Mike Reeves-McMillan

Author: Mike Reeves-McMillan

  • Clones Castle rediscovered after 250 years – BBC News

    Originally shared by Fred Hicks

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-37186135?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_news_ni&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=northern_ireland

  • Sharing this to read later.

    Sharing this to read later.

    Glancing over the titles and abstracts, it strikes me that one of the most important things we can do is attempt to transform our political and economic systems from ones that primarily benefit those who already have access to power and wealth into ones that protect and provide for everyone and share the benefits more widely – not only for the liberal reasons of justice and fairness, but for the conservative reasons of security, liberty and opportunity.

    Originally shared by Singularity Hub

    From universal basic income to the gig economy, there’s no denying technology is going to cause sweeping changes.

    http://suhub.co/2bPn42g

  • This is well worth a read.

    This is well worth a read.

    Originally shared by Brand Gamblin

    http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-superman-crossover-that-perfectly-explained-white-p-1785744977

  • It’s like brain surgery.

    It’s like brain surgery.

    Originally shared by Walter Roberson

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/essential-tremor-health-surgery-clinical-trial-brain-disease-1.3732875

  • The point of this article is to write people as people.

    The point of this article is to write people as people.

    I suspect there’s a little more to it than that, but there isn’t less to it than that.

    Originally shared by Lisa “LJ” Cohen

    Before I dive into #Parallax I wanted to share this very insightful article about the necessary role of empathy in writing, and its failure.

    This really encapsulates the challenge and issues around writing people who have different life experiences than the author. I particularly resonated with this:

    “If you cannot write other without the assistance of a dedicated team of marginalized people to check your every sentence, then you should likely interrogate the writing that is about self. Writing requires you to enter into the lives of other people, to imagine circumstances as varied, as mundane, as painful, as beautiful, and as alive as your own. It means graciously and generously allowing for the existence of other minds as bright as quiet as loud as sullen as vivacious as your own might be, or more so. It means seeing the humanity of your characters. If you’re having a difficult time accessing the lives of people who are unlike you, then your work is not yet done.”

    http://lithub.com/there-is-no-secret-to-writing-about-people-who-do-not-look-like-you/

    http://lithub.com/there-is-no-secret-to-writing-about-people-who-do-not-look-like-you

  • And now, the third of three reviews of other novels with which my Hope and the Patient Man shares this excellent…

    And now, the third of three reviews of other novels with which my Hope and the Patient Man shares this excellent boxed set. (It’s 12 novels, plus bonus short fiction, for 99c, and all of them have heroes with integrity and honour standing up against a dark world.)

    You may not be as familiar with Sabrina Chase as you are with Lindsay Buroker and C.J. Brightley, the other two authors I’ve featured. Like mine and Lindsay’s, her book The Last Mage Guardian is a bit steampunkish – enough so that Amazon suggested it to me because I’d enjoyed Lindsay Buroker’s work, and I’m glad of the recommendation. I awarded a very high four stars for this well-written tale of a young woman who finds herself in charge of the magical defense of Europe, some years after a devastating war started by the French.

    It’s set in an alternate world. The date appears to be mid-to-late 19th century, from scattered clues. There are trains, but it’s magic rather than technology that gets the emphasis. The North American continent appears to be called Atlantea, and the countries of Europe have different names, their cities have different spellings, and there are other geopolitical differences like the continuation of a separate country of Bretagne distinct from France (or Gaul).

    Although there’s a romance subplot between the two viewpoint characters, the emphasis is on the adventure and the magic, with a great boss battle at the end. Flooding cellar, explosions, collapsing masonry, levitation, it’s all good stuff. I liked both the main characters, enjoyed the world, and was happy to accept the more cinematic parts of the story in their own terms.

    The editing (and writing) is fully as good as you’ll find from any big publisher, and better than you’ll often get from HarperCollins.

    There’s a sequel, which I’ve also read and enjoyed, and I’ve explored some of the author’s other books (mostly SF, inspired by Lois McMaster Bujold, one of my own favourite authors) and found them up to the same high standard.

    So, preorder this boxed set of 12 novels, including The Last Mage Guardian, for 99c, and you’ll have some great reading come October.

    https://www.amazon.com/Light-Darkness-Noblebright-Fantasy-Boxed-ebook/dp/B01K3534QI

  • Name generator, trained on a baby names book.

