The Gaven

Slashdot has an interesting link and discussion about a real-world test of driverless cars.  I’ve got them in my book.  They’re just one of several items of technology I wrote about in my book.

In The Gaven, I wrote about how people were able to be tracked by analyzing an individual’s urine.  I was told this wasn’t possible.  It is.

In a study published in the current issue of The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, researchers found that water samples from 33 cities across the United State could be reliably traced back to their origin based on their isotope ratios. And because the human body breaks down water’s constituent atoms of hydrogen and oxygen to construct the proteins that make hair cells, those cells can preserve the record of a person’s travels. Such information could help prosecutors place a suspect at the scene of a crime, or prove the innocence of the accused.

Read the comments from the Slashdot science story.

Read the original ScienceShot article.  It’s slightly different from what I wrote about.  This tracking is through the isotopes in your hair, but the tracking is the same.

It’s been six months since I had any time to write down anything here.  There isn’t really any news on the novel.  I have been hard at work at my job that pays money and I work from 7am until 5pm.  I am also officially writing for The Daily Censored.  My other blogs, Rantings of a New Yorker and Loss of Privacy are also keeping me busy.

I have begun working on another novel while I await word on a possible agent.  You can find out what else I’m writing about by visiting one of the other sites I write for.

There will be more to come, if I can find some more free time.

It’s nearly time for the semester to end and for me to take a two week break from my job.  I’m looking forward to it.  My plans are the following:

1. Find any spelling mistakes on my websites and fix them.  I’ve already been working on this, so it should be a short job.
2. Send out more query letters.
3. Gather my hand written pages and type them up.
4. Organize my writing for my next book.  I’m not giving up on writing, but I can’t sit and wait on The Gaven to be published either.  Maybe the next thing will be picked up first.  You never know.
5. Sleep.  A lot.

As I get some more writing finished, I’ll post some of it here for all to see.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season.  Let’s hope there’s more to say in the new year.

I’ve received another comment from someone who read the book.  They only left their email, so I’m going to leave that out of my cut and paste.

Feedback:
The Mayan Long Count Calendar (I assume that’s the calendar you refer to in Chapter 1) ends in December 2012, not in 2015.
Otherwise, I like the book, I’m sure I’ll buy it when it comes out. (when–not if.)
Good luck!

Yeah, I knew it was 2012. I don’t know why I did that, but I’m blaming the keyboard. I use the number pad and the 2 and 5 are close together. So, yeah, it was the keyboard’s fault. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I’m also glad that someone else likes my book. I just have to convince potential agents of that.