[Links]
[links] Link salad wakes up on a busy Saturday
IROSF reviews my Lone Star Stories piece, “On the Human Plan” — Lois Tilton liked it.
The Wall Street Journal on “Watchmen”
Is it wrong for me to want this car as much as I do?
Britain’s Clown Shortage: New Visa Rules Hit the Circus
The city without a memory: treasures lost under collapsed Cologne archives
Translucent concrete — (Snurched from Dark Roasted Blend.)
Documenting the redesign of the Pepsi logo — Allegedly, at least. I used to work in advertising, and I find this sadly believable.
Ceres: A Possible Source of Life? — Huh…
How to stop the drug wars — Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution. (Thanks to
?otD: If this is Saturday, where’s my cruller?
3/7/2009
Body movement: n/a (off my own schedule)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville; Black Blade Blues by John Pitts
Posted: 7:23 am Sat March 07 2009 |
Where am I?
You are reading the blog of Jay Lake, speculative fiction writer and author of hundreds of short stories, many novels, and winner of the John W. Campbell Award.
Learn more here.
Share or Bookmark This
Consider adding this to one of the following social bookmarking sites.
Comments
Leave a Reply
« [writing] Progris riport, day 3, revising Tourbillon | [child] The Child asks about gendered language »
tetar
March 7th, 2009 at 10:26 amAbout the Pepsi logo pitch – it’s pseudoscientific gibberish, yes, but one can imagine the executives receiving this presentation not daring to so much as shift on their seats for fear of seeming to be too stupid to understand the intellectual nonsense being spewed. Meaning that A) they really are too stupid to tell the difference between bullshit and reality, and B) they are cowardly about asking questions for fear of appearing dumb.
The metaphor theories of Lakoff notwithstanding, this is the kind of crapola that allowed Colin Powell to sell the invasion of Iraq to the UN, even though anyone with half a brain, Powell included, could easily see the charts and claims he was peddling were drivel. As if the mere stance, or pose, of scientific authority suffices to demonstrate, “We’re serious here, and know what we’re doing; trust us.”
Satire or not, this Pepsi pitch is indeed believable.
A long time ago Susie was attending the Air Force Institute of Technology and was studying AI. It was advanced work, cutting edge at the time. (Fed into new breast cancer analysis, oddly.) In any case, I looked over some of her study material and said, “I could get an A easily in this course without studying a thing.” She dared me to prove it.
I wrote a paper using their format, employing academic tone. It was literally not about anything and made no sense whatsoever. It was a chunk of verbiage in a certain tone. “But how can you write a paper when you didn’t even know the topic?” Susie wondered.
“Topic doesn’t matter. Just hand it in with your stuff next time they ask for a paper, regardless of topic.”
She did.
My gibberish got an A.
Q.E.D.
tetar
March 7th, 2009 at 10:34 amBy the way, SF is much the same, a specialized tone more than anything else.