There are struggles inherent in the coming together of two sentient species. Why do we always seem to flub the hard choices? Choose your adventure through Tina Connolly's "Hard Choices".

http://www.gudmagazine.com/games/hard-choices-by-tina-connolly/

It's a very short story; you can't "win", but there's four badges and a scoring system. :)

I read the story at Brain Harvest and had to turn it into a proper "page-turner". I hope you enjoy it. :) Feedback welcome, of course, if not for this one then perhaps "the next" (when I've got a longer story?)

I'd forgotten I had this thought. I really need some sort of waterproof whiteboard.

Was down in a fun rabbit-hole with controlling computers by thought and what would be reasonably doable these days when I started "thinking" keystrokes, seeing how that worked out, letter by letter. Ideally, of course, whole words would be transcribable. But keystrokes... my fingers know the keyboard better than I do. They know what character I want to hit without me thinking "a b c d e". Then I got to "{" and ... curly bracket ... open curly bracket ... open block ... I can type that twenty times in the time it takes to "think" it.

There's certainly an idea I'm having when I know that's the character I want, and that idea is obviously faster than the muscle-time it takes to hit it (something has to instigate those muscles' movement, yes?) .. but I don't seem to be able to make myself aware of what that "idea" is, or at least I can't seem to make it "loud" enough to hear it with my mental ear.

Makes me really, really want a nice "squid" to play around with. See what I can make it learn.

Also thinking--human is the optimum shape for general purpose robots because that's what we've built our world for, and that's a de facto standard. But what if there were a smaller standard defined and accepted by a consortium? Then a secondary market builds in providing extensions/skeletons/etc to the smaller form. "Human" just being another suit that this general-purpose robot can control. At some level just re-pluggable brains.

I'd imagine the skeletons might have secondary brains (reflex centers) for their particular skills... (walking, etc).

The future becomes very different very quickly. No?

Wanted to pick your brains on ebook platforms right quick. Or make a note to myself. Or both.

Wouldn't it be nifty if every ebook platform had a basic dictionary that integrated with its books? And that publishers were required (or incentivized--come on, is there a better word for this that has just been obliterated by marketspeak?) to provide definitions (and pronunciations) for any word that wasn't in the basic dictionary?

Just thinking of how many words I learned "from context" that weren't quite right. And how many words I learned and never looked up proper pronunciation for. But you know, if it had just been "press this word for definition and pronunciation" then...

Are there any platforms that even support per-item dictionaries that are then glommed into a platform-style dictionary?

I think there was something else I wanted to say. No idea what it might have been, though. Have been posting a lot of nonsense to twitter. Have been getting more twit-fiction published (I hate the terms: twisters, hint fiction... ok with twiction, prefer twit-fiction; personal preferences. eh.). Have a zombie poem due out "soon" (need to sign contract for). Life. Stuff.

I did a flash collab with a friend ("Piecework Re-Imagining of the Sea" with Deborah Rosenblum), and entered into the Fantasy "10 sentences" micro-contest. We made the editors-selected shortlist, and now it's up to the readers--I'd really appreciate any help you could muster over there voting for me (or against me, I know how you folks can be ;) ). 10 pieces are posted. You can vote for up to three. Top three have the option of being published by Podcastle as well.

Stories are posted here:
http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=3436

Voting here:
http://www.esurveyspro.com/Survey.aspx?id=3859d271-cc09-4dfe-80de-fe16853ec8ba

And many congratz to southernweirdo who's also in the running (T.J. McIntyre).

It's been brought to my attention that I've been posting senryu, not haiku. I'd completely forgotten that there was a distinction (in fact, if you'd asked me I would have said a senryu was a tanka and not known what a tanka was; and even now I was confusing a tanka and a renga (corrected), though that can partially be blamed on just waking up (and limited exposure). :)

insomnia lurks
fear that something will be missed
I sit and reload

dreams of basketball
turtle swallows star player
student eats master

{{ the master happened to be a small dragon (or a cricket?); everyone else looked on in horror. I made the turtle puke (with my hands), but there was nothing in there but bile and empty turtle shells (the size of sake glasses). I left the (gated) court looking for somewhere to wash my hands. Woke up not quite wanting to touch my alarm (which apparently I had set for PM instead of AM, so it's a good thing I woke up before it). }}

#rejection from @outshine both thoughtful and thorough. Looking forward to their reopen Jul 6. Someone remind me? #writing #twitfic

My day? It's been. :)

southernweirdo pointed out that my poem "The Undefeatable Enemy from Mars" went up on Every Day Weirdness (er, a few days ago now).

