Cyber Monday Sale

IT IS CYBER MONDAY! So, I’m having the obligatory sale! If you don’t yet have my first book – a second is expected to follow early in the new year – now’s your chance to pick up the Kindle e-book for just $0.99. If you do , on the

Trope-a-Day: Latex Perfection

Latex Perfection: Unfortunately, no longer nearly so useful as it once was, due to the difficulty of compensating for all the exotic sensoria of all the species out there, never mind the sheer range of possible sensors.  (Mass-market cameras, for example, tend to cover everything from high radio bands through

Trope-a-Day: Laser-Guided Amnesia

Laser-Guided Amnesia: Memory redaction.  Exists as a technology specifically to let people forget (a) traumatic memories, (b) merely unpleasant memories (“let’s agree that this argument never happened, love”), and (c) memories which one is contractually obligated not to have (i.e., a very effective non-disclosure agreement – although the separation

On Thanks, And The Meanings Of Thanks

In appropriateness for Thanksgiving, the question of the nature of thanks. In an etymological discussion on Google+, back in July, which some of you may remember, in which various languages’ ways of saying “thank you” were discussed and their comparative original meanings – in terms of obligation, or gratitude, or mercy,

Apologies...

…for the delay in bringing you various things. I regret to say that my writing is presently being interrupted by, ah, irritating hardware problems, which honestly, I’m not all that thankful for. Unlike, say, my readers, for whose patience I am particularly thankful right now…

Trope-a-Day: Large Ham Title

Large Ham Title: Played straight in formal introductions; everyone from the Empire to relatively local branches issues an assortment of titles, and formal protocol, at least, is to use all of them, or at the very least all that could possibly be relevant, in introductions.  (Remember, pride is a virtue.

Divergence

In the anonymous-questions box today, I received an inquiry into what the point of divergence, as it were, was that led to the eldrae Spaceflight Initiative developing with vigor into exactly the kind of space program we didn’t get? Well, I’ve touched on a little bit of this

Trope-a-Day: La Résistance

La Résistance: The Resolutionist Faction (your local name may vary; it’s not like they can agree on one) are a loose coalition of hundreds, if not thousands, of separate groups, struggling valiantly against the lack of tyranny imposed by the Empire and, to a lesser extent, the Accord of

Shadows Are Shadows

The most important thing to remember about the Shadow Realm is that it does not exist. “Cyberspace” is a null concept. The selfness of the Transcend is a distributed, heavily parallel, sophic process-set. It runs on the fractal chandeliers of Corícal Ailék, as close to a central node as the

We Got Mugged!

…well, no, actually we got steined. But however you care to verb it, thanks to Dunhamshire Creations, I now have this rather splendid and entirely appropriate vessel to lubricate the old synapses from as I write. Shiny!

Trope-a-Day: Language of Truth

Language of Truth: There is no first-class language of truth (that is more or less impossible), but Eldraeic was custom-designed to make speaking logical fallacies – by a variety of logics – bad mathematical statements, woeful imprecision, etc., etc., as difficult as possible if not downright ungrammatical, especially when spoken in formal

sudo fiat_lux

The first thing I saw, after my arrival at Corícal Ailék, was the Transcend’s root code. I didn’t see the live root code, of course. If you are one of the Transcend’s constitutionals, and so can enter Its mind – or rather, as they insist, the Shadow Realm