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Links to...
A couple of points, that I am sure you are already aware of,
Most of the contents of
this site are based in a fictional reality. I have created this
material because I enjoy creating a different world to the familiar one,
and that is the only reason. (So why is it online? A. because people
could be interested, B. it provides convenient way of showing my
[suffering] friends my latest work) I am not deluded
or have behavioral problems, so this creation is not because of some
pathology, even if you believe you have to be sick to create
this. Although I have
received a lot of inspiration from writers in the genre, this work is by
in large my own, everything is as it shown, there are no undertones, or
articles that require reading outside of this site or a scientific
dictionary, it is to be taken at face value. As for anyone who reads
this, I do not care for a particular audience, but hope that anyone can
find something that they like here.
A selection of question that might be on your mind, and a answers generated by me while I was in a moderately good mood. 1) Things are missing from categories/hyperlinks don’t work 4) I can’t seem to see things properly / pages take a long time to load. 5) Where do you get all those numbers from in your world section? 6) How long have you been doing this? 8) I would like to attempt something similar, do you have any words of wisdom? 9) Why is the site all in greyscale? 10) I am impressed, how may I express my appreciation? 11) Some of the science is overly complicated 12) Some of the science does not exist / probably wrong 1) Things are missing from categories/hyperlinks don’t work This website is in a constant state of construction, so services will occasionally be disrupted because I have overlooked some error, if you discover any link broken, please notify me so I can repair as quickly as possible (assuming I have a working feedback form), but although I have worked on webs I am still prone to error, and I may be stumped for a while if something belligerently does not work. As for blank pages, I probably have set aside an area for a type of article which I have not yet written, hopefully most categories will at least contain one article by the time I publish this web. (up) Why not. Well that was not a very useful answer, I suppose a more informative one would be to say that actually enjoy doing this work, and that alone is the reward, I don’t know, I suppose there is just a certain satisfaction in creating something, an activity which I think is not indulged as much as it should be in an age where conformity seems paramount.(up) Like the answer to ‘why?’ all this has been done because of the joy of just creating it, if anything this material is the fall out from such activities. Anyway most of this stuff works its way into the recycle bin in a few days, and in hindsight I must have destroyed some fairly reasonable work, so I suppose one day I just started archiving it, and then the web was just a progression of this.(up) 4) I can’t seem to see things properly/pages take a long time to load. I have tried to keep all the formats fairly universal to any potential visiting system, all the pictures should be either jpeg, or gif, and I rarely have problems with these. As for slow page load up, I am afraid that although I compress the graphics load on the top few pages is quite high, however it becomes less of a problem with pages and subdirectories, as these tend to have less pictures.(up) 5) Where do you get all those numbers from in your world section? The answer is unfortunately not one that is immediately very useful for anyone that wants to try the same thing, though I don’t think I have made such a good job of it. I designed a little more than a calculating machine on one of the visual programming applications on my computer, an application that was not probably built for this aim in mind, usually for things a lot more complex than straight arithmetic, but it worked superbly well. All the maths and data is pretty basic, and liable to large weird problems, though this is more than paid off by not having to work it all through on paper. Much to disappointment of anyone who thought I laboriously crafted each data set, I am afraid part of the resulting calculation provides the format in which the data has been set, meaning that the output is a file that I can just clip into a document. I hope one day to get round to creating some applet or something that allows visitors to create the same sort of thing, as the actual input I have to put in is only the fraction of the out put data. ( I have started to make some headway in writing a world building section)(up) 6) How long have you been doing this? As I am sure I have mentioned in one of the first questions, most of the stuff I produce usually takes a one way trip to the recycle bin, and so what is here is mostly new stuff, i.e. material that was made after the bin and move on phase. However the drawings vary widely in age, as I rarely chuck them out, you can probably see a nice tableaux from my first crude attempts to more sophisticated models, though I like to think I am progressing continuously, at the moment I am using a CAD program for most of my design, not something that was designed to what I am putting it to use, I have heard good reports on Maya maybe one day I might change to that. I have just realized that I have not given you any actual ages, I first started thinking about alternate reality in early secondary school I suppose, but was fascinated in all things science before then, so there is probably no clear cut distinction. I am now approaching my twentieth year, so I reckon some of the oldest drawings are getting on for five maybe six years, the writing is all very new (most less than a year old), I hate my own way of writing, (see my doomed literature section) and I have never taken English to above GCSE level, so I pretty much evolved to what I am writing now, for good or worse. I think that is my weakest point.