    Name generator, trained on a baby names book.

    Originally shared by Andrej Karpathy

    #RandomExperimentSundays : I was curious if char-rnn (https://github.com/karpathy/char-rnn) can generate new, fun and plausible baby names. So I got a dataset of 8,000 baby names from an NLP repo (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/ai-repository/ai/areas/nlp/corpora/names/), trained a 2-layer LSTM and generated some.

    To my amusement many fun unique names come out and 90% of them are not found in the training data. Here are 100 example samples that do not occur in training data:

    Rudi

    Levette

    Berice

    Lussa

    Hany

    Mareanne

    Chrestina

    Carissy

    Marylen

    Hammine

    Janye

    Marlise

    Jacacrie

    Hendred

    Romand

    Charienna

    Nenotto

    Ette

    Dorane

    Wallen

    Marly

    Darine

    Salina

    Elvyn

    Ersia

    Maralena

    Minoria

    Ellia

    Charmin

    Antley

    Nerille

    Chelon

    Walmor

    Evena

    Jeryly

    Stachon

    Charisa

    Allisa

    Anatha

    Cathanie

    Geetra

    Alexie

    Jerin

    Cassen

    Herbett

    Cossie

    Velen

    Daurenge

    Robester

    Shermond

    Terisa

    Licia

    Roselen

    Ferine

    Jayn

    Lusine

    Charyanne

    Sales

    Sanny

    Resa

    Wallon

    Martine

    Merus

    Jelen

    Candica

    Wallin

    Tel

    Rachene

    Tarine

    Ozila

    Ketia

    Shanne

    Arnande

    Karella

    Roselina

    Alessia

    Chasty

    Deland

    Berther

    Geamar

    Jackein

    Mellisand

    Sagdy

    Nenc

    Lessie

    Rasemy

    Guen

    Gavi

    Milea

    Anneda

    Margoris

    Janin

    Rodelin

    Zeanna

    Elyne

    Janah

    Ferzina

    Susta

    Pey

    Castina

    Here is a much bigger sample: http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/namesGenUnique.txt

    Some of my favorites include “Baby” (haha), “Killie”, “Char”, “R”, “More”, “Mars”, “Hi”, “Saddie”, “With” and “Ahbort”. Well that was fun.

  • A historic discovery — Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our own Sun, has a planet circling it.

    Originally shared by ExtremeTech

    A historic discovery — Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our own Sun, has a planet circling it.

    http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/234398-astronomers-confirm-closest-earth-like-exoplanet-in-the-nearest-star-system

  • This would work really well in a fantasy setting.

    This would work really well in a fantasy setting.

    Originally shared by Dirk Puehl

    24 August: #onthisday the gate to the underworld on the Forum Romanum was opened annually with a festival-like character.

    “mundus patet”, the “the mundus is open”, the priests of Ceres announced on the forum, offerings to the gods of the underworld and the agricultural deities were made and the dead were given the freedom of the city for a day. One of the more obscure Roman traditions, full of archetypical symbols, but read more on:

    http://wunderkammertales.blogspot.de/2015/01/mundus-patet-gate-to-underworld-on.html

    Depicted below is Alice Pike Barney’s somewhat ghostly imagination of Ceres (1901), while the blog includes a short video with yours truly narrating the tale.

    #ancienthistory, #ancientrome, #history, #mythology, #romanhistory

  • I am a big non-fan of the Hero’s Journey, in large part because it’s overused and produces a lot of very similar…

    I am a big non-fan of the Hero’s Journey, in large part because it’s overused and produces a lot of very similar stories with embedded assumptions that I think it’s past time to question.

    This, however, is a form of refresh, and, if not followed as a rigid formula, could potentially give you a useful mythic story structure.

    Originally shared by Andy Brokaw

    The Hero’s Journey can, of course, star a female lead. That’s not what the Heroine’s Journey is about. The second is about a more “feminine” plot arc than one sees in the first. If I were to develop the journeys anew, I think that I would use the words Physical and Spiritual rather than invoking gender. (Or perhaps Tangible and Intangible?)

    Both Journeys can, and should, involve both action and emotion. But is the focus on battling the Empire or coming to personal terms with the Force?

    H/t to Troy Campbell​ for pointing me to this article.

    http://mythcreants.com/blog/using-the-heroines-journey