Archive for the 'digital life' Category

Sci-fi Greatest Works [updated]

Published
by
jwbjerk
on June 29, 2007
in ARTS, TECH, digital life and recreational arts
. 4 Comments

When Orson Scott Card was asked: “What is your advice to the aspiring SF or fantasy novelist?” he replied:

Don’t even think about writing sf or fantasy unless you’ve read every story in: The Hugo Winners, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Dangerous Visions and Again Dangerous Visions.

These stories are the root of the field. If you don’t know them, you will try to reinvent the wheel; and since the readers do know them, it will kill your work. Besides, you can’t learn the tools of the trade without being familiar with how they’ve been used and developed. Science fiction is more demanding than literary fiction, and is harder to do well; the reward is that science fiction and fantasy allow you to tell any story that can be told in li-fi, and far more that can’t.

I don’t have specific aspirations to be a writer, but this seems like good advice for the sci-fi reader as well. So, instead of wandering blindly through the mass of sci-fi, i decided to read those works recognized by the writers and readers of sci-fi as the greats. And because i’m very bad at remembering book titles, i put together a chart to keep track of things. The chart gradually grew into something more, either exhaustive or monstrous— depending on your perspective.

I’ve included the Anthologies O.S. Card recommended, the Hugo Award winners and nominees, The Nebula Award Winners, and most of the Locus Award Winners. A total of 1100+ novels, short stories and intermediate length works. For convenience the chart tallies up your progress in the various award categories. It also displays how much of the content in each category you’ve read, weighing longer works more heavily than short stories. Finally there are brief non-spoiling summaries of some of the works i’ve read.

I don’t know how many people are rabid enough about sci-fi to use this, but here it is:
A excel chart of award winning sci-fi

My current, life-long total:
38% of the Hugo Winners
15% of the Total in this chart.

[UPDATE]
I’ve updated the chart. There were several errors, and one big mistake, the weights for “novellas” and “novelettes” were reversed. I.e. reading novelettes gave you twice the credit that novellas did with only about half as many words to read. It works like this: the longer the word, “novel, novella, novelette” the fewer words it has.

I’ve also added some links in the chart, and a column that distinguishes between sci-fi and fantasy. However these are currently blank for most.

Inspiring Film-Noir Videogames

Published
by
jwbjerk
on March 1, 2007
in ARTS, TECH, digital life, illustration and recreational arts
. 0 Comments

I just thought this was really cool. Check out Limbo, especially the video teaser.
You don’t frequently see animation this nice on the big screen, let alone in a video game. The parallax and depth-of-field effects work wonderfully with the silhouette style — thus the reference to “film-noir”. I doubt there’s a maltese falcon in the game.

Limbo title Continue reading ‘Inspiring Film-Noir Videogames’

A Convergence of iPod & Weather

Published
by
jwbjerk
on August 9, 2006
in TECH, digital life and my life
. 3 Comments

One of the things i like about the iPod, are the rare moments when i’m out and about, and suddenly there’s a congruity between the world outside, my mood, and the music playing in my head. The music ceases to be merely background, and suddenly becomes theme music— orchestrated to that moment in my life.

Rainy Night

Tonight that happened. I put in some hours rather late, and when i left, i found it was raining outside. I like rain, but cannot deny that a rainy night in an empty parking lot has a desolate feel. Then the a melancholy song came up over the ear buds. It intesified the flavor of the moment, as i stood under the overhang watching the rain. When the song was over i walked home. But i’ll probably remember those few minutes of rain longer than most other rainy night i’ve seen.

Alarum!

Published
by
jwbjerk
on August 1, 2006
in TECH, digital life and my life
. 4 Comments

My only computer (a laptop) is loosing battery charge inspite of the fact that it’s plugged in. I may be scarce in the blogosphere and email until i get this fixed. :(

Email is forever

Published
by
jwbjerk
on July 29, 2006
in TECH, digital life and unsolicited advice
. 2 Comments

It continues to suprise me how many people use hotmail, yahoo, or their ISP’s email accounts. I suppose most don’t realize that there are other options, or see a reason to bother. However there are advantages in Permanence, Obviousness, & Spam-Avoidance in getting your own domain with it’s own email accounts.

To do this does require a minimal familiarity with the web & web technologies. If you don’t already have one, first you much purchasing a domain name (a .com, .org, .us, or whatever.) Do a google search for “buy domain name”. Look for a registrar that also provides email hosting (it might be free). The whole thing might cost $8-$15 a year. You now own that email address, (as much as anything on the ‘net can be possessed) at any point you can switching to a different domain registrar, or email hosting provider, and you keep the same email address. A common feature– automatic forwarding, can direct all email from one account to another. It can help you get over the transition between accounts.

Permanence:

The beauty of owning an email address, is it may be the only piece of contact information that can stay constant. Your address and phone number will probably change many times. If you are female (or in a witness protection program), your name may even change, but a well thought-out email address may last a lifetime. I can give people my email address something@jwbjerk.com and feel confident it will still work in 5 or 25 years. Hotmail, Yahoo, and even GMail may not always be around or they may not be competitive. Using and ISP’s email address is even more constricting, because it can lock you in to a service that may no longer be affordable or competitive. Continue reading ‘Email is forever’

Some Recommended OTR Programs

Published
by
jwbjerk
on July 19, 2006
in ARTS, TECH, digital life and recreational arts
. 2 Comments

Many of the better remembered radio shows, such as The Shadow or Buck Rogers are a bit too pulpy and predictable for my taste. I prefer programs with a strong story, some suprizes, and a more literary style of writing. Excluding programs that were short-lived or hard to find, here are some of my favorites. Continue reading ‘Some Recommended OTR Programs’

OTR: or what else to do with an iPod

Published
by
jwbjerk
on July 7, 2006
in ARTS, TECH, apple/mac, digital life and recreational arts
. 9 Comments

According to most news reports there are only 2 things you can listen to on an iPod:

  1. music bought on the iTunes Music Store
  2. music obtained illegally

Personally, i use neither. Continue reading ‘OTR: or what else to do with an iPod’

I can no longer Resist the Siren call of Blogging

Published
by
jwbjerk
on July 4, 2006
in blogging, digital life and my life
. 4 Comments

admiring the look and content of Jeff Gray’s blog, and finding out that WordPress is much more user friendly than other free or cheap solutions, i’m giving up on the idea of learning GoLive or HTML to put together a decent website. I choose the path of the blog/gallery content in the knowledge that i can tweak the CSS styles. Continue reading ‘I can no longer Resist the Siren call of Blogging’