N.A. Ratnayake @quantumcowboy@wandering.shop
Engineer, Educator, Writer, Rational Idealist. A better world won't simply happen, it must be built. Mars novel: http://bit.ly/redsoil
Loving the strategy board game Twilight Struggle: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12333/twilight-struggle. Layers and layers of strategy, counter-strategy, and counter-counter-strategy. Not a game for the impatient (which means it's good practice for me, because I am quite impatient). So far, my wife has beaten me twice, but she is also a far superior mastermind than I am... Anyway, highly recommended.
"The happiest places in the world are those where enlightened leaders shifted their focus from economic development to promoting quality of life." | So constructing a society & economy around what's good for business isn't the best approach? Shocking. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/happiest-places-in-the-world/563570/
Interesting article in The Atlantic on Tony Crews, touching on toxic masculinity and sexual assault. Show more
Major storms while on approach to FLL. Looks awesome from the air!
At my first technical conference since returning to research engineering from education... and signed up for an Education Subcommittee. I guess I can't escape! Glad I can still support STEM education indirectly from my new profession.
So, writing books often seem to be full of crap... or at least, full of information that may be valuable but I am unable to understand or apply. However, "The Emotional Craft of Fiction" by Donald Maass is turning out to be one of the few that really seems to be strengthening my writing quite a bit. If you struggle with this aspet like I do, then I recommend it!
So, submitted a short story to a market that claimed they would respond in 15-20 business days. That was 35 business days ago. It's been two days since I queried, with no response yet. How long would it be appropriate to wait before withdrawing and moving on to the next market on my list?
Ran my first formal race of any kind this morning... the NASA Moonwalk and Run 5k. That was a lot of fun! I will likely try to do another, and maybe actually train this time.
SOLO rings in at a solid "meh" for me. Too much useless fan service that doesn't have a real structural home in the plot, though not as bad as Force Awakens in that regard. Some of the "hope through darkness" message of all the best SW, but not enough coherent threads to really make it pop like Rogue One. Random awesome things introduced for no reason then abandoned. Felt like they were trying to do way to much, and never did anything well... but neither did it outright suck. So... meh.
Alright, I'm going to try to read all the short stories that are nominated for the Hugo. @amreading
@krumbukt Do you have an email or other form of contact that I can share with someone who doesn't have Mastodon? (I actually can't figure out how to share a link to a toot that works without being logged in...)
Happy to report that my #scifi short story THE PARCHED LANDS, first published in 2013 in Crossed Genres Magazine, is now available as a #free #ebook download from Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/827776 … | #education #schools #testing #future
So, I rated Book 1 of Iain M. Banks's Culture series (Consider Phlebus) a 1 star on GoodReads. The internet convinced me to give the other books a shot, and sure enough, Book 2 (Player of Games) just got 5 stars. Detailed review on the blog queued. #scifi #amreading
*sigh* FINE, typing brain, I'll do it....
echo "alias iypthon ipython" >> ~/.tcshrc & source ~/.tcshrc
Who wants to play!? Oh, wait, I'm already playing.
Grateful! For data collected in non-objectionable ways that I can use to make informed choices for the greater good, or at least my own sanity. For being raised to understand that the way we use a tool matters.
Writers on Mastodon, especially indie writers who rely on social media to have a presence... Have you kept your Twitter account and Facebook Page for the purposes of maintaining necessary connections? If so, do you cross post everything, or do you have a different presence on each one? Curious how others have approached this.
As much as I am reluctant to admit how well a little external motivation works on my writing psyche... treating this month as a NaNoWriMo and tracking daily word count has actually spurred a lot of #amwriting lately.
