Here are two stories to make you think.

First, there's <a target="_blank" href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/11/17/carolina.dig/index.html">the story about the archeological dig in South Carolina</a> that may provide evidence that early man migrated to North America as much as 25,000 years earlier than originally believed. It could change everything we believe about the early migration of primative humans. At first blush, that may not sound like a big deal, but it really is.

Secondly, there's <a target="_blank" href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/11/18/great.apes/index.html">the story about a recently discovered "new" ape fossil</a> that may be the so-called missing link. The creature that made this fossil may be the earliest known, not to mention closest, ancestor to both modern apes and modern man. Of course, this is very controversial and may not be true, after all, the science of hominid evolution is very, very speculative due to it's nature. It's not a living process that we can actually observe in real-time. Still, it does provide more information and a whole lot of food for thought.

Anyway, it seemed like a pair of interesting, inter-related, stories. Enjoy!

No, this is not something out of the back pages of Wired.

It's a real thing being put together by the DaVinci Institute, called, yes, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=37">Museum of Future Inventions</a>. Their idea is simple, actually, dedicate a museum to future technologies that haven't been actually invented yet with the hope that someone will be inspired to make them reality. I don't know if it will actually work, but it sure sounds like a fun museum to visit! In any case, anything that promotes hope for future generations is all right in my book!

And, what the heck, it's Friday, so go check it out.

You'd think this belongs on my other blog, which is tech oriented, but...

Well, okay, it probably belongs there, too. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65596,00.html?tw=wn_6culthead"… News ran this story</a> about the efforts of researchers to localize cell phones for Ethiopia last week. It's interesting to me for a number of reasons.
First, there's the "alphabet", which is actually a syllabary. It's got over 300 characters and is nothing at all like the Roman alphabet. (You can see what it looks like at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ethiopic.htm">Omniglot.com</a&gt;.) A bit of a challenge for the English-speaking cell phone designers!
Second, it's a fascinating look at the way technology effects us and the way we effect technology. The goal was to get SMS into the hands of farmers who could use it for communication and weather prediction to better manager their crops.
Thirdly, it's a look at a section of the world that I hear about all too little. Africa is most likely the birth-place of man, or at least the tribe of man from which modern Europeans descended, but it seems so primative by our, oh, so refined Western standards.

In short, it was a very interesting look at an aspect of life that I rarely see. How will all that change in the future? Where will it all end up? How much will situations like that be the norm out on space colonies, if we ever get them? Language and technology make for very interesting idea combonations. There's lots of stories there.

I always love a good random generator.

God knows, I've needed a good laugh the past week or two, so when I found the <a target="_blank" href="http://walkingdead.net/perl/euphemism">Euphemism Generator</a>, I knew I'd hit gold. Of course, it mainly generates sexual euphemisms, but it does have others and, in any case, it's a laugh riot! Most of them are a little bit off, if you know what I mean, but some of them are so dead funny that I thought I was going to spit my coffee all over my monitor.

Anyway, it's Friday and you deserve a laugh, too, no matter who you are, so click the link.

The male version of the "bodice ripper".

Let me preface this review with the simple statement that this is: a) Not the kind of book I usually read, b) There is almost nothing about real "bushido" in the book, and c) Was purchased at a used book store for less than a dollar. Okay, I admit that I was looking for something different, and not too challenging to read, but I was hoping for more.
I finished <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet&amp;path=tg… of Bushido</a> by Don Pendelton this week. This is from a series of "men's fiction" (no, that's not a euphemism for pornography!) called SuperBolan, which is named after the main character, Mack Bolan. It's about as low-brow as you can get and still be reading books that don't have illustrations.
The characterisation is weak and the rest of the writing is worse. Everyone is a giant characature of actual characters. Mack Bolan is a stereotypical, steely-eyed, tough-guy fighting a shadow war against terrorists for the CIA. He's the ultimate dark hero. A professional killer who's out there killing the bad guys and keeping America safe. Yes, it's really that heavy-handed.

But, setting all that aside. It was entertaining. Entertaining in the same way that, say, a Sylvester Stalone movie is. Lots of action, a little mostly bad dialog and not much else. But, I didn't have to think about it. It was what it was. There wasn't any really deep social message here, just action and lots of it. So, it was an oddly soothing change of pace for me. The only really annoying thing was the totally wrong presentation of bushido and traditional Japanese culture. This author has obviously never read anything about bushido, or any of the traditional martial arts, or even talked to anyone with more than a passing interest in Japanese culture.
So, while I can't reccomend this book in all good conscience, if you're in the mood for mindless mayhem and a break from anything too heavy, this might just get the job done.

But, to counter the "low-brow-ness" of <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet&amp;path=tg… of Bushido</a>, I started reading <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?search-type=ss&amp;ta… Science of Words</a>. Nothing like some good linguistics to wash the filth off!

Can it be done?

