Duke Street Alley

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Glocationization

Microformats

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I invite your speculations: How could an interstellar economy work? Assume FTL travel is possible, but not instantaneous.

(Given that our own economies seem, from my point of view, to work on a principle of not being examined too closely, feel free to propose outrageous possibilities.)

EDIT: To answer questions, mostly about the parameters of FTL…

FTL does not rely on a constructed infrastructure, but does rely on naturally occurring, unevenly distibuted features of space-time.

The economy is the several-kinds-meeting type.

FTL has more in common with a train than a hand-pushed cart, but sailing ships are a better analogy.

Travel is expensive, but not ludicrously so - think sun holidays now; you can’t do it all the time, but once a year is ordinary. More importantly, it requires a skilled pilot. Certain routes have size limitations on traffic. Space tourism is definitely a happening thing.

Travel time is about one to four hours to a neighbouring star system at the very best (local conditions may increase that greatly, but never reduce it below a theoretical optimum) and about a year and a half to cross human-occupied space one way. [Actual numbers subject to change, but about that feel.]

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I do wonder what happened to the negative parts of the various seasonal traditions - the kids who didn’t get Christmas presents because they weren’t good (or got coal, or sticks, or whatever), the ones who didn’t find Easter eggs, and so on. They seem to have vanished entirely.

I was reminded of this by an overheard conversation in a supermarket today wherein two (well-dressed, well-spoken, polite) kids were discussing blackmail tactics to get the maximum possible number of Easter eggs out of their relatives. The small boy was good on the numbers, but weak on motivation (his concept of beating up his older brother seemed doomed to failure, for instance), and the small girl had them down a lot better, having already concealed pictures of “Mary and George” in safe places for a later exchange against a chocolate currency.

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Last night, after an excellent run through the delightful Zul Gurub, Wormson finally made level 60 in fine style. His final levelling quest involved a giant demon and a huge mechanical chicken, which, as pointed out, entirely appropriate.

Screenshot, also provided by , is here.

Gonna have to update that icon; it's from about level 18…

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As part of an ongoing series of tests, I’m working on specialised page per sport for sportsinteraction.com. Some of them will contain news and previews, and others will just be gateways to the betting options for that sport. However, I know sod all about the actual sports, in most cases, so I’d appreciate knowing what people who actually follow American Football think of the NFL landing page. All opinions considered useful…

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It’s incredible how, as soon as Nina boards the plane for the last flight of her journey back to Dublin, time promptly slows to a rate of about two hours per five minutes.

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Here's something quite bizarre. Ambien, a sleeping tablet, can apparently make your brain confuse sleeping and eating, such that side-effects include sleepwalking to the fridge and raiding it, possibly even going about cooking. One woman made it to the kitchen in a full body cast while on the drug.

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I've been trying to think of ways to write about P-Con that won't seem horribly name-dropping-ish, and I'm going to have to settle for explaining that Irish cons are really small, most people are there to see friends, and with an author to attendee ratio of about 1:10, it's very possible to get more face time than at larger cons.

So, P-Con was really excellent. My criteria for a science fiction convention go like this. I have to enjoy it. Check. I have to come home with books. Check. I have to have discovered a new author (or works by one I know that were previously unknown to me). Check, check. I have to have lost track of time at some point. Check. And I have to have had my mind blown at some point. Check.

On the Saturday, I had some extensive and excellent conversations with about Starbound and writing/world-building in general, which helped clarify a lot of what I was thinking, and attended a couple of useful and interesting panels, including one where Peter Morwood had a go at hacking his fingers off with a sharp sword. The Nike Swoosh he has acquired on his right temple has nothing to do with this. After the panel end of things was over, we meandered down to the pub, quizzed Diane (Duane) about the progress of the Big Meow (to which self-publishers all over the world are paying attention) and learned about the use of Hermes scarves as a weapon of the mind.

And then we wandered off to dinner, and I found myself discussing gadgetry, cats, and the food of the Indian subcontinent with Peter, Charles Stross, and, rather stunningly, Patrick Nielsen Hayden. It took me half the meal to work out who Patrick was, which was probably better than finding out at the beginning, and sitting gobsmacked for hours. Back to the con hotel bar, and eventually home (actually at a reasonable enough hour).

Sunday was quieter, but included a panel with James Hogan, in which he expounded on alternate solar system formation theories, and left me sitting going “Woahhhh….” in a way that hasn't happened in a long time.

Overall: Most excellent convention. Very pleased.

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

For looking at later: 9rules.com

Also, I have never seriously considered buying a typeface for myself before, but this one I might.

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Mostly for my own attention later, but I suspect other people will like this too: Li Qingzhao

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I am back on my feet again after a few days of an unpleasant throat infection. While any illness makes me rather brain-dead, I did manage to force a few thoughts for Starbound through between sleeping and staring blankly at the TV. One of these gives rise to a question, part historical, part… actually, I can't even categorise it, I'll just ask it.

