A New Battlefield, And A Dirty Secret

Should I start an article with opinion? Probably not, but I am no NFT/Blockchain enthusiast. 

For a start, blockchain, and crypto and all that newfangled jazz has a dirty secret. It uses a lot of

electricity. Check out what Jeremy Hinsdale writes for the Columbia Climate School.

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/05/04/cryptocurrency-energy/

He refers to last year's power grid problems (February 2021) in Texas, and we've been told to expect brownouts this coming summer. How are power hogs, like NFTs and blockchain-reliant "coins" going to be safe if the power is cut, and a server farm goes dark.

A server farm is the less glamorous name for "the cloud". Read Anthony Carter's explanation here:

https://virtusdatacentres.com/item/381-where-is-cloud-data-physically-located 

 

And, read what Pavel of IT Syndicate has to say about the amount of energy used by data centers and server farms.

https://itsyndicate.org/blog/what-is-server-farm/

 

Fortune uses "dirty secret" terminology about that, but you have to subscribe to read it.

Paul Kirvan of TechTarget is more altruistic. The cloud is one of the greatest consumers of electricity today.

https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/tip/How-much-energy-do-data-centers-consume

 

However, data centers need to be cooled. What happens if there is no refrigerant? What happens if there are no chips (because most of the rare earth mines are controlled by China), or if the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow and the price of solar panels is no longer subsidized by China?

For that matter, do those who want to go cold turkey on fossil fuels realize how much else is made from fossil fuels... like plastic, and anesthetics, and dentures, and lipstick, and deodorant, and refrigerators?

For more, read the Ranken Energy partial list.

https://www.ranken-energy.com/index.php/products-made-from-petroleum/

So much for the Green New Deal.

Meanwhile, back to the blockchain, and legal blogger Pramod Chintalpoodi of the Chip Law Group explains who is leading the competition to dominate the global, blockchain patent application race. 

https://www.chiplawgroup.com/who-is-leading-the-global-blockchain-patent-race/

"Nine Chinese firms are among the top 10 in terms of blockchain patent family numbers, including Ant Group, Ping An Group, China Unicom, and Baidu. The patents filed by the nine firms accounted for almost one-third of all blockchain patent filings worldwide. The only non-Chinese business in the top ten is IBM."

As Mr. Chintalpoodi suggests, applying for patents is not the same thing as having patents granted, but I wonder if there could be such a thing as patent-squatting.

Legal blogger John L. Krieger of Dickinson Wright PLLC explains the who, what. why, and how of NFTs, the metaverse and IP. 

https://www.dickinson-wright.com/news-alerts/krieger-craft-nfts-metaverse-ip

In part:

"....A blockchain is an append-only electronic database that stores data chronologically. Once a transaction is minted (submitted and validated), it is cryptically secured and becomes a block on the blockchain. Since the blockchain is decentralized, identical copies can then be distributed among thousands of unaffiliated computers. The data is permanent and irreversible and can only be changed by creating a new block.  What then are bitcoin, ETH, and NFTs and how do they fit into the picture – they are digital assets that run on blockchain infrastructure....."

Legal blogger Jimmy Fuglsbjerg Christensen of the patent lawyer firm AWA advises readers to prepare for a new copyright battleground in the block chain and domain names.

https://awapoint.com/why-brand-owners-should-start-preparing-for-blockchain-domain-names/

The point of blockchain technology is that is it touted to be more secure and more private, but what happens when pirates pile in?

Mr. Christensen suggests a few possible problems:

"...As blockchain domains are minted, they are traded as a commodity on NFT marketplaces, where the purchase confers complete ownership to the domain name. As there is no central governing body for blockchain domain names, ownership is not subject to any DNS-related rules, including alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. A brief search on some NFT marketplaces reveals that domain names containing well-known trademarks are already being openly traded.

Blockchain domain names present several issues for brand owners, including using the domain names for cybersquatting, selling counterfeit goods and fraud. In its Digital Defense Report from October 2021, Microsoft termed blockchain domain names “the next big threat” as they are increasingly used to distribute malware...."

