Mental Blabberings

One of the things I miss about social media (after not having been on Facebook for a good number of years now) is the convenient mechanism for communicating with friends, family, and acquaintances. The trade though isn't worth it for me -- my attention being used to fuel algorithms for targeting advertising with the side effect of amplifying messaging that I rather not have occupying my psyche. I haven't completely distanced myself from social media though -- I still use Twitter mostly to follow folks that challenge my perspective and augment my frame of mind. For a while I used Keybase but phones and a laptop later I've kept forgetting to actually use it for messaging. Unfortunately I've been locked out of my account and I'm waiting for a reset to happen. I used to have a WhatsApp account but I didn't find much traction with that in my family nor acquaintances. Not having Facebook (as I've deleted my account) made it extra hard to be involved in group messa...

I'm currently fleshing out a fantasy setting for a series of short stories rattling in my head that I'd like to get out into the world. However, it's the first time I'm even trying to do this, so I need your help: are there any good resources for world-building and writing guides that have been helpful in your projects? So far I've been really enamoured by Brandon Sanderson's world building and Patrick Rothfuss' storytelling. I suspect those two are at the pinnacle of the trade and I'm probably not going to do myself any favours by trying to live up to what they're doing, but I'd still like to give it the good college try. Are there any resources (forums, books, guides, blogs, or courses) that I should be taking if I want to do a decent first take at this? This is probably better as an email to friends and maybe some random folks (or maybe even a tweet) but why not a blog as well?

 It's 2021 and it's been a while since I wrote here. 2020 has been a challenging year for me and the family and if you're still subscribed and still reading, then thank you for sticking by me. We're doing well and we're doing the best we could given the situation in the world even today. I still believe that things will get better and while we're in the down part of the cycle of life, I'd like to think that the rise is coming soon. Of course nothing will ever really be the same though I'm holding out hope that it will only get better. The past year has given me an opportunity to think about the projects I've been holding off on and after much reflection and disconnecting with my most recent vacation, I've found that there's one project that I'm very excited to start working on and share with you: I'm going to be writing more. Not only writing on this blog, but I'm also dabbling on writing other things too. As soon as I have some o...

Flash back to 1998, I was a junior in high school in the Philippines. I would have been at the equivalent of 9th grade in the US educational system at age 15. At this point in my life I had been given one of the best opportunities to experience a whole new culture and lifestyle. I had a chance to be an exchange student in middle America for one full year. This post is about how passing up this opportunity changed my life more than I would have ever known at the time. Note: This is Part 2 of a series about my early choices in life which have gotten me to where I am today. If you're interested, please stay tuned to the next parts as I go through them. Thanks for reading! The Rotary Club Back during those days my parents had been invited to be part of the Rotary Club in the small town we lived in. There were various kinds of people who were in the club -- writers, businessmen, professionals (lawyers, doctors, teachers, etc.). My parents are businessmen who had very little in the...

The past couple of months I've been asked at least twice now whether I was willing to write a book. It's no secret that I love to write -- after all they got to me through my blogs. I don't think of myself as a great writer, I just happen to write a lot I guess (and edit myself out of oblivion). I've been trained (kinda) to write essays and do creative writing when I was in high school. This is the kind of thing I enjoyed doing throughout my high school years. I'm definitely thankful to all my teachers who've encouraged me to keep improving and just keep writing. I personally hold books to very high regard and this is why I've turned down all the offers to write a book. I don't see myself as someone who has a lot of original things to say or as an expert on anything. However, I then find this video which is totally changing my mind. This isn't something I've endeavored to do in my life. However what I have endeavored to do is to make a differe...

So earlier in the year I resolved to write about something on a weekly basis. Unfortunately I have failed that particular resolution. I thought I would have been able to write about something once a week -- that I would be able to get time to write about something interesting to me for any given week. Unfortunately it's not the time that's the problem: it's the motivation. I have found that more and more I did not need to write about what I thought more now that I think and read more than I need to express myself. I have found that in the past two months I had little need to share my thoughts about the world. However though now I find myself writing about not writing which is a little bit of an oxymoron. Let me share with you a few reasons why.

Broken Glass by akeg Don't get me started on so called technology publications. I think they're mostly bully pulpits to the influential unethically promoting self interests in the guise of "freedom of speech" and tabloids for the insider baseball in the most nebulous industry in the world. I'll reserve my ranting about certain technology writers to a forum where I can be myself and not have to worry about comment moderation. I'll keep my thoughts on certain celebrities who I feel do not deserve the attention they get. I'll hold my tongue on certain fanboys trying hardest to conceal their stripes like a zebra in the middle of an empty savannah. What instead I will write about is the need for real journalism.

Google Australia Handprints by Ariaski It's no secret that I've gone Google . As part of that move I had to leave the Philippines and get into temporary residences as well as get up to speed with the Google way of doing things. There's a lot for me to learn -- and I mean a lot -- but it's a good thing that I do have time. I've been doing some thinking lately though about my web presence and what Google knows about me on the Internet, and I see that I have been a loyal Google product user even before I joined the company. Just to give you an idea of what stuff I already have in Google, here are some links to things that you might not yet already know about me that Google already does: My Profile -- this is technically the most comprehensive profile of me that Google has. I keep this maintained even more than my Facebook account . My Web Album -- although I don't have much there publicly available, I use it a lot  for backing up my pictures. If you know ...

So now I'm having a hard time sleeping. Think of it this way: I get to sleep at 4 am, then wake up exactly 6 hours after that. I wouldn't call it lack of sleep entirely, but when after 6 hours of "sleep", you feel tired, it's as good as not sleeping at all. I'm getting cranky, impatient, and unproductive as ever. I'm running out of ideas as to how to deal with this in a better manner than blogging about it, so I'm trying that. As I'm writing this (offline, because I haven't dealt with the internet connection at home problem yet -- not too much a priority compared to all the other expenses moving to a new place entails) I'm watching CNBC to try and lull myself to sleep with business news. If you know me, it's hard for me to find anything on TV uninteresting: then maybe just listening to unending blabber would help my mind rest; which is highly unlikely. I'm going to give this a few minutes -- if I start yawning then it's done its...

It must be the not getting used to the silence in the province, or my feeling disconnected from my roots. But I guess there really is no sleep for the damned. So I find myself pondering on something I would really like to do someday: write a book. I don't have a very good life story to tell (yet I think, but I guess my parents and maybe close friends will disagree) and I haven't enough expertise like some people I know in C++ programming. I do have a passion for writing as evidence of this blog and a couple others I maintain, and I do have a passion for sharing what I know. I scooted on over to Lulu.com (thanks Charo for the link a couple months back) and asked myself three times: do I actually do it? If I do it, what would that mean to my time? I don't mind spending my time in front of my laptop(s) hacking away on code, but would I actually have the patience to write down a book in a coherent manner compared to what I'm doing right now with my blog? I guess I could tr...