The Matt Payne Website

Books and Music

The Matt Payne Website

Books and Music

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Featured:

Missing To Mars

science fiction, mystery, adventure

Paul's wife disappears on their first day on the Martian colony, pulling Paul into a mind-bending adventure that challenges his deepest... [more]

The Paranoid Adventures of Larry Grank

Comedy, Horror, Surrealism, Occult.

The universe is full of mystery and Larry has the inside scoop... at least, he thinks he does. In this collection Larry uncovers secrets... [more]

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I'm an author and musician living in Canada.

I write weird fiction: psychedelic sci-fi, surreal horror, and absurd comedy.

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Music Player:

Guitar Poem
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Funky raw guitar groove from Synthetic Adventure Beats.

Maytar
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A drum n Bass dialogue from Synthetic Adventure Beats.

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Blog:     

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Pathological DIY: Self-Hosted Solutions

Sun, 05 Aug 2018 13:12:02 GMT

I've been looking for self-hosted alternatives to applications and software that I use a lot, and it's caused me too much headache.

I use Google Drive and Google Docs a lot, plus I have RSS feeds on my phone, my PC, my laptop. Then there are the TO-DO lists, various calendars, and the constant reminder-emails that I send myself.

I want to free myself from Google's surveillance-machine. I also am an amateur web-developer and I figure I should be able to set up some kind of online office suite on the webspace that I rent.

I heard that OwnCloud, NextCloud, and SeaFile were all fantastic pieces of software that you can install on a webserver. I tried each of them on WebFaction but can't get either of them to function properly. When they do work they rely on more pieces of outside software (such as a certain kind of word processors installed in just the right way, in just the right place) which usually doesn't work.

Now I've got open questions on several different forums, regarding several different kinds of software, and I'm afraid they're all dead-ends. The software I'm trying to use is all built for big companies who own their own servers and have root control. There are too many moving parts and it requires too much control for this to be useful to me.

This is an ongoing problem for me! I feel guilty when I buy spaghetti sauce because I feel like I should just buy a thousand tomatoes and make my own giant batch of spaghetti sauce instead. I don't want to spend $15/month on DropBox's storage and editing services when I'm already spending that much on renting webspace where I should be able to host my own private apps. I don't want Google having control over ALL my data as they do, although I can't think of any practical drawback.

I'm re-evaluating my self-hosting plan. I can't have everything I want. It's counter-productive to spend an enormous amount of time trying to get productivity-software to work when there are already good pre-packaged solutions out there.


More entries at my LiveJournal Blog.

Announcements:     

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Website Update

2018-03-25 01:42:38
 

I got rid of those carousel sliders. As sliders go they were pretty cool, but even the best sliders are an eyesore, so I got rid of the fuckers so the site can be a better place for people's eyes.
So this is pATTmAYNE.com 4.2, slider-free since 2018

Upcoming...

2018-03-16 21:02:41
 

The Society of Misfits series of anthologies has accepted my short horror story, A Gift in the Mirror. They'll release it on October 23 of 2018. So, thanks to Bards and Sages Publishing for accepting me into their lair.

The Society of Misfits

NEW NOVEL: Missing To Mars

2017-11-15 19:10:18
 

My latest book is available in e-book formats now, on Amazon and Kobo.

Missing to Mars is a science fiction mystery story, rooted in alternate history. It's partly inspired by Graham Hancock's work, exploring the possibility that pre-Egyptian civilization might have been more advanced than we thought, and didn't really die out. This book takes those ideas several steps further into the realm of the fantastic. I love the idea of some special torch of cosmic knowledge being shared and spread in secret.

But the main action is much simpler than that: Paul and his wife Fiona move to Mars, and Fiona promptly goes missing. What's worse than losing your loved ones in such a remote location? Arguably, the thing that took her.

It's available as an e-book, and should soon come out in paperback as well.

Huge thanks to Double Dragon Publishing, who took a chance on this book.

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Publishing History:

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Background art by August Ekblom.

Original work titled "Extrapolation of the penis," altered with glitch effects.

Dot 11  Copyright Matt Payne 2018

Dot 7  Inquire unto my health: info [at] pattmayne [dot] com

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About Me:

I write weird stories and novels. I like vivid wordplay and far-out adventures. I like to explore subtle ideas, juxtapositions, scary aspects of personal development, and just generally far-out stuff. I like Hard Art, stuff that's upsetting, but also stuff that's just fun and beautiful. That's what's fun for me, and I hope it will be fun for you too. Fun and scary.


Most of my books are independently published. I like the control. I like hiring cover artists and designing the book myself. I have worked with publishers, and I'll do so again, but I'm a very DIY kinda guy and I love the process of giving you something that's completely my own invention.


When I make electronic music I tend to use the rhythm and beat-structure of dance music, while the melodic structure is more influenced by rock, funk, and metal. I've used FruityLoops, Reason, and the powerful (and volatile) suite of music production software in Linux.


I was born in Newfoundland, Canada. I got my degree from St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I've worked as a line cook, machine operator, web designer, and a bunch of other things.


I also do audio production Psymposia's weekly consciousness-expansion podcast. They're a great organization and you should check them out.


 About this site:

I've "re-vamped" my personal website way too many times. Usually I just want something noisy, jarring, and fun to look at. But I decided I needed something more functional so I built this content-management system in Flask, with Python. Now if I want to update it I'll just change the visuals, but the backend should be solid.


This is the main source for information about my work. Details about my books and music, my publishing history, where to buy my stuff, plus my blog and links to other cool site.


...but it's also a place to just put ridiculous things on the internet. I like internet noise. Glitch art. Broken things. So humour me by exploring it a little bit.


You can drop me a line at info [at] pattmayne [dot] com. I'll probably respond.

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