He makes suggestions, which are reminiscent of how back in the Oughts, we writers had to sign up for every social media platform possible to retain control of our own author names, and also to buy a variety of dot com domain names, so we didn't have to call ourselves "the real...".

He concludes ominously:

"...As blockchain technology becomes widely adopted, these issues will increase in scope, quantity, and complexity. It will prove to be a new battleground for brand owners everywhere in the not-so-distant future."

If finding piracy and sending takedown notices was bad enough whack-a-mole, now the mole is a hydra. The blockchain makes copyright self-protection almost impossible. Pirates can mint knockoff NFTs with nothing more than a digital file and some cryptocurrency, then sell those knockoffs to unsuspecting collectors. NFT piracy may force change.

Legal bloggers P. Cramer and D. Munkittrick of Proskauer Rose LLP explain the potential for a piracy boom.

https://www.blockchainandthelaw.com/2022/03/will-nft-piracy-compel-changes-to-the-digital-millennium-copyright-act/#page=1

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4f3cc996-c4c7-4196-8580-f665d2a0f1b1

As they conclude:

"... Amidst the resulting piracy boom, it falls to creators to protect both their fans and their IP by scanning platforms for infringing NFT sale listings and issue takedown requests. But even when they succeed in getting a sale listing removed, the knockoff NFT itself remains immutably on its blockchain and the infringing content usually remains elsewhere on the web..."

So, all that considered, I'm not an enthusiast.

All the best, 

Rowena Cherry  

SPACE SNARK™   

http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

 

 

Karen S. Wiesner: SURPRISES IN THE COURSE OF LEARNING TO WRITE A SCIENCE FICTION SERIES (7 of 15)

Of Arcs and Standalones, Part 1: Story Arcs

This is the seventh of fifteen posts dealing with surprising things I learned in the course of writing a science fiction series.

Starting this week, we'll begin a 6-part sequence that goes more in-depth about series and story arcs, how to develop them early in the process, and why standalone stories are all but impossible to achieve in an Overarching Series.

Last week, we touched on story and series arcs in the science fiction genre. These are concepts that most authors could probably give basic definitions for, but I can't be the only writer who (before I did heavy research into both for my book Writing the Fiction Series which will be reissued under the title Writing the Standalone Series soon) was a little bit confused about them for the longest time. Before I wrote that writing manual, these two arcs had been presented to me in multiple ways, and none of the explanations quite “fit” my own perceptions in terms of story building. To really get into a discussion about why these are so important in the science fiction genre, we need to establish what both of these concepts are over my next two blog posts.

Story Arcs

In its simplest form, the story arc is an extended or continued storyline. That’s fairly easy to grasp, right? But when it comes to what this definition actually entails and how it serves its purpose in the course of a novel…well, that’s where things get murkier. In a story, an arc is supposed to move the character or situation from one place to another. Essentially, we’re talking about change here--the quest, the causality of narrative, domino-effect transformations. In a story, this follows a pattern that can be described as ordinary life in balance: The character is brought to a low point and the structures he or she has depended on are removed. Therefore the character is motivated and/or forced to find new strength or situations without these structures, and he faces his demons and triumphs. Resolution ensues, restoring balance.

Now, as I said, this story arc has been talked about a lot in writing circles, and it can come in several different patterns and have more or fewer steps to come full-circle. While all have value, I prefer a much more simplified pattern, which is based on the bare essentials that I feel allows the writer a lot of freedom to tell his story in any way that seems right to him.

Story Arc Pattern

1. Introduction

2. Change

3. Conflicts

4. Choices

5. Crisis

6. Climax

7. Resolutions

Essentially, life as well as fiction is balanced with states of emotion over time. In fiction, the emotion is generally more extreme. It has to be, because what is fiction except a portrayal of life that skips over all the dull aspects? You can think of this within the following equation, which your story will move through from beginning to end. Where you see the arrows, insert the words “leads to”.