I also had a spate of poems accepted over at, "The Legendary" ~ April 24, 2009. New Moon. Issue 4—through the eye / vile public secrets / ballerina in the cell / time and clocks (are the poem titles, not a very disjoint poem ;) )

and now for some haiku:

sleep disdains entrance
blossoming consciousness is
sifting sand for gems

spice opens the mind
heightens the mental palette
worms? no--Mexican

inbox to outbox
thoughts flow with alacrity
the slush monster burps

tomorrow will come
and new possibilities
dead rise with the sun

the cause is worthy
rally to me--channel anger
it helps me forget

schizophrenia
new digital affliction
so many accounts!

projects come and go
coffee rings on porcelain
time's marks before me

I fail at today
create lists to accomplish
dreams of tomorrow

Oh! Oh, and--wrote a really crappy haiku, posted it to twitter with a comment about not quite liking it, got a reply of a much better version--that was nifty. :) Is it possible to link to specific tweets? I think maybe not. AHA! I have added the response to my twitter favorites. Much better than my version (which I actually deleted within seconds of posting). Meh: that last link is fail, for me--so if it pulls up not one thing but many, click on "favorites" off in the sidebar

ALSO (for a different touch of emphasis), I've been toying around with twitter-sized fiction. 140 characters or less is TOUGH, but there's a growing number of markets for it ~ for a partial list.

This is actually from the last week or so. I intended to post them in sets, each day, but that didn't happen.

every occasion
deserves poem'd reflection
send just five dollars

half-shuttered window
lets in sunlight and mountains
looses mind to roam

too old for space now
she dreams of presidency
yearning for something

life is chemical
I eat, process, and excrete
make way for flowers

staring at the screen
thousands of people living
staring at their screens

software is process
innovate and iterate
new app launched tonight

poets stop to smell
every whiff of every rose
eau de existence

time is a fluid
stress eases with glacial pace
then snaps like lightning

fear and hate battle
and the only thing to win:
productivity

mistakes breed mistakes
some for now, some for later
life's safer abstract

blind optimism:
not the pills they feed us but
choosing to take them

mourn those left behind
for they alone can suffer
by the things they've lost

humans reject death
even when we embrace it
searching for meaning

new GI Joe movie looks like crap. save your time and re-watch warren ellis' animated version?

new harry potter looks beautiful.

x-men origins: wolverine -- looks over the top, but not nearly as bad as the reviews I've been hearing. I believe the reviews; maybe someone could re-mix it?

terminator salvation looks amazing. I love the stunt work at the beginning (with the motorcycle). I almost want to see the previous terminator movie to catch up on the story. ((but there's always wikipedia for that, right?))

mph.

OH. From earlier so I didn't think to mention:

D-9 looks amazing!!11!!1! Very curious how it's going to be shot (compared to the trailer--which is likely more meta than the movie will be?)

And then from later:

The Limits of Control looks beautiful, and solid, and interesting. (Jim Jarmusch)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen looks somewhere between 'eh' and 'meh', but it's got me curious anyway.

Get a piece of GUD Issue 4 free -- http://tr.im/jYM4 -- or get the whole thing -- http://tr.im/jYM8 (please RT)

Er, wait, this isn't twitter? I saw a flash of "Date: out of order" just before the webpage sorted itself out, and I thought that was particularly fitting for where I am just now. Where? Dunno. I should go to sleep soon for there are things I must do in The Early Morning.

But somewhat seriously, I'd love it if I could get a thousand more people signed up on GUD reading their freebies (and even better, posting about the freebie they read as part of some promotional contest thinger...). So if you could, umm, re... tweet... journal... that bit up at the top, it would be much appreciated. ;)

Any thoughts on where/how I could best promote GUD Issue 4? I'd also like to help out a few folks/places like Jin Wicked and Small Beer Press, and a friend doing character sketches, so I'm half thinking a contest of some sort with prizes from them or something.

Oh, and if you do reviews and consider PDFs--hit me up, ummkay? :)

Also also looking into starting some sort of cross-promotion ring re: small press mags.

No, still not handling life well yet--I'm just going to wrap this up instead of running in loops trying to see what I should edit out or in. Blargh. Sorry. :(

More haikus later. Oh. Here's an emo one. ;)

curl into myself
I make an echo chamber
of my lake of tears

Stress Inoculation for special forces -- or why a heart that may give out when you're fifty is better for soldiers -- http://snurl.com/fwdiv

Everything you thought you knew about Columbine was wrong? http://snurl.com/fwcdb

Bendy Laser Beams -- http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090409/full/news.2009.360.html

Although I started listing these three days ago, and I think I'd read them before that. Not quite coming up for air again, yet, really, but...

