Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad celebrates its moms

You don’t have to read my books — Justine Larbalestier explains this very well. I take a nearly identical position. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Absolutely worth the drive — John Booth on Friday night’s open dinner in Columbus, OH.

Langweil’s model of Prague — This is cool. Of course, as a writer, I know nothing whatsoever about obsessive creative behavior.

Searching for meaning in distant solar systems — Is it better for a science writer to be technically correct or understood? These questions apply to SF writers as well, albeit with a slightly different slant.

Weird deep sea creatures — Art guru James Gurney with some bizarre images. In case you needed to write about aliens today.

New Study On Manta Rays Reveals Their Hidden Life

We’re all mutants now — There are a lot of us now, and most of us are a little bit off The headline is hilarious if slightly misleading.

Off the Charts: Shrinking Government — As Andrew Wheeler says, “[G]overnment spending has dropped substantially under Obama, while the private sector has surged. But you know what they say about facts’ obvious liberal bias.”

Many blacks shrug off Obama’s new view on gays — I have always been baffled by this intersection of racial issues and gay issues.

Sen. Rand Paul: Didn’t think Obama’s view ‘could get any gayer’ — Stay classy, conservative America. It’s what you do best.

An open letter to the right wing in the wake of the passage of Amendment One in North Carolina — As usual, the people who most need to read this never will, and if somehow they do, they will reject it out of hand. (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Bullying and Business — Scrivener’s Error with more on Romney and bullying from a business analysis perspective. Dovetails nicely with my post of yesterday [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] on Romney and bullying.

Mean Boys — While I have real reservations about holding senior citizens to account for what they did as seniors in high school, I have no reservations about expecting presidential candidates to know how to properly address the mistakes they once made. More on Romney in the New York Times.

In address at Christian university, Romney to urge graduates to honor commitments to family — It’s not like I was going to vote for Romney anyway, but lending his name to the educational and intellectual fraud that is an Evangelical institution like Liberty University does not improve my opinion of the man one whit.

Romney’s Anachronism Problem — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison remarks on how Mittens is running against a now-distant past.

?otd: How’s your mother?

5/13/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.75 hours (Kalimpura copy edits)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid, plus 4.0 hours of fitful airplane napping)
Weight: 244.6 (!!!)
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo

Tags: Art, Books, business, Christianism, Cool, Food, Funny, gay, Language, Links, nature, Ohio, Personal, Politics, Process, race, Religion, Science, Travel, Videos, Writing

Posted: 6:15 am Sun May 13 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad flies home

Special Needs in Strange Worlds | Jay Lake – Cancer and Writing — In which I guest blog at Bookworm Blues.

Avengers Enthuse Post — cathshaffer pins down a lot of what was so very good about The Avengers from a story critique perspective.

Why fiction is good for you — (Via daveraines.)

Evil Clown hired for stalking, threats and a pie in the face — An ‘evil’ clown who stalks and threatens kids is being hired by parents as a birthday treat. (Via Mike Brotherton.)

Chinese Physicists Smash Distance Record For Teleportation — The ability to teleport photons through 100 kilometres of free space opens the way for satellite-based quantum communications, say researchers. Consider the implications of that headline. Until quite recently, it would have been SFnal on several levels. Today it’s just ordinary news. I love living in the future.

Mighty Moth Man — An evolutionary biologist’s posthumous publication restores the peppered moth to its iconic status as a textbook example of evolution.

Baby, 18 months old, ordered off plane at Fort Lauderdale airport — Apparently the child’s name was on the TSA’s no-fly list. Feel safer?

Game Over for the Climate — Global warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. Unless, of course, you live in the facts-optional universe of the Republican party.

Top ten reasons given to ban same-sex marriages — Hahahah.

In the battle between morality and faith, morality is winning — When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was “antihomosexual.” “Intolerant” comes to mind as well.

U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam — Feel safer now? (Via danjite.)

Fox News guest laments ‘mistake’ of letting women vote — Conservatives, classing up the joint since, well, never. And determined to remain on the wrong side of history no matter what it takes. (Via shsilver.)

Top Romney aide gleefully outed transgender woman, ending her political career — Yep.

