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December 25, 2003
Wow
Due to the amazing generosity of my Uncle Clarence, (his wife) Aunt Val, my Grandparents whom I'd just been visiting for a week in New Jersey, and of course my beloved mom and dad.. I am now in posession of the biggest, scariest digital art tablet that Wacom makes.
My Thesis is going to rock. I love you guys.
Posted by Eric Chapman at 03:13 PM | Comments (3)
December 13, 2003
Dreaming
You know that interesting internal and possibly spiritual things are going on when you have a textbook falling dream...
... then control the fall and come to a gentle landing on your feet.
I even went through the blades of a prop plane. It was like putting the broad side of my arm into the ceiling fan to make it stop quicker. Completely unthreatening and trivial.
I literally spread my arms, legs, and took hold of my place in the dream. I slowed my fall and touched down into soft snow at the bottom of a 10,000 foot fall on both feet.
Incidently, a friend of mine (Bastian) was in this dream. He was falling too. We communicated by cell phone on the way down. I somehow landed long before him. I called him up to tell him how I survived.. then the alarmclock went off.. which distracted me in the dream. So I paused while my body hit the snooze button, then went back to the phone, knowing my time was limited, and tried to guide him in safely.. but the connection was gone.
I stared helplessly at the phone, sighed, then opened my eyes and went about the business of getting up.
During that moment of pause, the dream did not interrupt. I didn't even see through my eyes. I was controlling my body to deactivate the alarm clock like it was telepathic remote control. This happens an awful lot lately.
With it is coming a feeling that much of normal waking life is not entirely necessary. Like I'm only subjected to it because I want to be, no matter how much I don't enjoy it.
Or maybe it's not that I want to be subjected to it.. but because on some subconscious level I'm too afraid to let go of it.
-E
Posted by Eric Chapman at 03:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 09, 2003
Living in the trenches
Line drawing of my 'trench colony' idea for extraterrestrial colonization.
Will receive proper painting treatment later. I still have end of semester work looming.
Posted by Eric Chapman at 11:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 07, 2003
Tenative Title
The story is tenatively titled: Mosaic
I'm gleeful.
Posted by Eric Chapman at 06:10 AM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2003
Brainstream - excerpt #2, time index 12-05-20-03 16:01
-Begin Feed-
Wait.. did NPR just say they had someone on staff named Dick Hymen??
-End Transmission-
Posted by Eric Chapman at 04:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 05, 2003
Maddox
In case you're wondering.. this is Maddox
Posted by Eric Chapman at 12:25 PM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2003
Argh. It wants out now.
that's it! I will take no more! This idea has been banging away at the walls of my head all day! I HAVE HOMEWORK TO DO and this thing WILL NOT GO AWAY AND LET ME DO IT.
I keep telling it, no, wait, wait untill next wednesday. Then I'll get to work soaking up input from a few choice influences and then unleash it apon my keyboard and finally type it all out. BUT NO! No it wants out now. So fine. Here. Knock yourself out.
I'm doing this to get it out of my system, so I can do stuff that's actually due before January. What follows is a scene between Maddox and his Lawyer towards the start of the story I'm cooking up. There's nothing planned here, no intended goal. I'm just going with it. This may not even appear in the story. It just needs to be typed so that I can get it out and work on other stuff.
Maddox hadn't gotten three feet off from the doorway to the building when his pocket started screeching out a mangled ringtone. The speaker hadn't worked right since the time he "accidently" smashed it 12 times with the butt of a beer glass when he lost his first bet.
He fumbled around in his pocket, pulled it out, and inserted it into his neck with a grimmace. Everyone else wore theirs all the time, but to him it was just putting a big flag on his head for any Earth Federation operatives in the area to claim a bonus in his paycheck. Paranoia isn't just a hobby, you see, it's a career. It's a low paying one, sure, but it's all Maddox has been able to get since his emancipation.
He clicked the phone into its socket, after first checking for spiders (had that happen once, not reccomended) and endured the BMI interface bootup process without muttering too many swear words this time, which was good. 'You're making progress, Maddox' he could hear his shrink telling him. 'Maybe soon we can work on getting you a comm implant!'
Oh, yeah, that's just what he wanted.
Comm implants are a wonderful, wonderful thing, says everyone who can afford them. So they go through all the cash getting them purchased, set up with all the right software and hardware modules, and then crammed into their cortex. At this point, they start whining about it.
