Another Nail in the Coffin

A while back I saw an article about the minimum number of people it would take to establish a colony on another planet. It was a very high number. I was thinking about that again this week and looked it up. The minimum number of humans needed for a viable colony is 10,000, though that doesn't insure 100% preservation of the human genome. The number for that is 40,000 people. One of the articles about the study is here. Different articles conflict a bit on the numbers. That one says 14,000 minimum. It also has this interesting tidbit:

"Almost no natural populations of vertebrates dip below around five to 7,000 individuals," he said during the FISO talk. " There are genetic reasons for this. And when they do go below this, sometimes they survive, but many times they go into what's called a demographic or extinction vortex."

Thus, a colony population of a few thousand people would not survive. It would take a ton of people. (More information on extinction vortex.)

One of the most disturbing scientific findings in recent times was the discovery that humans are losing about 200 base pairs of DNA per generation. Hold onto that thought.

When thinking about the minimum number of humans necessary to preserve our genome, it occurred to me that this directly applies to evolution. According to evolution, humans evolved from simple organisms and continue to evolve into more and more complexity. Also, according to science, humans evolved from one woman who is referred to as Eve or ancestral Eve.

Wait a minute. If vertebrate species need well over 5,000 individuals to survive, how could humans possibly have evolved from one woman? If we need 40,000 people to prevent losing part of our genome, where did that diversity come from? We now know that we're losing 200 base pairs of DNA per generation, a complete contradiction to the evolutionary model. Instead of becoming more complex, our genome is shrinking from complexity to simplicity. In other words DNA follows the law of entropy.

That's the end of Darwinian evolution. A primitive monkey-woman would not have had the genetic diversity to birth our species, not to mention there would not have been the 40,000-person minimum population needed to preserve our genome.

Darwinian evolution is dead. It violates the law of entropy. It violates the law of abiogenesis. It violates the laws of genetics. Over and over again, science keeps disproving Darwinian evolution. Evolutionists keep believing in it anyway. Where is the rational thought?

According to the Bible, Adam and Eve transmitted a very complex genome that is decaying over time. That's what science keeps confirming. We're not evolving. We're devolving.

Have a great weekend.

A Writing Week

This week was a writing week. I went through The Rise of Aethan Lightbringer. I found a few mistakes. Can you believe it? I know. Me either. It was things like titled instead of tilted, a stray apostrophe, etc. Spellcheck won't catch those. I made notes for corrections, but I'll need to go through it one last time. It was in preparation for going through book 2 in the series, which I published a while back but withdrew. It just didn't feel right. I needed a break from the series and went on to working on AoE. After book 1 this week, I went through book 2 and spent more time on editing it. Now that I've been away from it for a while, it was easier to see the problems. Sections of it are just fine. Other sections will need to be fixed or possibly re-written.

Book 1 has a certain feel to it. It flows along pretty nicely and carries me along. Book 2 is set a few years later. The gap of time and the events in it have to be explained. That takes some space. The things going on at the time sometimes need additional context. It all works to slow it down. Another problem that goes along with that is that things can be happening, but there's a lack of urgency to them. Not everywhere, just in some places. It's hard to explain. The story is unfolding, but it doesn't pull me along the way book 1 does.

How do I fix book 2? The most radical solution is to scrap the entire thing and start over with it set immediately after book 1. The current book 2 could become book 3 or simply abandoned altogether. I don't entirely like that solution. The gap of time is already written into book 1. Changing it would require changing book 1, a distasteful solution but certainly doable and with not a lot of effort. Then there's the problem of: What happens after book 1? Practically nothing, although I could make something up with Ashley, a minor character from book 1. Hmm, maybe it could be a 99-cent novella, something I could do later.

Another way to fix it is to go in and change the wording of the prose to alter the tone. I could also change the tone of the characters and remove some of the sense of humor and replace it with seriousness. Maybe I could condense some of the chapters together and still convey the same information. I could change settings. Maybe, instead of meeting in public, a couple of characters could meet secretly. A simple change would be having the characters talk about the pressure they're under or the time deadline. Another change would be to put more pressure on the characters or change their reactions to the pressure that's already there.

I'm thinking book 2 doesn't have to have the same exact feel as book 1, but it needs to have the same pacing. Book 1 pulls the reader along. Book 2 only does that in certain sections.

I just finished going through book 2 last night before bed. I haven't had time to look through any of it again. I'm thinking that maybe I'll pick a small section that's not working and try to fix that to see if it can be done easily. If so, then the changes won't take long. Even if I have to re-write some of it, it still shouldn't take too long to get it out the door. I hope.

Have a great weekend.