Romney backs away from gay adoptions — Keep pandering, Mitt. The more Americans realize that the Republican party stands for an intolerant and closed society, the better chance we have of avoiding your presidency. I still remember what happened the last time we has a Republican president.

The Big Flip — Everyone agrees American politics have become completely polarized. Perhaps more remarkable is another change: over the past half-century, the two parties completely switched roles, with the G.O.P. turning into rebels and the Democrats defending the status quo.

?otd: How many time zones in the Soviet Union?

5/12/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.25 hours (WRPA)
Body movement: n/a (airport walking to come)
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo

Tags: Cancer, climate, Cool, gay, gender, health, interviews, Iraq, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Religion, reviews, Science, Travel, weird, Writing

Posted: 2:24 am Sat May 12 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad ties another one to the racks, baby

Aussie Delicacy Vegemite Loses Some of Its Savory Appeal

Path Dependence and the Stupidity of LED Light Bulbs — Why are we cramming 21st century technology into a socket designed by Edison? I found this pretty interesting.

The making of modern humans — If some of our ancestors interbred with Neanderthals, are we really modern?

Vesta asteroid is ancient protoplanet

Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 “Doomsday” Myth — Yeah, because the course of the planet was otherwise going to be controlled by the myths of a long-decayed Mesoamerican civilization.

USB tampon flash drive — For when you never, ever want anyone else to touch your business. (Via David Goldman.)

Can I Trust Those Evil Pharmamancers With My Life? — cathshaffer (who knows whereof she speaks) on Big Pharma. Interesting read.

Someone has hacked Google News. Check out this screen shot I took this morning. Look carefully at the cutline beneath the headline, then check out the story. (Or, as Charlie Stross has pointed out, more likely someone has hacked the Seattle Times.)

Missing words from 9-11 tribunal: CIA and “big-boy pants” — Because, um, yeah. I got nothing. Feel safer? (Via danjite.)

Romney Apologizes For Bullying In Prep School, Says He Didn’t Know Victim Was Gay — I can and do say a lot of negative things about Romney, but I’m not sure very many of us could stand up to being accountable as mature adults for what we did in high school. (Via my Aunt M.)

?otd: Hey kids, where are you?

5/11/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (WRPA, mostly galley edits)
Body movement: 60 minute urban walk
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo

Tags: Australia, Cool, Culture, Food, Funny, healthcare, Language, Links, media, Personal, Politics, Science, Tech

Posted: 3:42 am Fri May 11 2012 | Comments(7) |

[links] Link salad drives that hot rod Lincoln

The frequent fliers who flew too much — Many years after selling lifetime passes for unlimited first-class travel, American Airlines began scrutinizing the costs — and the customers.

Eating Well Without the Flavor of Shame — Diet and flavor. Interesting.

The Quantum Biology Conundrum — If quantum mechanics plays an important role in biology, we’ll want to copy it. If it doesn’t, we’ll want to know why not.

Jewel Caterpillar — Weirdly beautiful. (Via willyumtx.)

Light from Alien Super-Earth Seen for 1st Time — This is so damned cool.

Unmanned vessel could soon be working for Navy — What could possibly go wrong!? (Via David Goldman.)

Methane Leaking through the Cracks — The fragile and rapidly changing Arctic is home to large reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As Earth’s climate warms, that methane is vulnerable to possible release into the atmosphere, where it can add to global warming. Once again, the natural world joins in the liberal conspiracy that is global warming.

Jon Stewart, Religion Teacher Extraordinaire — (Snurched from Scrivener’s Error.)

The Myth About Marriage — Those who do not want to let gay partners have the sacredness of sacramental marriage are relying on a Scholastic fiction of the thirteenth century to play with people’s lives. Walking through Seatac Airport this morning, I caught thirty seconds of some Christianist talking head desperately clinging to the notion that marriage was between one man and one woman, and had been so for five thousand years of human history. (My slight paraphrase.) Taking that statement in purely religious terms, I’m an atheist, and even I know King Solomon had more than a few wives, and that modern religious traditions from Islam to Mormonism support polygamy. In other words, his statement was blatant, knowing lie. What the Bible likes to call false witness, right there in the Ten Commandments. Why do the Liars for Jesus get to on television and spread this counterfactual crap in support of their personal bigotry?

