Words, Art & Science by Anthony Francis
Hey folks, this is a reminder that we still have a Kickstarter going for The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters! While the campaign is running, you can reach it at neurodiversiverse.com or by searching on Kickstarter. This hopeful, empowering anthology explores neurodiverse encounters with aliens, and we'd love your help paying our authors more money (and, if we reach stretch goals, doing an audiobook or even a sequel)!
Please check us out, like, back and share!
-the Centaur
Hacking away at publicity for the Kickstarter for the Neurodiversiverse, which is at +80%! But that means we have almost a thousand dollars to go, and we're really far from our stretch goals. So I'm working to publicize it further with guest blog posts and such, as well as pushing further on social media.
You can support it as simply as pledging for a book or an ebook (or a sticker or pin or even $1 for no reward). But you can also get reward bundles that have lots and lots of Thinking Ink Press books in them:
Or an awesome tote bag and pins and stickers and such!
And if you REALLY want to help us out ... you can get your name in the book. Just sayin'.
Onward!
-the Centaur
Dorsal, meaning the upper part, foot, meaning that thing you stand on.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
This is it. Today, the 4th, is the last day to submit papers to the Embodied AI Workshop 2024, and we are not going to extend this deadline because we've gotten enough submissions so far that we, um, don't need to.
One more last time, the CFP:
Call for Papers
We invite high-quality 2-page extended abstracts on embodied AI, especially in areas relevant to the themes of this year's workshop:
- Open-World AI for Embodied AI
- Generative AI for Embodied AI
- Embodied Mobile Manipulation
- Language Model Planning
as well as themes related to embodied AI in general:
- Simulation Environments
- Visual Navigation
- Rearrangement
- Embodied Question Answering
- Embodied Vision & Language
Accepted papers will be presented as posters or spotlight talks at the workshop. https://embodied-ai.org/#call-for-papers
Papers are due TODAY "anywhere on Earth" (as long as it is still today, your time).
Please send us what you've got!
-the Centaur
Yes it will. Though it may be a while, the entire point of Drawing Every Day is to restore my confidence in my drawing so I can resume my webcomics.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Part of Xiao's work outfit from her summer job, resting atop Xiao's supercomputer.
Hey folks! Today (Saturday May 4th) is the last day to submit papers to the Embodied AI Workshop 2024!
Call for Papers
We invite high-quality 2-page extended abstracts on embodied AI, especially in areas relevant to the themes of this year's workshop:
- Open-World AI for Embodied AI
- Generative AI for Embodied AI
- Embodied Mobile Manipulation
- Language Model Planning
as well as themes related to embodied AI in general:
- Simulation Environments
- Visual Navigation
- Rearrangement
- Embodied Question Answering
- Embodied Vision & Language
Accepted papers will be presented as posters or spotlight talks at the workshop.
https://embodied-ai.org/#call-for-papers
Please send us what you've got! Just between you and me and the fencepost, if we get about 7+/-2 more submissions, we'll have enough to call it done for the year and won't need to extend the CFP, so we can get on with reviewing the papers and preparing for the workshop. So please submit!
-the Centaur
Pictured: the very nice logo for the Embodied AI Workshop, a joint effort of me, my co-organizer Claudia, and I think one of Midjourney or DALL-E. Yes, there's generative AI in there, but it took a good bit of prompting to get the core art, and lot of work in Photoshop after that to make it usable.
When I sat down to draw today, I realized I'd never filled in the frontispiece and first page of my sketchbook because I was intimidated. SO! I set out to overcome that today. What you see above is as good as I can reproduce this without actually running it through a scanner - I am currently capturing these drawings by photographing them with my phone and then Photoshopping them into shape, not because I'm opposed to scanners, but because I'm trying to eliminate sources of friction that might prevent me from drawing and blogging the drawings every single day. Below is a closer picture of what the original looked like:
The red of the notebook front makes it hard to scan, but I think you get the gist. I used to do this with all my notebooks, but when I broke my arm (almost two decades ago now!) it broke my confidence, and eventually I stopped doing it. But the solution is to keep doing it - and to carve out enough time to draw so you have the time to do it, and not to feel bad about the time you have to take to do it.
Drawing every day, and getting confident enough at it to personalize my notebooks.
-the Centaur
Xiao, the protagonist of my stalled webcomic f@nu fiku, out for a jog.
Our Kickstarter for The Neurodiversiverse is over 75% now! And my co-editor Liza put together a wonderful video for the project, now available on the Kickstarter page (just click the header image you see below):
I already posted about this on social media but not here I think, so ... we've also gotten the molds for the neurodiversity rainbow infinity symbol pins, and expect to get a look at pin prototypes real soon now!
So, if you love science fiction, neurodiversity, pins, or science-fictiony neurodiverse pins, in celebration of an #ownvoices anthology about neurodiverse encounters with aliens, please back us and share!
-the Centaur
More Goldman studies. Interesting how complex the foot is - in some ways, even more so than the hand, though that its deceptive (the hand's quasi-regular structure contributes to its flexibility).
