Fantasist’s Scroll

Okay, so it occurred to me that there had to be a better way.
Yeah, sure, I could talk about the evils of free porn until I’m blue in the face. I could even rant about how terrible it is to manipulate searchengines. Instead, I’m going to try and do it. Again.
Yes, again. I did it once back in 2000/2001 to get my other site ranked so highly on Google for the search terms “CNE resume” that it was the number one hit. I did all sorts of crazy things, not the least of which was start a blog, incidentally. One thing I did was look at both the Google Zeitgeist and the Yahoo Buzz Index and try to use those terms in my site. So, for instance, according to Google’s Zeitgeist, I should talk about: how I felt about the Golden Globes and who won; the fact that Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day; what Teri Hatcher was wearing at the Golden Globes; who Teri Polo is and what she wore at the Golden Globes; what NASA has thrown into space lately; what “naughtiness” Prince Harry has been up to over in the UK; detailed specs on the iPod Shuffle; the super-model antics of Naomi Campbell; the fact that Mariska Hargitay also won a Golden Globe; and how the movie “Elektra” was doing in the box office. As you can see, that first hit, the Golden Globe Awards, was a really popular one, since it was repeated in, or was effected by, several later searches.
Last week, I should have been talking about: Amber Frey, the adulterous whore who was banging Scott Peterson; the terrible damage done by the tsunami in India; how terrible it is that Ashlee Simpson was caught lip-synching; Delta Airlines for some reason; the Weather Channel coverage of that tsunami in India; Heidi Klum, because it’s always a good time to talk about Ms. Klum (and she got married to Seal); NFL player Randy Moss, presumably because he sprained his ankle; the Orange Bowl, because it’s still football season; the fact that Brad Pitt is single again; and all the cool concept cars at the Detroit Auto Show. Crazy stuff, right?

Well, according to Yahoo Buzz Index, I should have talked about some very different things this week. If I wanted to get Yahoo hits, I should have talked about: OJ Simpson’s daughter, Sydney Simpson, getting arrested; Playboy Playmate Alicia Rickter, for obvious, pornographic reasons; those nuts over at Jibjab, who made another hit animation; Enter Location, because, uh, people were travelling a lot?; actress Elisabeth Harnois, possibly for the Golden Globes again?; O.J. Simpson, because his daughter got arrested, of course; the fact that Julian Ozanne got married to Gillian Anderson and no one knows who he is, but everyone knows her from the X-files; anything and everything about actress Lucy Liu, just because, she’s Lucy Liu; the Tennesse-based music and arts festival, Bonnaroo; “How We Do” almost anything, from the sound of it; eating “Breakfast and Brunch”? Or is that more travelling stuff?; how cheap Costco Wholesale pricing is; soap-opera star Annie Parisse, most likely because she moved on to something better; the fact that Japan had another big earthquake; and Jimjab.com, which is most likely a mistake for “jibjab.com”.

Wow, those are totally different things, aren’t they? Are people who use those two different searchengines that different? Have I been losing out by optimizing for Google?
Oh, I don’t know, but I think I’m going to go have a bit of a lay-down. This whole experience has been exhausting.
(And, yes, I’ve posted this same thing on my other blog, the Diary of a Network Geek, for the same reason as the last post.)

Well, I’m making a bit.

After a couple of exchanges on the Conlang List this week, I realized that I’m growing as a person, and a writer. As the reference to conlanging suggests, I’ve been thinking about created languages again. I was originall inspired by an article in the Dragon Magazine in the days of my youth. It was a very simplistic article aimed at a simple person, namely me and my kind. It was followed by another article which was much more linguistically challenging and completely over my head. That was almost 20 years ago. Just three years ago, that second article was still over my head.
But, then I started reading. I read the conlang list and several groups on Yahoo. I read LangMaker.com and The Metaverse. More importantly, I got several books on linguistics and read them, too. I reread that article which had flummoxed me so many years ago this weekend and the whole damn thing made sense. I’m finally ready to start conlanging again after 20 years.

Look out, Johnny, here I come!

Well, the exoskeletons are new, but they’re for the elderly.

No, really, according to this article at Yahoo!News, a Japanese inventor, and college professor, has invented an exoskeleton designed to assist the elderly get around. Taking care of the elderly is something very important to a lot of cultures, though not so much to American culture for some reason, and the Japanese are especially sensitive to their elderly’s needs. This invention might help them out. And, again, it’s a fun story!

No, actually, I guess it’s methanol.

