Why can't we live forever?
Time for my standard round of mathematical observations.
It's 11/1/11 (or 1/11/11), and today I am exactly twenty-seven, which = 11^11 in binary.
If I were exactly four years older, my binary age would be 11111 on 11/1/11.
Anyone born on the 11th November 1948 will be aged 111111 in binary on 11/11/11.
I'm a cube this year, for the first time since I was eight, and for the last time until I'm sixty-four.
Next year I'll be perfect. For the last time ever, barring phenomenal advances in life-preserving technology. (The first three perfect numbers are 6, 28, and 496.)
I'm also running out of time to become a dead rock star.
I don't really want to be one of those, but I do want to get certain things done, before this first round of what are officially my late twenties is over.
I pretty much settled on these goals a few months ago, and they still seem good now, so here is the short list of things you should all feel perpetually entitled to hassle me to get done while I'm still 27:
1. I'm going to finish a novel. Writing and redrafting, start to finish, to a state where it could start being sent out to publishers, or at least to beta-readers. This is going to require actually settling on a significant project and sticking to it. There are several I'm sort of in the middle of, which I could choose to focus on this year. I should probably pick one sooner rather than later, and resolve not to flit onto something else when it starts getting difficult.
And, alongside my efforts at completing a lengthy magnum opus:
2. I'm going to sell some writing. A novel, some short fic, a drabble, an article for a magazine specialising in snarky geekdom, whatever - someone is going to pay me moneys for some words I done wrote.
I've already written stuff which may possibly qualify here. But this is going to involve familiarising myself more with paying markets and the actual professional side of writering, beyond the simple bit of sitting down and typing words. ("Simple" in that, logistically, I understand how it's supposed to work. The physical processes are relatively uncomplicated. This is not the same as "easy".)
So, there we are. I'd better get started.
Should probably have some tea first.
(P.S. This.)
It's 11/1/11 (or 1/11/11), and today I am exactly twenty-seven, which = 11^11 in binary.
If I were exactly four years older, my binary age would be 11111 on 11/1/11.
Anyone born on the 11th November 1948 will be aged 111111 in binary on 11/11/11.
I'm a cube this year, for the first time since I was eight, and for the last time until I'm sixty-four.
Next year I'll be perfect. For the last time ever, barring phenomenal advances in life-preserving technology. (The first three perfect numbers are 6, 28, and 496.)
I'm also running out of time to become a dead rock star.
I don't really want to be one of those, but I do want to get certain things done, before this first round of what are officially my late twenties is over.
I pretty much settled on these goals a few months ago, and they still seem good now, so here is the short list of things you should all feel perpetually entitled to hassle me to get done while I'm still 27:
1. I'm going to finish a novel. Writing and redrafting, start to finish, to a state where it could start being sent out to publishers, or at least to beta-readers. This is going to require actually settling on a significant project and sticking to it. There are several I'm sort of in the middle of, which I could choose to focus on this year. I should probably pick one sooner rather than later, and resolve not to flit onto something else when it starts getting difficult.
And, alongside my efforts at completing a lengthy magnum opus:
2. I'm going to sell some writing. A novel, some short fic, a drabble, an article for a magazine specialising in snarky geekdom, whatever - someone is going to pay me moneys for some words I done wrote.
I've already written stuff which may possibly qualify here. But this is going to involve familiarising myself more with paying markets and the actual professional side of writering, beyond the simple bit of sitting down and typing words. ("Simple" in that, logistically, I understand how it's supposed to work. The physical processes are relatively uncomplicated. This is not the same as "easy".)
So, there we are. I'd better get started.
Should probably have some tea first.
(P.S. This.)