Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad flies before the Flame of Udûn

Birthday Song’s Copyright Leads to a Lawsuit for the Ages — Ah, the magic of copyright. Especially in Happy Birthdayland. (Via tillyjane, a/k/a my Mom.)

Portland’s Hoyt Arboretum attempts to set the world’s tree hugging record — Because Portland! (Via @bobhole.)

Repairing Bad Memories — Hmm. No potential for abuse here.

Who Made That Mouse? — The history of a human interface. (Thanks to Dad.)

Scientists Moving 15-Ton Magnet From NY to Chicago — I think this was one of my word problems in 8th grade math.

Puffed-up hot Jupiters may be getting an electric charge — New model suggests they’re heated up by magnetic fields of solar wind.

The Pope’s Gay Panic — More moral bankruptcy from the greatest pedophilia shelter in history.

Why Dwindling Snow—Thanks Largely to Climate Change—Might Dry Out Los Angeles — I continue to be amazed at how liberal propaganda on climate change has fooled even reality itself. Thank God for Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party, or this country might have been able to do something about the problem before it got much, much worse. Which would be a shame, because that would have meant liberals were right. Every good conservatives knows it’s far better to drown Miami and dry out Los Angeles than let any part of the liberal agenda succeed.

What Sweden Can Tell Us About Obamacare — Last month, for the 37th time, the House of Representatives voted to repeal Obamacare, with many Republicans saying that its call for greater government involvement in the health care system spells doom. Yet most other industrial countries have health care systems with far more government involvement than we are ever likely to see under Obamacare. What does their experience tell us about Republican fears? Groundless paranoia has long been the conservative stock-in-trade on almost every issue — that’s how you manufacture more angry white men, after all, which by the GOP’s own admission is its key political strategy. Why should healthcare be any different?

Antonin Scalia Does Not Believe in Molecular Biology — Duh. He’s a Republican. The GOP has spent the past decades very carefully and deliberately privileging willful ignorance over either science or evidence-based critical thinking. What else would we expect? (Via shsilver.)

QotD?: Would you stand and fight?

6/17/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (too many errands, not enough time)
Hours slept: 5.75 hours solid
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 248.0
Number of FEMA troops on my block leaking intelligence secrets: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg; Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Tags: climate, Cool, gay, healthcare, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Portland, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech, weird

Posted: 5:03 am Mon June 17 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad wanders into Friday

A reader reacts to Kalimpura — Generally rather favorable. I loved this bit: There are several big themes in the book that I really like too. First, Green is a bad-ass queer woman of color. Her story isn’t about any of those aspects of her, they just are facts about her. Sometimes those facts contribute to her interactions with other characters and sometimes they don’t. This is so important. Especially because Green is young and brave and flawed and impetuous and foolish and special all at once. She’s an individual, not a stereotype, and we need more of those depictions of queer women of color in our literature.

Bride of the Girl Cooties — Cora Buhlert with an excellent link roundup and commentary on the current iteration of arguments about gendering in SF.

Will McIntosh, On Choosing a Title for Your Novel — I’ve had a things or two to say about this in the past. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

The Secret to a Video-Game Phenomenon — I always thought Minecraft is what Lego should have invented.

The Renaissance Military Compass — Ok, that is cool. 500 year old milspec technology. Scroll down a bit when you land on the page. (Thanks to threeoutside.)

Excel Is An Art Form: These Beautiful Images Are Proof — Wow. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

U.S. Supreme Court Says “Natural” Human Genes May Not Be Patented — Huh. Some unlooked-for sanity in patent law.

Gene/culture co-evolution

Oxygen mystery: How marine mammals hold their breath

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories — Because reasons, damn it! (Thanks to David Goldman.)

Antarctic ice melting from below, finds study — Ice loss in Antarctica is largely driven by warm ocean currents, a discovery that could lead to more accurate predictions of sea level rise. Must be scuba diving liberals with blow torches. Everyone knows climate change is a fraud, no matter what the evidence says.

‘Spiritual’ young people more likely to commit crimes than ‘religious’ ones — Which is why atheists are one of the most distrusted groups in America. No, wait, what…? (Thanks to shsilver.)