Advertising companies positively love comm implants, you see. Especially the pirate ones.
Fully booted up, Maddox blinked and the audio feed kicked in. The lag monitor, now superimposed over the chest of the woman Maddox was really trying to get a good look at, informed him there was a lagtime of approximately 17 seconds. Another display, cleverly placed over the upturned trash canister Maddox was about to trip over, informed him that it was Gen-wa Wilkinson, Maddox's lawyer.
*Wilksonen. You're calling to tell me I'm rich, right?*
He now had a good 17 seconds before he could expect a reply, so he continued walking, tripped over the canister, and had to spend a good 5 minutes looking for the module after popped out of its socket on impact. The words "DO NOT UNPLUG YOUR MODULES WITHOUT PROPERLY SHUTTING DOWN" superimposed themselves in angry red over the dark pavement Maddox's face was thus crammed into. This is when he really started swearing.
He waited through the bootup process again, no longer restraining his verbal ire for the process, and drawing many strange looks in the process. Nobody could tell he was on a phonecall. Calls put through phone modules and comm implants are silent to the casual observer. All interaction is done through direct signals from the socket implant to the brain. You hear without sound and speak without voice. The system was even designed so you'd 'hear' yourself speaking to make the process more natural feeling.
He popped through a couple of menus and initiated a remote reconnect. It'd cost extra, of course, because the module would have to link up to PhonNet's megaframe to find out who it was that called him. Improper shutdown meant all unsaved data, like the fledgling phonecall, was lost.
Maddox looked up and saw a camera pointed at him from a lamp post. He showed it his favorite finger. He wiped some of the grit off his face, looked around, and decided that maybe the best place for him was the pub. Nothing helps a call with a lawyer better than a Blood Alcahol Level of .02 or higher.
About halfway there the call had finally gone through.
*Maddox?*
*Yeah. Genny. You're calling to tell me I'm rich, right?*
Another quarter of a minute to kill. He found a good spot at the ground to stare at and gave it a really good glare.
*Not yet, I keep telling you. These things take time, but we're almost there.* Gen-wa paused there. *And it's Wilkinson, you idiot. It's an Earth name, goes back to Old England. I'd think an Fedee like you'd be able to pronounce it right.* To them, Old England meant any time from 1900 to 2100.C.E. These days, anything before 1900 gets smacked with the epithet 'Ancient'.
Maddox really hated phone lag. It meant he couldn't interrupt people with an insult during statements like that.
*So how've you been anyhow?* Gen-wa added, at the end. He was the sort of Lawyer that doesn't exist: the type that actually has some concern for their clients' wellbeing from time to time.
*Well, asshole, if I'm not rich then I guess I must be homeless again. I'm on my way to the bar.* Maddox knew his Lawyer would probably have some admonishing words for getting thrown out of his apartment, and then more for getting drunk instead of trying to solve the problem, but it wouldn't matter, because he could outrun them. By the time the words got back, if he hustled, he'd have his first shot halfway to his lips.
19 seconds later, the regular inhabitants of Bev's Corner Bar were startled by the door being thrown open and the form of Maddox bursting through, demanding a Martian Vodka frantically with his finger waving about the air like a sword.
*Oh bloody hell, Maddox, at least get over to the housing office beforeyou go and slosh yourself.. oh hell, forget it, I know you're already there by now. Nevermind. Look, the suit's going well. Should be over in a few days. It's in the bag and about to be tagged. You're going to be the first Manufactured Person to win retroactive child support for the care of himself while living on a planet hostile to his place of origin. And there's nothing they can do about it.*
Whether it was from the satisfaction of having just begun the process of auto-intoxication or from hearing that he was about to be handed a check for more money than he ever thought he'd have the legal right to touch, Maddox smiled. Smiles were rare on this face, and he wore them akwardly. Beverly, the large, bald, sweaty smelly sort of man that was tending bar at this particular moment, was inspired by the smile to put a couple extra steps between them.
*So what's your cut?* Maddox asked.
*No cut. I told you, strictly pro-bono. S'how this' gotta be done. They're calling me a crusader, they hate me, and I'm loving it.*
*Christ, Gen. You've spent so much time on all of this. You're a lawyer. You're supposed to be taking as much of my money as you can con me out of. What gives?* Maddox ordered his third, fourth, and fifth shots of Martian Vodka. After that he might consider slowing down.