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Quick sketch from Goldman, with the relevant tendons photoshoped in with blue. It says foot muscles, but that was just the title of the section; the blue itself is are tendons in different states of flex.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
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A wise man once said, "Fools try to win with tactics battles the wise avoid with strategy, but true experts win with logistics only the wars that they cannot avert with policy." I think I'll give that line to Jeremiah, though in the series narrative she probably got it from her mentor, "The Last General", General Weiss I think it was.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Our late cat Gabby, who appears to have constructed for himself a crude fort of stone.
Late, tired, bed - but I feel like things are getting back on track, with Nano and Drawing Every Day up to date.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Woohoo! I have successfully written 50,000 words in the month of April, completing my 38th writing challenge (counting November Nanowrimos, April/July Camp Nanos, and Script Frenzy).
This was a pretty rough Nanowrimo, given the prepwork that I had to do ahead of Clockwork Alchemy.
But, I did it, and learned so much about my story and the overall arc of the series as well. So, huzzah!
So, I am really churning with the edits on this one, but here's a segment which is relatively coherent:
The trim, egg-headed man emerged from Air Force One like royalty, the crowds of military personnel actually cheering him as he descended. At his heels, a lantern-jawed, white-haired man followed, grinning broadly, waving awkwardly at troops that seemed to like him even more.
Both kept smiling as they strode towards Jeremiah, but their body language …
“Oh, my,” Jeremiah said. “They hate each other, don’t they?”
“Now, that,” Marcus said, “is an understatement.”
The pair stopped twenty meters from Jeremiah, on one side of a rough ring of Secret Service agents that made Jeremiah feel like she’d just entered a gladiatorial arena; she wondered what the agents thought they would do if the Scarab decided to go all apocalyptic on them.
“So,” the President said. “You’re … Commander Willstone, correct?”
“Sir, yes sir,” Jeremiah clicked her heels, watching, without appearing to watch, a larger group of dignitaries forming up just outside the ring of Secret Service agents. “I am Senior Expeditionary Commander Jeremiah Willstone, and I am at America’s service, sir.”
“Are you?” the President said. “I hear that you gave our security detail some trouble.”
“I heard that too,” the challenger said. “I notice you refused to be disarmed.”
Jeremiah nodded; her blunderblast remained slung over her back.
“My people use nonlethal weapons,” Jeremiah said, “even this impressive blunderblast, which I will demonstrate later. From a security perspective, however, consider it just show: I’m the weapon. If I had wanted to blow up your plane, I would just have pointed at it.”
The President shifted, just slightly, but the challenger grinned.
“Will you demonstrate that for us later?” he asked.
“Er—yes,” Jeremiah said. “Of course, sir—”
“Not on my plane,” the President said.
“Ah!” Jeremiah said. “No, of course not, sir. I’ll use our psychic’s car instead—”
“Commander!” the Owl said. “I just got—you’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding—”
Jeremiah Willstone and the Watchtower of Destiny
Oh my. I hope they manage to convince each other to work together without blowing anything up.
Nevertheless ... viiictory!
Onward.
-the Centaur
Less than 3000 words to go on Camp Nanowrimo. This was a challenge, but we're close to the end now.
I think I was behind for essentially the entire month this time:
Note to self: don't try launching an anthology, launching a Kickstarter, serving as guest of honor at a con, and running a business all at the same time as doing a Nanowrimo project to write 50,000 words in a month.
Still, almost there ...
-the Centaur
Pictured: Sunshine through a really cool tree in Alum Rock Park, and some scary yet hopeful graphs. Yes, that was 8,000 words this last Sunday. That was a day.
Outta time, and my notebook wasn't even on me. So you get a quick Photoshop sketch. Real drawing resumes once Camp Nano is over.
Still, drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Staying on target. Wrote 8,000 words yesterday, only ~5000 words left to go for tomorrow. Gonna try to put a bit more of a dent in that before I crash tonight.
One cool thing happened today: I figured out EXACTLY WHY a certain mysterious plot event happens.
Now I just need to figure out PRECISELY WHO is responsible for it ...
-the Centaur
Our call for papers is still open at https://embodied-ai.org/#call-for-papers through May 4th! We're particularly interested in two-page abstracts on the theme of the workshop:
Submissions are accepted through May 4th AOE (Anywhere on Earth) at https://openreview.net/group?id=thecvf.com/CVPR/2024/Workshop/EAI#tab-recent-activity ...
-the Centaur
Even more feet. Now back on track for drawing every day.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
The drawing I should have posted yesterday. Gonna keep up that average rate no matter what.
Drawing every day, with occasional catch-ups.
-the Centaur
Still trying to get ahead on WATCHTOWER OF DESTINY. Lots of progress today though, on multiple levels: a lot of words written, and some very good ideas for both this book and the overall series, based on some background reading about computation and technology based on closed timelike curves, from the computer scientist Hans Moravec and the physicist David Deutsch. Nevertheless ...
This is not the worst I've been behind, but it's in the top three, and it ain't pleasant.
Back to it. I want to push it a little bit more today if I can.
-the Centaur
Huzzah! The Neurodiversiverse Kickstarter is 2/3 funded! This is fantastic news and we're still at roughly the halfway point in the campaign. Even better, we were selected as a "Project We Love" by Kickstarter:
Please check it out, back and share!
-the Centaur
