It's been a long week here. The company I work for has managed to throw a Hail Mary and get itself acquired by an American firm. We signed the new contracts for employment yesterday, after some light roasting. It's some certainty at least to know that I have continued employment.
On the job front, I've also taken up a contract for a month on the side. With the uncertainty surrounding the main gig, it seemed prudent to take advantage of the opportunity in front of me.

All of this chaos fits perfectly with a new German word I learned of this week - Zugunruhe. Literally translated, it means migration-anxiety, the restless flitting about their cage that migratory birds start doing when the seasons change and their biological drive to fly elsewhere hit like a train. I've been similarly restless of late, dreaming of starting something outside of software, something creative.

In more interesting news, we're returning to using the Earth's magnet field to navigate. Several US companies are building magnetometer based location devices. Imagine a GPS that couldn't be blocked with a jammer, and worked under many floors of concrete, and you get the idea of its appeal. A compass for the modern age. If Kessler Syndrome becomes a real thing, we'll either need to use magnetometer based navigation, or return to LORAN beacons for positioning.

Story Inspiration of the week

This week's story inspiration is a setting/geo-political backdrop. I was rewatching the excellent Epic History video on the Thirty Years War. Not only did it set Europe on fire for 30 years, it was one of the most destructive conflicts the continent had ever seen, until we innovated on the idea for the World Wars 3 centuries later. The conflict is believed to have claimed the lives of up to 8 million people.
It makes a great backdrop for a dystopian story set at a 17th century level of technology. To give you some idea in brief, the International Committee of the Red Cross has a good blog post on why it was the first modern war. Imagine 3 decades of conflict driving famine and disease. Armies pillaging villages for supplies as they move back and forth across the same ground. Hate, and mistrust between former friends and allies spreads like a disease, and will take a generation or more to fade.
Try taking all this chaos, and writing a story from the perspective of one of the peasants trying to survive - a farmer perhaps - instead of the from the upper class who started it. The artwork depicting the period is rich for inspiration, as this week's header image suggests.

I’m glad you’re here,
Justin

This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0