California Prepares for Fallout as High Court Ruling on Prop. 8 Nears — Prop 8 is institutionalized bigotry driven in large part by funding from the Mormon Church, which has joined the Catholic Church as an example of total failure of moral leadership and social conscience because of that. It would be very nice to see Utah’s exported religiously-branded hate run back out of California.

[Iowa GOP governor] Terry Branstad May Need To Approve Medicaid Abortion Funding — Yes. Every single one of them. Because one thing conservatives believe absolutely is that the government shouldn’t come between you and your doctor. Which is what makes Obamacare evil and government oversight of abortions good… that much-vaunted conservative intellectual consistency. You know how much Republicans hate those situational ethics. (Via scarlettina.)

GOP congressman Trent Franks: It’s hard to get pregnant from rape — Republicans apparently cannot keep themselves from being both vile and stupid on this topic.

QotD?: Force choke or Vulcan nerve pinch?

6/14/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (too many errands, not enough time)
Hours slept: 5.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 246.8
Number of FEMA troops on my block leaking intelligence secrets: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg; Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Art, Books, climate, Cool, Culture, gay, gender, Kalimpura, law, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, reviews, Science, Tech, weird, Writing

Posted: 5:36 am Fri June 14 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad for a JayFest Thursday

Altitude May Influence Language Sounds — The lower air pressure at high altitudes may be a factor in why ejective consonants are more popular in languages spoken higher up.

What Will Humans Look Like in 100,000 Years? Here’s a Guess — Callista Flockhart, apparently. And white, totes white.

Paper Dolls: 1960s TV Stars — For all your retro needs.

Virus That Evolved in the Lab Delivers Gene Therapy into the Retina

Does the Big Bang necessarily mean we’re part of a multiverse?

Mapping Color Names — Oooh. Cool.

The Surprising History and Science of Tear Gas

The lost city of Heracleion — Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

New York’s Sea-Level Plan: Will It Play in Miami? — Once again I am reminded that there is no objective reason for climate change to be a partisan issue. Just reflexive conservative hatred of anything liberals care about, as well as the usual GOP contrarianism, in play over what in retrospect will prove to be the biggest and costliest mistake in the history of human civilization.

To Stop Being the Party of Stupid You Must Stop Being Stupid — If you are not around people who will look at you like you are crazy when you make stupid claims about other people’s experiences, then you tend to keep saying stupid things about other people’s experiences. It is not enough to pay a political price, or even to be shamed into silence. You have to come to believe — in your heart — that sincerity itself is not the same as accurate information. That’s the awesome socially engineered glory of the conservative media echo chamber: epistemic closure that keeps its followers from ever needing to question themselves or examine any evidence that contradicts their cherished worldview. As a political strategy, it has been brilliant. As a cultural strategy, it is profoundly toxic and counterproductive, even to conservative interests.

QotD?: What did you do with that book?

6/13/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (too many errands, not enough time)
Hours slept: 4.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 246.4
Number of FEMA troops on my block leaking intelligence secrets: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg; Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Tags: climate, Cool, Culture, healthcare, Language, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, Tech, weird

Posted: 4:36 am Thu June 13 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad wishes its parents a happy anniversary

What Makes Fiction Good? It’s Mostly the Voice — Ta-Nehisi Coates on reading Slaughterhouse Five.

A Glamorous Killer Returns — Cougars in the east.

Marks on Martian Dunes May Reveal Tracks of Dry Ice Sleds — Calvin and Hobbes go to Mars?

New phylum of bacteria found lurking in hospital sink’s drain — Its genome hints that it may live inside some other organism. Don’t wash your hands!

Slaying the Zombie Ideas of Climate Change Denial — These are ideas that cannot be killed, no matter how thoroughly they are debunked. They always rise to shamble again, reanimated by the deniosphere. “The hockey stick is broken,” “the world hasn’t warmed in 16 years,” “Antarctic ice is growing.” These ideas are all wrong, demonstrably so, but they are still walking the countryside, looking to eat innocent people’s brains. Good luck with that so long as conservatives continue to have political and cultural credibility.