*It's all for the cause, my friend.* Gen-wa Wilkinson was a fairly well accomplished Lawyer of many talents. He'd defended and prosecuted murderers and saints alike. He'd been hired to draft 4 bills put before the law-making bodies of three planet-states, and once managed to plea bargain a genocidal maniac's case down to 'disturbing the peace,' which, technically, it was. His conscience remains clean. He hired an unscrupulous bounty hunter the same day to ensure that the villain wouldn't be out walking the streets long enough to accost so much as a proverbial little old lady.
These days, however, Gen-wa was more into the good fight, especially when it came to fighting it.
*Maddox, I know you've only been on the outside for a few years, but beleive me, one day you'll get out of bed, or wherever you finally passed out the night before, and realise you want to make some sort of mark on the world, so to speak. You'll want to have your name in history books for something other than the statistics page. It's a crime how the government, and I mean all of it, Earth, Mars, Ganymede, whatever, all of them, treats people that didn't drop screaming out of a woman's crotch. I've hated it all my life and I'm in a position to try and fix it. I have all the money I need, and I was sick of putting all my efforts into getting guilty people aquitted and winning rich people their way when every fiber of my being tells me it's unfair and it's wrong. I just needed a specific case with which to align myself, and then, outta the black, you showed up. You wanted out. I wanted a fight. It worked, and I'm loving every minute of it. Pretty soon you wont even be a Manufactured Person anymore. You'll be a Human Being. Legally. And that, my friend, is all that matters.*
Maddox velcro'd his pants back shut, flushed the toilet, and meandered over to the mirror to check his akward top mop and gaze hopefully at the scraggly, sick roots on the sides of his head. Empty holes where healthy follicles should be. He sighed sadly, looked around nervously to see if anyone caught him, and walked back out to the bar.
*You're a good guy* replied Maddox after a long thoughtfull pause. This was about all he could manage, as the alcahol was taking hold and Maddox wasn't very accustomed to giving out compliments in the first place. Insults and general abraisiveness were more his forte.
*Heh, thanks. Now, just keep yourself alive and cleaned up for the next few days. There'll be reporters all over you, and before I can get a warning message there.*
Maddox actually found himself refusing the next shot. Beverly looked suprised too.
*This'll be one for the history books, my friend* Gen-Wa went on. *Especially since they're so empty. Y'know,* Maddox knew what was coming. Gen-wa had a bent for getting philosophical about this sort of thing *since the whole cataclysm thing that made our history so damn hard to get at, we've been kinda lacking historical rolemodels. Y'know, the sort that went to great lengths to make things better.. aside from scientists and data recovery people, I mean. I found out about this guy, went by the name Marty L. Kingsley or something, back in the Old times, he was looked at as some sort of civil rights God or something. Martyred for the cause and everything. Got a whole subset of the Human population of Earth equal legal rights. Y'know, the dark-skinned ones. Took a while for it to really take hold in people's hearts, but it did. Because of him.*
Maddox didn't have a reply for that. After a couple minutes, another message came through when Gen-wa decided that Maddox's silence wasn't just exceedingly long lag. *I hope to be remembered like that some day. I mean, now it's started with legal rights. Eventually people will start thinking of you as normal, and it'll be done.* Gen-wa was trying to sound helpfull. It wasn't working. *I mean, practically everyone's been Genengineered these days. What's the diffrence that you were sort of a collage job? I mean, it was the Earth Federation's Military unit that did it, for the express purpose of being an efficient killing machine. But still.* The ability to interrupt him would be a Godsend.
He tried anyway. *Willson-Wikliss-WILKINSON. Stop. I get the point. You hero. Me victim of society. Us victorious. You sign autographs. I.. get laid. Frequently. It's all good. Now calm down and I'll go looking for a place to crash. No more drinks. Pilot's honor.*
*I mean, look at you! Aside from the whole tiger-stripe thing you get from being a mosaic, the bit about the hair, the frequent swearing and the aggressive tendencies, you're a normal human being! Oh.. well the healing thing.. all that. Whatever the Earth goons stuck in when they made you. You're as human as counts in my book! And.. uh..* there was a pause while he listened to Maddox's last reply. *Okay okay sorry. Heh. Good plan. Alright then. Wilkinson, Attourney at Law, Crusader of Justice, signing out. Talk to you tomorrow Maddox, I'm expecting a major breakthrough in the case. The outcome should be clear by then. I'm gonna knock 'em dead.*
*You do that, Gen. Maddox out.*
Maddox took most of what was left in his wallet and put it on the counter, barely covering his drinks. Beverly grunted a forced thank you at him as he walked out the door to find his way into a bed for the night.
