December 23, 2011

Word Cloud

I decided to run a test on my own blog, to create a word cloud in which you the words you've used the most have the greatest font.  Here's what it came up with:

I'm rather proud that the word I use the most in my blog is "Universe," hehehe.  But that's the geek in me.  You can get your own word clouds here, if you want--have fun!

December 18, 2011

Poetical Universe

Continuing with my physics research (hey, gotta not sound too stupid when writing my scifi portions), I came up with this quote from Brian Greene... It's again about our universe, and how galaxies came to be, and about how the microcosmos (quantum field) is tied to the macrocosmos (our universe at large populated by billions of galaxies):

"According to inflation[ary big bang theory], the more than 100 billion galaxies, sparkling throughout space like heavenly diamonds, are nothing but quantum mechanics writ large across the sky."

Aaaaah, so beautiful! And fascinating!

With that side note of poetry, I'm now headed back for more cosmology/quantum/Higg's-fields/theoretical-physics reading!

PS: To those who are intrigued, Mr. Greene does a rather good job at explaining the various theories (including the one mentioned here) in his book The Fabric of the Cosmos.

December 17, 2011

Big Bang Theory Factoid

Doing research for a book is so much fun, that I sometimes lose sight of my original goal (which is why I’ve restricted myself to the 20 books already in my possession I’d purchased for such research).

For instance, reading Brian Green’s The Fabric of the Cosmos, I found out how scientists came up with a little theory called “The Big Bang” (though most of you probably knew of it already. . .).

It’s all about how our universe wants to get bigger than the ox, and temperatures:

“Just as a bicycle tire gets hotter and hotter as you squeeze more and more air into it, the universe gets hotter and hotter as matter and radiation are compressed together more and more tightly by the shrinking of space.  If we head back to a mere ten millionths of a second after the beginning, the universe gets so dense and so hot that ordinary matter disintegrates into a primordial plasma of nature’s elementary constituents.   And if we continue our journey, right back to nearly time zero itself—the time of the big bang—the entire known universe is compressed to a size that makes the dot at the end of this sentence look gargantuan.”

And this ties in with the fact that cosmic observations (starting with Hubble in 1929) show that the universe is currently getting larger and larger (from seeing other galaxies moving further and further away from us, and at a speed proportional to their distance from Earth, and noting that our universe is getting colder).

Isn’t this a cool factoid?  Ok, enough dilly dallying, back to my research!

December 15, 2011

What Every Storyteller Wants To Hear...

Going through Neil Gaiman's and Al Sarrantonio's Stories (a compilation of fiction stories), I came across these very true (and straight to the point) words of Neil's, how the key to a good story was held in four words...

"And I didn't realise it until a couple of days ago, when someone wrote in to my blog:

     Dear Neil,

     If you could choose a quote--either by you or another author--to be inscribed on the wall of a public library children's area, what would it be?

     Thanks!
     Lynn

I pondered for a bit.  I'd said a lot about books and kids' reading over the years, and other people had said things pithier and wiser than I ever could.  And then it hit me, and this is what I wrote:

     I'm not sure I'd put a quote up, if it was me, and I had a library wall to deface.  I think I'd just remind people of the power of stories, of why they exist in the first place.  I'd put up the four words that anyone telling a story wants to hear.  The ones that show that it's working, and that pages will be turned:

     "...and then what happened?"

The four words that children ask, when you pause, telling them a story.  The four words you hear at the end of a chapter.  The four words, spoken or unspoken, that show you, as a storyteller, that people care."
Neil Gaiman, Stories, Foreward



December 3, 2011

My Own Home

That's it, folks! I actually bought my own domain name and set up a temporay website :D  Soooo happy!  The website itself is very basic (with a cool pic that makes me look like an old school Russian writer), but will be developed further as my writing career progresses.

Patience, my friends, patience (or so I tell myself every day).

My own home, my own home... lalala

December 1, 2011

Boring Party? No Problem...

“If I’m at a dull party I’ll invent some kind of game for myself and then pick someone to play it with so that I am, in effect, writing a scene. I’m supplying my half of the dialogue and hoping the other half comes up to standards. If it doesn’t, I try to direct it that way.”
—Evan Hunter

         How much more interesting would the evening be, if you started a conversation with “did you know that my neighbor got killed last week?    Yeah, it's the usual: Bored kids, annoying parents…  Except they caught a bunch of 10th graders performing some kind of voodoo ritual in the gym the other month and then one of the kids committed suicide…” 

Yeah.  Making up random stories for random people sounds kinda fun, actually.  I think I may try it.  I wonder what genre though…  Scifi?  Fantasy?  Horror?  Crime? 

On a side note, my boss came to work with a sword today.  Apparently he's been to some regressive hypnotherapist and now believes he's a knight of the round table.  I've been officially named his valet and spent the day dragon hunting...