Obama says same-sex couples should be able to marry — This is what being a liberal-progressive means. Standing up for what is right regardless of the bigotry and intolerance of others. Conservatives were wrong about slavery. They were wrong about women’s suffrage. They were wrong about child labor. They were wrong about segregation. They were wrong about interracial marriage. They were wrong about birth control. And just as they’ve been on the wrong side of every major social issue of the past two centuries, conservatives are wrong, dead wrong, about gay marriage. I’m glad to see our leader leading from the front. Slacktivist Fred Clark with a good link roundup on this.

White House Tours Do Not Require Fetuses To Be Counted As Full Humans — The fact that this is even a story is further evidence that conservatives are basically nuts.

Bipartisanship Is a Lost Cause — I still remember Barney Frank’s comment about “unilateral bipartisanship“.

?otd: Gonna drive your daddy to drink in’?

5/10/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (brain break)
Body movement: n/a (airport walking to come)
Hours slept: 4.25 (fitful, and yes, that is not a typo)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Constantine Affliction by T. Aaron Payton

Tags: climate, Cool, Food, gay, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, Science, Tech, Travel, weird

Posted: 4:44 am Thu May 10 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad has never been more ready in its entire life

One in six cancers worldwide are caused by infection

Bandersnatch Cummerbund: not a typo, not a cupertino — Hahahah.

An Economic Lifeline of Barley and Hops — An interesting story about beer and small town economics in rural Oregon.

Abraham Lincoln Filed a Patent for Facebook in 1845 — As it were. Weird. (Via danjite.)

Space weather expert has ominous forecast — Mike Hapgood, who studies solar events, says the world isn’t prepared for a truly damaging storm. And one could happen soon.

Pacific ‘garbage patch’ changing insect mating habits

Physicists Store Short Movie In A Cloud of Gas — Sometimes the jokes just write themselves. (Though this is in fact a cool science story.)

Shuttle Enterprise Over New York — Very nice photo from APOD.

NC pastor created lies about gay sex because of his ‘religious views’ — This is why ‘real Americans’ vote Republican – for the moral leadership provided by conservatives. What are a few bald-faced lies so long as they validate your worldview, right? That bit about bearing false witness in the Ten Commandments isn’t nearly as important as God’s hatred of gay people, right?

North Carolina voters approve amendment defining marriage as union between a man and woman — Another victory in the conservative march toward a closed and intolerant society. I really don’t want to live in their America. Do you?

Moving the economic goalposts — But the other concern here is historical — over the last three decades, the unemployment rate has dipped below 4% just four times out of 496 months. Each of those four months was during Bill Clinton’s presidency. In other words, Romney’s goal was achieved, but only after a Democratic president raised taxes in 1993. Ah, conservatives and their cherished ignorance of history.

The Opportunity Society — Does Tagg Romney actually believe that his dad had nothing to do with his successful entry into the private equity game, and the millions he has made and will continue to make are the result only of his own merit? That his life is radically different from those of the millions of people struggling to get by only because they don’t work as hard as he does, or have his gumption and entrepreneurial spirit? (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Romney: I Take Credit for the Auto Rescue — Wow. He’s not even pretending to consistency any more. This would be the same Mitt Romney who wanted to let the automakers fail, right? Good thing for him that likely Republican voters are largely divorced from reality and will fall for the Etch-a-Sketch routine every time. It must be nice to have a low-information, ideologically blinkered base like the GOP does. Helps avoid those pesky requirements for accountability and consistency.

?otd: Could it be nice to be alive?

5/9/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (brain break)
Body movement: 1.0 hour urban walk
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Constantine Affliction by T. Aaron Payton

Tags: business, Cancer, Cool, Culture, Food, Funny, gay, healthcare, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, sex, Tech, weird

Posted: 5:47 am Wed May 09 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad hangs out in Seattle

Non Sequitur on the glamor that is publishing

Terminally Illin’: A Graphic Novel About a 20-Something Battling Cancer — Yeah, this. (Via mikigarrison.)

Something in the prehistoric air that helped keep it warm – methane from dinosaur digestion

Google gets a license for self-driving cars in Nevada

Radio-Controlled Genes — Radio waves can be used to activate calcium-sensitive genes by heating injected nanoparticles.

