Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad sleeps in

Patchwork Dreaming — Gerard Houarner on keeping the story going in your head.

Carl Zimmer responds to Jonathan Franzen’s rant against ebooks. — Very good.

The Upside of Dyslexia

“San Diego Demonoid”: you mean that dead opossum?

Does Mars have life? New study says it’s unlikely on the surface.

In Fuel Oil Country, Cold That Cuts to the Heart

Neil deGrasse Tyson on politicians and the electorate

Islam, Women and the West — Some interesting thinking on Western perceptions of the Islamic world by Jonathan Lyons.

Jury finds Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White guilty on 6 of 7 felony charges — No wonder Republicans claim to be so concerned with voter fraud. After all, if they’re committing it, surely everyone else is, too. Right? Anyone?

On eve of Darwin’s birthday, states take steps to limit evolution — It’s the full throated support for lunacy like this that obscures the value of any real ideas the conservative movement has. Like flavoring your stew with rat poison, it doesn’t matter how good your meat and veggies are.

Romney Is Not the “Stealth Tea Party Candidate” — Note to GOP: Romney is Wall Street delusionary conservative, not a Main Street delusionary conservative.

?otd: How much did you sleep last night?

2/5/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (1.25 hours on short story revisions, 0.75 hours on Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 9.0 (solid)
Weight: 228.0
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Culture, ebooks, gender, Links, Mars, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion, Science, Writing

Posted: 8:52 am Sun February 05 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad enjoyed the reading

A reader reacts to Endurance — I think they liked it.

The Self-Sabotaging Writer — Kameron Hurley on the perils of being a writer. (Via Steve Buchheit.)

What the Nook Means — A new Nook’s on its way. Can it save books?

The Milhous Collection — A meticulously assembled selection of mechanical musical instruments, vintage automobiles and more. (Via danjite.)

Cloud Cover’s Role in Exoplanet Studies

Study measures mammalian growth spurt — It takes 24 million generations for mouse-sized mammals to evolve into elephants — but shrinking back is much faster.

Mind-reading program translates brain activity into words — The research paves the way for brain implants that would translate the thoughts of people who have lost power of speech.

cassiealexander on Rick Santorum, privilege, healthcare, and sick kids — What she says.

The End of Health Insurance Companies — I don’t think I actually believe this piece, but it’s a nice thought.

Inside the heresy files — Interrogation. Surveillance. Ethnic profiling. Censorship. The words come from 21st-century headlines, but they have an ancient pedigree. Cullen Murphy on how the Inquisition ignited the modern police state. (Snurched from Scrivener’s Error.)

McConnell’s Revisionist History: Congress Gave Obama Everything He Wanted! — Can he possibly believe this? McConnell, of all people? More to the point, why does anybody else believe this?

Marsh on Obama: The Party’s Over — Sigh.

Delusions of Obama the Idiot — It’s amazing that the GOP has somehow convinced itself that Obama is some kind of beguiling intellectual lightweight. Once you accept that ideology trumps reality, it’s easy to put faith in any whackdoodle idea that enters one’s head.

Gingrich, Romney, and “Reckoning with the Base”

Romney versus Gingrich slugfest is harbinger of Republican civil war — We can only hope. Meanwhile, I continue to marvel at the Republican base’s vitriolic view of liberals, who are guilty of bringing America such heinous sins as the forty hour work week, paid vacations, child labor laws, clean air and water, and other such violations of our civil rights, all over the strong objections of conservatives.

Welfare Drug Testing Bill Withdrawn After Amended To Include Testing Lawmakers — Don’t worry, it will be back. Oppressing the poor is a club sport for the GOP.

Huh? Mitt claims Newt outspent him in S.C. — Huh. Republicans lying about each other. The candidates and party leadership know it doesn’t matter. The message always trumps facts. The low information voters who make up the GOP base will just nod and follow along like they always do.

The Myth of the American Political Intelligence Gap

?otd: When’s the last time you attended a live reading?

2/1/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (solid)
Weight: 228.8
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Books, cars, Cool, ebooks, Endurance, healthcare, Links, music, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion, reviews, Science, Videos, Writing

Posted: 6:23 am Wed February 01 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad lingers over its cereal

Paying Tribute: The Stars My Destination — Ty Franck on Daniel Abraham’s blog.

The self-epublishing bubble — (Snurched from @lilithsaintcrow.)

Pythons linked to Florida Everglades mammal decline

Little Ice Age was caused by volcanism

Russia blames radiation for space probe failure

Toward a New ‘Prime Directive’

While temperatures rise, denialists reach lower — The WSJ OpEd makes a lot of hay from having 16 scientists sign it, but of those only 4 are actually climate scientists. And that bragging right is crushed to dust when you find out that the WSJ turned down an article about the reality of global warming that was signed by 255 actual climate scientists. Ah, ideology: trumping facts in the conservative mind since 4004 BC.

