Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad wishes happy birthday to its mother

Debut author lessons: Hate mail — Mary Robinette Kowal Is Wise.

Writers Workshop of Science Fiction & Fantasy Available! — In which I have an essay.

Temple of the Autonomous Machine — Okay, this story about the intersection of robotics and archaeology is just fricking cool.

Happiness Inc. — What makes people happy?

Group kicks off planting of ancient tree clones

The chicken crouton recipe — For them what wants it.

Classifying a Killer Whale for Tax Purposes — Ah, lawyers. And to be fair, the IRS.

For young Soviets, the Beatles were a first, mutinous rip in the iron curtain — The band inspired dissidents and musicians and, a new book claims, meant more to youth in the USSR than in the west. (Via threeoutside.)

Jon Stewart investigates the Australian gun control “failure”

National Debt Graph by President — [T]he Voodoo [Economics] failed just as Bush predicted, and the supply-siders turned a 32-year winning streak into a debt disaster that continues to this day. For 20 years, under Reagan and the Bushes, the national debt increased compared to GDP every single year. In most other years it decreased. Supply side economics never worked. It’s just another one of those counterfactual conservative political fetishes that they justify within their bubble of epistemic closure. Another example of reality’s well-known liberal bias.

Political rhetoric finds its way into post-bombing debate

QotD?: When is your mom’s birthday?

4/22/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.5 hours (WRPA, plus some work on my archives which I didn’t include in the time tracking)
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (fitful)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (injured foot)
Weight: n/a (couldn’t stand on scale due to injured foot)
Number of FEMA troops on my block faking evidence for climate change: 0
Currently reading: The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Australia, Books, Boston, Cool, Culture, economy, Food, guns, law, Links, music, nature, Personal, Politics, Process, Russia, Tech, weird, Writing

Posted: 5:02 am Mon April 22 2013 | Comments(4) |

[links] Link salad is lost in time like tears in the rain

Asimov’s for April/May 2013 (3 of 3) — In which my novella “The Stars Do Not Lie” is held up as an example of bad fiction. (Honor is restored, however.) Proving once again that the story truly does belong to the reader.

The Telegraph on Sex — Cora Buhlert with a roundup on British commentary on literary sex scenes. Mmm, literature.

A Photo Service That Understands the Contents of Your Images — Everpix organizes photos after analyzing them with software that can detect things such as animals, outdoor scenes, and people. Is this really a good idea?

SETI: The Artificial Transit Scenario

Massive flood scarred the surface of Mars less than 500 million years ago — Water carved channels at least 70 meters deep and 40 kilometers wide. Mmm, Missoula Flood on Mars.

Sinkhole Science: A Primer — An expert weighs in on causes—and which areas are most vulnerable.

2 Civil War sailors from the Monitor to be buried at Arlington

The Law of the Tongue — Humans have trouble honoring treaties with each other, what are the chances they’d respect a contract signed with another species? Pretty good … at least in one case. (Snurched from Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

NOTE: Do Not Kill Yeti Except in Self-Defense

Earth at its warmest since last ice age – and temperatures are still rising — More of those liberal “facts” and “data”, which of course being part of reality, good conservatives can safely ignore.

Antiscience “Academic Freedom” Bill Dies in Kansas — I have no doubt these same state governments will continue to try to pass bills that curb our children from learning and blind them to the real world. And while they do so, that very same world is still warming up. And species are still evolving. And the Universe adds another few years to its already considerable 13.73 billion year age. That’s the way things are. Ah, conservatives. Stunting the minds of children everywhere in America.

