A.C. Flory's Blog, page 8

Mogi pics

This is for Marsha who wanted to see what my little chihuahua cross dog looks like.

Mogi as a tiny puppy Pippi and her pillow..ahem I mean her dog. Pippi is no longer with us, but of all the cats, she was the one who loved Mogi the most. Be sure to get my good side

cheers,
Meeks

The Wet

Far northern Australia is close to the equator and experiences just two seasons: the Wet and the Dry. As the names imply, when it’s Dry it’s very dry, and when it’s Wet, you get torrential rains and flooding:

This handout photo taken on March 10, 2023 and received on March 11, 2023 from the Queensland Police Service shows an aerial view of the flooded northern Queensland town of Burketown.

Image courtesy of: https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-5476-08db22a1bf0a_w1023_r1_s.jpg

Growing up in Australia, floods and fires were part of my world view, so it’s no surprise that my imaginary planet, Vokhtah, experiences extremes of weather too. During Kohoh, torrential rain falls for about 80 days. Rivers overflow and low lying plains flood until water laps at the feet of the mountains:

So what happens to the Tukti? They live on the plains and burrow down into the ground. Where do they go when their burrows fill with water?

When I first started thinking about the Tukti, they were only bit players in the story of Vokhtah, so I didn’t nut out the details of their lives. Now that I’m writing about Little Miss and Big Brother though, these questions demand answers.

Well, two days ago I finally saw the obvious: the Tukti don’t just burrow down, they also burrow up, into the mushroom shaped top of their mounds!

When their normal burrows flood, they move up into their emergency quarters, which also happen to be their storage caverns. Space is always tight, and sometimes the food runs out, leaving the Tukti of the mound to starve.

Most years though, the Tukti survive far better than animals like the plains runners. The Akaht [similar in appearance to emus] that don’t drown are forced to compete for dry space with animals like the To’pak which eat Akaht for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the worst seasons, only the incredibly tough eggs of the Akaht survive to restart the great herds.

I only just worked that out too.

As epiphanies go, these two were so obvious, I’m ashamed it took me so long to get that ‘ah hah!’ moment. Now that I have though, I’m thrilled that two more ‘facts’ have slotted so neatly into place.

cheers,
Meeks

Aussie political humour with bite

I’ll start by apologising to all non-Australians for the language, but this is the irreverent Aussie culture that I love. Oh, and the video is not what it seems.

cheers,
Meeks

Your brain, as you’ve never seen it before

I just stumbled across this Short on Youtube and it literally blew my mind:

THIS is why we have to keep learning new things as we age. That brain cell made a new connection…it grew! Break out and do something new today.

hugs,
Meeks

Australia – Foodbank appeal

I donated, not much, because the pension doesn’t go very far these days, but I couldn’t sit down to a meal knowing so many others are going hungry.

My thanks to the Offspring for telling me about this appeal. I knew there was a Foodbank, but I didn’t know how many people it feeds, or how great the need is.

I’m writing this post for those, like me, who also don’t know but would donate if they did.

The true measure of Aussie culture is not our larrikin humour or our talent at sports, it’s how we stick up for others. It’s the heart that turns the ‘fair go’ into a reality.

Let’s make sure that no one goes hungry today. Or tomorrow. Or on Christmas day.

hugs,
Meeks

The Six

I’ve been working on a full body graphic of the Six – one of the main characters of Vokhtah. Making it look as if it really is flying was hard, so…I’m showing off a bit:

The Six looking down at the ground as it flies over a Tukti mound.

I’ve turned comments off. Have a wonderful weekend.

Meeks

An unexpected little ‘miracle’

I just bought one of Cathy Cade’s books on amazon.com, so I thought I’d checkout my own books, as you do… -cough- Well, despite doing no marketing of any sort for a shamefully long time, today was my day for little miracles; I found this fabulous review of The Vintage Egg:

‘MacTrish

5.0 out of 5 stars Short but beautifully formed tales of a future we may be facing Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 16, 2024

Verified Purchase

This is a delightful and thought-provoking set of six tales set in a future that has forced mankind to avoid the natural world outside. We know this from the opening line:
”Pop! Pop! Pop!” the child shrieked as he came charging in from the main airlock”.
It isn’t clear what has happened, but there is that overarching sense that it’s what happening to our world now, and its climate, that is leading us to this sterile world of the future where the weather is so violent that animals are bred indoors in manufactories.
The book takes current developments in science and technology and projects them as they might be used for our pleasure, health and nutrition a hundred years from now. I found most of this as disturbing as I suspect the author intended it to be.
It’s a future where people game excessively, kill each other for excitement, and lose the will to live.
But not everyone is like this. The opening story and the final one provide hope that we can learn to work with nature instead of against it.
This little treasure of a book is a wake-up call to all of us.’