The Condom’s Cousins — Health care coverage is one horse that the Church has chosen to ride in order to protect its belief in the sanctity of its beliefs. Sex, rather than God, is its focus. If God’s perceived commandments on how one deals with one’s fellow man come into conflict with the Church’s opinion on sex, its opinion on sex wins out every time, irrespective of the effect it may have on fellow man.

The Austerity Debacle — Haven’t we learned a lot about economic management over the last 80 years? Yes, we have — but in Britain and elsewhere, the policy elite decided to throw that hard-won knowledge out the window, and rely on ideologically convenient wishful thinking instead. “Ideologically convenient wishful thinking” pretty much describes most of the conservative mindset these days, at least on the budget, jobs, climate change, foreign policy, etc.

Brewer Has History Of Getting Facts Wrong — In the past, when Brewer has been confronted about inaccurate statements, her first move has been to maintain she was right no matter how clear the matter was. Republican to the bone.

Wash. Post’s Parker Wildly Distorts Charitable Giving Of Obama, Romney — Because when you’re taking the GOP party line, facts don’t matter, the message does. Even flat out lies like this pass unchallenged in Your Liberal Media.

Trillions in tax cuts — The Republican presidential candidates claim to abhor debt, yet propose tax cuts that would add trillions more. Supply side economics hasn’t worked yet, but why stop believing in it now? Who said New Math was dead?

Election angst hits Hill Republicans — What amazes me is that for most of my adult life, the GOP has had fantastic party discipline. Since about 2006, that seems to have really weakened. Not that I’m complaining about anything that undercuts the toxic conservative agenda, but I find it surprising.

Kansas Speaker O’Neal asks House GOP to pray for Obama’s death — Stay classy, GOP. It’s what you do best.

The Grover Norquist “Impeach Obama” Fantasy — [T]he Republicans wanted [Clinton] removed from the first day he took office, and that they were not waiting for a crime so much as they were waiting for the moment when they had the votes to do it. (That this is a monumental act of contempt for the people who elected him their president should not concern us here, because it apparently never concerned the Republicans.)

Why Gingrich is a Liability to Down-Ticket Congressional Races — And the GOP establishment continues to dog pile on poor, misunderstood Newt.

?otd: Got milk?

1/31/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.5 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 (solid)
Weight: 228.6
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Books, climate, Culture, ebooks, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science, sex

Posted: 6:14 am Tue January 31 2012 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad celebrates Boxing Day

Bad Fathers — A fantasy trope?

Publishers vs. Libraries: An E-Book Tug of War — (Via my Dad.)

11 Christmas songs we hope never to hear again — Heh.

Leadership Lessons From the Shackleton Expedition

Decades later, a Cold War secret is revealed — Building spy satellites.

Report Condemns Japan’s Response to Nuclear Accident

Medicare passes on big profits to insurers — Explain to me again why the profit-taking from private health insurance adds value? Coz I’m confused.

?otd: Do you float like a butterfly? Would you like to?

12/26/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 11.75 (solid)
Weight: 203.4
Currently (re)reading: The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

Tags: Antarctica, Culture, ebooks, Funny, healthcare, Japan, Links, music, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Tech

Posted: 8:25 am Mon December 26 2011 | Comments(0) |

[books] River, including a short story by me

The anthology River is now available from DarkQuest Books, including my story “They Are Forgotten Until They Come Again”, a deep post-apocalyptic story set in the Pacific Northwest. The Map of Contents is interesting, to say the least.

The ebook would make a nice last minute Christmas present, methinks.

Tags: Books, ebooks, stories

Posted: 8:30 am Sat December 24 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad sweats on cue

What Publishers Don’t Do — Andrew Wheeler on Michael Chabon and e-books. Chabon got this one wrong, which is unusual for him, I think.

Rocket-Powered ‘Aerotrain’ — Some awesome retrotech. (Via H—.)

Through a sun tunnel — APOD with an interesting image and write-up. I’d never heard of these.

Frankincense, Staple of Christmas, Doomed

Where the Tax-Cut Walkout Really Came From — Then, of course, along came the new Republican House majority under Newt Gingrich. They rewrote the formal rulebook which, to be entirely fair, really needed some of its more sclerotic provisions cleaned out. But they threw out the unwritten rules entirely. This culminated in the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and everything that has followed after, right up until this morning. They are not legislators. They are vandals in the house of democracy.

Speaker Cuts Off C-SPAN Cameras When Dems Attempt To Bring Vote On Payroll Tax Cut — The GOP: your party of good government. (Thanks to corwynofamber.)

?otd: When is the last time you watched the original Star Trek?