Parents to hear evidence in 2 faith-healing deaths — Child abuse and neglect are not First Amendment rights, no matter how sincerely held your personsal beliefs might be. It’s extreme cases like this which highlight the fact that religion does not belong in the public square in a free and democratic society.

If work is a responsibility, then work is also a right — Slacktivist Fred Clark deconstructs yet another piece of pointless and cruel Christianist political lunacy.

Prostitution, drugs alleged in State Department memo — Hmm. A lot of people are out to get Mrs. Clinton these days. Wonder what they’re scared of?

The Top 1% of U.S. Income Earners Receive 15% of Tax Breaks and Credits — People complain about government payments to the poor, but tax breaks are also payments, though less obviously so, to the rich. And those tax breaks cost the government a lot more money.

QotD?: Got celebration?

6/12/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (too many errands, not enough time)
Hours slept: 6.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 246.2
Number of FEMA troops on my block leaking intelligence secrets: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg; Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Christianists, climate, healthcare, Links, Mars, nature, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, Science, Writing

Posted: 5:11 am Wed June 12 2013 | Comments(6) |

[links] Link salad hears the voice of reason, disregards

Iain Banks dies of cancer aged 59 — Author Iain Banks has died aged 59, two months after announcing he had terminal cancer, his family has said. Sigh.

An oil painting of Green — By artist Lindsey Look. This is cool.

Jade de Jay Lake — An apparently favorable review of the French translation of Green.

Almost All the Way Home From the Stars is now available as a trade paperback — Collaborative fiction from me and specficrider.

Unpacking the “Real Writers Have Talent” Myth — Yup. This. I’ve said for years you need some combination of talent, persistence and luck-facilitated-through-professionalism, but you don’t need all three. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

What Game of Thrones Season 3 Did Better — And Worse — Than the Book

Vintage Buses — Ooh. Though when it comes to buses, I always wanted one of these.

Human-scale invisibility cloak unveiled — I see what they did there, with that headline.

100 years after ore boat disappeared in Lake Superior storm, searchers locate wreck

Department of Unusual Ordnance Finds — Huh. Increment charges. Who knew? (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Old Opportunity Mars rover makes rock discovery — Ah, clay.

Waiting on new climate deal ‘will set world on a path to 5C warming’ — International Energy Agency chief economist says rising emissions make limiting increase to 2C ‘extremely challenging’ As always, the real world doesn’t conform to conservative ideology. History will be baffled that one country’s minority political party whose ideology is based on blatant and knowing counterfactuals managed to hold the entire word hostage and cause trillions of dollars worth of damage in the process.

Biblical Marriage Not Defined Simply As One Man, One Woman: Iowa Religious Scholars’ Op-Ed — “The debate about marriage equality often centers, however discretely, on an appeal to the Bible,” the authors wrote. “Unfortunately, such appeals often reflect a lack of biblical literacy on the part of those who use that complex collection of texts as an authority to enact modern social policy.” That’s the Republican party sorted right there. Too bad no one in conservative circles ever listens to reality-based messages like this.

Civil Disobedience on a Turkish Game Show — That is some serious courage. (Via danjite.)

I’m Not A Conservative And You Shouldn’t Be One Either — What if the problem with your political party is that the policies it advocates are bad? You can’t fix that problem by “rebranding” the same platform or finding younger, less-white candidates to promote it. You definitely can’t fix it by leaning into your failed policies and becoming more extreme.

Its the Corporations, Stupid: Why we are 2nd Amendment Fundamentalists but the 4th Amendment doesn’t Count — Actually, it’s the conservatives, who will hold the line on the 2nd Amendment no matter how many tens of thousands of people die every year, but otherwise believe you can’t use your civil liberties if you’re dead, and are willing to legislate away the entire rest of the Bill of Rights for fear of Muslims in America’s bathroom.

QotD?: Got any good advice?

6/10/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.75 hours (WRPA)
Hours slept: 6.5 hours (interrupted)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 246.8
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornados for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg

Tags: Art, Books, Cancer, cars, Christianists, climate, Cool, economy, Links, Mars, media, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, reviews, Science, stories, Tech, weird, Writing

Posted: 4:47 am Mon June 10 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad asks where did you come from, where did you go?