Well, according to this news story on Yahoo, NEC has developed a methanol-powered laptop. No more recharging for me! Yahoo indeed!
Well, okay, you’ll have to keep refueling, but still… And, it’s supposed to last ten times longer than a normal battery, so, that’s cool, too.

What’ll they think of next?
Oh, and, yeah, I first mentioned this at my other blog.

Is such a thing possible?

Well, according to this article on Yahoo, it just might be! Imagine what it might mean to the future of publishing. Add in some wireless connectivity and you’ve really got something here. Textbooks that change based on which class a student is in when they’re opened. An entire university library available to students on campus, wirelessly. Books that can be downloaded from the ‘net directly to a reading device.
Then, of course, there is the interactivity aspect. The article talks about catalogs that can be used to place electronic orders. Add in the ability to automatically update inventory, price and availability and you’ve really got something.

Of course, we’re a ways off from that, so it’s still science-fiction, but the possibilities are endless. In a fully networked world, devices like this might replace PCs alltogether. They would become the ultimate PDA. It could be the Next Big Thing. Or, it might never get enough market penetration, like the poor Mac. That Mac was revolutionary, too, but it got beat out by a cheap knock-off.
In any case, it did strike me as an interesting thing to have in a sci-fi story.

Okay, here’s a new angle…

Here’s a news story from Yahoo about a guy who claims to be a time traveller who “knows” what the market is going to do. He started with an $800 portfolio and in two weeks made over $350 million! What’s interesting is that no one can seem to find any record of the name this guy is using prior to December of 2002. He’s apparently claimed that he’ll tell us where Osama Bin Laden is and how to cure AIDS as proof that he comes from the future. Well, I’m game!

This does point out, though, why that old sci-fi favorite of travelling back in time to buy the right stocks on the stock market wouldn’t work. You’d have to be pretty darn careful or someone, somewhere would notice. On the other hand, it could just be an interesting plot twist. Of course, there’s still the old lottery gambit. You know, going back and getting a ticket with the winning numbers on it. Hmm… That one has some possibilities. Oh, and combine the two and you’d have an interesting tale of greed! Of course, time-travel is really more the realm of fantasy than science-fiction. Asimov came up with some rules about time travel that seem pretty solid to me. He was, after all, an actual scientist and a genius to boot. Also, he’s still one of the most prolific writers of our time. Still, those time travel stories have always piqued my curiosity….

[ Posted by mail via mail2mt.pl ]

Well, I’ve been a busy bee this week. I have a couple of updates, both on and off Fantasist.net.

On this site, I’ve updated the Cartography page. I added in a neat map that illustrates an idea I had for a world creation myth. I imagined a god stamping out evil, in a way, by smashing the chief evil spirit into the world-covering ocean. Where the god’s hand pressed into the ocean floor, mud stuck to his hand and was pulled up through the ocean to form continents and islands. Then, the evil spirit tried to force his way back into the world, forming a volcano. So, to keep the source of all evil in check, the god creates human kind to guard over the breach in the world. In response to that, the source of evil creates his own race to fight the humans. Viola! A creation myth for a fantasy world!
In any case, to illustrate that, I did up a map. It’s free of any labels, but the basic idea is pretty well displayed. The map and idea, incidentally, were inspired by the cover of a game called Kahuna, which is a strategy card-game set in a fictional Hawaii.

Off this site, I have posted two constructed language templates. They’re geared toward creating phrasebooks for a conlang. The first, which I actually did some time ago, is a sort of “phrasebook for tourists”. It covers all the basics like simple greetings, small-talk, how to order in a restaurant, and getting directions. All the kinds of things one might find in a tourist guidebook.
The second phrasebook is meant to jumpstart some ideas about slang in a conlang. Of course, slang is very culturally specific, but I threw out some fun ideas. I hit things like street “jive”, cool vs. uncool, gambling and crime, and sex. Believe it or not, most conlangs don’t actually seem to include stuff like that. I guess because most of us take an acedemic approach. So, I laid out some basic topics, suggested a meaning, added in a literal translation and left a blank for a conlang translation. We’ll see what the reaction is, if there is any reaction at all.
The files have been posted to the Yahoo!Groups LangMaker2 list, which is available here. Unfortunately, you will have to sign up for Yahoo!Groups, and the LangMaker2 Group itself, to get the files. Eventually, I’ll put up conlang page here on Fantasist.net and post them for download there.

Until next time, keep creating new stuff!