Posts

Posted on

Day 820: This neighborhood is getting too shooty

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 820:

Still mining in the area of my eastern mountain base, and oh look, our friends the murderers have arrived again.

They stayed far away, down by the edge of the forest and the river today, which I appreciated. I didn’t sleep last night. I was mining for diamonds deep in the earth and didn’t find any. I’ll probably sleep tonight.

I’m thinking this area is becoming way too shooty though and that maybe it’s time for me to go underground for a while.

A view from above the easternmost entrance, looking down to where the trees meet the hills. At the edge of the trees, a band of murders can be seen far in the distance.

Posted on

Day 819: A long day, and the stars

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 819:

I worked on mining the surface from the north end all the way down to the center of the mountain range (or at least the part of the range I’m smoothing out). The weather was good for it, no rain, no snow.

At the end of the day I was close enough to my easternmost entrance that I decided to risk staying out just to see the sunset.

It was beautiful, but the stars after were better.

I miss the stars.

A view of the stars above the forest in a dark clear night.

Posted on

Day 818: A picture of my maps

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 818:

It just occurred to me that I could take a picture of the maps I’ve drawn.

Six frames in two rows of three. From top left, empty, half-filled, empty. Second row, filled, filled, filled.

  • So in the top left is a frame for a map I haven’t drawn yet.
  • Top center is a partial map I started, but I decided to dig to the east instead.
  • Top right is another empty frame for a map I haven’t drawn yet. I’m pretty sure that’s where the village that I’ve spotted is.
  • Bottom right is where I’m building now. I don’t think you can see the dot for my easternmost entrance very well. But you can see that I’m smoothing the mountains and then to the east of the mountains is a swamp.
  • In the center is my main land, the area where I started. (Technically, the top left corner of the center square is where I started.) You can see the roads I’ve built and almost make out the ranch area.
  • Bottom left is the westernmost area, which is mostly forested, although there’s some swamp all the way in the top western corner.

 

Posted on

Day 817: From the ponds to the river

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 817:

Back to the north today, and I’ve cleaned up yet another pond. This is the pond that was above the other pond, so from here it’s pond, pond, sloping hill, river. On the other side of the river there’s some wonderful looking sand I can’t wait to go get but since I still have glass back at the headquarters I’ve been leaving this sand be. (Wet heavy sacks of sand are uncomfortable to carry.)

From a cliffside, looking down, a pond, another pond, a river, a wooden road, and more river with sand in it.

Posted on

A Working Dog / What I Published in 2020

Publications

My ‘list of what I published this year” and my “most recent publication” list happen to be identical, so…

“A Working Dog”,  published by Analog Science Fiction and Fact  in the January/February 2021 issue (which came out in December 2020).

Megan had programmed the autonomous collective units to used bird flock dynamics. She’d intended to keep the rabbits from get- ting destroyed by coyotes or cats without in- juring whatever wildlife was in the area.

The rabbits danced. They weaved together in complex patterns, broke apart in two or three groups, came back together, and sepa- rated again. They flowed like a liquid.

Keith ran after them, following program- ming of his own.

A feral cat or a coyote would’ve quit when it got tired. They had the sense to know that burning too much energy on a failed kill left nothing for the next attempt.

Keith was not that kind of hunter.

Other stuff

If you’re more of the User Experience or Design wonk, you may be interested in my list of posts on The Interconnected, where I’ve published numerous articles on UX, Design, and being a human in the internet age.