Introduction --> Change --> Conflicts --> Choices --> Crisis --> Climax  --> Resolutions

These steps visually simplify the mechanics of the arc that should run through every story. Below, I'll sum up each step.

Story Arc Step 1: Introduction

The introduction into a character’s ordinary life, in which he may or may not be content with things as they are, gets the ball rolling.

Story Arc Step 2: Change

Change is a form of conflict and it should be internal as well as external.

Story Arc Step 3: Conflicts

Conflict is what motivates and forces the character to act. Character and conflicts develop in accordance with the character’s choices and goals and motivations.

Story Arc Step 4: Choices

Goals are those things the character wants, needs, or desires above all else. Motivation is what gives him drive and purpose to achieve those goals. These evolve throughout the story as the character modifies his actions in response to conflict.

Story Arc Step 5: Crisis

At the crisis point, the character is faced with obstacles that seem too numerous, too monumental, too impossible to overcome but he must find the strength and motivation to continue.

Story Arc Step 6: Climax

Following the crisis, the climax comes. The character must act if he has any hope of triumphing and bringing about resolution.

Story Arc Step 7: Resolution

The character wins, resolution ensues, and balance is restored although the character has gone through a radical life alteration that may or may not lead to a happily ever after ending.

A story arc is introduced, developed, and concluded within that particular story. There may be many major (plot) and minor (subplot) story arcs in each story depending on its particular length and complexity. Story arcs add complexity, substance, and three-dimensionality to all aspects of the story. Story arcs must mesh and bond in a way that makes all threads inseparable, in a symbiotic relationship. Many times, a plot or subplot helps the author control the pacing of the story, placing realistic, necessary obstacles in the hero’s path and preventing the climax from coming too soon. Additionally, story arcs must advance the story--expanding, enlarging, and intensifying as the tale unfolds.

In a series story, a story arc is short-term because it may be neatly tied-up in a single book within the series. That might sound strange, but this will make more sense when you realize that the series arc is the long-term thread running its course through every book until the series concludes. In a few weeks, I'll show a technique and examples for developing story arcs.

Next week, we'll talk about series arcs.

Happy writing!

Based on Writing the Overarching Series (or How I Sent a Clumsy Girl into Outer Space): 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection by Karen S. Wiesner (release date TBA)

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series, including the romantic science fiction series, ARROW OF TIME CHRONICLES

https://www.writers-exchange.com/arrow-of-time-chronicles/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/arrow-of-time-chronicles.html

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Types of Telepathy

In reading THE SCIENCE OF STAR TREK, by Mark Brake, I'm naturally reminded of Vulcan telepathy (not discussed much if at all in this book, though). I don't recall the scope and nature of Spock's telepathic power being strictly defined in the original series. For complete access to the consciousness of another, Vulcans must perform a mind meld. From the episode with the alien Horta, we know language poses no barrier. Spock comprehends the thoughts of aliens through mind melds even if the other species aren't humanoid. However, he seems to exercise some limited form of telepathy without melding; in one later episode, we witness him silently "making a suggestion" to a humanoid antagonist who's not mentally on guard. The "Empath" episode introduces a young woman whose species, if she's typical, is mute. Rather than truly telepathic, they're empathic, sensing emotions but not thoughts. It seems unlikely that this species could have a technologically advanced culture, with no ability to communicate precise concepts, especially abstract ones.

Some theories of telepathy assume the participants must share a language for mutual understanding. Others postulate a universal mental "language" so that access to someone's thoughts automatically allows total comprehension. The title character of "The Mindworm," C. M. Kornbluth's classic psychic vampire tale, can hear the surface thoughts of everybody near him but can understand them only if the subject is mentally verbalizing in a language he knows (a limitation that proves his undoing when he clashes with Eastern European immigrants who recognize him from their native folklore).

