Siddien Blasna of the Cysise Imperium

May 22, 2017

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, your weekly window into whatever's on my mind. 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.It's occurred to me that the podcast is coming up on 50 episodes fairly soon. That's a lot of episodes -- and a lot of guests. I think it's about time I had some of them back; if anyone has thoughts on who they'd like to see (or in this case hear) return, let a man know! 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Let's talk about names (baby). Mavis's best friend has been submitting suggestions for names via text, and Mavis herself wants to get at least one book of names out of the library to flip through while we're on our babymoon in Hawaii (btw, still accepting any suggestions for Maui that don't involve a whole hell of a lot of physical activity). I, uh, have been looking at a list of names custom-generated by a neural network. I didn't get them specifically for naming this kid -- it turns out neural networks are great for generating plausible (or completely fucking outlandish) names for characters in sci fi/fantasy stories, not to mention ships, substances, other sentient species, polities, titles, noble houses, demons, gods, plants, animals, cities, rivers, oceans, continents, planets, stars, galaxies, etc etc on and on. A big honkin' bucket of potential names seemed like a good thing to have, so I (along with a few actual writers of speculative fiction) contracted the services of someone with some neural network expertise and got a list 10,000 entries long. Many of them, of course, make no sense for a kid out here in the real world:SeetdOriatnJognneDe-ioEdxhneRonadolcaBut listen: there are ten thousand names in this fuckin' thing. Even if 99% of them are awful for a human child, that means there's still a hundred good ones in there somewhere. The only question is: do I have the patience to go looking? 

Fascination Corner

I read a lot of newsletters; here are some links that caught my eye. 

  • Did you know underwater drone cameras for the consumer market are a thing? What a time to be alive.

  • I wasn't aware there were enough EVE Online players to make crowdsourcing scientific work through them a rewarding possibility, but here we are. There've gotta be more popular games this would be good for, though, no? Is there ever idle time in LOL or whatnot that gamers could be using to help mark datasets? What if there was a way to make a protein-folding minigame inside Destiny 2? This just gave me an idea that's going in the notebook.

  • Oldie but a goodie: if you're looking for a quick pick-me-up, put your headphones on and watch this video of spaceships from TV and movies flying around to Nicki Minaj.

  • American Trees Are Moving West, and No One Knows Why. Really. What I want to know is what's growing in their place? Also, I like that the URLs of some articles definitely tell a story about where the author's head was at the time and whether their editor was like "Uh: maybe not?"

  • If we're gonna use AI to help us write more AI, at what point does the Singularity start? Tomorrow? Can it start tomorrow?

  • Plasma jet propulsion is possible, everybody. I'm just gonna put that on the table and walk away whistling. 

Looky Here

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway41 - Klingon Crossfit"Jon (@ferociousj), Kelly (@enthusiosity), and special guest Maya (@MayaPhilipson) talk through an exercise business, a celebrity magazine that isn't what you think, and opportunities in educational pornography."Seriously, somebody make this magazine because I WANT TO READ IT.You can subscribe using:iTunesRSSStitcherGoogle Play MusicYou can also just go to the website to play or download episodes:https://ideafactorygiveaway.simplecast.fm/ 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumPlantstance, I Call My Vengeance Down Upon You 

Thanks

If you've read this far, I thank you. Feel free to forward this to someone you like, or inflict upon someone you don't.