What China’s hackers get wrong about Washington — No one can carry out complicated plans. All parties and groups are fractious and bumbling. But everyone always thinks everyone else is efficiently and ruthlessly implementing long-term schemes. Um, maybe. (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

What happened to Orson Scott Card? — Now there’s a furor from the right, that this is a left wing witch hunt against people who disagree with their agenda, to economically punish those who don’t toe some political line. I disagree quite strongly. This is not some freedom of speech thing, not some despicable and childish refusal to engage with those who disagree politically. I would defend to the death Card’s right to speak his beliefs, but the hell if I have to stock it on my shelves if I’m the owner of a comic book store. And the hell if I have to draw the panels into which those words are written if I’m an artist. Card has the right to speak, but so do all these other people. To my view, Card’s depth of bigotry crosses the line from the usual conservative irrationality into something much akin to mental illness. He would literally condemn people I love to death: this isn’t reasonable disagreement over an objectively debatable point, this is vile poison that gains undue traction and attention due to Card’s prominence. I feel very, very sorry for the misery Card lives with inside his own head that makes him think this way.

Honey, I shrunk the bigots — A new study released today, and summarized by the Washington Post, shows that opposition gay marriage is shrinking, and now generally resides in only three pockets of Americans: white evangelicals; old people; and uneducated whites. The rest are basically on our side. It’s nice to be on the right side of both morality and history. Maybe someday the GOP will catch up.

Medicaid program helped Will Weatherford’s family after all, he admits — Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford reversed course on Wednesday and said that health care provided for his brother was covered under Florida’s Medically Needy program, which is financed by Medicaid. So ends a mystery that developed a day earlier when Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, voiced opposition to expanding Medicaid in his opening day speech of the 2013 legislative session. I am reminded of Craig T. Nelson’s angry, moronic remark that “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No.” Ah, once again we bathe in the light of the justly famed intellectual consistency of conservatives.

New York NRA Official Barred From Having Guns After Altercation With Wife — Yep. Guns definitely make us all safer, especially with the NRA safeguarding our right to threaten our spouses in the privacy of our own homes.

QotD?: Can you ever really go home?

3/8/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.75 hours (a little WRPA, 1,000 words of first draft on a requested short)
Hours slept: 7.5 hours (fitful, including two hours on the plane)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike, yay hotel gym!)
Weight: 241.6
Number of FEMA troops on my block escorting ACORN thugs to steal the votes of “Real Americans”: 0
Currently reading: Guards, Guards! by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Australia, China, climate, Fiction, Funny, guns, healthcare, history, Links, Mars, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, reviews, Science, sex, space, stories, Tech, weird

Posted: 5:48 am Fri March 08 2013 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad wishes it had a hammer

2013 Stories 5 and 6 — talekyn on my short story from Dark Faith, “The Cancer Catechism”.

Undercaffeinated Internet Link Sausage Makings — Scrivener’s Error with some good publishing links as well as some thoughts on the linguistics of the Constitution.

Awakening — Anesthesia and the brain. I probably shouldn’t read stuff like this right before having major surgery.

Corals discovered living in the dusk of the deep — The robotic expedition was made as part of the Seaview Survey by a team from the University of Queensland and shows that the Ribbon Reef—part of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—extends nearly twice as far down as previously thought.

Parasitic wasp larvae clean house by sanitizing cockroaches — I’ve been on dates like that.

The Scary Truth of Happy Meals — How a McDonald’s Happy Meal ages. Ick. (Via willyumtx.)

After a half-decade, massive Wikipedia hoax finally exposed — The Bicholim Conflict? (Snurched from Daily Idioms, Annoated —

Dear Mr. President: Time to Deal with Climate Change — Long past, but all the anti-intellectual confusion so deliberately sown by conservatives on behest of Big Oil and other interests has made the topic toxic. This as much as anything is what the GOP will be reviled for in another generation, after trillion dollar property losses and massive life losses, all accompanied by the already-too-late refrain, “We could have fixed this if only…

Climate Change is turning Australia Purple with Blazing Heat — Since they don’t have Republicans there, Australia is unfortunately allowed to experience the full awfulness of climate change.