Water Leak

I woke up to a water leak today and spent a while cleaning that up before breakfast. It was hard to get to the leak, because I need to take two boards out of the wall. I'd already bought the sealer but not the replacement boards. I sealed it as best I could for now. The whole time I worked on it, my cat waited for breakfast. It was hard to be a person today. It was tough to be a cat, too.

Before the Notre Dame cathedral burned down, this year there has been a string of attacks against Catholic churches in France, including an arson attack last week. Speculation about the true cause of the fire at the cathedral is forbidden by the liberal media who have been speculating about Trump since 2016. The media thinks it's okay when they do it, using nothing more than hatred as their foundation. They think it's a crime when we do it, using published facts as ours. It's like things are to the point where a journalist is just as big a liar as a politician.

The week was otherwise unremarkable. I've been practicing with the graphics tablet working my way up to making real covers. It's not going as quickly as I'd hoped. I'm going to have to increase the amount of time I put into it. I was able to make some rocks that didn't look bad and a cliff face. I need to go through more brushes figuring out what they all do. I've been using a handful and practicing with those, but my goal is to develop a small set of brushes and only use those. I can see improvement. It's just slow. I've been toying with the idea of doing at least parts of a cover with real paint, photographing it and finishing the covers with the graphics tablet.

I've put some work into the book after AoE. I haven't done any writing on it. I'm still developing the plot and the details. Some key things have fallen into place. It's a detective/mystery story set in the science fiction universe of the first book. The mystery aspect is forcing me to take a different approach. The Messengers series is pretty straightforward. In this book the mystery will have to be solved by following the clues in a logical way. I need to figure out all the clues and the sequence as well as the story surrounding the detective. It's good practice for other books. I've had this science fiction story in mind for a while that's set on a space station at Jupiter or Saturn. In that story a murder occurs, but the video evidence has been removed from the main computer, a near impossibility. I think about that book sometimes but not enough to come up with the sequence of events. The book after AoE will help with that.

However, I need to finish the B'vellah War series before doing too much more. I've been thinking about that, too. I may do that instead of the book after AoE.

Have a great weekend.

Buying Overseas

I buy things from overseas from different countries. It's not frequent at all and never anything expensive, but every once in a while, I need or want something I either can't get in the U.S. or can get more cheaply elsewhere. Now that I'm reading French books, I need to buy books from Europe. Sometimes the price is better in the U.S. Sometimes not. The difference makes it worth it to buy certain titles from Europe.

It turns out my debit card won't work for that, because my bank has a restriction on it. I've ordered books only to have my card declined. I talked to the bank, and they told me they could lift the restriction for a 24-hour period, if I called them before I wanted to buy something. I usually don't know I'm going to buy something until I see if there's anything to buy. Nevertheless, a couple of weeks ago I called them. They said I was set.

I found four books on Abebooks.com and ordered them. Even after getting the bank to lift the restriction on my card, it was automatically, instantly declined. I called the bank the next day. They claimed it wasn't their fault. There was nothing they could do. Hmm. A while back I changed banks. I never had this problem at the old bank.

I've spent hours and hours trying to find a way to buy things from Europe. The books I want are usually sold in France, Germany and the U.K. The savings makes the hassle of looking at pre-paid card after card and all the fine print worth it. It's absolutely necessary to look at the fine print, because that's where the hidden fees and charges are. Also, some cards can only be bought in certain countries. I found a great card in the U.K., but I can't drive to their office for it. However, this week I was able to order a couple of books from France, and it worked. This is how I did it.

There's a pre-paid card vendor called MOVO. There's no monthly fee as long as you buy things or transfer money in or out. No problem. At worst that's a 99-cent book on Amazon, or I can transfer funds from my bank and use MOVO instead for some things. I signed up for a card. That was half the battle. The challenge was getting money on it. Doing it at a store costs money that I'm trying to save. After a ton of searching online, I was finally able to use Google Pay to transfer $50. . .to myself. It was free. The trick was I had to have two different Google accounts and two different email addresses. The other trick was that it took two days to authorize the accounts for the transfer as well as authorizing an account on MOVO plus waiting for the money to be credited.

So. I log into Google Pay and choose the send money option. I picked the payment source and the amount. I put in an email address and hit send. I check that email account, accept the money and choose the account for the deposit.

The entire process of getting everything authorized and then waiting for the money to transfer was a complete hassle. But now that it's done, everything is set up for me to transfer money to myself that I can spend almost anywhere in the world without some ridiculous restriction.

The sad news was that by the time I got it all set up two of the four books were no longer available. I was able to order them, but the transaction was never completed. I had to cancel. One of them was a dollar less at another French book store. I ordered that. It was all good. I got three out of the four.

