Used to read all the time.

Didn't read at all for about 10 -15 years. Would try, but generally give up after a day or two.

Back to reading now and it feels good to be able to consistently finish books 🙂

Part of it might be the new EPUB reader I've been coding — I finally have an app which does everything I want instead of having to find workarounds for things that don't work quite right 😛

#Reading
Screenshot from an app showing …

Life in the coconut and concrete jungle
Image of a city skyline with a …

So, an interesting thing (for varying values of interesting 😛) happened today ...

There's a service request for a book editing job. The prospective client? The Minister of Finance for the UAE.

I was like, "Hmm ... why would he want a document edited on LinkedIn? He's probably got staff to do stuff like this."

I look at his profile (shown in image) and it seems to indicate that he has 4.5 million followers. Must be legit right?

But hang on! Lower down it shows his activity as having 2 followers. And his activity extends only to like 12 hours of responding to three different accounts.

Look further down and you notice that his experience listing is what shows up at the top making it look like he's got 4.5 million followers 😛

So obviously a fake/spam/scam account. But if you just look at the number at the top, you could be fooled. I've already reported them to LinkedIn. But just posting this in case they take in somebody else ....
Screenshot of fake LinkedIn acc…

I've always got a side-project going on that interests me in some way. But most of the time, I forget about the side-project after I get it working to my satisfaction 😛

This one's one such project.

My nephew kept sending me images of similar puzzles that he'd solved, trying to stump me. That's how I got interested.

I found the app/game that he was using and realized that the app had a curated list of puzzles that the developer had created. You could only play about 40 puzzles and you were done.

I wondered if it was possible to create unlimited puzzled by dynamically generating the puzzles on the go. I gave it a shot and it was possible ... and this app was the result.

But once the problem was solved, I forgot about that project and moved on to the next project 😛 I just remembered the project today and am wondering if perhaps I should package it up and put it up on an app store or two ...

I don't know, there's so many interesting projects to work on. So is it worthwhile spending the time on bundling and distributing an app which might go nowhere?

What do YOU think? 🙂
An image of a game screen showi…

I'm trying to get "Raisins of Wrath" ready for publication but need to do the cover.

My wife usually does the cover but she's too ill to do anything at the moment. So I thought of giving it a shot myself. I have the rough drawing in place, but not sure how it'll turn out.

#Writing #Art #FediBooks #IndieAuthor
A rough sketch for a book cover…

Read an Ebook Week promo ends today! Find my entire collection at a promotional price at @Smashwords till end of the day. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek

If you like humorous scifi with a bit of social commentary, check out my books 🙂

#ebookweek25 #Smashwords
A promotional image for Smashwo…

Happy Read an Ebook Week! To help you find a book to celebrate, you can find my entire collection at a promotional price at @Smashwords from March 2 - March 8. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek #ebookweek25 #Smashwords
A promotional image for Smashwo…

Read an Ebook Week promo! To help you find a book to celebrate, you can find my entire collection at 25% off at @Smashwords from March 2 - March 8. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek

#ebookweek25 #Smashwords
A promotional image for Smashwo…

Wrote a submission tracker yesteerday. (Well wrote two but that's a different story).

What struck me was that most submission trackers are paid services. Is anybody interested in a free one?

If you are, let me know and I'll throw this up on my server so others can use (for free).

#Writing #Apps
A screenshot of a web app which…

I seem to be out of my coding phase and into the drawing phase 🙂

While it isn't that good, this is based on a dream about a space yatch and a space yak ... but the yak is yet to be drawn 😛

But I really want to draw more and so this is good?

Incidentally, I learnt English mostly by reading. So for a long time I pronounced "yatch" as it's written (like "latch") in my head.

So maybe that's why in my dream it was funny to have a yatch meet a yak. But now, awake, it doesn't make as much sense to me 😛

#Art
A drawing of a space yatch trav…

When I try to think of something to draw/paint, my mind goes totally blank 😛

So decided to take inspiration from something that Ira Marcks did in one of his videos and draw something similar. This is the result.

Guess I keep drawing till the wellsprings of the imagination open up?

#Art
A drawing of a yellow/orange sn…

The painting and the words came to me in a dream 🙂 I think this is the beginning to a novel that's been in the back of my mind.

--

It was the night they came for us.

The flame hair trees wafted gently in the non-existent breeze, perfectly framing Mount Coinjar like a criminal mastermind in peak-Machiavelli mode. I could almost feel the bramble bugs, their tiny pinprick eyes peering out of their black blob bodies, waiting, waiting, waiting for an unwary target to come by.

#Writing #Dreams
A digital painting based on the…

Looking at the new Instagram ML-generated accounts, all of them follow 17-18 other accounts — 6 are Meta properties (FB, Insta etc.) and the others are the other ML generated accounts.

One of them, curiously, follows a human (or at least, an account which is not labeled a bot)

Of the remaining bots, 8 are more or less female (one is a fairy) and 4 are male (one is an alien and another a robot — a robot bot 😛).

Five of these could be black, and two might be Asian.

So that's the breakdown as it stands now.

I'm still confused as to what this is in aid of though ...

#Instaverse
Screenshot showing all the acco…

Did a quick digital painting last night to serve as the icon for the reference image app that I'm building. Not happy with the image (and it needs work) but putting it up since this is the first digital art I've done in a while ...

Won't work as icon either 😛

#DigitalArt #Painting
A digital painting of a multi-c…

There are a lot of wonderful artists online and I'm inspired by just looking at their work. I also look at these images to learn from them.

I wanted an easier way to collect and look at the images I liked and so yesterday, I created a new app for that 🙂

Now I'm inspired to start doing some art again!

#Coding #Flutter #Art
A screenshot of a macOS applica…

If anybody's looking for a post-holidy light read, I'd like to offer a light sci-fi novel for your consideration 🙂

It's about a man on the run from his wife's wrath, a bunch of bounty hunter clones, and assorted other miscreants:
books2read.com/b/mB1zAM

#Reading #Author #FediBooks #Bookstodon
A book cover with the title "Ho…

I'm thrilled to announce that the audiobook version of "Honest, the Martian Ate Your Dog" is now available on Audible 🙂

https://www.audible.com/pd/B0DL7S8Q24/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-418986&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_418986_rh_us

If you want to listen to a sample, you can do so on the Audible site.

#Audibook #Writing #Bookstodon #Fedibooks #SciFi #Humour
Audiobook cover for "Honest, th…

I call this one "Not Just Another Brick in the Wall" ... Or maybe you'll call it a "square peg in a round hole" — even though there are no holes or pegs in view 😛

I was trying to get the idea of non-conformance to the status quo in while also getting some more practice on light and shading. Done using Adobe Fresco on an iPad.

#Painting #DigitalArt #DigitalPainting #AdobeFresco
A digital painting of a brick w…

This one feels sloppy to me 🙂 There's so much more I can improve upon but after spending three days on this one, I felt that I needed a break. So moving on ...

What I wanted to do was try my hand at doing a landscape and I learnt a lot of things that I should improve upon and a few things that would be useful. But overall, I don't feel as if I did the idea justice.

#Painting #DigitalPainting #DigitalArt
A digital painting of a river w…

This one's called "Lonely Planet" 🙂

Again, mostly playing with shapes, colours, lights, and perspective.

#Painting #DigitalArt #DigitalPainting
A green grassy field with rows …