Fantasist's Scroll

Well, just weeks after announcing that all my conlang language machines are back on-line, I’ve had to take one down.  My Dialect Maker seems to be a CPU hog on the server.  Also, in spite of coding it so that it should only run one instance at a time, it somehow got two loaded on my ISP’s server.

So, I’ve tweaked the code an I’m waiting for my ISP to approve it before I load it up.  But, I have to tell you, if the sound changer is the only thing that has problems, I may just let it go.  It uses an old library for Perl that’s probably out of date.  Then, I hope, it would be easier to convert everything else to a PHP script/page/whatever and not have to rely on Perl.  I love using Perl, but it can be a resource hog.

Anyway, stay tuned for more news.

For those few, brave souls that still read this blog, be of good cheer, for you will be the first to know that my infamous conlang scripts are reactivated.  Yes, that’s right, all those good, tasty scripts for generating languages on the fly are active once again.

My webhost has changed hands several times and the most current owner of my web account has done an update on the servers, so, we’ve tried reactivating the devilish conlang scripts that seemed to cause so many before them trouble.  No idea how long, or if, they’ll stay up and running, but, for the moment, they are.
Use them in good health!

Today is Frank Herbert’s Birthday.

Of course, we haven’t had him with us since 1986, the year I graduated from high-school, but his work lives on. Mr. Herbert is primarily known for his seminal work, Dune, and the other books in the series that followed. Though, interestingly enough, he never intended to write sequels.
Often refered to as the science-fiction Lord of the Rings, the Dune series of books detail an amazingly rich science-ficiton culture. The novels are some of the first science-fiction to have detailed political and sociological sub-plots, not to mention ecological sub-plots! The way Mr. Herbert used religion in his work is quite interesting as well. In a genre that often avoids discussing religion, he explored the topic in detail and with a depth that was personally inspiring.

There hasn’t been anyone else quite like Frank Herbert and I am in awe of the ways in which he influenced the genre, which is why I celebrate this every year.

You may have noticed this blog dying a slow death.

There’s a reason I haven’t been posting much here, besides author birthdays, lately.  Beyond the fact that I’ve been battling cancer, this site has grown in a chaotic way and in directions I did not intend.  What’s more, the name no longer describes what I intend for my creative endeavors.  I feel limited by the name, Fantasist.net, to, well, fantasy.  But, even here, there is a fair amount of science-fiction, too.  And, I don’t want to be limited to either genre.  So, I’m brainstorming a new domain name and I’ll eventually set up a new site, with a new look, that’s less restrictive in nature.

In the meantime, I’ll keep posting writer’s birthdays, but not much else.
If you’d like to see what I’m up to these days, check out my much more current blog, Diary of a Network Geek.  (And, yes, it is my goal to move all my conlang resources to the new site and get them all working again, too!)

Well, as several of you have noticed, there seem to be some on-going issues with the conlang scripts.  After getting them working again post ISP move, their usage has spiked to a level that the new ISP/WebHost can’t seem to handle.  So, I’m working on it.

Unfortunately, I’m also a cancer patient who’s got to go into the hospital rather frequently for chemotherapy, so I don’t have a lot of time or energy to work on the problem.  I’m about a third of the way through my treatments, so you can expect me to work on this issue sometime before the end of the year, but I can’t make any guarantees as to when.
Sorry.

Not sure how long these have even been broken.

Honestly, I’m a little shocked that no one told me some of my conlang scripts were broken, but they have been.  I think it happened when my web host sold their business to someone else and they changed servers, but I’m honestly not sure how long that these haven’t worked.  Usually, when something goes wrong with them, people are all over it, so now I wonder how many people still use them!
Well, in any case, they’re all fixed and working again, so enjoy them!

Okay, so you might have noticed that I missed my Friday Fun Link.

There’s a good reason for that.  Mainly, it’s because I’ve got cancer and I’m in MD Anderson getting chemotherapy.  So, as lightly as I’ve been maintaining this site, it’s going to be even more lightly maintained until I’m on the mend.  I will, however, keep my other site and blog, Diary of a Network Geek, up to date.  So, if you want to keep current with my cancer situation, that’d be the place to do it.

Oy!  I don’t have the energy to do two posts these days, so head over to Diary of a Network Geek and Meet Cletus!