Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Standing Idly By


Time for another game recommendation, because I’m sure I’m a huge influencer in this regard.

Have you heard of idle games? AKA incremental/clickers games? They’re games that you play for a bit to set things up, then leave idle to rack up points or whatever that you then spend to… earn more efficiently. Look, it’s more fun than it sounds.

A month or so ago I found a game called Idle Evolution, which is actually less about evolution and more about collecting atoms, which you can use for a variety of purposes, one of which is making compounds that somehow advance evolution on a planet. Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense scientifically. But still, I had fun with it. I haven’t played anything like it before and it appeals to the chemistry nerd in me.

There are actually two versions of the game, one on Newgrounds, which is basically a beta/scaled down version of the paid (four dollars) Steam version. The Steam one is obviously better as it has added mini-games to make the waiting less boring, and also it’s much, much faster in terms of getting through the game. It takes like fifteen hours of gameplay to get through it in Steam; I haven’t actually finished the browser version because as you progress further it gets sooooo sloooooow. Basically it’s what you want to play if you want to see if you’ll like the full version.

It has some flaws, like things taking forever sometimes and the translation—the creator doesn’t speak English and it shows in places. But it’s worth the four bucks it costs and I love that you’re unlocking a periodic table piece by piece. I hear there’s a sequel as well, but it’s not on Steam unfortunately so I can’t check it out. Oh well.

You played any fun games lately? What do you do when you want to waste time?

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Seriously Shut Up


Three things I hate:
1. Advice I didn’t ask for.
2. Explanations I didn’t ask for.
3. Explanations I didn’t ask for that I already know.
“Why don’t we hang out more?”
“Because you’re always explaining things I didn’t ask about to me in a condescending manner.”
“What? I don’t do that. And really, condescending refers more to—”
“Bye.”

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Language of Confusion: Bodies of Water, Part I

Inspired by run being related to the flow of water last week.

Ocean
Ocean showed up in the late thirteenth century from the Old French ocean and classical Latin  oceanus, ocean. It’s not really surprising to learn that the Romans ripped off the Greeks, as oceanus is from the Greek okeanos, which also just means ocean. Where that word is from no one knows but there is the Greek Titan Oceanus. Who knows how they came up the name for that?

Sea
Sea comes from the Old English sae, which means sea, big shocker. It’s from the Proto Germanic  saiwaz, but there isn’t anything before that. Well, that was a quick one.

Lake
Lake showed up in the early twelfth century from the Old French lack and classical Latin lacus, which meant lake, pond, cistern and other similar words. That can be traced back to the Proto Indo European laku, body of water, and the origin for a lot of other languages’ lake equivalent. Fun fact, there are two other definitions for lake I hadn’t heard of, one meaning “to play” and the other “Deep  red coloring matter”. Neither of them is related to the other lake.

River
River showed up in the early thirteenth century from the Anglo French rivere and Old French riviere. Those words are from the Vulgar Latin riparia, riverbank, from the classical Latin riparia, embankment. Also related to this word are riparian, rift, and riven, which… I’ve heard of riparian, but riven???

That’s it for this week, but there’s plenty more water words to look at. Well, enough for another post anyway. This isn’t going to be another -leg saga. Thankfully.

Sources
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Unnecessary Roughness

The first draft of my latest WIP is done! I can’t even believe it! It’s been years since I’ve actually made it this far. And I still really like the story, which is even more impressive. I don’t mean just that I enjoy it or think it’s a good idea, but that I still find it interesting to write about. I’m still bummed that I never felt like finishing my previous book, but it never held my interest as much as this one has. I’m not sure what that says about it, but it’s something.

So the first draft is done, which means that it’s time to start editing. Usually I find editing to be such a bore, but I’m not dreading it this time, possibly because it’s been so long since I’ve actually done it. Actually, scratch “possibly”.


Anyway, I’m off to edit. Have an amazing day!


via GIPHY

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Language of Confusion: Run


This week’s word is brought to you by Liz. Because she read something that said that run was the most complicated word in the English language and I wanted to see if that was so.

Run first showed up as a verb and then later (in the fifteenth century) as a noun. The verb is actually a combination of two Old English words that are kind of alike, rinnan, to run and irnan/aernan, to ride. Both are from the Proto Germanic rannjanan and its root word ren-, to run, which is from the Proto Indo European rei-, to run or flow.

Rei- is the origin of a lot of words, like derive and rival, both of which I’ve already covered before (though almost three years ago now). And you might be thinking river is related. After all, flowing is what they do. But it’s not. Although river is from a Proto Indo European word “rei-”, it’s a different Proto Indo European rei- that means scratch or tear apart.

Okay, as weird as that is and as diverse in meaning as run may be, I definitely don’t think it’s complicated. But maybe I spent too much time pouring over information on leg-.

Sources
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

April Goals


It’s April. Hopefully this means that snow is done for the season. You’d think spring would mean, you know, spring.

I know. I complain about it a lot. It’s just that by this point I’m really sick of it. Anyway, goals.

March Goals
1. Get to 70K. This one I might not reach, but I’m going to try!
I did it! Plus some! And I’m so close to the end that I can see it! WOOOO!

2. Update my etymology page. I think I have three months of -leg posts to put in there.
Did this, too. All the -leg words are up, in case you missed them.

3. See if I can think up something fun to do for blog posts. I’ve been running low on ideas lately.
I don’t know. I thought this month was kind of fun.

So, pretty damn impressive over all. Definitely a successful month.

April Goals
1. Finish the book! If I haven’t already. As of this writing, I have two more chapters left. I may have already tweeted my victory, though.

2. Make a plan for editing!

3. Start editing!

Lots of exclamation points this month. Will I live up to the hype? We’ll have to see! What are you up to this month?