So you’re a cyborg — now what? — The brain and information technology.

Do as I Do, Not as I Say — An interesting essay on the differences in thinking between conservative Evangelicals and secular liberals. Unfortunately, the author doesn’t at all address the pervasive intellectual dishonesty, shrieking bigotry and gospel of hatred that are so deeply entwined in the Evangelical movement, but rather seems to idealize the movement.

Advocates of same-sex marriage in Maryland hope to break losing streak — Speaking of shrieking bigotry and the gospel of hatred.

Don’t blame the Bible — Many in North Carolina — many around the country — are swimming against the tide of human freedom and blaming God for it. Again, this is not a new thing. We saw it back when God was for segregation and against women’s suffrage.

The most, and least, safe states in America — Amazingly enough, those law-and-order Red states full of gun toting’ “real Americans” are the least safe. All us unarmed coastal liberals live in better, safer conditions. I’m sure Rush Limbaugh can explain this.

Mitt Romney Was Arrested For Disorderly Conduct In 1981 — The charges were dropped after Romney threatened to sue. Yeah, that works so well for most of us. Can you say ‘entitlement’?

Treason? — At live event, Romney doesn’t dispute questioners suggestion that President Obama should be tried for treason. A bit later, in response to reporters’ questions, he said “of course” he doesn’t believe the president should be tried for treason. Wow, the Romeny Etch-a-Sketch is operating in near realtime. Wonder what Your Liberal Media is saying about this?

Obama’s Afghan war unhindered by partisan fights — “Should Mitt Romney win the election,” he observed, he doubts many on the left “who have refrained from criticizing President Obama for such things as the use of drones will extend the same courtesy” to Romney. Sigh.

?otd: Been to University Books lately?

5/8/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (0.75 hours and 1,400 words on Their Currents Turn Awry to first draft completion at 149,100 words; 1.25 hours of WRPA)
Body movement: 1.0 hour urban walk
Hours slept: 7.0 (fitful)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Constantine Affliction by T. Aaron Payton

Tags: Cancer, cars, Cool, Culture, Funny, gay, healthcare, Iraq, Links, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech

Posted: 5:31 am Tue May 08 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad changes color like the sea

Steampunk weapons in real life — Or possibly dieselpunk. From Russia, with weird. (Via danjite.)

A Word Heard Often, Except at the Supreme Court — Fuck no! (Snurched from Scrivener’s Error.)

Organic Soda ‘Made in Germany’ Takes on the World — German reader Cora Buhlert passes on this story of localization and globalization in a comment response to my recent mentions of non-USAnian snack foods. And I do agree with her assessment of USAnian snack foods.

Gesture Control System Uses Sound Alone — SoundWave lets an ordinary laptop function like a Kinect sensor. Though I do wonder why this story about an experimental project from Microsoft shows an Apple MacBook in the accompanying photo.

NASA uses moon as mirror to watch Venus transit sun

Ouarkziz Impact Crater, Algeria — A spiffy skiffy photo from NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Sarkozy’s Loss in Part due to his Islamophobia — Interesting how his rhetoric so closely parallels American conservative rhetoric on immigration and crime.

Howard Dean: Women, Latinos “terrified” of GOP — “Women are terrified of what the Republicans are talking about. They’re talking about basically stripping away their ability to have insurance pay for their birth control pills,” Dean said on “Face the Nation.” “Latinos are terrified of the Republicans, because they seem to have a total tin ear when it comes to the basic needs of treating people with dignity.” Gee, I can’t imagine why this would be so.

Heartland Justice — Iowa, gay marriage, and the casually cruel intolerance of conservatives.

Biden endorses same-sex marriage, White House tries to take it back — And the open, tolerant society gets a walk back from the Democratic White House. Way to stand up for progressive principles, guys. One of the reasons I’m a liberal-progressive is that we’re morally better than the haters. Don’t play to them.

?otd: Does the sea not change?

