Beyond Those Walls

I’m going to, for a while, post my once-novel-in-the-works here. It’s called Beyond Those walls, and it’s a science fiction story set at an indefinite time in the future.

I’ll be posting it one chapter at a time and even though I’m no longer working on it, I’d love any and all feedback.

An observation: Terraforming on Earth

I moved to this desert town fairly recently — about two and a half years ago. I’ve always hated the dryness of it, how dusty and sandy and gritty and windy it gets. It has its upsides — less traffic, lower rent, all that jazz, so the pros and cons just about cancel each other out until the town becomes just an ‘OK’ place to live.

About a year ago, after reading this science fiction book series, I wondered about terraforming and just how plausible it really is. The whole process on an alien planet, on a long enough time scale, is indeed plausible, in fact possible, it would just be really difficult. I scaled down my thoughts, on to smaller environments and ecosystems. For instance, the desert.

It wouldn’t really be terraforming, since you’re already on Earth and it’s already habitable. But to see green here, to see something resembling places you’d actually expect humans to settle. That was my dream.

I thought it over, ran mental ‘tests’ and such. Introducing such-and-such amounts of water into the environment here, and thanks to the water cycle, it will rain more, more things will grow, requiring more water, we’ll bring more here, there’ll be more to evaporate and go up into the environment, over and over, until we’re as green as can be. But I wondered: if it’s as easy as one-two-three, why haven’t we seen anything yet? So I thought the whole idea was just the musings of a bored teenager.

But last week, while my friend Sean and I were out taking photos, I noticed something I have never noticed before. The fields I looked down on from our high rocky perch weren’t brown like they should have been, like they were all over and around town. (We were a good distance from the city.) There was green there, in the fields. Growing naturally, without human aid. Sure, it was a little hard to see, but all I did was say ‘Look Sean, look how green it is’ and he didn’t even have to take a second look. It’s very noticeable.

We’re transforming the terrain near the Mojave Desert. Slowly and imperceptibly. But in a few generations, maybe long after you and I are gone, this place will be fields of green.

To you photographers with websites

Please stop making them 100% Flash. It isn’t prettier, nor does it make it harder for people to steal your photos. Seriously. Just go back to HTML and CSS. Or XHTML. Or Ruby on Rails.

Anything but Flash/JavaScript. Be normal for once. Now that would be unique.

A small list

Of things that don’t suck:

…TV screens in the back of airplane seats. Twice-baked potatoes. Dryer sheets. DVRs. The set design on Mad Men. Farmers’ markets. Tap water. Touchscreens. Scissors. Pocketknives. Thumb drives. Kites. Strike-anywhere matches. Doorstops. Run-flat tires. Netflix. Noise-canceling headphones. Casual carpool. Guitar Hero. Salt-and-vinegar potato chips. Bicycles. Kevlar. Velcro. Carbon composite. Dradis. Flip-flops. The first half hour of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Seat belts. Zippo lighters. Spartan Laser. Heated seats. Public libraries. Remote control. Ice cream.

Sarah Silverman, Wired.com

Welfare-to-Work: Fun! Not.

Welfare in the state of California is the worst thing in the world, next to a bad apple and a brain tumor. Seriously.

My mother is disabled. Physically and mentally. She is unable to work at all and so must stay home all day, and needs someone to take care of her. So my father stays at home. We get money monthly for this. He gets paid to watch and take care of her, she gets paid to take care of herself and her four children.

I’m sixteen years old — still a minor. I just graduated early from high school a couple months ago. At first, they said they never had a case like mine, so they’d continue financial aid for my parents. Then I had to go in and meet with a case worker. And she entered me in a ‘Welfare-to-Work’ program. For adults. I now have to either search for a job, or work, or be at college, 32 hours a week, or else we lose a very large sum of the money we get each month and if that happens we’d eventually be forced to split up, move out, into a cheap trailer on the far end of town, or whatever.

Some total bullshit if you ask me. I don’t really care how much money we get. But to force us to change our lifestyles because I decided to try and be successful in my own way? To tell me, ‘since you aren’t going to school any more, you have to work or do these things, or we’ll chop your parent’s monthly checks in half.’ It’s totally absurd. It’s fucked up, that’s what it is.

I mean, my mother is disabled. She should get the money to take care of herself and her children regardless of what we do, short of committing felonies.

Come the fuck on, you stupid Californian assholes.

I can’t wait to leave this state.