Does a telepath "hear" only what the subject is thinking of at the moment or delve at will into all the contents of the person's mind? If the former, can you mask your secrets by deliberately thinking of something else? The telepath in Spider Robinson's VERY BAD DEATHS, so sensitive to the clamor of other people's minds that he lives as a hermit, picks up only surface thoughts. In Robert Heinlein's TIME FOR THE STARS, the telepathic twins "just talk," communicating silently in much the same way they do aloud. Trying to open themselves totally to each other's minds produces chaotic confusion, like being inside someone else's dream, so they don't bother.

On the other hand, some fictional telepaths can rummage through people's minds and quickly learn everything about the subject's past and present. Trying to conceal anything from a psychic with this power by simply thinking of pink elephants would be futile.

Here's a big question that I've never seen addressed, except implicitly in the STAR TREK "Empath" episode: Would a completely telepathic species have a language at all? It seems to me that they wouldn't have a reason to evolve it naturally. On the other hand, for any kind of advanced civilization to develop, surely they would have to invent language sooner or later. They would need a system of writing in order to keep records. They would need a way to communicate at long distance. Even if they got along without speech, surely written language would be a prerequisite for complex societies and any but the most rudimentary technology. It wouldn't evolve naturally, however. Geniuses among them would have to create it, as cultures on Earth invented mathematical notation. A first-contact premise of interstellar explorers from Earth meeting extraterrestrials whose only form of language is written, to whom audible speech is an alien concept, would make an exciting, challenging story.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

When You Die....

In DUNE, everyone had wealth in the form of bodily fluids, except that their water belonged to the tribe, and the dessicated remains to their family. There's a lot more inspiring (or not) matter about recycling, and also some sub plots that might relate to modern day discoveries about DNA, auras , bioenergy fields, and ghosts, and how the human mind can (perhaps) change or repair its own DNA.

But, most of us have wealth that we may never consider: intellectual property wealth. What might once have been included in ones estate as photograph albums, diaries, scrapbooks, reels of film and carousels of slides may now be stored and locked in a "cloud" or server farm belonging to a big tech entity. Without a password and a plan, ones beneficiaries might not be able to reclaim digitally stored NFTs, bitcoins, domain names, photographs, social media accounts and so forth.

Legal blogger Nicole L. Petrow of the law firm McGrath North Mullin & Kratz discusses the important steps one should take to ensure that ones loved ones are able to inherit ones sentimental and financial digital treasures... not to mention ones Facebook account.

Original Link: 

https://www.mcgrathnorth.com/estate-planning-for-digital-assets-intangible-but-important

Lexology Link:  

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e2165378-4742-4499-891b-418234755824

 

Nicole L. Petrow's article seems comprehensive, thorough, and well worth doing. Also, it is by far the most recent and current article on the subject, so although I have reviewed other articles, I have not included links to articles from the two-thousand-and-teens.

 

Authors who have copyright registration documents for their books and trademarks etc should be sure to include mention of those and an assignment to an executor of ones copyrights in their wills. An article by Fred Rocafort of Harris Bricken about "shenanigans" on Amazon illustrates why one should be sure that ones loved ones have proof of copyright registration, not only for novels and other literary works, but also for ones blurbs and advertising copy!

 

Lexology Link: 

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0d02c96f-29cd-4106-b1ab-f3c0321df3db

 

Original Link: 

https://harrisbricken.com/chinalawblog/amazon-seller-shenaningans-and-why-you-must-register-your-copyrights/#page=1 

 

All the best,

 

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

 

Karen S. Wiesner: SURPRISES IN THE COURSE OF LEARNING TO WRITE A SCIENCE FICTION SERIES (6 of 15)

Surprise #4: Of Deliberately Limiting Story Potential Development

This is the sixth of fifteen posts dealing with surprising things I learned in the course of writing a science fiction series.

