I'm kind of surprised. I finished the first draft of Future Sepsis tonight.
Final word count is 67,912 words.
The original plan was for 60,000 words completed 1,000 per week starting in January and ending sometime in early 2026. Obviously I was able to have some very productive weeks.
Planning to edit in 3 passes using different techniques for each pass to catch different potential problems in the work, then I'll have to start all the legwork of getting it out there.
For anyone who goes "This dummy writes too much in his posts", just imagine -- I've been writing this much outside of my posts! :P
Final word count is 67,912 words.
The original plan was for 60,000 words completed 1,000 per week starting in January and ending sometime in early 2026. Obviously I was able to have some very productive weeks.
Planning to edit in 3 passes using different techniques for each pass to catch different potential problems in the work, then I'll have to start all the legwork of getting it out there.
For anyone who goes "This dummy writes too much in his posts", just imagine -- I've been writing this much outside of my posts! :P
My life is in a strange spot right now. One moment doing simple shapes and colors, and 30 seconds later I'm working on a hard sci-fi bio-thriller set 100 years in the future.
After I learned what one of these anchors makes in a year, I now believe that 16 million dollars isn't nearly enough of a fine for what they did.
I expect the first draft to be done later this month, not a lot of words left to write. I spent some time today building the cover. When I completed The Graysonian Ethic, the editing passes went really fast and it was time to go to press quickly, so I figured I'd take the opportunity while my brain isn't quite ready for this week's words.
The matrix sequels are basically a leftist meme, using a lot of words to say nothing.
With the Liberals in charge, the only weapons of war they could bring to bear would be weaponized snark and catty comments. Unfortunately I am under the distinct impression that neither of those can be compared favorably to nuclear weapons or Abrams tanks.
I want to be clear about something, I wasn't really disagreeing with anything you said, I was just jumping into the conversation because this is my jam. :p
It all comes back to the question: "if a malevolent demon wanted to manipulate me into thinking all kinds of absurd things, how can I be sure I even exist at all?", it's an extreme skepticism that anything can be known at all.
But even if the empirical world is an illusion (it largely is), if you can sit and think about whether you're being manipulated then at least something that is "you" must exist to think those thoughts. It may or may not be the embodied self you think you are (and in some ways that's an illusion too -- you are the amalgamation of billions of individual cells working in concert), but *something* that is you must exist.
It isn't about externally validating someone else's existence, it's about proving to yourself that you can at least know that you exist.
It's a problem that comes up when you start questioning everything, that everything means everything. Everything means that you need to question what your eyes and ears tell you, it means that you need to question what your skin feels, what your nose smells, you need to question whether you exist at all because if you are questioning everything then you have no basis to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that even you yourself exist unless you can derive it from some logical basis.
You end up with a similar problem from the ought-is problem in ethics. I spent many years trying to think of some way that you could prove mathematically and scientifically that there was a certain way of living that was objectively correct, and the reality was that in the movement of atoms and stars, you will never find a reason not to fall into degeneracy. The place you find that meaning is within yourself because you're a human being made of human being components.
Ironically, modern era philosophers like Descartes largely ended up falling into the materialist/empiricist framework so you can take the fact that you think as proof that you exist, but you can't take the fact that you feel love as proof that love exists.
But even if the empirical world is an illusion (it largely is), if you can sit and think about whether you're being manipulated then at least something that is "you" must exist to think those thoughts. It may or may not be the embodied self you think you are (and in some ways that's an illusion too -- you are the amalgamation of billions of individual cells working in concert), but *something* that is you must exist.
It isn't about externally validating someone else's existence, it's about proving to yourself that you can at least know that you exist.
It's a problem that comes up when you start questioning everything, that everything means everything. Everything means that you need to question what your eyes and ears tell you, it means that you need to question what your skin feels, what your nose smells, you need to question whether you exist at all because if you are questioning everything then you have no basis to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that even you yourself exist unless you can derive it from some logical basis.
You end up with a similar problem from the ought-is problem in ethics. I spent many years trying to think of some way that you could prove mathematically and scientifically that there was a certain way of living that was objectively correct, and the reality was that in the movement of atoms and stars, you will never find a reason not to fall into degeneracy. The place you find that meaning is within yourself because you're a human being made of human being components.