Waving My Tweak Flag High — On the process of revision. (Thanks to David Goldman.)

Timbuktu Libraries in Exile — Help us preserve a global cultural heritage from imminent loss and become part of the great learning adventure of Timbuktu. Fundraising for a profoundly worthy cause. (Via threeoutside.)

Looking It in the Face — On aging and death… (Via David Wilford.)

What Is Capuling? ‘Everyday I’m Çapuling’ Turkish Protest Video Goes Viral — Language and culture in motion. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Most European males ‘descended from farmers’ — Most men in Europe can trace a line of descent to early farmers who migrated from the Near East, a study says. Why is this surprising? (Via my Dad.)

Museum Bares All For Cycle Exhibition — Clothing is optional, of course. Riders will be charged one dollar admission for each item they wear. Portland Police recommend all cyclists wear a helmet, at the bare minimum. Ah, Portland.

Physics’s pangolin — Trying to resolve the stubborn paradoxes of their field, physicists craft ever more mind-boggling visions of reality. Interesting stuff. (Via AH.)

Mars rover Opportunity finds traces of ‘drinkable’ water

Atomic bomb tests confirm formation of new brain cells — Newly created neurons marked with isotopes from bomb tests. Because Science!

Contact Lens Computer: Like Google Glass, without the Glasses — Finally, retinal displays!

West Texas Oilfield Town Runs Out of Water — All those rural liberals in West Texas are just contributing to the climate change conspiracy.

4-year-old boy accidentally kills dad in Arizona — Because guns make us all safer. Just ask the 30,000 people killed in the United States every year by firearms. If you’re confused, the NRA and the GOP can explain.

Response to an Open Letter — Hal Duncan speaks brilliantly to wounded, self-valorizing Christian privilege from an atheist (and nonheteronormative) perspective.

If I Were a Black Kid… — Ta-Nehisi Coates on education. Though he’s speaking specifically of black youth, some of his comments are spot on for kids in any enclosed community, such as Christian homeschoolers or small towns.

#GOPHeartsLadies (video) — A great video from Emily’s Lists, titled #GOPHeartsLadies, walking us through the offensive things Republicans have said about women in just the past seven days. And Republicans wonder why they have a demographic problem. They just can’t stop longing for the days of white, male, dominance.

QotD?: What the heck did cotton-eyed Joe ever do to you?

6/8/2013
Writing time yesterday: 2.75 hours (revisions to “Rock of Ages”)
Hours slept: 6.5 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 247.9
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornados for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Christianists, climate, coo, gender, guns, healthcare, Language, Links, Mars, nature, Personal, Politics, Portlnd, Process, race, Religion, Tech, Texas, Videos, weird, Writing

Posted: 6:14 am Sat June 08 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad posits a spherical cow of uniform density

Roger Ebert on Kindness — Ah, me. (Thanks to threeoutside.)

More Fun With Jeremy Bentham — And people think I’m weird…

Is our genome a straitjacket or a comfy sweater? — We can’t know how significant epigenetics is until scientists define it.

Aurora over Oregon’s Mt. Hood this weekend — Beautiful. And darn it, I’ve been hoping to see this for years, but was out of town the weekend it happened. (Via David Goldman.)

A Scarred Landscape in Oklahoma — A satellite view of tornado damage.

Extinct lizard named after The Doors’ singer Jim Morrison

Scientists solve 3.5 billion-year-old mystery of life and its link to meteorites — Phosphorous from outer space?

Barns Are Painted Red Because of the Physics of Dying Stars — Cool. I mean, I knew this science, but this example is a neat way to make the connection to that science. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Endangered Coral Reefs Die as Ocean Temperatures Rise and Water Turns Acidic — The lengths liberals will go to for their global warming hoax. Imagine what we could accomplish if we used our powers for good? Thank God for Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party, or we might have to do something about all this.

Komen breast cancer charity cancels walks in seven U.S. cities — Good. Given that Komen has become a political front group shilling for conservative America’s anti-woman obsessions, those cancer dollars need to go somewhere else where they will actually help people in need, and support the research that will benefit them.