I should mention the currency conversion fee. MOVO charges 3 percent to exchange dollars to Euros or whichever currency. The books I'm buying are between $4 and $6. We're talking about 12 to 18 cents per book. I'm saving well more than that buying them from Europe. So, it's not a problem for my purposes, especially without a monthly fee for the card.

Have a great weekend.

Jury Duty

Around the beginning of March, I got that dreaded letter in the mail: jury duty. The reporting date was April 1st. I was summoned as a trial juror and not as a grand juror. I dreaded it the whole month. Along the way I came up with a brilliant idea: tattoo sleeves. That's for a 20-pack. The 6-pack is cheaper.

When you're picked for a jury, the prosecution and the defense can ask you questions about yourself and your life. I've had to do that. You go up into the jury box for that in front of the judge and the entire court. That would be the perfect time to casually take my jacket off and expose the tattoo sleeves to the shock and condemnation of all. Surely, no one would pick a guy with tattoos up and down both arms, right? Right. The thing that held me back was the possibility of being held in contempt of court. If they thought I was trying to get out of jury duty with a trick, I figured it might be possible to be in contempt. April 1st was a chilly day. Tattoo sleeves are partly for protection from the sun. I decided not to get them. I wouldn't have a good reason to be wearing them like I might in summer. I might get some later as a gag. I have relatives I don't see very often. . .

Part of jury duty is calling the night before. I called. The grand jury was to report at 9 a.m. The trial jurors were not to report that day but were to call after 6 p.m. I was riding past the courthouse around 5 p.m. There were a lot of cars there, though the parking lot wasn't full. Obviously, it was the grand jury. I called later when I got home. The trial jury for this week was dismissed. Yay! I didn't need the tattoo sleeves after all. The best part is I got credit and won't be called again any time soon. It's been years since the last time. Only the people who sent back the form the county mails got credit. People who didn't send it back will have to do jury duty a different week. I bet they wish they'd sent the paper back.

Book Stuff

Progress hasn't been as fast as I'd like on the books and cover fronts, but progress is being made. It seems like things keep getting in the way that weren't there before like the forces of darkness have risen against me. I just have to force a way through, I guess. One of the books I've been putting time into is the concept for the book after AoE. I believe I can make books 2 and 3 have overlapping content. For instance, a character(Keelia) who only appears briefly in book 2 for a few scenes would be doing things that are the story for book 3. In book 3 the main character in book 2(her dad) would appear a few times just like she did in book 2. That way they can't team up and very quickly solve their problems together. Even though the books are a series and not a trilogy, by book 3 it would all fit together. I've been putting a lot of extra work into book 2. I have a lot of ideas written down, but it hasn't quite come together yet. It's close.

As for the covers, my main weakness is the human figure. I can't not have people on the covers. Corel Painter, and other programs, have something called mirror mode. The way it works is that there's an invisible line down the center of a painting/drawing. Anything drawn on one side is mirrored on the other automatically. For characters facing the camera, I can use mirror mode to get the faces symmetrical instead of having to paint/draw each side. It would work for certain buildings, too. I'd still have to do the full work on characters facing to the side or away, but mirror mode is a good trick. The characters would have to be on their own layers for it to work, of course.

Have a great weekend.

Trump Not Guilty

Trump was exonerated this week of the charges that he was in some kind of nefarious conspiracy with the Russians. Back in 2017, I made a post discussing why the Russia story is fake news. Now that the investigation is over and everyone can see the accusation was always fake, let's expose the lie behind it.

Before he left office, Obama investigated Trump to see if he had conspired with the Russians to change the results of the election. His administration found that there was nothing to the accusations. Trump was not connected to the Russians. The accusations continued. They were a political tool and nothing more. There was never any evidence whatsoever to support them. The Democrats knew and still know that the accusations were made up.

Why did the Democrats use the Russians? Why not the Chinese or some other country? Democrat leaders are generally old. The grew up during an era called the Cold War. During that time period, the Soviet Union, generally referred to as "the Russians" in that era, was the enemy of the United States. Remnants of that continue in our culture today. Having been humiliatingly defeated in 2016 in one of the most amazing political victories in American history, the Democrats were in a panic. They were weaker than they've been since the 1920s. That's so long ago that the KKK was an official wing of the Democrat party and people still remembered that the Republican Abraham Lincoln "freed the slaves". The old-timey leadership fell back into some kind of knee-jerk reaction to Cold War thinking and blamed Trump's victory on the Russians. It was a lie, but it was all they had. They put everything into it.