5/7/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.5 hours (5,700 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 0.5 hour stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.0 (solid)
Weight: 240.2 (!)
Currently reading: The Blade Itself Joe Abercrombie

Tags: Cool, Food, gay, gender, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, race, Religion, Science, steampunk, Tech, weird

Posted: 4:54 am Mon May 07 2012 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad’s flag boy and your flag boy, sittin’ by the fire

Angelesen: Die Räder der Welt (Jay Lake) — What appears to be a positive review of the German language edition of Mainspring.

A natural history — Roger Ebert with a moving essay on growing up, and lost friends.

“Crab” chips, fruity Oreos? They’re big overseas — More on on-USAnian flavors. Snack food crack for me is Maui onion flavored Hawaiian kettle chips in creamy French onion dip.

Tornado near Tokyo kills 1, injures dozens — I’m always a bit surprised when I read about tornadoes outside the North American Great Plains.

Reminders of Secular Authority Reduce Believers’ Distrust of Atheists — Many of my Christian friends seem to have grown fond of the self-valorizing myth that they are being oppressed or persecuted in modern America, but it is still true that atheists poll at the bottom of trustworthiness. Amazing, the power we secular types have as a small and least-trusted percentage of the population.

The ‘Big Four’ markers of the evangelical tribe — Slacktivist Fred Clark with some fascinating social history of the Evangelical movement.

Family Battle Offers Look Inside Lavish TV Ministry — This is precisely what our country needs more of, not those godless, immoral liberals.

Biden on gay marriage: ‘Absolutely comfortable with men marrying men, women marrying women’ — Good. As it should be, assuming you value an open, tolerant society. Which conservatives explicitly do not. Another of the many, many reasons I can never be a conservative.

Republicans! Get in my vagina! — Very sarcastic video, funny as hell decidedly not worksafe. (Via willyumtx.)

The Right-Wing’s 20 Biggest Sex Hypocrites — The ones who scream the loudest about how godly they are often turn out to be the exact opposite. Only twenty? But, but, but, Clinton had a blow job! (Via danjite.)

How to End This Depression — Paul Krugman is, as usual, sensible.

Republicans on ‘Politicizing’ Terrorism, Then and Now — Well, it was fine when Bush did it, just not when Obama does it. Like so many other things. Just ask any Tea Partier about deficit spending, foreign wars or corporate bailouts. Those only became a problem for conservatives after an African-American progressive was elected to the Oval Office. The GOP: setting the standards for intellectual consistency in political discourse since, well, never.

Schwarzenegger: GOP, take down that small tent — You didn’t mind that ‘small tent’ when it got you elected, Arnie. I despise so-called moderate Republicans almost more than I despise the whackaloon conservatives that dominate the GOP these days, simply because while in a lot of cases the whackaloons really can’t seem to help being who they are, the Republican moderates are people who know better and went along with the nuts anyway for electoral advantage.

Historic campaign collision of race and religion likely to arouse both pride and prejudice — Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney, an African-American and a white Mormon, representatives of two groups and that have endured oppression to carve out a place in the United States. How much progress has America made against bigotry? By November, we should have some idea. Hint: which man is running from a party that has built and sustains its political fortunes foursquare on bigotry and intolerance?

?otd: Jockamo fee na nay?

5/6/2012
Writing time yesterday: 3.5 hours (2.5 hours and 5,600 words on Their Currents Turn Awry, 1.0 hours of WRPA)
Body movement: 1.5 hour suburban walk
Hours slept: 9.25 (solid)
Weight: 240.0 (!)
Currently reading: The Blade Itself Joe Abercrombie

Tags: Books, business, Christianism, Culture, Food, gay, gender, Japan, Links, Mainspring, Personal, Politics, race, Religion, reviews, sex, Videos, weird

Posted: 9:38 am Sun May 06 2012 | Comments(4) |

[links] Link salad’s man MCA’s got a beard like a billy goat

Making Progress Against Clutter — This has nothing to do with me. Nothing whatsoever. Nosirree, Bob.

The Surprising Shortcut to Better Health — A discussion of body movement which happens to dovetail well with my own exercise strategy.

Grief in the Time of Facebook

Map’s Hidden Marks Illuminate and Deepen Mystery of Lost Colony — Virginia Dare, where are you?

11 Rivers Forced Underground — A cool piece from National Geographic. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

‘Supermoon’: Large Full Moon Tonight — For all you skywatchers.

