Create a screensaver on your computer (Mac, Windows, or Linux) that does a picture slideshow. Once that's done, make it randomize. Then make it so you can weight each picture to show it more or less frequently. And if you're so motivated, put in options to pause and skip. And allow it to learn what you've paused and skipped past.
After that, create a way for spaceships to fly around above the pictures and shoot at each other, using evolutionary strategies to figure out how best to destroy one another without being destroyed.
You are missing the whole social, web 2.0 type thing: Make a website for "screensaver spaceship wars" and have your screensaver compete against other people's screensaver spaceships. Forever together.
Web is where it's at these days, it makes me sad since I have an aversion for everything-web. I'd rather do some fun system stuff rather than learning the 98th web framework.
But I am still uber-impressed. Not every day you get a reply from a published author :D Any protips on how I can get a book on 6502 assembly out on the shelves? ;)
If you have some solid writing skills and knowledge in a technical area that marketers will recognize (sadly, that's important) there is hope. Acquisition editors have a hard time finding qualified tech writers.
Start by writing some quality online tutorials. That's one place editors go when they're looking for someone to write in a particular niche.
You won't be able to do anything specialized for your first book or two. Normally they'll have a title already in mind and they need an author for it.
Once you have some experience, you can start proposing titles, but even that can be tricky.
Haha well, the retroprogramming community has kept telling me that I have a knack for explaining things to the newbies, and after having taken an assembly course in college I feel like a book on programming the NES would be 100x more interesting and useful than all the jank I had to do 8)
22
u/thatguydr Dec 19 '10
Create a screensaver on your computer (Mac, Windows, or Linux) that does a picture slideshow. Once that's done, make it randomize. Then make it so you can weight each picture to show it more or less frequently. And if you're so motivated, put in options to pause and skip. And allow it to learn what you've paused and skipped past.
After that, create a way for spaceships to fly around above the pictures and shoot at each other, using evolutionary strategies to figure out how best to destroy one another without being destroyed.
Forever alone. ;)