Well, some folks are working on it at least. This story is a little old, but it's worth mentioning, I thought, since it could open up so many new possibilities. According to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=5817">this article on the University of Washington news site</a>, researchers are working on a magnetized-beam plasma propulsion device that will drastically reduce interplanetary travel within our own solar system. I have to agree with the researchers when they say that a two year trip to Mars is too prohibitive for us to risk. But, making the same trip in 90 days is much more reasonable. It would really make our solar system much more usable, in a certain sense, for us as a space-faring race. Who knows, it might even be the start of extra-solar travel as well. At least, if we get up there and start running around, we might find other things that will advance our propulsion science far enough to make interstellar travel a real possibility.
All of which is perfect fare for a science-fiction writer, eh? And, in any case, it's an interesting article.

I just re-read this last week.

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet&amp;path=tg… to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy</a> is good enough that I've read it three times now and I still picked up something new. In fact, I always pick up something new when I read it, or almost anything else about writing.
This book, though, is different. For one thing, it's fairly focused on speculative fiction, which is just a euphemism science-fiction and fantasy. Also, the author, Orson Scott Card, is not only a writing teacher, but also a Hugo and Nebula Award winner, so he really does know what he's talking about. But, beyond that, it's a damn fine book. So, I've read it again, after two years, and this time, I'm doing a bit of a review.
If you're just starting out, this is a great book to start get you started the right way. If you've been at this for a bit, it's still a great book to read, because it will show you some things that you may not have noticed about writing speculative fiction. At the very least, it'll be a good refresher course for you. I know that I use <a href="http://www.fantasist.net/scroll/archives/000004.html">the MICE "rule of thumb"</a> when I look at my own story ideas, such as they are these days. This book really taught me quite a bit about making realistic fantays settings and, I think, contributes to the strength of my story, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.fantasist.net/fiction/archives/000241.html">The Chrome Girl</a>.
In any case, I cannot reccomend <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet&amp;path=tg… to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy</a> enough. It's well worth the price.

Whoa! I almost forgot!

I guess I've been busy this week, because I almost forgot to post a Friday Fun Link. So, without further ado, here is <a target="_blank" href="http://members.ozemail.com.au/~imcfadyen/notthenet/faq.htm">the Real FAQ</a>, or <a target="_blank" href="http://members.ozemail.com.au/~imcfadyen/notthenet/faq.htm">Questions You Really Ask</a>. C'mon, let's face it, these are real-world things that people are always asking, so it makes perfect sense to write up standard responses to them and put them on a webpage.

At least, it made sense on a Friday. Aw, go take a look, it's not like you were working anyway!

I got this in a spam the other day:

"He soon came to a stop, however, and saw that another of the monsters had
come upon him from the rear and was now, with its mate, circling closely
around him, while both uttered continuously their hoarse, savage cries. Rob
wondered why the Garment of Repulsion had not protected him from the blow of
the bird's wing; but, as a matter of fact, it had protected him
For it was not the wing itself but the force of the eddying currents of air
that had sent him whirling away from the monster"

Now, golly, what an interesting thing to have in spam to make it seem like a real message. I almost feel like I should work it up into an actual story. Oh, I'd have to edit it some, but it's not a bad start.

A conlang without a grammar is just a cipher.

Think about that for a minute. If you're just transposing words, you haven't created a new language so much as you've created a new code. Maybe that's all you're after. If so, that's fine and you can stop reading now, but if you want more than that, think about your native language and your conlang for a minute.

Still with me? Great. I can make up words, either by hand or by <a href="http://www.fantasist.net/conlang.shtml">machine</a&gt;, but making a grammar takes a lot more thought and work. Last month, I was reading the blog over at<a target="_blank" href="http://www.langmaker.com/"&gt; Langmaker.com, the Ultimate Constructed Language Resource</a> which is maintained by Jeffrey Henning. He had several links to conlang grammars there, including: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.webcom.com/~donh/Esperanto/rules.html">The Sixteen Rules of Esperanto Grammar</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.eskimo.com/~ram/syntax.html">Syntax for Artificial Languages</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="http://web.archive.org/web/19970210063113/http://www.bible.org/bibsac/5… Training Device for Translation Theory and Practice</a>. Any of them are good places to start looking at what goes into a grammar. If you're a little more advanced than that, and feeling brave, you can try reading <A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521588057/fantasistnet">Describ… Morphosyntax : A Guide for Field Linguists</A>. But, as good as it is, I have to warn you, this is NOT for he casual reader or the easily intimidated. It is a daunting book that damn near put me into a coma! But, if you can make it through this bad boy, you will have a really good grasp of what can go into a language's grammar. You will also be able to endure incredible, mind-numbing torture as dosed out by mothers-in-law. Or, you will be a gibbering idiot. Either way, it's all great fuel for conlanging.
I often find myself getting stuck in the "research phase" of my many creative projects. Sometimes, I get so caught up in the research that I never get the project started. This is where I'm at with my conlanging. I need to get past that. I hope that the inspiration from Langmaker, and Jeffery Henning will help me get started on those projects. As they say on the street, 'aint nothing to but to do it. So, let's all take some inspiration from those links up above and get started on that conlang that we've been putting off.