I imagine a library atop a remote mountain that collects the essential information needed to re-learn practical knowledge essential to civilization. This depot, open to anyone who journeys there, is the cultural equivalent of the Svalbard seed bank, a vault on the Arctic Circle that holds frozen seeds of crop plants from around the world. The utilitarian documents in this vault would be the seeds of culture, able to sprout again if needed. It would be the Library of Utility, and it would serve as civilization’s backup.
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We’re coming up on the end of the spring semester and things are kicking my behind. It’s a challenge, and that’s okay; this whole thing so far has helped provide a little more focus on my priorities. I have a feeling fall is going to be different (in a good way).
Between tutoring a young gentleman in the Intro to Computers class and juggling other assignments and projects, I’ve had some time to do editing on the next chapter of Awakening. Sadly, however, it’s not -quite- done. If I manage to knock out this week’s projects early, I should be able to give it a spitshine and get it up by Friday.
In the meantime, here’s some examples of the things I’ve worked on this spring. Read the rest of this entry »
Hey folks! If you’re finding this place for the first time thanks to the April 1 event, Welcome! If you want to skip my rambling, you can do that.
The 32nd of March! It’s a beautiful day in North Dakota…
What? It’s not the 32nd? I suppose that means it’s actually April the First. Which, coincidentally, means I’ve got an extra-special surprise for you: two surprises! Yes! And that’s not even one of them! So you actually get THREE! Unless that is one of them, in which case… Uh… Does that make it four? Is it surprising I can’t count? (Does that statement make it five…?)
Hm. While I break out an abacus to figure out exactly how many surprises are in this post (is it surprising that I do actually possess an abacus? Let me add that to the tally), allow me to explain what’s going on today. If you already know what’s going on, you’ll find what you’re looking for a little bit further down the page.
This year, I have for you the results an April First weblit swap event — akin to the artistic swaps we see webcomic artists doing with their strips, where a guest artist pens something with their characters/universe/sandbox/Etch-a-Sketch, and the normal artist does something for someone else in the same fashion, and so on and so forth in a big, cozy circle. I’m not sure how I fell into this, precisely; I do remember something about the event briefly on Twitter, and I might have sent someone a Direct Message about it. Suddenly (and, for what it’s worth, using ‘suddenly’ is not a good way to relate suspense), suddenly, I find these strange names and webpages in my inbox and I’ve got no idea what’s going on. Yet, somehow, it all worked out!
The marvelous short gem I have the privilege of sharing with you today (which I will in fact share in a couple more paragraphs’ time) comes to us by way of Allan Michaels, the author of An Empire at War. I put together a short piece for Robert Rodgers, the author of Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium as well as The Last Skull. My piece for Robert falls into Arcadia’s universe — and that universe, perhaps, may contain our very own universe!
And so we come to the links:
Here’s Allan’s contribution to Terra Fabula.
You can find the piece I did for Robert at the Arcadia Snips site.
The list of all the swaps today is over at the Webfiction Guide.
Still here? Great! Because here’s another surprise!
Our regular reader, Typhoon, also donated a piece — not knowing that the above exchange was taking place. I don’t want to make him wait a full year for another April 1 to come along, so I’m also adding that to the collection today! His piece is a look ahead to what-could-be in the years beyond Paradigm Shift’s time. I debated leaving it exactly as contributed, but after some careful consideration I took the liberty of doing some small structural edits as English isn’t his first language. Here’s Typhoon’s contribution.
There will be something on Friday.
One of my college instructors loaned me her Wacom Intuos 3 tablet over spring break with the directions: “Figure out how to use it, then show me.” Uh… Okay!
Next semester is when I plan to take Vector Graphics (the Illustrator course) but I figured — I bought CS5 Design Premium with the new laptop (go go student discounts), I might as well give it a try.
Using this page on mozilla links as a visual reference, I muddled through the program and produced this in the course of about… 8 hours:
I’m not an artist, and it shows, but for a first-ever attempt I’m pretty proud of myself.