Taking your responsibilities seriously should never stand in the way of taking your ego lightly.
— Adam Grant
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Posted in Other | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Thoughts | Leave a Comment »
Ken Liu is one of our modern masters of speculative fiction. The first story of his that I read was “The Paper Menagerie,” “the first piece of fiction to win three genre literary awards: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the World Fantasy Award.”
So he’s pretty good.
He’s also been thinking about art, AI and the evolving relationship between them. Here’s his new story:
Future Science Fiction Digest – Good Stories
Clara’s favorite part of the workday is the very beginning.
She likes flipping the switches on the wall right inside the office entrance, all sixteen of them, different colors and laid out in two neat columns, like the console from an old NASA space capsule that she got to sit inside once on a school trip to DC. As she takes a sip of her latte, her right hand running up the wall, click-click-click, flipping one switch after another, she imagines herself turning on rocket engines, initiating a docking maneuver, venting some dangerous alien spores out the airlock.
The story is one of the many interesting pieces in The Digital Aesthete: Human Musings on the Intersection of Art and AI, edited by Alex Shvartsman with an impressive roster of authors.
Today’s software can only imitate art, but what about tomorrow?
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Posted in Science!, Writing | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, AI, art, creativity, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing | Leave a Comment »
Today we are experiencing some non-minor technical difficulties. I am attempting to handle the situation with aplomb.
“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
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Posted in Other | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, #notwriting, annoyances, broken things, problems, technology | Leave a Comment »
The other day I ran across a recipe for something called English Milk Punch. Primary ingredients? Rum and curdled milk.
Say what now?
How to Make English Milk Punch
Essentially, English milk punch is made up of two distinct parts that are combined. The first part is a rum, sugar, and citrus juice mixture. Then, hot milk and spices are added and allowed to infuse until the milk curdles.
Wait a minute—did he just say something about curdled milk? Seriously? And you want me to drink it and serve it to my guests?
Now, I don’t drink a lot of alcohol but it is the warm and cozy spiced beverage season (™) and this recipe sounded just weird enough to be wonderful. I had to try it.
It took a bit of time but was, in the end, both fun and delicious.
Verdict? Worth it. And if you happened to leave a glass of this out for a certain big bearded, red-clad gentleman come Christmas Eve, I don’t think he’d mind at all.
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Posted in Food and... | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, #frostyadultbeverages, recipes | Leave a Comment »
Apologies for the clickbaity title, but I actually do have a weird trick. It’s simple to do but a little hard to explain.
The trick is to close my eyes and relax my focus (literal, not figurative) from “out there” back to the approximate plane of my nose. I know it’s working when I break into an involuntary grin.
It’s a small thing that only takes a second, but some days a little trick is all I need.
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Posted in Other | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, do you have chill?, happiness, Thoughts, Writers | Leave a Comment »
Did this post start out life as a path to a map of sci-fi story locations in space? It did, and then I realized that in my haste, I’d picked a draft I’d already posted before.
It happens, especially on days when one is juggling not one not two not three but four big projects, and one has absolute reams of notes in the “blog post ideas” folder.
So now I’m here with an update, still space-related but also experiential. It has to do with the Geminid meteor shower.
Bundle up and look to the sky: It’s time for one of the best meteor showers of the year
The shower will be at its peak on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, though you’ll likely see some meteors in the nights before and after…
“The meteors will seem to shoot out of the constellation Gemini (hence the name) but could streak across pretty much any part of the sky,” Wiegert said. “So if you can find a dark place, with a good view of the sky in any direction, you could get a good view of the Geminids.”
Happy hunting!
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Posted in Science! | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, space | Leave a Comment »
You as a person also have to understand that there are things in this life you cannot control, and one of those things is a cat.
— Ella Cerón
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Posted in Other | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, cats, Thoughts, Tuesdays, unpredictability | Leave a Comment »
Want to see a rare astronomical event tonight? (And really, why wouldn’t you?)
The extremely rare Betelgeuse occultation by asteroid (319) Leona
For a very short time, we will see the legendary Orion constellation without its famous, orange shoulder, as it will be in the distant future, once Betelgeuse will have exploded as a supernova and faded to black.
Hey, I like Orion! What’s this all about?
Watch an asteroid eclipse the puzzling red giant star Betelgeuse tonight live online
At at 8:17 p.m. EST Monday (Dec. 11) (0117 GMT, Dec. 12), an asteroid will pass in front of the curious red star Betelgeuse, eclipsing it from our vantage point here on Earth and blocking it from view for up to 15 seconds in an event known as an occultation. The asteroid is known as 319 Leona, a main belt object that orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter. Shaped roughly like an egg, 319 Leona measures some 50 by 34 miles (80 x 55 kilometers) in size.
Here’s a link to live coverage of the event.
So Orion’s loss is temporary, and will also help scientists better understand both the asteroid’s shape and the star’s characteristics. No Tim Burton movie required!
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Posted in Science! | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, astronomy, inspiration, Orion, science, sky | Leave a Comment »
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.
— Carl Sagan
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Posted in Science!, Writing | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, inspiration, science, Thoughts, Writers, writing | Leave a Comment »
Mr Man and I had a lot to do today but (straight talk) didn’t get to most of it. That’s fine, because we were short on sleep and needed to recharge before we tackled anything big. It’s good to be prepared.
With that in mind, here’s a bit of helpful advice for writers and adventurers.
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Posted in Writing | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, history, inquiring minds, Thoughts, time travel, Writers | Leave a Comment »
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