The fourth thing that most astonished me about writing in the science fiction genre is that writing a series with this enormous scope forbade me from getting to know my characters, settings, and relationships in the depth I usually do in each book. Almost exclusively, my books have no more than two to five point-of-view (POV) characters so I can really get to know each main character down to intimate-diary-details in the process of writing them. Settings and relationships are directly related to those main POV characters so expanding those was never a hardship that felt like it was getting out of control. Even in my mystery series stories, where I do have a larger cast of characters than most of the other genres I write in, I've never felt inhibited about development the way I was with my sci-fi series.

There are two major reasons for this need I felt to deliberately limit the story potential development in this particular series:

1) Information Overload: When Too Much is Too Much

Arrow of Time Chronicles had more or less 30 POV characters throughout the four installments, with about seven different characters "telling" their specific portion of the story in each installment. Additionally, I also had to create numerous homeworlds and cultural lore for all the alien races (which I called "cultures") in the galaxy featured in the series. If you missed it, check out my previous blog posts about the overwhelming research required for this series and how I went about building all those necessary aspects.

Now, don't get me wrong here, my research and developmental methods created fully fleshed characters, settings, and relationships. The construction of all three of these in this series was a lot of fun to imagine and expand upon. There was simply no way to use everything I came up with without overloading the books to the point of spawning side stories left and right (kind of like the A Song of Fire and Ice Series does--albeit pretty effectively in that case).

2) Overarching Series Focus: Serving the Needs of the Series Arc

Early in this article series, I talked in-depth about what an Overarching Series is. In this type of series, none of the books can truly be standalones because the series arc that's introduced in the first book in the series will run through every installment in that series, expanding and intensifying as it goes, only concluding in the final volume of the series. Another defining characteristic of the Overarching Series is that the primary focus has to be serving the needs of the series arc, though the individual stories are each allowed a certain amount of flourish when it came to character, world, and relationship development. It's best to use the individual story arcs so the amount of development isn't overwhelming in each volume.

With Arrow of Time Chronicles, I had to focus on the series arc first and foremost, narrowing character, setting, and relationship development for specific story arcs in each installment because I knew so much of the "extras" I came up with weren't critical in this particular series. Doing anything else would have ruined the series arc I was building over the course of four novels.

Not all authors follow this advice, and I bet you can name quite a few of those authors off the top of your head. Most books these days include many POV characters…many, many. The trend of including so many characters in a single book isn't one I can get on board with. The biggest reason for that is because every main character, every plot, every setting, and every relationship has to be three-dimensional and fully-fleshed out in that story. How can any of these things achieve that requirement when the only way to effectively cover the three dimensions (past, present, and future) of character, setting, and relationship development--and that for each main POV character--is to write a 200,000-word novel or a series of 200,000-word novels? If you want to know more about 3D writing, the reissue of my writing guide, Three-Dimensional Fiction Writing, will be available soon.

I was about halfway through outlining Book 3 of Arrow of Time Chronicles when I realized there was no way I could resolve everything the way it needed to be if I used that particular book to try to tie everything up. Ultimately, there was no stopping myself from adding a fourth book to the series, not without feeling like I was truncating the series for the sole reason of keeping the word count manageable. While I think there are reasons why an author might decide not to develop a potential subplot in a series, if it's organic and the series is less complete and satisfying without it, there's no way to turn away from getting down to business.

As authors, deliberately limiting the potential for a story to expand so far beyond what a series arc can handle might just be our obligation as the overseers. In most stories written these days, the main characters and their settings, conflicts, and relationships aren't three-dimensional because there simply isn't room to make them so, unless you're George R.R. Martin, for instance, who does a thorough job of this. The question is, will we ever see the epic conclusion? I, for one, continue to hope so.

As an author, though, ask yourself when approaching an Overarching Series: If you don't limit your development or rein yourself in at all, will you be able to complete what you started? Might it be better to focus on the series arc as much as possible to allow manageable installments? Additionally, instead of putting everything in one series, why not leave yourself the possibility of writing smaller miniseries within the overall series to focus on other aspects of the characters, settings, and relationships?

