January 6
I had relatives in town right after Christmas and am still recovering from eating out a lot and eating too much. 2008 is the year, I swear, when I am going to get regular exercise, eat more wisely, floss my teeth and write. There is a final resolution which is eluding me. Maybe I will think of it.
I got -- and gave -- books for Christmas and bought myself some more books after the holiday. I am trying to be more prudent in how I spend money, maybe that is the final resolution, but I intend to keep buying books and subscribing to magazines. Having reading matter come in the mail is wonderful. Going home with fresh new books is also wonderful.
One of the books I gave Patrick is about the virtual game (or world) Second Life. I read it before he did.
I suspect Second Life is important, and many of us are going to be spending a lot of time in virtual communities in the future. At the moment, I don't know enough to have an opinion and have reached an age when I want to spend as much time as possible in there here and now. This world, the one I am in, seems increasingly precious. I want to savor it. If I need time off, I will read books or go to an occasional movie or art museum.
I am now working my way through a book by the paleontologist Simon Conway Morris. Morris begins his book by suggesting that planets with life are extremely rare, which may be, though I don't think we have enough data yet; and I am going to continue to hope. Morris has moved on to convergent evolution, which I am in favor of, since it allows me to have humanoid aliens.
The guy really does know an amazing amount about biology. Though I prefer a vision -- version -- of the universe that is full of many different kinds of wild and crazy life.
Of course, it's my job as a science fiction writer to create a wild and crazy universe. Conway Morris's job as scientist is to describe reality as he sees it, after study and thought.
I got -- and gave -- books for Christmas and bought myself some more books after the holiday. I am trying to be more prudent in how I spend money, maybe that is the final resolution, but I intend to keep buying books and subscribing to magazines. Having reading matter come in the mail is wonderful. Going home with fresh new books is also wonderful.
One of the books I gave Patrick is about the virtual game (or world) Second Life. I read it before he did.
I suspect Second Life is important, and many of us are going to be spending a lot of time in virtual communities in the future. At the moment, I don't know enough to have an opinion and have reached an age when I want to spend as much time as possible in there here and now. This world, the one I am in, seems increasingly precious. I want to savor it. If I need time off, I will read books or go to an occasional movie or art museum.
I am now working my way through a book by the paleontologist Simon Conway Morris. Morris begins his book by suggesting that planets with life are extremely rare, which may be, though I don't think we have enough data yet; and I am going to continue to hope. Morris has moved on to convergent evolution, which I am in favor of, since it allows me to have humanoid aliens.
The guy really does know an amazing amount about biology. Though I prefer a vision -- version -- of the universe that is full of many different kinds of wild and crazy life.
Of course, it's my job as a science fiction writer to create a wild and crazy universe. Conway Morris's job as scientist is to describe reality as he sees it, after study and thought.
posted by Eleanor at 4:32 PM
1 Comments:
I suspect Second Life is important, and many of us are going to be spending a lot of time in virtual communities in the future. At the moment, I don't know enough to have an opinion and have reached an age when I want to spend as much time as possible in there here and now. This world, the one I am in, seems increasingly precious. I want to savor it. If I need time off, I will read books or go to an occasional movie or art museum.
I couldn't agree more with this comment. I spend a lot of time online chatting, e-mailing, etc., but I haven't gotten into Second Life. I have not yet finished exploring my First. I know that there are seductive appeals to creating your own world, and people have done some really neat stuff. I think part of what will make Second Life really interesting is when we'll be able to bring stories to life using scripted characters that the user can interact with, like making small movies in the world. But until then, I prefer to write my stories and chat with my friends using the old-fashioned virtual reality created with twenty-six simple building blocks.
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