(up) 7) Is English your second language? / Grammar, spelling and punctuation have been treated optionally. Above I have just put that I never studied beyond English GCSE, though unbelievably it is my first and only fluent language, perhaps I can speak in biochemistry, but the quality of the writing is entirely my own fault. The more serious error is that I do not thoroughly check over the work before it goes on the web, as I tend to read it once its up, and so many pages slip my attention and remain in there just created state, fresh. Ok perhaps that was an unsucessful selling point, call it carelessness.(up) 8) I would like to attempt something similar, do you have any words of wisdom? Patience. I started setting the first foundations of this reality when I was rather younger than I am now, though in those early years I was highly influenced by any work I came across, so the whole edifice was constantly shifting with chronologies being broken down and shuffled, and new sorely fitting components rammed in. The reality proper probably started a few years ago, where some definite landmarks were set, and since then I have slowly added on to it. My write, read and delete system of early years meant that the whole thing never really had an things to tie it down so it could wander, but this was not necessarily a bad thing because in the rebuild I have been able to include new ideas that were not part of the first plans. Other important things include, though I don’t want to run this answer to more than a page. Get an idea of what your reality feels like, if you can’t feel how it works, or what it is like to live in, maybe you are lacking some details Although I don’t recommend my initial destructive habits of destroying work as it is being generated, I strongly suggest that you don’t set out building foundations right away, so you can allow it to develop, and evolve without being restrained and facing dead-ends. Reading widely can not be recommended strongly enough, I am not forcing anyone to buy complete works of Clarke or Banks, as I don’t have a prodigious collection, but rather read anything that interests you, especially material outside of science fiction. I have always loved many of the sciences, and these books probably outnumber any all science fiction on my shelves. Though in saying that I am a science student. But it is important to note that producing work purely from existing science fiction can only give you a feel for what has been done already, there are huge areas of knowledge and ideas that have yet to be incorporated into the genre and I think that this potential has not been fully realized as yet.(up) 9) Why is the site all in greyscale? Because I think it gives a certain well-produced look. Aside from that if I want to compress to 8-bit colour, I rather use the ‘fuller’ greyscale than the rather more limited colour range, while giving a very neat reduction in file size. Another final point, although it would be easily possible for me to add colour I am sure my sense of taste would ruin the rather nice existing effect. A suggestion, if this site is boring you, try to look for pages with colour, I will admit there a few pages with it, and their existence has not been fully stamped out despite trying to streamline my web size.(up) 10) I am impressed, how may I express my appreciation? Filling out a feedback form would be nice, especially if you could tell me what particularly interests you, I can then prioritize the popular categories, assuming any are popular, or visited. I am a highly computer addicted person, so I should be able to answer any questions you care to mail me. The biggest reward you can give me is to start writing something of your own, this will not only give the satisfaction of giving someone a new interest, but also filling up an otherwise empty links page. Please no thoughts of money etc (as if you had any), although I am student, I need motivation to get a job and destitution is the best way (well possibly money could become an interest as long as I can persuaded that setting up the structure to enable this is less fuss than the amounts offered, this might work all the way down to the pence margin.)(up) 11) Some of the science is overly complicated I am afraid that I have in some parts assumed that the reader will have the same knowledge as myself, and so I have not well defined some of the principles, I don’t mean this derogatively, but I imagine many people have a lot better things to do in the spare time than plough through some the literature I have read. I hope in one distant future I can devote some time to a glossary, which will probably annexed to this non-fiction section of my site, suggestions for particularly troublesome topics would be very welcome. I had meant this site to be open to any visitor, as I desperately could not afford to reduce an already small audience.(up) 12) Some of the science does not exist / probably wrong This probably covers all the original work I have produced, unfortunately to any science fiction writer we can only outline at the sketchiest of future technologies. All I can say is please bare with it. If however there are some interesting ideas, that although are immature, but have potential to become something important, please let me keep them for patents, despite putting them in the public domain, subtle notes like ‘this might be worth researching’ would be good, as not only could I do with subjects for research in my degree and doctorate years, but also any money from inventions would be useful for paying off the extensive student debt.(up)
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