QotD?: Know any good physicist jokes?

6/5/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (WRPA, specifically editing time on METAtropolis: Green Space)
Hours slept: 6.5 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (feet hurt)
Weight: n/a (traveling)
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornados for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, climate, Cool, Culture, Links, nature, Oregon, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, space, weird

Posted: 2:52 am Wed June 05 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad wakes up in the Midwest covered in clown makeup

Jay Lake: The Stars Do Not Lie — A Finnish review, which insofar as I can tell through the good offices of Google Translate is rather tepid.

Apple, betrayed by its own law firm — Lawyer-turned-”troll” started planning patent suit six days after iPhone launch. Because ethics!

Iron in Egyptian relics came from space — Meteorite impacts thousands of years ago may have helped to inspire ancient religion.

A Roll Cloud Over Uruguay — These are so cool. I’ve never seen one.

Unapproved genetically modified wheat from Monsanto found in Oregon field — Sigh. As it happens, I think GMO panic is significantly overblown (unless you’re also afraid of livestock breeding and crop varieties), but this isn’t how it should work.

Study sees climate upside in greening arid regions — Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a “fertilization effect” on plants in arid regions that has contributed to the flourishing of foliage there, Australian researchers report.

Shame on a Paddy — More on the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland, and Catholic apologist Bill Donohue. In case after all the high level pedophilia coverups you still somehow thought the Catholic Church was a force for good in the world.

Former chair of TX GOP: Grover Norquist is a Muslim because he has a beard — The conservative stupid, it burns. On the other hand, it’s kind of fun to watch them eat each other’s young.

Far-Right Extremists Chased Through London by Women Dressed as Badgers — Because we live in the future! (Thanks to threeoutside.)

QotD?: Ever wear a pair of size 65s?

6/2/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (revisions to “Rock of Ages”)
Hours slept: 6.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (feet hurt)
Weight: n/a (traveling)
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornadoes for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Apple, Christianists, climate, Cool, history, Links, nature, Oregon, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, review, Science, space, stories

Posted: 3:42 am Sun June 02 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad for a sleepy Friday

Why John O’Halloran shaved his head mustache and beard — For Christine, and for me. Go read this.

Jay Lake, Alien Hunter — The recent Waterloo Productions video in a non-Facebook environment.

Jay Lake’s Tub (and on being a newer writer) — Writing advice, which I originally got from Dean Wesley Smith and Kris Rusch. The tub is not original to me.

The System: C’est La Wifi — Haha. We had exactly this discussion in my house earlier this week.

Sad Cat Diary — Hahaha. (Via David Goldman.)

Great tweets of science — Hahahahah.

Parents have gastric bypass; children’s DNA may receive the benefits — It’s epigenetics: Kids’ gene expression may occur a generation after surgery.

Neuron growth in children ‘leaves no room for memories’ — The reason we struggle to recall memories from our early childhood is down to high levels of neuron production during the first years of life, say Canadian researchers. I have very few memories prior to age seven. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Mars mission astronauts face radiation exposure risk — Ya think?

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Discovers Evidence for Ancient Streambed and Flowing Water

Oceans Under the Ice Worlds? — This is intensely cool.

How the turtle got its unique hard shell — How the turtle shell evolved has puzzled scientists for years, but new research sheds light on how their hard shells were formed. The really great thing about science is how it institutionalizes uncertainty. No easy answers, no hard truths, just a continual process of observation and evidence gathering and refinement of theory.

Slow-motion 7.0 earthquake drags on for 5 months under New Zealand

Northern Ireland Town Fakes Prosperity for G8 Summit — Um…

The Questions People Get Asked About Their Race — Wow…

Pundits get more followers for being confident than correct — Dunning-Kruger FTW!

As Glaciers Melt, Alpine Mountains Lose Their Glue, Threatening Swiss Village — It’s amazing, the lengths liberals will go to for their global warming hoax. Thank God for Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party, otherwise we might have to do something about this before it’s too late.

What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers? — Wow. Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson actually said this. Replace “humanity” with “my bank account” and that’s conservatism in a nutshell. They’re not even pretending any more.

