Author: Altmann Conrad
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System Universal (SU)
This is an attempt to create a measurement system that is truly independent from cultural/planetary/star system influence. As a science fiction author and reader, it annoys me when I encounter an alien species that uses terms that are obviously (and some less obviously) human based. For instance, the year. Time is that basic and ubiquitous…
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Typography of Cover Design
There are certain elements that are traditionally included in cover design, and those elements each have a different level of weight for the reader. Imagine yourself at a bookstore, or even online, scanning books that might catch your eye and prompt you to pick them up to read the back. What are you looking for?…
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Copyright Text
For those authors who are concerned with their work (both text and cover art) being used to train ai models and LLMs, I have put together a text based on discussion with the community over on the Indie Book Spotlight discord server that iterates the rights of the author to their work. It essentially states…
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Ai Free
I’ve recently branched out and become a part of a wider indie author community. This has opened my eyes not just to a wider world, but to a variety of writing styles and opinions. There are few things in the community these days that are as controversial as artificial intelligence. Ai and Large Language Models…
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Is AI Generated Art a Natural Step?
As AI begins to mimic humans more and more accurately, we will begin to rely on it for doing ever more important tasks. Think “AI assistant”, Siri and Alexa are only the beginning, when will they be smart enough that they can anticipate what we will say, or how we will react in any given…
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Nacho Buni’s M’jun
Plum Sauce / Pflaumenmus When we purchased Wit’s End, our small [mostly] apple orchard, it came with fourteen plum trees (also four wild cherry trees, yay). There are at least two different varieties of plums there, but one: I can’t tell, and two: it doesn’t matter for this recipe. This is the fastest way to…
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Wit’s End Apple Butter
2020, among other things, has been filled with the unexpected. One of these was the acquisition of a small apple and plum orchard at the beginning of the year. As the year progressed, and our patience with lockdowns and pandemics wore thin we christened the orchard “Wit’s End”. Then the apples blossomed. Then they ripened.…
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Kepler’s World
Characters Kepler (Kep) / Zahra (Z) — A Guide of the Local Yaping GuideGuild, assigned to orient incoming interstellar travelers to their current RTS, after awakening from stasis after a number of years in transit. Assumed identities of Lara, Ancara, Zahra and Mara for various contracts. Hohenhoff (Hoff) — Kep’s GuideGuild representative. Socially awkward around…
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Mo’s Story
There was once a very powerful man, who employed a great number of people. He wasn’t very nice, but there weren’t many other options for the people that worked for him.
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A Boy Named Chris
There was once a young boy named Chris. Life was hard for him and his family. They were refugees, and were forced to live in a strange country because of the political situation back at home.