Snow Cover Extent Declines in the Arctic — Just Mother Nature acting out another liberal lie. Climate change can’t be real because conservative ideology says so. Of course, conservative ideology also says evolution is false and supply side economics is real and gay marriage is socially destructive and guns are a social good, so there’s not a lot for an intellectually honest or self-aware person to hang their hat on there.

Tulsa megachurch says mother of raped 13-year-old girl is not entitled to claim $75K damages — And you shall know that they are Christians by their love.

Tribalism isn’t about feelings, it’s about the zero-sum outlook — If you think of yourself as part of the straight, white, male, Christian tribe, then you’ll defend the interests of that tribe against anyone who is not straight, white, male and Christian. Whether or not personal sentiments of antipathy are involved, the effect is the same. Which does a lot to explain the hate-based conservative voting patterns of so many otherwise apparently reasonable and humane people.

Church & state and ‘beliefs’ that believers don’t care about — I want a religious exemption from the widespread private ownership of firearms.

After Pinpointing Gun Owners, Paper Is a Target — Personal information about editors and writers at the paper has been posted online, including their home addresses and information about where their children attended school; some reporters have received notes saying they would be shot on the way to their cars; bloggers have encouraged people to steal credit card information of Journal News employees; and two packages containing white powder have been sent to the newsroom and a third to a reporter’s home (all were tested by the police and proved to be harmless). That’s American gun culture for you. Overreacting to the publication of already public information. How do these kind of threats convince anyone that gun owners are responsible? All they do is objectively reinforce my already abysmally low opinion of gun culture and gun owners.

A Republican model on gun control — Back when there were reasonable Republicans, a long-extinct species.

Aurora Townhouse Shooting: 4 Dead, Including Gunman — Nope. No problem with guns in this country. Just another proud gun owner exercising his theoretical defense of essential liberties and standing his ground. 80 deaths of other people a day is a small price for you to pay for owning your guns. Their blood is watering the tree of liberty, after all. Move along, citizen.

Palazzo Appealed for Federal Disaster Relief After Hurricane Katrina — Same guy who voted against Hurricane Sandy relief. No money for Northeast liberals! Stay classy, conservative America, it’s what you do best.

?otD: Would you hammer in the morning?

1/8/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (stress)
Hours slept: 7.5 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: n/a 217.0
Number of FEMA troops on my block teaching critical thinking skills to the children of conservatives: 0
Currently reading: The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks

Tags: Australia, Christianists, climate, Culture, Food, guns, healthcare, Language, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, reviews, sex, stories, weird

Posted: 6:23 am Tue January 08 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad is like an ice machine in the desert, a frozen oasis of steel

Alt Text: After Apple Map Flap, It’s Time for Apologies All Around — Hahah. (Via threeoutside.)

Not a grid, but a fleet — BLDGBLOG on cities and ships. Fascinating stuff.

Libertarians, engineers, and climate disruption denial: part 1 – libertarians

‘I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother’: A Mom’s Perspective On The Mental Illness Conversation In America — Sigh.

Not Protection — [T]his peer-reviewed 2009 study by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine study which concluded that people in possession of a gun were 4.5 times more likely to be shot during an assault than those who didn’t have a firearm. Not to mention the cost to the rest of us.

After a 1996 Mass Shooting, Australia Enacted Strict Gun Laws. It Hasn’t Had a Similar Massacre Since. — The genie really can be put back into the bottle, with sufficient respect for human life and sufficient political will. Both of which are lacking sorely in American gun culture. (Via David Goldman.)

Wow: Waiting for the Apocalypse — The Connecticut shooter’s mother was a survivalist who stocked up for the apocalypse. Um.

Following Sandy Hook massacre, lawmakers focus on possible assault weapons ban — I’m certain the NRA and the Republican Party will soon put a halt to this latest unconscionable assault on the shooter’s theoretical defense of their essential liberties. They always do.

?otD: Do you help to provide relief for the way that people feel?