Now that Trump has been proven innocent, the Democrats and their media puppets are railing that it's not true. They're still fighting the bad fight. No matter what has been, is being or will be said, the truth will always be obvious by one fact: If the Russians had tampered with the elections, the results would have been thrown out. That's a big fact that cannot be gotten around. Even if they couldn't connect Trump to some nefarious tampering, the government would still have been obligated to nullify the results and hold new elections. That did not happen, because there was never any evidence of tampering. It was all a false accusation from the very beginning. There was never more than a pro forma look at the election results. The likely reason for that is that the only tampering that would have been uncovered would have been Democrat and Republican tampering, but that's a blog of its own.

Think about this. The Democrats don't need evidence of Trump's involvement with tampering. All they need is evidence of tampering. Why didn't Obama produce it? Why do they never produce it today? If they're so convinced that tampering took place and that Trump was behind it, where is the evidence? Where is the evidence? They never show any, because they don't have any. All they have are sour grapes after a massive rejection of their candidate by the American people. All they have are lying accusations.

The entire Russia accusation is a political tactic. It always has been. It always will be. If the Democrats wanted Trump gone, all they had to do was bring out their evidence of tampering. The courts would have done the rest. Where is the evidence?

There will be clouds and clouds of distraction from the Democrats in an attempt to smear Trump. Enough of accusations. They either need to show us the proof or sit down and shut up.

Have a great weekend.

French Update

This was not a stellar week on the book cover front. I made a small amount of progress, mostly educational. I did put some time into thinking about my books in general. It could take a while to get a decent cover done. I don't want to put the books on hold any more than I have to. I need to figure out a schedule in which I can split time between the covers and the books. I also need to prioritize the books. The B'Vellah War series needs to be finished. The Avatars series needs to be worked on. The non-fiction book needs to be finished and out the door. Non-fiction is where the real money is, but I like doing fiction more. At the moment I don't see myself doing more than the one non-fiction that's in progress, although hypothetically there could be one more after that. I have no idea what it would be. The bottom line is that I need to focus more on the business side of writing. I need to take it from hobby to business.

This week I did proofreading for a friend of mine on a small book. It didn't take overly long, but it took longer than I thought, because it wasn't ready to be proofread yet. Not nearly enough editing work had gone into it. There's a lesson in that about only putting your best work forward and not getting trapped in an artificial deadline. This person had rushed the project based on a deadline that wasn't real. I've done that, too. It's something to learn from and not make that mistake again. It did inspire me, however, to think about my own work, which is why I was thinking so much about it this week.

I've been wanting to do an update on my French progress, but every week something else comes up. This is my week. Around December I had a bad month with my French reading. Part of it was because of how slowly I read it. I can make it through a paragraph and feel good about myself only to hit a sentence that makes me look up three words to even get the gist of what it says. I can muddle through that. The side effect is it's harder to want to put time into passages in books that are largely filler. Dead spots. Slow spots. Spots where the reader is waiting for something to happen. When I'm in one of those places and have to look up a lot of words on top of it, it's hard to grind through it.

I haven't been pushing myself very hard. French is a hobby not a job. For reading, I was trying to read every day when I had a few minutes of down time. Sometimes, I made extra time, if the book was a page-turner or if I wanted to get farther along. Weekdays were easier than weekends. I don't feel like working on the weekend. Weeks and weeks ago, I made a change. I had this idea before that I could read a million words and gain a certain fluency. I passed that a while ago and surely two million. I read Hunger Games and Divergent last year. Those alone were at least 1.2 million words. I don't feel fluent. My reading is much improved, of course. I finally decided a million words to fluency isn't realistic. It might take closer to ten million.

In English, it takes about 12 science fiction books to hit a million words. That's for a word count of 80,000 words. French is much wordier. I don't know how many it takes in that language. The change I made was to give myself a minimum page count per day of what I need to do in order to read at least one book a month. That gives me well over a million words a year. I check the number of pages and divide by 30. For one book, it was 12 pages a day. For another it was 11. I find that in reality I read more than that. Instead of stopping cold, I'll finish a section or a chapter, if I don't have far to go.

By making a schedule of pages, I find it easier to get through those slow spots. I just stop at my page count, and I'm done. :) If the book is interesting, I can keep going. It hasn't been too long, but I'm seeing an improvement in my reading speed and an improvement in my listening comprehension on YouTube. Last year it could take three weeks to get through a book. The book I'm on now is going very fast. It might take two. My feel of the sentences is changing. My understanding of the words is changing. It's hard to explain. It's slowly starting to feel more like it does when I read in English. I'm hoping to get up to a book every two weeks this year. That would give me at least two million words.

By making that small change with the page count, it took a mental pressure off that I was feeling. I felt like I wasn't reading enough. Some days I wasn't, but I know that feeling is wrong. Now I can relax and try to enjoy it rather than seeing it was a chore I have to get through to reach fluency.

Have a great weekend.