Full Moonrise — Speaking of the moon…

Heartland Institute compares belief in global warming to mass murder — US thinktank launches poster campaign comparing Unabomber and Osama Bin Laden to those concerned about global warming. I don’t even know where to begin with this. Heartland Institute’s logic for this is identical to saying Hitler was a Christian, therefore to believe in Jesus is equivalent to Nazism. As is so often the case with conservative causes, they fail on the merits and so resort to sensationalism. Also, I disagree with the headline. It misleads in implying that climate change is an article of faith rather than objective reality overwhelmingly supported by both data and theory and a nearly-universal scientific consensus. “Believing” in global warming is like “believing” in gravity. (Thanks to gummitch.)

Never forget — Never forget…Dorothy Counts being mocked by an entirely white audience on enrollment day at Harding High School. September 4th, 1957. It’s moments like this that make me ashamed to be white.

Tagg Romney has twin boys through surrogate — Good for them. But, um, isn’t this pretty unconservative?

Missouri Republican Rep After Coming Out As Gay: “It’s A Moment Of Peace” — Man, do I feel sorry for this guy. To be a gay Republican these days must be an intolerable tension.

Love the people, hate the plumbing — Hahaha. As tipster Gabrielle Harbowy points out, “This is what happens when aggregator bots repost any mentions of their keywords, without human audit. You get a plumbing news site accidentally promoting a queer sf book when the author’s “love the people, not the plumbing” post is retweeted.”

North Carolina Pastor Sean Harris: Parents Should ‘Punch’ Their Gay-Acting Children — Ah, conservative Christians. You shall know them by their love.

American lifespan by county — Tobias Buckell talks about the gaps in American life. I’d be very interested in a map overlaying this data with political affiliation. I’m pretty sure I know what it would show.

No Separation of Church and State, Say Conservatives (Except on Health Care, Food, and Other Jesusy Things Like Peace) — Conservatives respond to the culture war by asserting that we’re a Christian nation with the can’t-miss implication that our government (when not highjacked by liberals) is godly, founded by Christian men, with laws and freedoms based on Judeo-Christian principle. I know these positions well, having grown up in conservative circles. But when it comes time for the government to act in ways congruent with Christianity, like feeding the hungry (food stamps) or caring for the sick (health care), conservatives grimace, play the small government and personal responsibility card, and argue that we can’t have government in the role of the church. So which is it? (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Do Nothings and Know Nothings — More on Republicans in Congress.

?otd: What’s up with your bad breath? Onion rings?

5/5/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.75 hours (3,900 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 2.0 hour suburban walk
Hours slept: 8.5 (fitful)
Weight: n/a (forgot)
Currently reading: The Blade Itself Joe Abercrombie

Tags: climate, Cool, Culture, Funny, gay, health, history, Links, Personal, Photos, race, Religion, Science, sex

Posted: 8:25 am Sat May 05 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad has a city in its mind

Genre Kryptonite: Unusual Dystopias

Are eReaders Really Green? — (Snurched from Andrew Wheeler.)

Bellevue’s Stella’s nets ‘best burger’ title — This is where I ate this past Monday.

Zombie-ant parasitic fungus kept in check by hyperparasitic fungus — Ant colonies are protected against brain-manipulating parasitic fungi by another fungus.

Blond hair evolved separately in Europe and the South Pacific

The oldest living thing on Earth is 6,000 tons of grass — Cool. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Mars Opportunity rover reaches Endeavour crater, finds signs of ancient Martian water

Bringing an Asteroid to Lunar Orbit

Fermi Epicycles: The Vela Pulsar’s Path — A very cool image from APOD. The written explanation is just as cool.

Greenland glaciers speed up, swelling rising seas — Amazing how Al Gore has managed to get even the glaciers to go along with his crazy liberal global warming conspiracy. Rush Limbaugh to the ice cap, stat!

?otd: Will you come along and take that ride?

5/4/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (2,600 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: n/a (airport walking to come)
Hours slept: 6.0 (fitful)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Blade Itself Joe Abercrombie

Tags: climate, Cool, ebooks, Food, Links, Mars, nature, Omaha, Personal, Photos, reviews, Science, weird

Posted: 2:57 am Fri May 04 2012 | Comments(0) |