12/22/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 10.5 (very fitful plus napping)
Weight: 208.0
Currently (re)reading: The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

Tags: Culture, ebooks, Links, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Tech, video

Posted: 6:07 am Thu December 22 2011 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad has got your number

Oxen and Sociopaths: Writing Endurance — A squib from me in the Tor/Forge newsletter.

How Amazon Can Afford to Give Away Books, Free — Amazon makes so much on Prime that digital media has become the perfect loss leader for the company. What about the authors>

Is Sitting Too Long a Major Cancer Risk? — Study Shows Inactivity and Excess Sitting Linked to an Estimated 100,000 Cancer Cases a Year. (Thanks to David Goldman.)

Saber-Toothed Squirrel Lived Near Dinosaurs — Really? Saber-Toothed Squirrel? Heh.

Pale-faced Mars crew “lands” after 520 days in isolation

IBM Open-Sources Potential “Internet of Things” Protocol — More fascinating near term futurism. (Via danjite.)

Changing Youth Migration Patterns: So Long New York, Hello… Portland? — Well, duh.

Conservatives Discover America — An entertaining and thought-provoking liberal rant from driftglass. He’s got it nailed, too.

Does the 1% Distract from the Next 19?

Looking beyond their needs to determine fault — Slacktivist with an interesting perspective on the morality of the foreclosure crisis.

America’s ‘Oh Sh*t!’ Moment — Has the U.S. deleted the very things that made it great? Niall Ferguson on how America can avoid imminent collapse. Fixing the toxic dysfunction in conservative politics would go a long way…

Red vs. Blue: Do Democrats Subsidize Republicans? — An interesting piece on the relationship between unionization and net tax burdens. Hint: the Red states benefit directly at the expense of taxes paid in the hated Blue states.

America: With God on our side — Presidential candidates feel no shame in asserting divine purpose in U.S. policies and actions. In this ubiquitous view of American exceptionalism, the nation is not bound by rules to which others must submit. (Snurched from Dispatches From the Culture Wars.)

Condi Rice Just Forgot About Pearl Harbor on Letterman — 9-11 was the first attack on American soil since the War of 1812? Really? Hey, GOP, this is reality calling. Anybody home?

?otD: 867-5309?

11/4/2011
Wriing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.5 hours (solid)
Weight: 212.6
Currently (re)reading: Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Cancer, Culture, ebooks, Endurance, health, Links, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Politics, Portland, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech

Posted: 5:35 am Fri November 04 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad toddles off to chemo

Another Perspective on Amazon as Publisher & Bookseller, Plus a Contrarian View on Disruption in Publishing — Long but worth the read.

Cosmic dust contains organic matter from stars, study finds — Such chemical complexity was thought to arise only from living organisms.

Asteroid Lutetia may have core of hot melted metal — Huh. I find this really surprising.

Massively Parallel Computer Built From Single Layer of Molecules

Python blood holds key to heart disease cure

SMBC on the dangers of Biblical literalism — This is hilarious, and one I never thought of.

Justice Scalia speaks for himself on death penalty, not the Catholic Church — I don’t want a justice sitting on the Supreme Court who submits blindly to religious authority or who holds his religion above the laws of the land. So keep your job, Justice Scalia. Just don’t pretend your church approves of the death penalty. Or that you aren’t like most people of faith, cherry-picking the teachings of your church that suit you best.

World power swings back to America — The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus.

The Class War Has Begun

Police Actions and Media Coverage of Occupy Wall Street

Bachmann’s ex-staff in New Hampshire calls campaign ‘dishonest’ and ‘cruel’ — Live by the self-obsessed counterfactual inanity, die by the self-obsessed counterfactual inanity.

?otD: What’s the worst drug you ever took?

10/28/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 hours (solid)
Weight: 220.0
Currently (re)reading: Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett

Tags: amazon, Christianism, Cool, Culture, ebooks, Funny, healthcare, Links, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science

Posted: 5:18 am Fri October 28 2011 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad goes right to the moon

Sympathy for the Devil, ed. by Tim Pratt – Ray Gun Reviews — With a passing favorable mention of my story “The Goat Cutter”.

Steampunk Ebooks for $2.99 — Getcher Mainspring ebook on the cheap from tor.com.

Murakami on Fiction, Truth, and Lies

How translation software helped crack ‘unbreakable’ code in 1866 secret society manuscript

‘Android Dreams’: Time-lapse video of Tokyo set to ‘Blade Runner’ soundtrack — In case you needed some cool in your morning.

Why Names Matter — SCIENCE! It works, bitches. And a serious discussion of the same issue.

Time – and brain chemistry – heal all wounds

Panel recommends that 11- and 12-year-old boys get the HPV vaccine; now given to girls — I have a question for all you folks who oppose the HPV vaccine because “oh noes, kidz and teh sex!” We’re talking about lifelong protection here. Do you seriously want your children to grow up and never have sex? Stunted lives and no grandchildren is the logical result of your objections.

US dismantles most powerful nuclear bomb

NASA Is Considering Fuel Depots in the Skies

In, Through, and Beyond Saturn’s Rings — Another awesome APOD photo.

Hardiness Zone Changes — More liberally biased facts about climate change. Which is ridiculous. Climate change wouldn’t be a partisan issue if right wing ideologues hadn’t made it one. I can even understand why evolution denial, as fundamentally moronic as it is, has become an issue. But climate change denial? It doesn’t even make as much sense as Christianist tripe, which at least comforts some wilfully ignorant people who are scared of the future.

Rand retracts report on pot clinics and crime — Think tank says researchers failed to realize that data used in the study did not include LAPD statistics. It plans to recalculate its analysis. WHo’d a thunk it? Distortion and hysteria over pot use. I don’t do 420 myself, but I’ve never seen the point of criminalization of pot.

Chart comparing Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party — Heck, yeah.

Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund — Some seriously funny snark.

Islamic Law not a problem in Bush’s Afghanistan & Iraq, but a Problem in Libya? — If secular, communist Afghanistan was made fundamentalist by Reagan and Bush, or if the relatively secular Baath Party of Iraq was overthrown by W. in favor of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Islamic Call Party and the Bloc of Ayatollah Sadr II, that is unobjectionable and not even reported on. But if there’s a Democratic president in the White House, all of a sudden it is a scandal if Muslims practice Muslim law. Not a Democratic president, a Kenyan Muslim socialist president. Just ask our friends in the GOP and Your Liberal Media.

Televangelist Pat Robertson Calls GOP Field Too Extreme to Win General Election — You know you’ve hit rock bottom when one of the most radical, hate-spewing figures in America calls you “extreme.”

Michele Bachmann’s misstatements may be catching up to her — The Republican presidential candidate’s supporters seem to like her mastery of what she presents as facts — but they often aren’t. Hey. Someone finally noticed.

?otD: Ralph or Norton?

10/26/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (solid)
Weight: 217.4
Currently (re)reading: Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Christianism, climate, Cool, Culture, drugs, ebooks, healthcare, Iraq, Japan, Links, Mainspring, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Photos, Politics, Publishing, Religion, reviews, Science, sex, stories, Tech, Videos

Posted: 5:39 am Wed October 26 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad wishes Dad a happy birthday

Endurance Sweepstakes! — tor.com with a giveaway of my forthcoming book.

Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal — Amazon.com has taught readers that they do not need bookstores. Now it is encouraging writers to cast aside their publishers. (Via several sources, including my Dad.)

What killed Steve Jobs? — Pharyngula with more on Steve Jobs’ cancer. (Thanks to feorag.)

Fusobacterium Linked To Colorectal Cancer

The Quest for the Holy Grail of Storage – RAM Cloud

Movie: Approaching Light Speed — APOD with an interesting little video about the optical effects of relativistic speeds approaching c.

Alfred Hitchcock and Angry Birds

Rare Keaton Music Typewriter — (Snurched from Dark Roasted Blend.)

California Velocipede Map — An 1895 bicycle touring map of the Golden State.

Failing dreams: California faces its own Great Depression — It is less than 20 miles from the pristine surfing beaches of the California coast to a scene of Third World deprivation.

The Rise of Crime-Sourcing — (Via David Goldman.)

How News Media and Blogs Have Eyed the Presidential Contenders During the First Phase of the 2012 Race — Your Liberal Media, fluffing the conservatives as always. This is excellent news for John McCain!

Rick Perry officials spark revolt after doctoring environment report — Scientists ask for names to be removed after mentions of climate change and sea-level rise taken out by Texas officials. This is exactly how the Bush administration handled these things, too. When the facts are biased against you, delete the facts. It’s a very Soviet approach to ideology, ironically enough. (Thanks to danjite.)

For Bachmann, God and Justice Were Intertwined — Confidential to GOP in America: Freedom of religion means freedom from religion. Which decidedly protects you every bit as much as it protects the rest of us.

Democrats Court the Wall Street Protesters — Karl Rove in The Wall Street Journal. Before they go much further with this courtship, the president and other Democrats need to remember it’s always dangerous to associate with people who are just plain kooky. The mind boggles that Rove could say this with a straight face. Has he looked at the GOP base? Science denial? Christianism? The forced pregnancy movement? Gun psychosis? Those are the pillars of his own house. (Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

?otD: Tuesday already?

10/18/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo recovery)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.25 hours (fitful)
Weight: 218.4
Currently reading: The Star Fraction by Ken MacLeod

Tags: amazon, Art, Books, California, Cancer, Christianists, climate, Contests, crime, ebooks, Endurance, healthcare, Links, media, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Photos, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science, Videos, weird

Posted: 5:40 am Tue October 18 2011 | Comments(0) |