TA Lucas

Have you ever thought about writing?  Well, now is the time to give it a try.  rabiki.com is hosting their first science fiction writing challenge.  The purpose of this challenge is to help writers work with others writers.  As you write, you’ll often be given restraints…write about this topic, make sure you reference this article, or go by this outline.  Donne said, “No man is an island”, and writing with others is an important skill.  Below I’ve listed the requirements for the challenge, and links to help you get started.  It’s free and it’s fun!

• Rules for the February 2010 Writing Challenge.
• Sign up on the rabiki.com world building forms to submit your idea.
• Contact me on Facebook, rabiki.com, or here on ta-lucas.com if you have questions.

Here’s just a bit of geek trivia for you.  2010 and 2011 are binary years, meaning they have dates that can be expressed as a binary number. 2010 contains the 9 specific binary dates shown below.  Replace the year with 2011, and you get nine more.

And if you want to get even a bit more geeky, the date 10/10/10 is specifically interesting. It is the binary number (101010) for 42, which we all know is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.  Now there’s a little Deep Thought for you…;-)

After 2011, we won’t see another set of binary dates until 2100.

• 01/01/10
• 01/10/10
• 1/11/10
• 10/01/10
• 10/10/10
• 10/11/10
• 11/01/10
• 11/10/10
• 11/11/10

I’ve been working on a few short stories for the rabiki.com world building forums.  It is a sci-fi writing site that I started about 2 years ago….thought I’d post one of the stories here.  If you’re interested in this type of writing, check it out at http://www.rabiki.com/forum/index.php.  The site is home to a great group of individuals who love scifi and writing.

Well here goes:

Captain Tom Bradock keyed the ships intercom, “The last transport has just docked in C15, the sub-light engines have been prepped, and we’ll make the jump to slip space in ten minutes. Please stop all non-essential ship activities, and make your way to a designated seating area. Once we’ve locked in our travel path, and reached our cruising speed, you may move freely about the ship. You are on flight 2117 Earth to Mars, and we anticipate our travel time to be about 36 hours.  Thank you for choosing the Venus.”

The bridge of the Venus was quite a bit larger than most transport ships–it had only been in service for 5 years, and still had that new ship smell, but the crew had already made it home, especially the captain.

Tom fiddled with the settings of his display–a large sheet of transparent glass in the center of the bridge viewable from either side. “Check this out”, he said as he tapped a control on the side of his chair.

The screen immediately filled with live video from the recreation lounge. One couple had just finished their dance, and were seating themselves in a large black leather couch along the side of the dining area, the drink attendant was putting away loose bottles that were left on the bar and table tops, and tidying up a bit. The jump to light speed was hardly noticeable, but it was still standard procedure for passengers to be seated during the transition.

Tom tapped the controls again and the screen displayed the entire port side of the ship. From this view the nose of the vessel was not visible, and the side of the ship seemed to go on for kilometers, before vanishing into a small point in the center of the screen.

One more tap brought up an image of the Earth below. The Venus was high enough to maintain a stable orbit for a ship of its size, but still close enough to make out the ruins of a few large cities. “It’s amazing what 20 years without people will do to a city”, Chris said as he pointed to Old Chicago on the screen.

The larger cities began the migration to Mars first, leaving only rural communities and scattered families to be transported during the last 5 years.

“Yeah! Well this is it”, Tom said with a sigh of relief. “No more trips to this godforsaken place”.

“What about those that are still here?” Chris felt his eye twitch, “Will they just be left to their own?”

This was Chris’ first assignment on a transport ship. He had just spent 5 years on the Bonappetit, a freightliner that hauled exotic foods between the Sol system and Alpha Centauri, and the promotion from tactical to first officer was a good fit for him and the Venus crew.

“We’ve been haulin people for 30 years. If they haven’t left by now, there gonna have to find their own way off this rock.”

“FIVE MINUTES AND COUNTING”, the ships A.I. spoke in a soft feminine voice over the comm system. “Please stop all non-essential ship activities and make your way to a designated seating area.”

Not sure if it was the soft sooting voice or the whole male ego thing, but most ship A.I.s were female……[more later]

Books, books, books….they’re everywhere!  So, just how do you get your news…from the local newspaper or on the internet?  With the development of the internet, we’re seeing much more content online, but I don’t think the printed word will disappear any time soon.  Nothing quite like a soft couch and a good book in your hands.

The printing press was invented in Germany in 1447 by Johannes Gutenberg, and has been thought by many as the most influential device ever.  Germany has been a leader in printing and is still known for their printing machinery. Heidelberg, both a city and a company, manufactures several multi-million dollar printing presses.

