Growing up with and around hippies, I was exposed to a lot of pseudoscience, so I had to develop a set of metrics to differentiate between science and pseudoscience. Many of them had to do with considering the reliability of the source, (if I heard this from some guy named Moonbeam at a Rainbow Gathering who can barely stand up straight: Probably not too reliable), but a few are more useful, and have stuck with me over the years. The main one has to do with mechanism.
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SETI@home vs. Bitcoin
I have an issue with bitcoin. Well, a few issues. It’s bad for the environment, it’s an unstable currency, blah blah, etc. Charles Stross covered most of my complaints. I have one in specific that really bugs me, though: All that computing power, and that carbon footprint, is just being applied to generating more bitcoin.
Well, duh, of course, what else would it be used for? Well, when I first heard about bitcoin, I didn’t quite get how it worked. I thought that the bitcoin mining process essentially loaned out your computer’s processing power to various networks that needed it, giving you bitcoin in exchange for that. I pretty quickly realized I was wrong, though, and that the mining process didn’t do anything but, well, mine. After a number of conversations and a good bit of thought, I’ve come up with an idea for a slightly more interesting and useful form of cryptocurrency: SETI@home Coin. (Note, not my original idea. I did come up with it on my own, but many others have come up with it separately before me. It happens.)
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If I got to make a movie…
I’d write a romance film. No, seriously, hear me out. Pretty typical story: teacher meets industrialist, couple falls in love, their lifestyles conflict and they fall apart, they eventually come back together again, have a touching reunion at an outdoor restaurant, truck crashes into restaurant, killing dozens, including the industrialist, cue Yakety Sax as rescue workers frantically try to save the survivors, teacher left crippled and burned in wheelchair, struggles with sense of loss, blows brain out in front of fourth grade class. End Yakety Sax.
Nothing too unusual. And don’t worry, I’m not a horrible person, I’d make sure that the ending would be a surprise for all the romance fans out there. No advance reviews, no script leaks.
Current Project Tally
Hey, so here’s what I’m working on project-wise right now:
- Siegebeast: Hex-grid-based strategy game. I’ve mentioned this one already, I’m aiming to do a Kickstarter come late spring. Lots of revisions, testing, and art to do.
- Basilisk Street: 5 part comic book miniseries. I’ve got all five scripts complete, coming in around 130 pages. I’m currently editing the scripts and preparing to hire an artist to do the pitch (First 5 or so pages). Once that’s done, I’ll start submitting it to various comic book publishers. Basilisk Street and Siegebeast are the farthest along of my projects. The biggest remaining task here is finding an artist. Good artists are expensive, and usually have very little free time. (more…)
Mountain Was Here 