Early next morning, Maddox was awoken by another phone call. It was Gen-wa's assistant. Gen-wa had been assasinated.
Posted by Eric Chapman at 04:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Beasts of all kinds
If anyone out there has any good knowledge of theology or religious/mythical lore, I'm in the market for the names of animals and beasts, either real or mythological, with religous significance. I want to know what they are and why they're significant. Don't write an essay. I just need to be told what to look for and then I can do the rest on my own.
Maddox wants a squadron name. Tee hee.
Posted by Eric Chapman at 01:25 PM | Comments (4)
Brainstream - excerpt #1, time index 12-04-20-03 12:16
- Begin Feed-
Y'know, when you procrastinate, you make an ass of procr and tinate.
-End Transmission-
Posted by Eric Chapman at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)
More quicky blogging
I really miss winter weather. I never really appreciated the diffrent seasons untill I spent the last few years in Florida. It's always summer here, by my reckoning, the only difference being that for 6 months of the year it's like the unbearable part of summer that lasted 2 or 3 weeks in Massachusetts.
So for like 6 months it's unbearably hot. At least for me it is. Floridians are weird. They put on jackets and shiver when the temperature hits 69.
They don't use their turn signals either. Not to change lanes, not to parallel park, not to make a left hand turn from the right hand lane. Not. One. Signal. And people wonder why there's so many catastrophic car accidents when the roads fill up during tourist season.
Addendum: I need a rocket launcher for Christmas. If anyone out there has a spare one and some ammo, I swear on Abe Vigoda's grave that I'll be your best friend if you give it to me. Best Friend != Target.
Posted by Eric Chapman at 11:29 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Isolation isn't just for humans
I feel this turtle's pain. Life is not easy for giants.
Posted by Eric Chapman at 11:13 AM | Comments (2)
December 03, 2003
The first wave has passed
Got all my portfolio stuff completed and passed in on time. yay. The Dreaded Theil said that the outside was a little sloppy but the interior was nice. Nice from him is a term of true appreciation. It means that it's production quality. If he were an art director, he'd use it, and probably use me for more work. I like it when he says 'nice'. It just about makes my day. So, my first book cover shows that it was my first time building one. Despite that, I'm proud of it. I think he's going to give me good marks, considering the effort I put in and that I think I could make it better if I do it again..
... I don't think he can make me do that. The class is over next week. Dear god I hope he doesn't make me do that. I don't want to even try that again for a while.
So, the first wave of massive end-of-semester workload is passed. I'm done with Math and Portfolio work outside of class. All that's left is for me to return to pick my stuff up from Portfolio next week and take a math test on Wednesday, for which I shall not study but will score an A anyhow. Hehheh.
There are two remaining waves. They come close together.
Second Wave: Tuesday is D-Day in business class. I've been lagging behind all semester, and that's the day everything has to be in. The finished business plan AND a presentation on my small business idea. With visuals. I'm good at speaking in front of groups, and it shouldn't be tough to throw together some visuals. But still.. lots of prep work. I've also got my final illustration of the semester (and first illustration of my Thesis) due earlier the same day.
Third Wave: Wednesday I have Ecology Class. This is my own fault: I've forgotten to do stuff that I've been supposed to do all semester. I've been supposed to accumulate 3 articles from newspapers every week. I've accumulated 1 total. So I guess i'm spending some time at the local library's newspaper archive, and online. It's all got to be something that effects the enviornment. Considering how broad that is, it shouldn't be hard to find some.. the problem is finding 45. In addition to that I have to write a paper and write up some journal entries here. That was supposed to be every week too. I'm going to be missing about a month and a half. Argh.
Sometimes I'm a great student. Sometimes I'm not. This semester is going to be a bit of a dip. There's a pattern. Fall semesters are rocky while Spring semesters are great. Fall semesters score around 2.9 (I think) and Spring semesters leap to 3.6. My overall GPA is 3.2. Hopefully I'll continue that pattern this spring with my Thesis.
So much stress.