I worked for a publishing company for about 10 years, and got to know the ins and outs of the production side of publishing.  I had the opportunity to run address labelers, book binders, and printing presses….very interesting job.

One of the more common forms of printing today is offset printing.  Here’s how it works:

An image is burnt onto a photo-sensitive aluminum plate, other materials can also used, and then attached to a plate cylinder.  As the press runs, water is first applied to the plate cylinder and sticks to the non-printable areas.

Next the ink is applied…and since water and oil (ink) don’t mix, the ink only goes where there is no water–the printable areas.
As the plate continues to rotate, it comes in contact with the offset cylinder and transfers the ink as a reversed image onto it.  Then the offset cylinder continues on around until it comes in contact with the paper…the image is reversed again as it is transfered onto the paper.

The paper continues on, and is folded and cut into pieces that can be made into magazines, books, etc…

That is the process for printing one color onto a sheet or continuous web of paper…in the case of newspaper, this would most often be black.  It is however a bit more complicated to print a color image like a photo or drawing.  First a little about color.

So what are the primary colors…well that depends on the medium.  The three primary colors of light are red, green, and blue (RGB).  They are considered additive primaries–when you add a color, it adds to the final color.  You can see illustrations of this on the internet…just right click on most any website, and then click “view source”.  Most of what you see will look like gibberish, but occasionally you’ll see numbers like (#FFFFFF, #34F4C2, #111111, etc…).

I’m not going to go too in depth, but these are called HEX numbers.  The first two digits represent the red level, the second two the green, and the third two the blue.  So with our example (#34F4C2) red=32,  green=F4, and  blue=C2.  If you want to see how hex numbers work, check out the online Color Schemer, and play around a bit.  By the way….#34F4C2 is a light-blue color.  I use this website often to see which colors work well together.

The three primary colors of ink or pigment are cyan, magenta, and yellow, and they are considered subtractive primaries–when you add colors, it subtracts or absorbs the wavelengths of light you don’t see, and reflects the wavelengths of light you do see.  Check out the color chart.

SO….when printing a color image, the sheet or web of paper must pass through four different colors….(cyan, magenta, yellow, and black).  Black is added because it’s hard to make a true black by mixing the other three color pigments.

A memory conceived among many senses will not be easily forgotten.  The goal of communication is to deliver a message to a recipient in a way that it can be received and comprehended, but I think communication should go beyond that.  We should communicate to be remembered.  If it’s worth saying, it’s worth remembering….right?

Memories are more than words and concepts, they are life experiences.  Try thinking of an important event in your life, let’s say an argument you had…you probably remember it more in terms of how you felt, than the words that were said.

Have you ever gotten sick while eating a certain food?  Once when I was a teenager (about 14) I got extremely intoxicated.  I was so drunk that my mom gave me a bath, and I didn’t even know it…I still have no memory of what happened to me that night, but my point is I got really sick.  For several years after that, the smell of alcohol turned my stomach…even the smell of Nyquil would make me sick.  I remember that event so well, because it is tied to several senses…smell, taste, touch, etc.

I’ve had several opportunities throughout my life to speak before groups of people…sometimes in church settings, sometimes in community settings; sometimes to kids….one time I taught a beginner computer class to a group of seniors.  I enjoy teaching and helping others understand things.  When I speak to a group, I try to employ methods that will touch as many senses as possible.  I was speaking some years back on the topic of sharing–half-way through my speech, I had a pizza delivered.  I stopped for a moment, paid for the pizza, picked up a slice, took a few bites, and began speaking again.  Seven years later someone approached me and said…”Hey I remember that time you spoke, and gave me a slice of pizza”.  Why did they remember?  Because they heard, they saw, they touched, they tasted, and they could smell what I was communicating.

This same principle applies to us as authors…you may not be there when the reader picks up your piece, but you can trigger memories they’ve stored away.  Don’t just tell them what happened; drop your reader smack dab in the middle of a scene.  Let them experience your writing through their memories.

I’ve just spent the last few days at work fighting a nasty virus…several days and some long hours.  I thought I throw this post out there to help anyone who might be listening.  So what exactly is a virus?  Well that term is often used loosly to describe several different types of computer threats.

A virus is a computer program that attaches its self to another program or file allowing it to spread from computer to computer causing varying degrees of damage.  They ususally sit dormant until activated by someone.

A worm is similar to a virus, but can travel without your help….there’s no need to double click it to get it going…it goes all by itsself.  Some worms have been known to replicate themselves by contacting everyone in the users address book…and sending a copy of itsself.

