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I don't know what the letters stand for, but I know what it is: it's a bit of HTML that fetches a daily thing like a blog. I've been collecting RSS feeds (suggestions welcome) so I can get all this stuff in my livejournal flist. One of my favorites is rijksfeed which is an almost-daily presentation of a painting from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, along with a breif commentary. Today it's the painting of the tailor and his apprentices and what's so cool about that is I saw that very painting! in person! this summer!
On another front, in the last three days I wrote 5K on the Altagracia book. This is one that started as a self-indulgent school romance set on my terraformed art-project world, all about culture clash and angst, which to me are like the most self-indulgent things evar to write about. Anyway it has developed almost into a whole novel, with a bunch of exposition (including a breakout infodump second chapter "Walkabout on Abundance" which starts
Chapter 2. Interlude: Walkabout on Abundance
The planets have sentimental names.
When people arrived in the system, there were two planets in the habitable zone. One was already pretty close to liveability: the other was less likely. The people set up a home in domes and life support on the one and began a long-term project on the other.
They called their home, Heimisch, and promptly forgot why they called it that. They called the other, Abundance, though at the time they named it, it had an abundance of rock.
The project went on for thousands of years, while Heimisch society and landscape grew and evolved and settled in. When Abundance came as close to liveability as Heimisch had been when they first moved on to it, it was opened up to development.
A project like this will not bring an economic profit to its developers at home. No matter how rich the planet's resources -- and Abundance was rich -- the investment is so large that the returns are mostly abstract. Heimisch understood this. So when Abundance was opoened to development, it was opened as a canvas for public art: as a laboratory for public experimentation. Applications were received, evaluated, passed or rejected.
Applicants included the religious, the utopian, the scientific, the artistic -- in the end some of each were allowed to take their proposals and their participants to the surface of Abundance. They were given tracts of land, equivalent in value -- or proportionate, anyway, since some of the projects were bigger than others. Each was free, within the constraints of its charter, to develop a culture and livelihood as they would.
There are two authorities over all of the Abundance projects. One is the Abundance Development Authority, with its offices on Heimisch, and rather abstract, as it turned out, in the minds of the Abundance residents. The other, right on the planet, is the Biomes Authority. This was the entity that oversaw the terraforming process from the beginning, and which still holds as its mandate the control of everything that impinges on the delicate, complex, and ever-evolving biological and physical environment of the planet. Biomes Authority passes on construction, on industry, on agriculture, the use of water, the birth of children. They get the children, too, for an indoctrination summer camp, at least twice in their childhood. (Every year, if the children are from Altagracia)
It's not only the planet which has been altered to suit the people on it. The people, too, have been altered to suit the planet. The fetus, the infant, and the child receive tailored viruses that make life on Abundance possible. Slipped in is a contraceptive for the girls. Biomes Authority controls the ovulation medication that allows women to conceive. Enough is allocated to each community to allow it to grow -- slowly. There's an endemic labor shortage, which affects life in different ways throughout the Second Continent where the settlements are.
Mickey's from Gate. It's not strictly one of the original projects. It's an outrowth dependent on Hallow, a religious state. Gate is the economic scaffold for the holy edifice that is Hallow. Just the other side of the steep mountain range called the Spine is the broad valley called Altagracia. It's not a state. It's a conglomeration of small collective towns and urban communities where the people go to live if they can't stand collective life any more. In Gate and Hallow folk suspect that the Valley types, the "Ranchistas" especially who live in the collective towns, live a kind of libertinous and depraved life, with their libidos uncontrolled -- but every other aspect of their lives regimented beyond recognition. There are other projects: Best, a corporate state; Prospect, where the space port is. The Saline Lake is its own project, with the Experimental Bird Station staffed by the community of Merced y Gracias.
On another front, I now officially love squash.
On another front, in the last three days I wrote 5K on the Altagracia book. This is one that started as a self-indulgent school romance set on my terraformed art-project world, all about culture clash and angst, which to me are like the most self-indulgent things evar to write about. Anyway it has developed almost into a whole novel, with a bunch of exposition (including a breakout infodump second chapter "Walkabout on Abundance" which starts
Chapter 2. Interlude: Walkabout on Abundance
The planets have sentimental names.
When people arrived in the system, there were two planets in the habitable zone. One was already pretty close to liveability: the other was less likely. The people set up a home in domes and life support on the one and began a long-term project on the other.
They called their home, Heimisch, and promptly forgot why they called it that. They called the other, Abundance, though at the time they named it, it had an abundance of rock.
The project went on for thousands of years, while Heimisch society and landscape grew and evolved and settled in. When Abundance came as close to liveability as Heimisch had been when they first moved on to it, it was opened up to development.
A project like this will not bring an economic profit to its developers at home. No matter how rich the planet's resources -- and Abundance was rich -- the investment is so large that the returns are mostly abstract. Heimisch understood this. So when Abundance was opoened to development, it was opened as a canvas for public art: as a laboratory for public experimentation. Applications were received, evaluated, passed or rejected.
Applicants included the religious, the utopian, the scientific, the artistic -- in the end some of each were allowed to take their proposals and their participants to the surface of Abundance. They were given tracts of land, equivalent in value -- or proportionate, anyway, since some of the projects were bigger than others. Each was free, within the constraints of its charter, to develop a culture and livelihood as they would.
There are two authorities over all of the Abundance projects. One is the Abundance Development Authority, with its offices on Heimisch, and rather abstract, as it turned out, in the minds of the Abundance residents. The other, right on the planet, is the Biomes Authority. This was the entity that oversaw the terraforming process from the beginning, and which still holds as its mandate the control of everything that impinges on the delicate, complex, and ever-evolving biological and physical environment of the planet. Biomes Authority passes on construction, on industry, on agriculture, the use of water, the birth of children. They get the children, too, for an indoctrination summer camp, at least twice in their childhood. (Every year, if the children are from Altagracia)
It's not only the planet which has been altered to suit the people on it. The people, too, have been altered to suit the planet. The fetus, the infant, and the child receive tailored viruses that make life on Abundance possible. Slipped in is a contraceptive for the girls. Biomes Authority controls the ovulation medication that allows women to conceive. Enough is allocated to each community to allow it to grow -- slowly. There's an endemic labor shortage, which affects life in different ways throughout the Second Continent where the settlements are.
Mickey's from Gate. It's not strictly one of the original projects. It's an outrowth dependent on Hallow, a religious state. Gate is the economic scaffold for the holy edifice that is Hallow. Just the other side of the steep mountain range called the Spine is the broad valley called Altagracia. It's not a state. It's a conglomeration of small collective towns and urban communities where the people go to live if they can't stand collective life any more. In Gate and Hallow folk suspect that the Valley types, the "Ranchistas" especially who live in the collective towns, live a kind of libertinous and depraved life, with their libidos uncontrolled -- but every other aspect of their lives regimented beyond recognition. There are other projects: Best, a corporate state; Prospect, where the space port is. The Saline Lake is its own project, with the Experimental Bird Station staffed by the community of Merced y Gracias.
On another front, I now officially love squash.
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I mostly read rss feeds in Bloglines, an online feed reader which allows me to better keep them in categories and put the lists on my other blogs. But I did create LJ feeds for my non-LJ blogs.
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