I haven’t got a clue who MacTrish is, but if you’re reading this…THANK YOU!

cheers,
Meeks

“Over my dead body!”

That is what the mother of inventor, BE Alink, said when she saw ‘old people’ shuffling along with a walking frame. If I’m honest, I’ve thought the same thing about a lot of the things that happen to us as we age: retirement villages, walking frames, crap food, stigma, isolation. I’m not there yet, but if I’m lucky enough to live long enough, it will happen.

So how do you mitigate the disabilities of ageing and keep living…really living?

I think this invention may be part of the answer:

This next video is a talk BE gave about the how behind the Alinker, and it’s all about compassion:

Sorry to flood you guys with so many posts all at once, but this is how and when I discover wonderful things, and wonderful people. Sharing them with you makes me feel as if I’m doing something good for all of us.

cheers,
Meeks

Spiral Tiny Home…I want!!!!

I have always loved curves and spirals, so I was stunned when I came across this Short on Youtube:

But…are these spiral homes real? I recently created a similar build, but in ESO, an online game, so definitely not real. Intrigued, I went searching with Duckduckgo and found:

These Tiered Tiny Homes Are Stacked with Style and Innovation

Having read through the entire article, I was still not sure whether these structures were real or not, so I dug deeper, and on the About page I found the answer:

‘In the age of technology, digital design has become an art form in its own right. By remaining digital, we offer flexibility, allowing for swift iterations and endless customization. Our designs can be adapted, modified, and envisioned in various settings before making the commitment to production – a sustainable approach that minimizes material waste and champions creativity.’

The ‘and envisioned in various settings’ says it all. I’m disappointed that no one has built one of these tiny homes in the real world, but boy, would I love to play with the software that allows Inspiring Designs to create such realistic looking digital models!

cheers,
Meeks

Google doesn’t recognize pseudonyms?

Some of you know me as ‘acflory’, others know me as ‘Meeks’, some even know me as Andrea Flory, but all of you recognize that all three names belong to me. Apparently the AI doing the ‘support’ for Google Play does not.

To recap, in this post, I talked about how hard it was to setup an account with Google Play. From there, I discovered that you have to publish an ebook on Google Play before you can create an auto-narrated audio book of that ebook. And that is the point at which things really went down hill. First, my account was put on hold while a ‘preliminary review’ was carried out. I eventually discovered this could take up to seven days. After waiting patiently – hah – I received an email telling me my account had been ‘disapproved’. WTF?

After much digging I finally worked out that Google Play didn’t think I was who I said I was. So I sent off another email asking what kind of proof I need to satisfy the review. I received a canned response so I figured the one thing that would conclusively prove that I am both Andrea Flory and acflory would be my Thorpe-Bowker account. This is the Australian branch of Bowker and the place from which I’ve always bought my ISBNs. For those new to publishing:

‘An ISBN is essentially a product identifier used by publishers, booksellers, libraries, internet retailers and other supply chain participants for ordering, listing, sales records and stock control purposes. The ISBN identifies the registrant as well as the specific title, edition and format.’ https://www.isbn-international.org/content/what-isbn/10

Please note this bit: ‘The ISBN identifies the registrant as well as the specific title, edition and format.’

This is a screenshot of my email and the attachment I sent to Google Play:

And this is a full screen shot of that attachment:

If you click on the image, you will get a much bigger picture. On that picture can see my full name twice at the top right of the screen. Under the Title column you can see ‘Miira’ along with the ISBN I bought for it from Bowker. Short of giving Google Play my Bowker password, there is no other way I can think of to get them to recognize my ownership of ‘Miira’. Yet despite this, a few hours after I sent off my Bowker proof, I received this email from Google Play:

Apparently, I am still not recognized as both Andrea Flory and acflory. This would be funny if it weren’t so infuriating.

In hindsight, I suspect that what happened was that the review was conducted by an AI/algorithm. It parsed the text in my email but could not decipher the text in the screenshot I sent. A human would have seen that screenshot as a picture of text…and read the text. The AI/algorithm saw only an ‘image’. Therefore there was no proof. Therefore my request was denied. -facepalm-

The question is: how could I have provided any sort of proof when everything is digital? And that question leads to another: why are these reviews not carried out by humans?

To be honest, I’m almost relieved that my account has been deactivated; my only reason for creating it in the first place was to experiment with Google Play’s auto-narrated audio book offering. Experiencing this absolute nonsense has confirmed two things for me: Google is crap, and its AI is literally, stupid.

I’d love to know what all you self-published authors out there think of this ridiculous situation.

cheers,
Meeks aka Andrea Flory aka acflory

p.s. apparently WordPress is messing with things again because I can only add a few tags before it simply deletes whatever I type. I’m just a wee bit…annoyed.