12/17/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo brain)
Hours slept: 14.0 hours (11.0 hours fitful, 3.0 hours napping)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (post-chemo rest day)
Weight: 217.4
Number of FEMA troops on my block confiscating firearms and shutting down the Internet: 0
Currently reading: The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks

Tags: Australia, climate, Culture, Funny, guns, health, Links, Personal, Politics, Tech

Posted: 9:22 am Mon December 17 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad is here on a shore leave, though we are miles at sea.

Mountain Man — A very short film about me from Waterloo Productions. Which will make you laugh your ass off… (And yes, this really happened. It isn’t just clever editing.)

Jay Lake on “The Fathomless Abyss” — In which I am interviewed at SF Signal by Charles Tan.

Class, today’s word is irony — Banned books. Really, it’s not funny. (Via goulo.)

Incredible surreal volcanic riverscapes

ALT/1977: WE ARE NOT TIME TRAVELERS — But we damn well should be. This is hilarious. Retro gadgets.

Collier’s: Gorgeous Art, Breathtaking Ideas — Days of future past for the space program.

Do the Bacteria in Your Gut Also Influence Your Mind? — My world can certainly be all about the poop, but then I’m not a baseline case.

Scientists ask for legal safeguards to keep their work out of court — Oil spill researchers have their preliminary data subpoenaed by BP.

Great Barrier Reef has lost half its corals since 1985, new study says — Remember kids, climate change is a liberal hoax. The Republican party says so. Who are you going to believe? Conservatives, or the evidence? Really. Nothing to see here, citizen. Move along.

The Last Four Years in One Quote — Ah, the miracle of the conservative mind. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Food Stamp Ridicule Humiliates Woman At The Supermarket — This is a woman on dialysis, and public assistance, who says, “Most of the people that we have to choose from — Obama with his spending and his health care reform, and then Mitt Romney, he just wants to let poor people die, so either way we’re doomed. So I don’t see any point in voting.” That spending and that healthcare reform is what’s keeping her alive, but the conservative narrative so dutifully fostered in Your Liberal Media has convinced her it’s a bad thing for the government to work to keep her alive. I could weep for this country.

Feeding perceptions of the U.S. abroad — Wayne Swan has launched a blistering attack on US Republicans, declaring “cranks and crazies” have taken over the party and have come to represent the No 1 threat to the world’s biggest economy.

Arrested Man Snags Pics Of Cops Allegedly Searching His iPhone Without Subpoena — Huh, there’s an app for that?

Top Florida Republicans have no advice for election officials about voter fraud by … Republicans — But boy are they all over any potential fraud from likely Democratic voters. Because reasons. And ethics. Conservatives are made of ethics.

No, You’re the Racist, or Blogging About Obama Phones — Mmm, the gentle art of political suasion.

Telling Stories About Polls — What happens when conservative ideology conflicts with real world data, version 3,462. (Hint: reality never wins.)

Top Seven Errors President Obama has made on the Middle East — He’s not doing a hell of a lot better than R. Money threatens to.

?otD: Are you the mermaid who took King Neptune for a ride?

10/3/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hour (revisions to the novelette)
Body movement: 0.5 hour stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (interrupted, with napping)
Weight: 226.4
Currently reading: Heartland by Mark Teppo

Tags: Australia, Books, climate, Cool, Culture, documentary, Funny, healthcare, interviews, Links, media, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, Tech, Videos

Posted: 5:28 am Wed October 03 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad awakens once more, stretches and yawns

BAD WRITER, NO BISCUIT — Catherine Shaffer asks writers to share their shame. Heh.

Scenes From A Multiverse on writer’s block

Is Obama more Klingon or more Vulcan? & Michael Dorn Pitches “Captain Worf”

Applied Topology — More urban coolness from BLDG BLOG.

The Legend of the Tsar’s Finger

3.5 billion year old organic deposits show signs of life — Sediment in Australian rocks contains the isotopic signature of metabolism.

