprofessional opinions.

If this album was a woman, it would be crazy psycho bitch with the body of a goddess. Anthem is brutal, fast paced and relentlessly nihilistic. And I love it. Starting with Theory which segues into Divide, Anthem begins strong and literally assaults your ears with barbed wire and delicious anger. Delicious, delicious anger. I mean, this thing never lets up. It’s song after song of nihilism and aggression, up until Nihil, the second-to-last track on the album. Which ends things with a nice calm piece.

But that’s not why I love it, Antithetical, If I Had My Way, and Anthem for the Great Self Destruct are why I love it. Listen to them. Over and over again. Do it.

Download it now dammit. Have I not it made it clear that this is amazing and you should give all your monies to Cryogen Second?

 

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