Ironically, modern era philosophers like Descartes largely ended up falling into the materialist/empiricist framework so you can take the fact that you think as proof that you exist, but you can't take the fact that you feel love as proof that love exists.
Shroedingers country: it's simultaneously the nicest place on earth and so horrible that we should allow everyone living there to move here until Trump says something about it and the waveform collapses.
If my wife and kids ever stop referring to me that way I'll disown them for trying to gas me up too much.
Looks like that guy from ac/DC took unbelievable amounts of acid.
Which he did I'm sure, but not enough to cause this.
Which he did I'm sure, but not enough to cause this.
The source file is included, the drawall routine does it all as I recall. Definitely did the graphics in pure QB, with all the slowness that entails.
The only thing that might be assembly is the key handler. I really don't remember at this point, because I remember spending some time on an assembly key handler, but I also remember spending some time on a pure QB key handler. There was no native multikey routine so you had to poll the keyboard interrupt directly. I think an assembler keyboard routine would use interrupts to catch every key press and unpress whereas a QB routine has to poll the keyboard and is limited by the execution rate of the main game loop.
I guess, also the music. After Windows 2000 was released, any conception of using MS-DOS for music went out the window, so I think the dos version has a little visual basic program that looks for commands in a file in the root directory of the game, and then either plays or stops playing the music based on the commands in the file.
The only thing that might be assembly is the key handler. I really don't remember at this point, because I remember spending some time on an assembly key handler, but I also remember spending some time on a pure QB key handler. There was no native multikey routine so you had to poll the keyboard interrupt directly. I think an assembler keyboard routine would use interrupts to catch every key press and unpress whereas a QB routine has to poll the keyboard and is limited by the execution rate of the main game loop.
I guess, also the music. After Windows 2000 was released, any conception of using MS-DOS for music went out the window, so I think the dos version has a little visual basic program that looks for commands in a file in the root directory of the game, and then either plays or stops playing the music based on the commands in the file.
This is a container of corn we bought with supper at Kentucky fried chicken last night. Visine shown for scale. It cost us $3.40 for this tiny thing!
My old QB RPG engine ran in modeX 320x240. Graphically one of the most advanced qbrpg engines, it had particle rain effects and shadows and transparent text boxes, a long with pixel*pixel movement and scrolling. Getting that to work on a 486 or a Pentium meant figuring out how to draw most of the graphics in 4 passes, one for each graphics plane, and to get the number of multiplies down by a factor of a million (normally you do a multiply, a divide, and a remainder operation for each pixel which was too much on those old machines)
And if I got any details wrong, it's been 20 years...
https://fbxl.net/oma/qfak/index.html
(Has the QB version and the windows FB version)
And if I got any details wrong, it's been 20 years...
https://fbxl.net/oma/qfak/index.html
(Has the QB version and the windows FB version)
Vancouver is a megacity to me (same as Toronto whose constructions are absurdly huge), the sort of place where you can get stuck in the huge skyscrapers that may be maze-like and interconnected in such a way that you might never need to touch the ground. I live in the backwoods where you can go touch a tree that grew there naturally, not because some city contractors planted it there. I've been outside often twice a day every day I'm not at work so I'm getting used to having my shoes firmly in the soil at ground level.
I think the thing with Chris Williamson is actually way simpler than any metaphor: he seems like he's in really good shape, and I've been feeling really creaky this summer. He seems like the sort of guy who would be in such good shape and so used to the city that he'd just jump off a walkway one story up like it wasn't a big thing.
The part about clothes I think is part of an ongoing theme in the dream about just being a normal guy. I made another quip during the dream about being someone who has touched a can opener this week, representing the sort of boring normal life where you eat preserves out of a can.
I think the thing with Chris Williamson is actually way simpler than any metaphor: he seems like he's in really good shape, and I've been feeling really creaky this summer. He seems like the sort of guy who would be in such good shape and so used to the city that he'd just jump off a walkway one story up like it wasn't a big thing.
The part about clothes I think is part of an ongoing theme in the dream about just being a normal guy. I made another quip during the dream about being someone who has touched a can opener this week, representing the sort of boring normal life where you eat preserves out of a can.