Author: Mark

Posted on

Exploring the Space Force

A year and a half ago, Trump announced his intentions of forming a sixth branch of the US military: the “Space Force”. Just last week, a defense bill was passed that included appropriations and direction for the creation of said branch. This felt like an excellent opportunity to dive back into research mode and figure out what I could using primary sources. So I’ve been spending time digging up memos, executive orders, and legislation related to this process. Over the next month or so I’m planning on writing a few posts discussing how we got here, what the stated intention of the Space Force was, what it sounds like it will be immediately, and what it might become in the future.

Reading these documents is tough and somewhat amusing; it makes you wonder how many words of legislation are never read. The aforementioned defense bill closes in on 4000 pages. But that’s beside the point. The relevant section is actually only about 20 pages, which then makes you wonder how much wiggle room there is. But we’ll get to that.

Of course what I’m going to come up with is probably less useful or accurate as those writing based on insider information, but I have a strong sense that many news reports began as notes taken from a spoken summary in a press briefing, then new reports are written based on the initial ones. In either case, it’s good to be aware of where these documents are accessible, even if reading some parts is an exercise in futility.

Posted on

Kindle vs. Nook

During this year’s Black Friday, I switched teams in the (not very large) e-reader wars. Ever since I was a sophomore in high school, I’ve used some sort of Nook from Barnes and Noble. Growing up, I always loved Barnes and Noble. Sure it’s a chain, but it’s still a bookstore and I enjoyed supporting it. This extended to the Nook. It always felt like they had better features for a slightly cheaper price than the Kindles that were available. They received backlights on the base model well before the Kindle did, and they still have physical buttons.

Despite all that, the Kindle has finally eclipsed the Nook in certain key features that are useful for me: water resistance, integration with libraries, file transfer, and services.

For reference, I specifically have the Kindle Paperwhite 2018, and previously had the Nook Glowlight 3.

Continue reading “Kindle vs. Nook”
Posted on

Season Dissonance

Once again it’s supposed to winter, and yet it is not. In fact, we finally achieved “sweater weather” status in San Diego the other week with an uncharacteristic amount of rain and high 50’s temperatures. It’s still odd trying to adjust, and I feel a lot of dissonance between the weather and what 23 years of experience tells me should be happening.

I don’t expect I’ll ever fully adjust, and I think that’s okay. Proper winter will always have a special place in my heart. And at least I can bake cookies.

Posted on

More Nostalgic Reading

Earlier this year I reread (and finally finished) the Inheritance Cycle, which is the series with Eragon. It’s an excellent set of books that had a lot of nostalgia for me. Now that my month-long writing spring is over, I’ve been able to start reading more and the next series I’m focused on is also somewhat nostalgia-fueled. I’m reading His Dark Materials (the most well-known book being the first in the trilogy, The Golden Compass). I first read this series back in 7th grade, and I remember enjoying it but remember very little about the specifics. I also know that it is a fantasy written by the author in his own voice, not written for a particular audience. In that way it’s very approachable and enjoyable for anyone, and I’m enjoying reading it from an adult perspective. It’s not totally fresh, as plot points and characters are coming back to me as I read, but it’s good so far. It makes for a fun and exciting read, and I’m looking forward to working my way through the trilogy this month.

Posted on

Fighting Through Burnout

As I mentioned last week, I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month. As of writing this blog post I’ve reached 37,000 words in my novel, which I’m quite happy about. I found the first week or so pretty easy to manage, and I consistently went above the official daily word goal.

The last week has been a bit tougher. I set a personal daily goal of 2000 words, and I have managed to hit it every day so far. But it’s been tough at times. Many nights I’ll have only written 800 words or so, and think about just calling it for the day since I’m ahead of the official mark. But part of this month is being disciplined on my own; the official goals aren’t that meaningful, they are just a guide. I want to do this with internal motivation, that’s the real challenge.

One trick, or probably more of a strange placebo, that I have found works is using an app like Forest (or really, just some count-down timer) to do what cool writers call “word sprints”. I’ve found fifteen minutes is the sweet spot for me. I get locked into trying to write as much as I can in fifteen minutes, which is really the length of a YouTube video that’s a bit longer than average. It’s a unit of time I can easily wrap my head around. And in each sprint I tend to get at least 500 words. I then take a short break, and repeat again. I’m not sure why it works, but it doesn’t leave me feeling burned out; I tend to feel more energized in my writing after accomplishing one.

I don’t have much else to say (I’m in the middle of one of those days where I’m at about 1200 words and it’s 9:30 pm) except try playing around with ideas for avoiding burnout. I find that setting up systems to avoid short-term fatigue can be incredibly beneficial in staving off long-term issues as well.

Posted on

National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month, referred to as NaNoWriMo by the cool kids. The official goal of the event is to write 50,000 words of a brand new novel. More loosely, it’s to write 50,000 of some novel (perhaps you’re finishing last year’s, or revising your current one.) Or if you’re not in the novel game, maybe just write 50,000 words. Or write a graphic novel with some constraint. In reality, it’s an event designed to get people writing and to build the habit of writing every day. The word goal is just to encourage you to silence your inner editor for a while, and let your brain throw crap on paper.

That’s exactly what I’m doing. You can keep track of my progress by going to the NaNoWriMo page (linked in the sidebar menu). There you will find a PDF of my work updated each night. I don’t have any cool live word-counter (the updates on the website require you to have an account to view), but I suppose if you really cared you could copy and paste from the PDF and check.

As of writing this post (the evening of 11/9) I’m at around 20,500 words, which is a bit ahead of pace. I’m aiming to be done around November 20 if possible, to avoid needing to do anything while traveling around Thanksgiving. If all goes according to plan, I’ll have at least another 2,000 words by the time this is posted on Monday morning, and maybe even be halfway done by Monday night.

I’m sure this is not something most people are interested in, but it can be good to have an excuse to let your creativity flow a bit more than you may allow it to, or may allow time to. For me, I’m spending most of my free time that I would normally spend on podcasts or other media just writing. It’s been fun so far, and I hope to keep up the pace.

Posted on

Diving into Discomfort – Part 2

You can read last week’s post to get a feel for what this very short series is about. Broadly speaking, in my quest to read more modern literature, I’m finding myself grappling with modern issues in a way that is rather different than when I’m having broad conversations with others, or reading news stories. Books are affecting to me, and always have been. I’m typically more emotionally moved by a book that just about any other stimulus. So, I take the stories they tell seriously and look for what the author wants to say with it.

Continue reading “Diving into Discomfort – Part 2”