Armstrong’s death may speed Tranquility Base preservation — Effort is on to save lunar landing site for Apollo 11 mission as National Historic Landmark. (Via David Goldman)

Goodbye asteroid Vesta: NASA Dawn spacecraft to journey to dwarf planet Ceres

A Voyager Far From Home

Review: Raspberry Pi — Can a $35 computer persuade kids to put down their smartphones and try their hands at programming?

Utah Democrats split on party’s gay-marriage stance — Pssst. Hey. Conservative America. Listen up. Hate really isn’t a family value. You can cloak your homophobia in high minded church doctrine or moralistic rhetoric all you want, but at the end of the day using the force of law to tell people what they can’t do in their own lives simply because you don’t like it isn’t morally or ethically defensible. In this, as with so many other conservative positions of the past century and more, you are utterly on the wrong side of history.

The Invisible Man — Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Republican view of Obama.

The Hex on Paul Ryan

‘64 or Bust — The alleged rewards of Republican intransigence.

?otD: What were you doing at two in the morning?

9/5/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hour (revisions to Other Me)
Body movement: 60 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 6.0 (interrupted)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Heartland by Mark Teppo

Tags: Australia, Cool, Funny, gay, Links, moon, Personal, Politics, Process, Science, Tech, television, weird, Writing

Posted: 4:40 am Wed September 05 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad wanders into the weekend

SFWA Northwest Reading Series — I am part of the October edition of this august event, hosted by seanan_mcguire and also featuring mkhobson. Stay tuned for details and reminders.

Life Under the Microscope — The Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition. (Thanks to tillyjane.)

55 years ago, 6 stood under atomic bomb blast — on purpose

Report: Japan nuclear workers told to hide radiation levels — Clean and safe and too cheap to meter. Yep.

Stanford researchers produce first complete computer model of an organism

Kansas City Police End Standoff With Naked Archer — Lowering the Bar is hilarious.

Seriously inappropriate Tweet from the NRA yesterday — Mmm. Gun rights.

58 Murders a year by Firearms in Britain, 8,775 in US — The international comparisons show conclusively that fewer gun owners per capita produce not only fewer murders by firearm, but fewer murders per capita over all. In the case of Britain, firearms murders are 30 times fewer than in the US per capita.

The Body Count — Roger Ebert on the Colorado shootings. This: I’m tired of repeating the obvious. I know with a dread certainty that I will change nobody’s mind. I will hear conspiracy theories from those who fear the government, I will hear about the need to raise a militia, and I will hear nothing about how 9,484 corpses in a year has helped anything. That is a high price to pay. What depresses me is that half of my fellow countrymen are prepared to pay it.

How Long will We let the National Rifle Association and Corrupt Politicians Kill our Children? — Juan Cole on the shootings.

The Dream of Maximum Guns — Ta-Nehisi Coates on the shootings.

A list of mass shootings in the United States since 2005 — It is sixty-five pages long. Contrast our response to these events with the Australian response to the Port Arthur massacre. That is what a sane and safe society looks like. Not us here in America. (In part via danjite.)

George W. Bush to skip Republican National Convention — A crying shame, as I think the voting public needs a reminder of what happened the last time we elected Republican president: massive foreign wars, record deficits and nearly complete economic collapse. Luckily for the GOP, they and their friends in Your Liberal Media have convinced the public to blame Obama for what Bush did.

?otD: Who have you been grooving all week with?

7/21/2012
Writing time yesterday: 60 minutes (Going to Extremes outline)
Body movement: 60 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 7.0 (solid)
Weight: 237.4
Currently reading: Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

Tags: Australia, Conventions, events, Funny, guns, Japan, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, weird, Writing

Posted: 7:26 am Sat July 21 2012 | Comments(6) |

[links] Link salad looks back on Monday with rain in its eyes

Dark Faith Invocations Pre-Order — This includes my short story “The Cancer Catechism”.

The mega-epic pissing contest — Roger Ebert is snarky about film formats.