I do realize that some authors don't feel like they have a lot of choice about all this, just like I didn't when deciding whether to add a fourth book to my series. Mainly, authors just go where the story seems to be leading them. In my case, I felt like there was a chance I couldn't make all the series characters, plots, settings, and relationships fully fleshed out if I let myself run wild on tangents but also knew when I had to make an exception and let development expand organically. Only marginally was I concerned that I wanted each book in the series to be around 100,000 words (no more than that, if I could help it), but I really was interested in finishing the series in a doable amount of time. In fact, I did it in about 2 years for all four books. They were published in 2020, one after the after in a fairly short span of time, which I think an Overarching Series with cliffhanger installments absolutely requires to keep fans invested.

Next week, we'll begin a multi-part sequence that goes more in-depth about series and story arcs, how to develop them early in the process, and why standalone stories are all but impossible to achieve in an Overarching Series.

Happy writing!

Based on Writing the Overarching Series (or How I Sent a Clumsy Girl into Outer Space): 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection by Karen S. Wiesner (release date TBA)

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series, including the romantic science fiction series, ARROW OF TIME CHRONICLES

https://www.writers-exchange.com/arrow-of-time-chronicles/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/arrow-of-time-chronicles.html

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Lost Continents

Recently I came across a reference to a "paleomicrocontinent" whose remains underlie parts of central Europe, called Greater Adria. The existence of a lost continent immediately reminded me of the sunken land of Atlantis. Could Greater Adria be the basis for that myth (first mentioned in Plato's dialogues TIMAEUS and CRITIAS)? Alas for this exciting notion, Greater Adria existed from 240 to 140 million years ago, long before our species evolved:

Greater Adria

I was surprised to learn of two other prehistoric lost continents, Mauritia (about 60 million years ago), near present-day Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, and Zealandia (submerged about 23 million years ago) under the Pacific Ocean except for its above-sea-level remnants in the form of New Zealand and New Caledonia.

Unfortunately, none of those land masses survived long enough to support super-advanced ancient civilizations. Unless, of course, we want to entertain the premise, as in some of Lovecraft's stories, that highly evolved nonhuman aliens arrived on Earth from interstellar space to establish civilizations that became extinct so long ago almost all their material traces have vanishd. As for Atlantis, according to mainstream science a huge continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean never existed. Its story was probably a fable created by Plato for teaching purposes. The most widely accepted source of the historical inspiration for Atlantis is the seventeenth- or sixteenth-century BC catastrophic volcanic eruption whose resulting tsunami destroyed the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete.

Belief in the other famous alleged lost continent, Lemuria, had a more scientific origin. On the basis of the distribution of lemur fossils, zoologist Philip Sclater in 1864 proposed a former land bridge that had sunk beneath the Indian Ocean, which he named Lemuria. Later, it was suggested that Lemuria might have been the ancestral home of the human species. The Lemuria hypothesis was eventually disproved by the acceptance of continental drift as the correct explanation for the fossil record and other related phenomena. However, Helena Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy, picked up and popularized the idea that humanity originated in Lemuria. British occult writer James Churchward, calling it Mu, relocated the mythical sunken continent to the Pacific Ocean. Its inhabitants were imagined to possess highly advanced mystical knowledge and technological achievements of which civilizations such as ancient Egypt preserved mere remnants.

Lost civilizations on now-submerged continents can make fascinating premises for fiction, such as Lynsay Sands's long-running romance-humor-suspense series about a quasi-vampiric clan of immortals whose condition arose from biological research by Atlantean scientists. In factual history and prehistory, though, it seems strange that some people want to believe historical civilizations we know about can't have produced complex inventions and structures such as the Egyptian pyramids. They must have had help from highly advanced science originating on lost continents or from extraterrestrials who landed on Earth and shared their super-science. Or maybe from lost-continent civilizations that received their science from extraterrestrials. In fact, human beings thousands of years ago possessed the same level of intelligence we do and wouldn't have needed mystical aid to create the artifacts they left behind.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt