[links] Link salad listens for that high, lonesome sound
Fantasy interviews ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
calendula_witch and me — See also our new story, “In the Emperor’s Garden“.
Steampunk: 20 Core Titles — Mainspring makes the Library Journal list. Huzzah!
In case you missed it, “The vorpal copy editor” [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] — For the record, I love my copy editors. They do an immense amount to ensure my art and craft reach you, the reader, as I intended rather than as I hath sometimes wrought. But copy edits are still weird, at the best of times.
From the department of overnight reacharounds, yesterday’s post on “Privileging the extroverts” [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] — This has developed a fascinating, thoughtful comment thread, especially on the LiveJournal side. If you’re interested in this topic, very much worth the read.
saycestsay with a sympathy shave — I love my friends.
Searching for Another Earth — More exoplanetary goodness. Interestingly, contrast the presentation of this Technology Review story with that of Centauri Dreams on the same topic.
“My hovercraft is full of eels” — In how many languages? (Thanks to shelly_rae.)
Would you volunteer to eat school lunch every day to prove a point? This teacher did. — (Thanks to seventorches.)
?otD: Where is she going when she follows you down for the kill?
3/18/2010
Writing time yesterday: 60 minutes
Body movement: 30 minutes on stationary bike
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 230.2
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 5/10 (shedding day)
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: Books, Calendula, Cancer, Culture, Funny, health, interviews, Language, Links, Personal, Process, Science, shellyrae, stories, Writing
Posted: 4:18 am Thu March 18 2010 | Comments(0) |
[process] Privileging the extroverts
jess_ka, talking about the process of writing, made an offhand observation that struck me as very powerful.
Face it, extroverts are privileged in our society. That everyone else should have to follow suit in order to gather more attention and, thereby, success, is exhausting to those of us who simply are not extroverts.
Though I’m not sure “privileged” is exactly the term I’d use here, I take her point. Society skews toward people who can speak well, exude social energy, draw constructive attention. Eric Witchey has used the term “bending light” to refer to this kind of interaction.
I’ve written before here about my own struggles with being forced by cancer and chemotherapy into an introvert’s lifestyle despite my nigh-pathological extroversion. My emotional and social needs are still those of an extrovert, but my body’s needs are very much those of an introvert. With all love and respect to my variously introverted friends (and you guys definitely know who you are), how the hell do you do it?
What does this privileging mean? I don’t know. Another of those things I need to untangle for myself a while. But it does seem important, especially given the wide variety of socialization and public behaviors we as writers are notoriously stereotypical for.
Are you an extrovert?
Does society (or writerdom/fandom) privilege you for that?
Would you be if you could?
I miss bending light, myself, down here inside the chemo well. But I’m climbing out.
Tags: Cancer, Culture, health, Personal, Process, Writing
Posted: 5:07 pm Wed March 17 2010 | Comments(11) |
[links] Link salad wonders about a-words
Talking Back to Your TV, Incessantly — Speaking of Tweetsnark. And now, new high tech ways to say, “Hey, you kids, get off my lawn.”
What Makes the Healthiest and Happiest Societies? Hint: It’s Not Wealth — A little healthcare, a little social justice. (Thanks to daveraines.)
Saving Ryan’s Privatization — Ah, framing…
Bachmann: We’re Not Going To Obey Health Care Law — ‘We Don’t Have To’ — Remember when conservatives stood for the rule of law? Nah, me neither.
?otD: Annelids or analects?
3/16/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0 minutes (post-infusion day)
Body movement: (to come)
Hours slept: 7.0 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 228.0
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 4/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: Culture, healthcare, Links, media, Personal, Politics
Posted: 4:01 am Tue March 16 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad wakes up without a needle in its chest
In case you missed it yesterday, my post on Chemo, sex, Viagra and me [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]
Culture of Corpulence — American innovations in food, transportation, and technology are threatening to supersize us all.
Giant meat-eating plants prefer to eat tree shrew poo — The largest meat-eating plant in the world is designed not to eat small animals, but small animal poo. You couldn’t make this shit up.
Bryan Clift sees a 10 foot penis — Probably it was only six feet.
We Wouldn’t Want To Be Simplistic And Naive, Now, Would We? — Daniel Larison on nuance in politics and media, specifically with respect to the Iraq War.
“Jesus was a Nazi. So’s your preacher” — Roger Ebert on Glenn Beck. I’ve always assumed Rush Limbaugh was a rank opportunist who didn’t care what damage he did to politics and society so long as he mae his bucks. I am starting to think Beck believes his own crazy, and wants to poison the well of American culture.
?otD: How green is your valley?
3/15/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0 minutes (infusion day)
Body movement: 45 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 6.0 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (forgot)
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 5/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: Cancer, chemo, Culture, Funny, health, Links, Personal, Politics, Science, sex
Posted: 4:14 am Mon March 15 2010 | Comments(3) |
[links] Link salad slopes off to the infusion center
A reader reacts to my short story “Human Error” — He seems to have liked it.
Notes on Time — benpeek on the unbearable lightness of waiting time in the publishing industry.
Zombie Charlie Brown — Lio is funny.
I attempt to sell my car on Craigslist with a haiku ad
Last Words — A sobering article about inmates’ last words at the execution chamber.
The Jay Lake Incident — Unlocking the mystery of an unknown primate in North America. Heh. (Thanks to shelly_rae.)
Kids today — How do you say, “Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!” in Latin?
Safe and Affordable Jetpack: Just $90,000 — Mmm. The future. (Thanks to shelly_rae.)
DR Congo ring may be giant ‘impact crater’ — Deforestation has revealed what could be a giant impact crater in Central Africa, scientists say. The 36-46km-wide feature, identified in DR Congo, may be one of the largest such structures discovered in the last decade. (Snurched from Bad Astronomy, which has more commentary on this.)
Orange Dwarf Star Set to Smash Into The Solar System — Watch the skies!
LHC to shut down for a year to address design faults — Maybe their hadrons were too large? (Thanks to my brother.)
This Year in Jerusalem — Scrivener’s Error on speech, religion and society.
Religious antivax sect implicated in deaths of 100 children — Beliefs are not freely substitutable for data or facts. No matter how sincerely held, or divinely inspired.
Where’s Our Ensign Frenzy? — Republicans, in other words, have demanded higher moral standards of all of us, while failing to meet these standards themselves — and failing to ostracize the guilty from their ranks. It’s quite a racket, which the media encourages by playing along. They judge, and persecute, because they know they will not be judged or persecuted themselves, despite what their Bible says. (See Matthew 7:1-5, in case you’ve been neglecting your scriptural studies lately.)
?otD: Where do you like your needles?
3/12/2010
Writing time yesterday: 75 minutes (including WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 232.8
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 2/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: cars, Cool, Culture, Funny, Links, Personal, Politics, Religion, reviews, Science, stories, Videos
Posted: 6:51 am Fri March 12 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad can’t touch that
The comment thread in my post of yesterday on language etymology and word choicse is quite amazing — Go check it out.
A Whiff of Colonialism — rosefox on the Spinrad column, and non-Eurocentric writing. The discussion isn’t the least bit about me, quite the opposite, but it does cause me to consider myself. This is a complex topic for me, because of my own background. I’m solidly in the privileged class of white, male, Anglo-Saxon, tall(ish), well-educated, well-employed, etc. etc. Yet I spent most of my childhood in non-white, non-Anglophone countries, and I have a non-white daughter growing up in my house. My experience of culture, privilege and race is far more complex than you could ever assume from seeing my face in an author photo, or reading my utterly English name on a book spine. Yet one of the reasons I’ve generally stopped talking about race and culture on this blog is that every time I do, a meaningful portion of readers see my name and face and assume I’m another clueless privileged white guy, and respond accordingly with either vitriol, scorn or earnest attempts at re-education. It’s hardly a tragedy for the public discourse that some privileged white guy’s words about race have been tuned out, but it saddens me personally to self-censor.
Syphilis: Menace to Industry — Classic poster art. Somehow I never quite thought of industrial productivity as a primary motivator for safe sex.
Constructing a marble machine — Impressive (and obsessive) as all get out. (Thanks to willyumtx.)
Habitable Planets: Working the Odds — Drake, Drake, duck!
Still Taking Exception — Daniel Larison on American Exceptionalism, Obama, and his critics on the Right.
?otD: What color are your parachute pants?
3/11/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1 hours
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 231.4
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: Art, Cool, Culture, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Science, Writing
Posted: 5:50 am Thu March 11 2010 | Comments(2) |
[links] Link salad is green and crunchy
Lost Jewish tribe ‘found in Zimbabwe’ — Fascinating.
Is it true every type of animal dropping has its own name? — The Straight Dope with your vocabulary lesson for the day.
The Jobs of Yesteryear: Obsolete Occupations — A nifty photo essay from NPR.
The Accident, Part 2 — Another haunting image, from the same incident as yesterday’s Shorpy link.
New Rocket Engine Could Reach Mars in 40 Days
Literacy and the sex ratio — Sigh.
Vatican hit by gay sex scandal — Vatican chorister sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for papal gentleman-in-waiting. Those who live by the sword…
The Dogs Will Eat You Because They Are Dogs — When George W. Bush was wrecking the nation, left wing groups talked in terms of organization for elections or of impeachment. These [right wing] groups talk in terms of armed resistance. Yes, that.
Why health care reform is not a “huge progressive victory” — Clearly something has gone terribly wrong since 1965. The ideological barriers against solving national problems through public provision rather than through the logic of profit maximization have increased enormously.
?otD: Do you like pickles?
3/9/2010
Writing time yesterday: 4.0 hours
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 232.8
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 2/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: Culture, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, Science
Posted: 5:39 am Tue March 09 2010 | Comments(2) |
[links] Link salad for a rain forest Sunday
Flickr’s Season Wheel — Now this is cool.
Ken Miller can’t win? P.Z. and me gets pwned. — Journalism and biased story.
The economy is hitting us all pretty hard — Hahahaha.
Catholic Charities Ends Spousal Benefits — n a bid to avoid inadvertently providing spousal benefits to gay men and women who happen to be employees, Catholic Charities of Washington, D.C. , has taken the extraordinary step of ending spousal benefits for all of its employees, the Washington City Paper reports. Stay classy, conservative America. It’s what you do best, along with forcing women to remain pregnant, ruining the economy, and launching trillion dollar wars of choice.
?otD: How tall is your tree?
3/7/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1 hour
Body movement: 60 minute rural walk
Hours slept: 9.5 (slept very well, plus naps)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 2/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: Art, Cool, Culture, Funny, Links, media, Personal, Photos, Politics
Posted: 9:10 am Sun March 07 2010 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad is watching the detectives
Ursula K. LeGuin interviewed on the Google Books Settlement — I continue to refer to GBS as “banal evil”, but I suspect Ms. LeGuin would drop the adjective. And she swings a much bigger bat than I do. (Snurched from scarlettina.)
Printing body parts — Ok, this is just freaking cool.
B-24 over Ploeisti — Striking WWII photo from x planes.
Mod 1966 ad for Frigidaire refrigerators and freezers — Check out the model’s costuming in this ad. Wow. I think we need a space age fashion revival.
OInternational Space Station comes together — A cool animation of the construction process. (Thanks to KOF.)
And a gorgeous photo of the ISS, from APOD
Is Democracy Killing Democracy? — The founding fathers saw this coming, but the walls they erected to contain the mob may no longer hold. Tea Party, anyone? Or for that matter, Coffee Party? (Thanks to my Dad for that link.) The GOP has always had it wrong. Government isn’t the enemy, government is us.
Right-wing media praise Bunning for blocking worker pay, relief to unemployed — Stay classy, GOP. It’s what you do best. While people starve. Are you proud of your Republican Party?
Beat Them, Sure — Just Don’t Annoy Them — More likely, [the Senate Republicans] just overlearned the lessons of 1993-1994, and are operating under the mistaken impression that obstructing the majority is always good politics for the minority. On top of that, Republicans do seem much more interested in the short-term reactions of conservative talk show hosts than they are in, well, anything else
?otD: How can he be wounded if he’s got no heart?
3/3/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1 hour
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.0 (slept well, but short)
This morning’s weigh-in: 227.0
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 4/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: Cool, Culture, healthcare, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Publishing, Science
Posted: 5:15 am Wed March 03 2010 | Comments(2) |
[links] Link salad becomes necessary
Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book — The New York Times takes a whack at ebook costs. Hmm. (Thanks to my Dad.)
The Many Faces of ‘Alice’ — WaPo with a slide show of pop culture visualizations of Alice in Wonderland.
Golden Gate: Sunset in Yellowstone Park — Vintagraph with an 1897 travel poster. I’m fascinated by the bicycle-mounted rifle in the poster, which was apparently unremarable in its day.
Last Chance Texaco: 1937 — Shorpy with a haunting image from North Dakota.
The Power of Plant Clock Computing — The headline alone is cool, but the story also carries some cool science geekery.
Ice deposits found at Moon’s pole — Ice and hydrocarbons. Excellent.
Another Victory For Labour? — Larison on British politics, with some contrasting observations on the US.
Department of Inmates, Asylums… — The GOP wants to clean up its extremists. Unfortunately, a lot of them hold national office. Fascinating. You brung ‘em to the dance, boys. Now they’re shitting up all the beds. Thanks a lot.
?otD: When in the course of human events?
3/2/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.0 (slept well, but short)
This morning’s weigh-in: 229.0
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 6/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: Art, Cool, Culture, Links, Movies, Personal, Photos, Politics, Publishing, Science
Posted: 5:15 am Tue March 02 2010 | Comments(2) |
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