How global are global events?

Consider, for example, World War II. If you lived in England or Continental Europe, you could not miss it - even if you were in a serious outback area, chances are that you were affected by rationing, drafting, or troop movements. If you lived in the West of Ireland, though, you might not have experienced much change. Parts of the USA would have experienced little difference for most of the war. Sub-Saharan Africa was probably not much affected, and South America likewise. Places like the Phillipines were definitely altered, but there were probably some Pacific islands to which it made no difference. India? I have no idea.

How realistic is that assessment? Is there a theshold beyond which an event has a (possibly knock-on) effect on everyone? How would you measure it?

And yes, I know there are going to be differences for an interstellar setting. I want to figure out how things work here first.

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Thus far, I have:

• Gone to a co-worker's housewarming party, and got home in one piece
• Woken up and attempted to reconstruct events
• Been phoned by the co-worker's boyfriend to apologise for something he did last night, and which I have no recollection of
• Slept some more
• Watched Batman Begins (which was excellent) and Boy Eats Girl (terrible, I recommend it highly)

All in all, not a bad weekend, and there's still a day to go. I may raid Donnybrook with a trumpet.

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

If I ever commission a picture of Wormson, I'm going to get to do it. Because this is a most excellent picture.

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If you haven't yet commented, I still want your opinions on a science-fiction setting. This applies particularly to those people who told me at Leprecon that they'd do so.

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, this is your morning reminder about tonight's tourney.

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Rumour has it that tomorrow's Guardian will contain a free DVD of The Wicker Man.

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If you haven't yet told me what you'd like to see in scifi, I still want your opinions.

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So I'm working on this science fiction setting, Starbound. There's a post coming up on duekstreet.org wherein I'll tell you some of what I want to do in it. Meantime, though, I want to do some market research. What do you want to see and do in a scifi setting? Some bits are preset - it's going to be epic-scale, stretching across many solar systems, and high tech. It'll be used for short stories, maybe even novels, possibly comics, and certainly RPGs. Give me a wishlist.

(I'd really like to see a lot of responses to this, by the way - even if they're just “Die Shatner Die”, or “I want lots of dakka”, it's all grist to the mill.)

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There's a definite value in habits of writing and labelling. Often, when I think of something in work that I want to work on at home, I'll send myself a mail with “Topic: Something” in the subject line, where “Topic” is something like “Starbound”, “D&D”, “Plan”, or whatever. I've set up filters in gmail so that this stuff gets caught and labelled so I can find it easily later on. I just sent myself one such, and went to set up the filter - only to discover that that filter already exists, even though I have no memory of ever setting it up. This pleases me.

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

I am beginning to realise that I've been in a rather peculiar frame of mind for the last few weeks - for most of the last two months, really. My normal state of Zen calm, go-with-the-flow-ness, has been shallower than usual, such that it's taken far less than usual to stir me up, particularly to annoy me. Small things, which I'd ordinarily take in my stride, have been getting my goat in an unprecedented way. Badly phrased emails, poor grammar, pubs not stocking Erdinger even when they've signs out for it, the existence of right-wingers, the usual level of background idiocy that humanity provides, a missed train, have all been making me grind my teeth and just barely hold on to my calm.

This evening I sat down - after coming home and sleeping for a while - to eat, read a few graphic novels I haven't read in a while, and listen to Kerrang! for a bit. Except Kerrang! now has ads, which loses them this watcher, and, you guessed it, pisses me off no end. I have this new science-fiction universe trying to get out of my head, except that every time I get near being able to write something down, something else irritates me. I spend all my time calming down, and none being calm. I nearly broke out of it about two weeks ago, could feel things settling in my mind, and then it just sort of evaporated again.

This probably isn't evident to most people around me, I know; it hasn't been properly evident to me until this evening, but it is there. I just don't know why, and, yeah, that annoys me too.

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

I've just got a third voicemail from a private number. It's a guy with a British-tinged accent who says his name is Victor, and that I'm to call him at [insert foreign number], quoting reference Q42 or the like. Anyone come across this kind of thing before? It reminds me of the “You've won a holiday!” scam calls.

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How long ago did the orcs arrive on Azeroth? I wasn't able to find a definite answer in poking around various Lore sites this morning, and Wormson wants an answer for some, uh, stuff.

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

We have a new shared music drive in work, and enthusiasm for playlists is starting to pick up. I've been asked to work out a “Best of Grunge” playlist, to match the “90s Singles” one there already. So, what would you include on such a playlist? Don't be shy about suggesting obvious classics, either, because it's entirely possible I'll have missed them.

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

For anyone who's interested, I've posted some of my impressions of the sci-fi MMO, EVE Online, on dukestreet.org (which is also available as a feed on LJ: ). While it's not going to get me away from World of Warcraft, it's interestingly different.

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

“Are yeh thirsty?”
“Like a dehydrated collie!”