men lean on mountains
even rocks wear down to sand
under nature's tears

A-Team haikuing
B.A. Baracus grumbles
lefty interjects

daylight brings changes
in perspective and shading
then night comes again

time is on no side
ignores god, country, and man
it simply marches

cat perches on lap
blinken lights and free music
this is me working

this is a haiku
and nothing to do with you
computer testing

coming up for air
tentacles wrap around you
breathe deep, don't look down

well, they were new shoes:
lurkers deep gambol and gyre;
just stepped in madness.

moment's reflection
car idles at a stop light
love from the unknown

reading my friends' lives
the public and the private
wheels kick up gravel

the human waits while
computer waits for human
procrastination

thank you for the lies
infinite perspective kills
getting through today

and... a special "12 seconds" haiku, because I'm playing with their service because I'm integrating with it (ish) for a client, and totally got sidetracked. *cough* But hey, just 12 seconds at a time! Well, maybe 20 minutes total...

a new day, the same--
started with simple pleasures
cereal in milk


dark, jagged spirits
rhyme and rap the raw and real
month of poetry

exhausta-tiredness
permeates like slow things
ding, dong, ding. and stuff.

Apologies for the video on your friendspage, but this is just ... oh. Out of touch? And no, this isn't a 4/1 joke gone out of hand, past its sell-by, ...

waking and mourning
dreams shift to reality
the turning seasons

blood boils, cools again
circulates and permeates
programming is hate

stirring witches, three
threaten with their prophecy
to know is to be

sun travels to sun
life is left with things undone
don't forget the fun

I need a better writing icon. This one is just too depressing, almost self-defeating.

I've written five pieces this week (I believe I linked the first, earlier?). The is all part of a ROTOR instance (spawned by some half-comment of Warren Ellis', leapt upon by more than half a dozen folks).

one site, five writers, five weekdays (five RSS feeds). every day each writer posts something new – either a piece of a serial, or a short fiction, or an article. Under 500 words, ideally (probably 100-200 words is the ideal), but whatever.
—Warren Ellis, Rotor

* Echo: In Memoriam ~ I think this is my creepiest to date; I've been looking forward to its going live since even before I finished writing it; and while it's perhaps clumsy in its execution, ... well, I just love where it ends up. And I kind of wonder if it will be just me thinking it's creepy...

* Echo: White Gold, Black Gold, Red Gold ~ perhaps over-worn tropes, but I had fun, and hope you'll have fun if you read it :)

* Echo: Victim of Medical-food Cookiejar (Hmm. just now I notice the missing "a" between "of" and "Medical"). And this one you'll wonder what the title has to do with anything. This stems from how I built up the idea of these echoes; each goes back a week in the orrot blog to another piece, and as such is an echo; distorted echoes bouncing around my brain-pan. (hmm. brain-bread?) I have an idea to take this one step further, but will see if I can goad anyone to it... Anyway, I'm getting more comfortable moving further from the titles, now, but this was just midway through the week ;)

* Echo: Powerball and Chain ~ I love the creepy picture I found for this one (though it's kind of a sad/happy picture if you click through and see where it came from; but without context, and wrapped up in my story, I love it). This story especially benefits from the article it stemmed from. But I hope it works on its own as well, with just a bit more suspension of belief/willingness to subsume oneself in surreal oddities...

* Echo: Gundam Triathlon ~ ... yeah. :)

Meanwhile, if you've got the time to spare, DO check out the other writings there. All good stuff; I've been impressed, really. Maybe subscribe to the rss feed (or orrot. ;) )

A bit of micro-fiction up at orrot.org. Going to be trying to do a few a week just to remind myself I can write prose, even if it's not "the best prose in the world". It's okay to write "fun" and "cliche" from time to time. With a dash of "doesn't hang together", if needed. Fun? :)

My Zombie Monkey Pirate Love submission just went up on Threadless. It's getting the opposite of love (if you want to stem the tide a tich, do feel free, but I think I'll probably go some other way with it). Whee!

Neither is, you know, sticking to one thing when I don't want to be working on it. Still, I manage. But in this particular instance... I was on Pandora, and noticed an ad for a song by Prince.

I figured, what the hell, I'm not too into the song I'm listening to right now, I don't remember what Prince sounds like...

The song was pretty rad though there was only about 20 seconds of it. Sounded like Jimi Hendrix grinding through stuff. So I started to look it up...

Got to https://www.lotusflow3r.com/th3b0mb.html

Which is a TRIP. Play around for the sake of the beauty of it, but don't get too attracted to "solving" it. ((it's a trivial solution, yeah?))

But once you've done that--you get a free t-shirt! Three free songs! (or maybe 3 albums) AND! Charged $77 for a year membership. You know. If you want to. For the free stuff.

Is this how marketing works? Am I just not the target audience? $77!?

ETA: since it's a post on marketing, I had to...