A Trojan Horse is just like it sounds….its a program that caims to do one thing, but does something else.  I have seen some programs that claim to be virus removal software, but are actually programs that just open your system to more attacks from other nasties.

Spyware is software that usually does no harm to your system, but just tracks your actions…and sends that info to others.  This is where we get a lot of those anoying pop-ups, and this usually makes our computers run slower.

So how do you protect yourself?  It’s impossible to be 100% protected from everything that comes along, but there are a few steps you can take to eliminate a vast majority of existing threats.

1.  Don’t open attachments.  Never open an attachment unless you know what it is ahead of time.  Even emails from your friends can contain malware, and no you will not die if you don’t forward it to 10 others.

2.  Keep your operating system up to date.  If you’re a windows user, you can do this through Internet Explorer.  Those who create viruses look for vunerabilities in operating systems, and when found write harmful programs that take advantage of those loopholes.

3.  Keep your anti-virus up to date.  I’ve had a lot of people ask me which anti-virus is the best.  Honestly,  I think there all pretty good.  Trend Micro, Symantec, McAfee and AVG do a nice job of keeping computers clean.  To be quite honest….if you don’t want to use an anti-virus, then why spend your money on a computer?  It’s like driving your car without insurance….actually a bit worse.  If you don’t use an antivirus, and you connect your computer to the internet, you will become infected……

As I look up into the sky at night, there’s one constellation that grabs my attention….Orion.  I’ve never cared much for the constellations, especially when they’re associated with horoscopes, but over the past few years, I’ve really developed an interest in science fiction and astronomy.

In 95 I took one of the bigest steps of my life….picked up and moved my entire family out of state to attend college.  This was a pretty tough time, and I can remember laying in bed at night, looking out the window at the stars.  I would gain a bit of comfort knowing that that Orion looked the same in North Dakota as it did in my home state of Illinois.

Here’s a few interesting facts about the constellation:  Orion refers to the name of a hunter in Greek mythology.  It’s stars are close to the celestial equator, and therefore visible to most everyone on the planet.  There are two notable stars….the first is Betelgeuse a red supergiant is found in the upper left corner.  The second is Rigel a blue super giant.  Check out the image below.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but some stars are very different.  Our sun Sol, located in the upper left of the image is just a tiny dot compared to Betelgeuse and Rigel.  If Betelgeuse were at the center of our solar system, its ouside layers would reach between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.  Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars would dissappear into the star….wow that’s big.

Rigel is the brightest star in Orion, and the 6th brightest in the night sky.  However, Betelgeuse is a semiregular variable star star and can sometimes be brighter than Rigel.

Have you ever stopped to just wonder at the world we live in?  In the past few years, my job has afforded me the opporunity to travel–places like California, New York, and Georgia to name a few.  I’ve got to visit the ocean, and stand upon mountains, and it has me to thinking–how much of what is around us do we actually miss?

A few years ago I created a list of things that I wanted to do.  I don’t want to call it  a bucket list…that sounds a bit morbid and sad, but it’s my list of things todo!  This list is not grand, by any means, but it serves to remind me of what I’ve already been blessed with, and helps me to be aware of my sorroundings.  If you haven’t done so, I would encourage you to create one.  Yes, I mean physically sit down and write a list.  A mental list will not do…It will often be forgotten.  I keep mine on a flash drive that I carry in my pockets.  Here are some of the things that are on my list.

• Be debt free
• Write a science fiction book
• Write AI software
• Teach in a University
• Visit all 50 states
• Go scuba diving

I think our biggest obstacle to a galactic or universal civilization is distance. Even in science fiction, most writers don’t really comprehend the distances between stars. For example, the closest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, is about 4 light years away—thats 4,246,603,200,000 miles (4.2 trillion). At 25,000 mph, speed of current technology, it would take us 20,000 years to get there. That’s the closest thing to us…take a look at atlasoftheuniverse.com to get an idea of the distances in our galaxy and universe..

In thinking about time—years, months, and days are all based off of the workings of our solar system. There have been various methods of measurement…pounds, grams, inches, centimeters, the hand, etc… but our measurement of time is pretty standard around the world—that’s because the sun, moon, and earth are common to all the inhabitants of earth and our days, months, and year are built from them. But someone on a different planet orbiting the sun, or on a planet in an entirely different star system wouldn’t measure time the same way. Mars takes 687 earth days to complete its cycle, so an earth year to someone on Mars would mean very little. A Venerian year is only 225 earth days, but a day on Venus lasts 243. How would you like a day that’s longer than a year?