Powerhouse Museum Photo Collection — Some truly lovely old photos from Australia. (Thanks to threeoutside.)

Rodent thieves explain mystery of tree survival — Thievery by rodents moved an estimated 87 percent of seeds beyond the immediate vicinity of the parent tree, according to a study.

Future Mars rover may use bigger parachute, atomic clocks

Detecting Exoplanet Oceans

Can non-Newtonian fluid behavior explain stuck ketchup bottles?

The Eyes Don’t Have It: Lie Detection and Neuro-Linguistic Programming — (Via David Goldman.)

Dragon, L&H, Goldman Sachs… — Ah, me. Investment bankers are so highly paid precisely why?

What made the creationist footprints in the Giant’s Causeway visitor centre? — Nice to see Creationist idiocy isn’t confined to the United States. (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Get Fuzzy on true conservatives — Hahahah.

Climate change denial as real estate ploy? — Of course most leading climate change denialists are venal scam artists. They’re conservatives. Duh.

Five Obamacare Myths — Speaking of counterfactuals beloved by conservatives. (Ie, Republican lies.)

Romney’s Bain Yielded Private Gains, Socialized Losses — That’s what American conservatives mean by market forces. (Via danjite.)

The Romney Standard — Ta-Nehisi Coates on Mitt Romney’s laughable posturing over Bain Capital and his “retroactive retirement”.

The Strange Political Ineptitude of the Romney Campaign

?otD: Do rainy days and Mondays always get you down? What about automatic weapons?

7/17/2012
Writing time yesterday: 30 minutes (15 minutes on Going to Extremes outline, 15 minutes of WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.0 (interrupted)
Weight: 240.0
Currently reading: The Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

Tags: Australia, Books, Christianists, climate, Cool, Culture, economy, Food, Funny, healthcare, Links, Movies, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, stories

Posted: 5:27 am Tue July 17 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad goes walking in the rain

Urban fantasy author (and very good friend of mine) J.A. Pitts is having a book launch tour in July — He’ll be in Seattle, San Francisco and San Diego. Check him out if you can.

Modernity vs. Posterity — An interesting view of fantastic literature, specifically with some notes to near-future SF authors. Critics have long maintained that science fiction was, as a genre, a reaction to man’s discomfort with the machine age, citing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I think it arose because the future became, for the first time in history, more interesting than the past. (Via David Goldman.)

— Twitter answers the question “What technology from science fiction would you most like to see as science fact?”

Maledicta — Uncensored language research. Crank warning. Interesting but weird. (Thanks to martang.)

Rock of ages: Australia’s oldest artwork found — Archeologist discovers Aboriginal rock art made 28,000 years ago in Northern Territory cave.

YouTube riders avoid charges — Trike daredevils will not be charged. If you think about it, this is one of those “living in the future” stories.

Digital differences — Pew on the current state of the digital divide.

Air Force’s Secret X-37B Space Plane Lands in California After Mystery Mission

Jupiter’s Rings Revealed — Another awesome APOD image, along with the usual excellent explanation.

Three Things Make a Post — Andrew Wheeler on (among other things) what my friend elusivem calls “flying with amateurs”.

Our Most Important Food Rule and How to Break It: A Rant — All about food consumed while traveling. I am extremely guilty of this. (Thanks to willyumtx.)

Economists demonstrate exactly why bank robbery is a bad idea

RNC Latino Site Features Stock Photo of Asian Children — I believe they swiftly pulled this down, but well, to white conservatives, all those foreigners really do look alike, don’t they? (Via danjite.)

?otD: Having weather, are we?

6/18/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (brain break)
Body movement: 40 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 6.0 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Shattering the Ley by Benjamin Tate

Tags: Art, Australia, Culture, economy, Food, Funny, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, race, Science, Tech, Travel, Videos

Posted: 5:34 am Mon June 18 2012 | Comments(0) |

[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) |