Big Utah Gun Rights Advocate Arrested, Accused Of Domestic Violence — Yep. We are definitely all so much safer, especially with guns in the hands of people like this gentleman and all he represents.

Rick Perry Vetoes “Buy American” Bill Approved 145-0 by Texas House — Because patriotism! (Via shsilver.)

Imprisoned CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou Pens “Letter from Loretto”

Michele Bachmann is gone, but her paranoid politics has become the norm for GOP

Lincoln Chafee’s long journey from Republican to Democrat — But what’s remarkable is that someone with Chafee’s priorities was once a Republican. Chafee left the GOP six years ago, largely because he had decided it had squandered its mantle as a party of fiscal responsibility. Yep. Reality will do that to you. If you’re in favor of fiscal responsibility, strong on defense, and interested in pro-business economic growth, the GOP is not the party for you based on the historical record of both major parties in the past thirty years. If you’re in favor of social justice, income equality, consumer protection, jobs or the environment, the GOP has never been the party for you. What’s left? Proudly fact-free rhetoric bent on generating angry white men is all I can see.

QotD?: What week is this?

5/31/2013
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (revisions to “Rock of Ages”)
Hours slept: 6.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: n/a (forgot)
Number of FEMA troops on my block scamming disaster aid slush funds: 0
Currently reading: Thud by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, climate, Cool, economy, Funny, guns, health, healthcare, Ireland, Links, Mars, media, nature, New Zealand, Personal, Politics, Process, race, Science, space, Tech, Texas, Videos, Writing

Posted: 5:07 am Fri May 31 2013 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad is back at the keyboard once more

Temas en La ciencia ficción (XIII): El clockpunk

Eefing — Huh? (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Would Smell As Sweet: Geo-popularity of Given Names — Apparently I dwell in Sophialand.

Vintage embalming supplies

xkcd on crank cancer cures — You must read the mouseover.

Centuries-old frozen plants revived — Plants that were frozen during the “Little Ice Age” centuries ago have been observed sprouting new growth, scientists say.

Wanted for the Internet of Things: Ant-Sized Computers — A computer two millimeters square is the start of an effort to make chips that can put computer power just about anywhere for the vaunted “Internet of Things.”

Data Won the Election. Now Can It Save the World? — Mmm. Big Data.

The Arctic Ice “Death Spiral”

Why do Muslims keep having to explain themselves? — We hate Islamicist brutes more than any outsiders ever could.

Naming the Perpetrator: Language and “Violence Against Women” — Oddly, I was just thinking about this recently, in the context of cringing at the kind of jokes we found acceptable in my middle school years ca. 1977-1979.

The Obamacare Shock — So yes, it does look as if there’s an Obamacare shock coming: the shock of learning that a public program designed to help a lot of people can, strange to say, end up helping a lot of people — especially when government officials actually try to make it work.

American exceptionalism is a dangerous myth — Move beyond Tea Party lies and phony patriotism. This Memorial Day, let’s remember our history honestly.

Supreme Court lifts time limit on some ‘actual innocence’ appeals — In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court removes the one-year limit on federal appeals for prisoners who can make a ‘convincing showing of actual innocence.’ Because to court conservatives, your right to be railroaded by police and prosecutors is far more important than your innocence.

Rep. Bachmann will not run for reelection in 2014 — Bachmann, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, said her decision to leave office in 2014 also was not influenced by an ongoing federal investigation into allegations of financial impropriety in her presidential campaign. I’m amazed. I thought the Dunning-Kruger ticket was invincible within the Republican base.

CIA Whistleblower who revealed Torture is still in Jail; Torturers walk Free — Just in case you somehow believe that Obama is a good guy. This is Bush-grade political cowardice.

QotD?: Did you miss me?

5/29/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (computer logistics)
Hours slept: 5.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 248.2
Number of FEMA troops on my block scamming disaster aid slush funds: 0
Currently reading: Thud by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, climate, Culture, gender, healthcare, Language, Links, music, nature, Personal, Politics, Religion, Tech, weird, Writing

Posted: 5:14 am Wed May 29 2013 | Comments(2) |