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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.

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Day 816: See I told you the murderers would be back

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 816:

I knew the local murderers would find me again sometime soon. This time I was to the south, working on the high mountains, trying not to get kicked off the side of the mountain by an ornery horse this time.

That might be how they were able to get so close to me before I saw them.

They’re loud as anything, too, yelling things to each other as if the rest of the mountainside couldn’t hear them bashing about from 10,000 meters.

I got pretty angry when they made it clear they would shoot me through the horse if they had to. (They made this clear by almost shooting the horse while aiming at me.) They have pretty good aim, but I’m faster, so I led them away from the horse, climbed a ledge, and shot them all.

A few years ago that would have been traumatic but these days it seems like these jack wagons are around every few days, and I don’t feel any worse for shooting them than I do zombies. I do try not to shoot first, just in case the next batch are different, but they never seem to be.

They also don’t seem to have a really well-developed sense of self-preservation because I gave the last two guys ample time to run away and leave me alone and they insisted on trying to attack me anyway.

Anyway, these murderers won’t be bothering anyone anymore.

View from a hill gently sloping down to the river of a big black horse, center, with a band of murders below the horse, also center, and approaching quickly. Their weapons were drawn. Below, a river.

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Day 815: A view north

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 815:

I really enjoy using this magic picture crystal thing for some of the landscapes here because they really are quite fantastic. Like today, I was south of the easternmost entrance and could see across the meadows down on my entrance and across the mountains.

When I dug the easternmost entrance it felt like I was digging up forever and that I was bound to dig out at the top of the world. Now I’m looking down on that building as if it were at sea level. (It definitely is not.)

The sky is beautiful and the grass looks soft and inviting. A huge mountain looms in the distance, which I’m sure I’ll get to eventually.

A view to the north. To the left, a stone building is nestled among the trees. Center, a meadow at the top of a cliff, and more mountains in the background. Top right, a huge mountain. Right, more cliffs and trees.

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Day 814: Heck of a cliff to climb

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 814:

All my toes seem to be fine and I’ve doubled up on my socks today.

I’m also down a bit from the highest points, in a valley on the side of a cliff. (A mesa sort of? It’s just a flat bit cut into the mountain, with some trees, and then the mountain starts climbing again.

There are more sheep in this area and they don’t seem to be afraid of humans at all. Sometimes they come up and gently butt past me to climb the cliffs. Sometimes they’re not as gentle. In general they seem kind and friendly.

There are more trees here than I expected.

View from above and to the south of a small meadow surrounded by high cliff. Fluffy white sheep climb the cliffs.

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Day 813: snow!

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 813:

I’m back around at the southern end of the mountains, where it’s high and cold and snowing like a blizzard. Probably because it is a blizzard.

No sign of the rude horse today, but definite signs that I need to make taller boots if I’m going to keep coming up here because my feet are soaked despite the relatively well-water-proofed boots I already have. The snow was just piling in from the top with every step. I’m probably lucky I came home with both boots.

I spent a lot of time when I returned slowly warming up my toes and ensuring that I wouldn’t lose any of them. They’re all quite red and painful, but the fact that they’re painful is probably good because it means the nerves are still working.

Snow mining isn’t exactly in my skill set and I’m going to try to avoid doing it in the future.

A view of the valley with snow falling. A stone arch is off to the east. Otherwise it's mostly trees and falling snow.