Posted by Eric Chapman at 11:43 PM | Comments (1)
December 02, 2003
*yawn*
*crawls out of bed at 4:30 in the morning*
After a breif intermission for the sake of mental health, end-of-semester-work will resume. A book must be bound, a proposal must be written, a mailing-portfolio must be printed, a buisness plan must be completed, and a character design must be started. I have all day for this. I need more than that.
I've come up with an interesting idea for the impending christmas break. PeNoWriMo. Personal Novel Writing Month. Based on NaNoWriMo, which I've wanted to do for the last two years, but havn't been able to because it's in November, which is a particularly busy month at school. Well, I need to have a written story to do my Thesis anyhow, and I have 4 weeks off coming soon. So, it's time to type.
The book/expensive portfolio thingy looks good, btw, based on what's made so far. Now all it needs is a cover and to be bound.. then anything extra I feel like adding.
And now, food.
Posted by Eric Chapman at 04:47 AM | Comments (3)
December 01, 2003
The bed monster has him
Fnaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllllllllllllllll.. ug.. mugga... mugga moo moo.
MoooooooooooOOOOOOooooooo.
Arble.. darble.. eff.
*snore*
Posted by Eric Chapman at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)
RoboPope
Okay people, listen up. I've been up for about 22 hours and I'm feeling philosophical. So here it comes.. you've just stepped on the train of thought through Eric's brain, with stops at Incoherance, Loonyville, Rambleramble, and Absecon, NJ. Except we're expected to derail before we hit New Jersey, mostly because we don't like it there.
Machines can have souls.
Shazam. There it is. Now, mind you, this isn't some of that happy hippy Star Trek "oh look, Data wants to be human, and he's so cute the way he misinterprets simple human behavior" crap. I'm serious.
It should be noted that I'm sort of a mystic at heart.
-------------------------------------
\Mys"tic\, n. One given to mysticism; one who holds mystical views, interpretations, etc.; especially, in ecclesiastical history, one who professed mysticism.
mys·ti·cism
n.
1a. Immediate consciousness of the transcendent or ultimate reality or God.
b. The experience of such communion as described by mystics.
2. A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience.
3. Vague, groundless speculation. (heh)
The doctrine of the Mystics, who professed a pure, sublime, and wholly disinterested devotion, and maintained that they had direct intercourse with the divine Spirit, and aquired a knowledge of God and of spiritual things unattainable by the natural intellect, and such as can not be analyzed or explained.
-----------------------------
It should also be explained that when I say soul, I'm just using that word because it's kind of a ubiquitous catch-all for the immaterial abstract stuff that is the true spiritual/mental core of most human beings (excluding polititians, bureucrats, and some celebrities, whom, it can generally be agreed, are one big soulless, mindless lot). I'm not preaching any dogma other than my own here. I know some people call it a consciousness, and there's a bunch of other terms for it. I just use the word soul.. it's what I grew up near.
Okay, now that's explained, here's my thing. Theory thing. Y'know.
So what're you? Well, you're a person. But take the 'you' away from that... and you have a body. That's what we call it when someone dies, right? When there's no more 'you', there's just a 'body'.
So what's the body?
Well, what's it do? It consumes fuel and converts it to energy, and uses the energy to power its functions. Most of its functions revolve around sustaining itself: life support. In addition, there's locomotion, sensory input, manipulation of the enviornment around it, communication, etc.
Machines have all of that. What do we have that they don't? Thought. That's it. But the body doesn't think. 'You' think. There's a physical component, sure. That's the brain. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's the link.
When a machine is built with the level of complexity that we have at the molecular scale, when there's a viable thinking device that is physical and not just electrical, that runs as analog rather than digital, and is capable of overseeing the acts of trillions of diffrent tiny components without even realising the diffrence in computing power, then and only then will AI happen..
.. and I'm pretty sure it'll suprise the living fuck out of whoever just built the damn thing. How'd you feel if you just put an experimental machine together and, with no provocation or even programming, it just started acting of its own acord. Suddenly you're face to face with a mechanical infant with free will. It's time to shit your pants.
There. I know I could put that together more eloquently if I wasn't about to collapse with exhaustion, but I had to get that out of my system somehow. I'm better at 'showing' rather than 'telling' anyhow.
Class starts in 10 minutes. Bye.
(published without editing. remember, I'm writing on no sleep. earlier, I had trouble speaking the word 'potato')
Posted by Eric Chapman at 03:22 PM | Comments (3)