Astronomy is one of my hobbies, and I’m particularly intrigued by exoplanets – planets beyond our solar system. Combining this interest with my coding and writing experience, I thought to make this JavaScript Planet Generator program. Not only does it create graphical representations of such fascinating worlds, it also generates random civilizational data that might be helpful for science fiction and fantasy authors.
In other words, whether you’re a scifi/fantasy author looking for worldbuilding prompts, a programmer looking for inspiration and/or tips, or simply someone interested in the universe, there’s definitely something in Planet Generator that will interest you.
Here’s how the results page of Planet Generator looks like(more…)
I love Japanese literature. Its themes are often focused, intelligent, quirky. I also love cats – indeed, for similar reasons, one may add! Combining the two, we get this review of If Cats Disappeared from the World, by Genki Kawamura.
You might also recall my review of The Travelling Cat Chronicles, by Hiro Arikawa, featuring a very similar theme. There are many similarities between the two novels, and if they weren’t both published in the same year, I’d be willing to ascribe the coincidence to an act of imitation instead.
So, what does a story like If Cats Disappeared from the World tell us?
What if Cats Disappeared? We don’t even want to think about it(more…)
It’s impossible to experience without memory. Think about it: If you had no memory beyond the immediate, ever-ghostly “now”, how could you remember how a sunset looked like? How could you remember your first kiss, or some important achievement?
Moreover, it’s not only experiencing that, without memory, would suffer. Learning would be difficult if not impossible. Much of what constitutes our humanity would be absent.
And yet, there’s something problematic about the coexistence of experience and memory. I’m of course referring to the fact that memory taints the experience it’s supposed to help us remember.
We often think we remember things very well, very accurately, maintaining an objective view to their real essence. As the perceptive, thinking reader that you are, I’m sure you’ve discovered many problems in the sentence above.
The truth is, we don’t remember things all that well, not very accurately, and it’s quite by definition that we can’t hold an objective view, let alone to the “real essence” of things – good luck defining that, especially for emotions, thoughts, and states of mind.
This image from the 80s helps me remember some scenes of my early childhood. But the memories area poor guide for creating a factual foundation. Still, it helps me (re)create a non-fact based reality which is still useful(more…)
