Ice Bucket Challenge
The Ice Bucket Challenge has been doing the rounds to raise awareness (and funding) for ALS, which is known as Motor Neurone Disease in the UK. My wife nominated me, and I did it. I also thought it was worth make a small regular donation to MND every month and did this through the Just Giving website. I posted the video on facebook, you ought to be able to see it without logging in as I made it public. Post by James Kemp. Related articles Macmillan Cancer accused of 'hijacking' the ice bucket challenge ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and Info McAvoy nominates Salmond for Ice Bucket Challenge For millions in donations, just add cold water Alex Salmond soaked after saying Yes to ice bucket challenge US man with motor neurone disease ALS takes Ice Bucket Challenge Alistair Darling proves we're…
Book Review – Zero Six Bravo by Damien Lewis
Zero Six Bravo: 60 Special Forces. 100,000 Enemy. The Explosive True Story by Damien Lewis My rating: 4 of 5 stars I make a point of reading first hand accounts of special forces operations. I started with world war two tales of the SAS and have worked up to the present time. Since the Bravo Two Zero fiasco I don't expect much from tales of recent events. This particular book tells the tale of a Special Boat Service mission in Iraq in 2003. It suffers a bit from excessive hypebole, presumably to garner sales. However it is actually very readable, and although much of the outcome is telepgrahed in advance the way it's done is through a good hook to keep you reading to find out the detail of how/what happens. Well before all the debates in Parliament in 2003…
Book Review – War Stories edited by Andrew Liptak
War Stories: New Military Science Fiction by Jaym Gates My rating: 5 of 5 stars I really loved this fantastic collection of short stories. They are well laid out with a set of general themes, covering a wide range of perspectives and points of view. What first attracted me to this was that there was a short story by Linda Nagata set in the same universe as her The Red: First Light novel. (See my review here) I'd enjoyed that so much that I was keen to read more, hence funding the kickstarter. Having read it I think I'll need to go look up some more of those authors and add them to my reading list. Not one of the stories in the collection seemed like it didn't belong there, and all of them had something novel and engaging about…
Crisis Point on Wattpad
I'm editing Crisis Point for the third time to make it better by using the things I learned on A215 Creative Writing. One of the most valuable things I got from that was that you need feedback from real people to help you get better as a writer. Hence the use of wattpad (although I've also sent the story to a few of the other A215 veterans for their comments too). Here is the beginning of Crisis Point on wattpad. For obvious reasons I'll not be posting the whole story there, but I'll post a few more sections than the three that are there already. If you would like to be a beta reader for me then please drop me a line, either in the comments section, on the facebook page linked on the right or by email. Related…
The 200 Foot General
This is the third post on my Operational Research driven wargame rules (and it's probably about time that I came up with a catchy name for them, ideas in the comments section most welcome). One of the most unrealistic things I find in most commercial wargames that I have read or played is that it is very easy for players to change their plans and give new orders to their troops every turn. This is so common that there's even a name for it, the 200ft General. What is the Problem? The concept being that the player is like a General with perfect perception and control of his troops, and he can react to things that they aren't yet aware of because the player can see the models on the table. Here are a couple of relevant quotes from the Operational…