Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad watches old movies

Don’t forget to drop me a question in my interview thread. [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]

Hearing Bilingual: How Babies Sort Out Language

Black Death genetic code ‘built’ — The genetic code of the germ that caused the Black Death has been reconstructed by scientists for the first time. What could possibly go wrong?

Scrivener’s Error is contrarian (what else!?) about Steve Jobs

Graf Zeppelin vs Goodyear Blimp — A classic photo via x planes. No, they’re not dogfighting.

Seal Beach shooting: Death toll rises to eight — Another patriot exercises his Second Amendment rights in defense of his essential liberties. Guns don’t kill, just ask any conservative. It really is about the guns people. This has to stop somewhere.

Speaker at Occupy L.A. calls for violence, gets cheers from crowd — ericjamestone points to a counterexample of an OWS protestor advocating violence. Fair enough. How many OWS protestors bring firearms to the protests? How many talk about Second Amendment remedies? Does a rare counterexample balance against the violence-soaked eliminationist rhetoric of the American Right?

Occupy Wall Street: Who Are the 1%?

Open Letter to that 53% Guy — I’m a liberal, so I probably dream bigger than you. For instance, I want everybody to have healthcare. I want lazy people to have healthcare. I want stupid people to have healthcare. I want drug addicts to have healthcare. I want bums who refuse to work even when given the opportunity to have healthcare. I’m willing to pay for that with my taxes, because I want to live in a society where it doesn’t matter how much of a loser you are, if you need medical care you can get it. (Via Via @gregvaneekhout.)

How I Communicate With People Less Right Than Me — A Tiny Revolution on talking to the 53%’ers.

Occupy Wall Street: A Banker Explains What Really Happened to America

Wagging the Dog with Iran’s Maxwell Smart — Juan Cole with a takedown of the alleged Iranian DC assassination plot. Pursuing this as a grievance against Iran, as they are currently doing, is going to make the Obama administration look every bit as clownish and incompetent as the Bush administraton was with respect to Iraq.

Let’s go out to the lake, Earl — Slacktivist Fred Clark on the social realities of the GOP blocking the jobs bill. You know, those real life stories conservatives never tell, or even believe. This is the kind of thing that stokes my notion that conservativism is rooted in a failure of empathy (for the problems of other people) and imagination (the inability to believe they might ever experience those problems for themselves).

The Tea Party vs. The Establishment — A conservative view of the GOP primary process. (Which includes the deeply hilarious assertion that 2010 Tea Party candidates like Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle were principled. That makes for a pretty warped worldview if you can believe that while also walking and chewing gum. Either that or you have a really strange idea of what principles are.)

?otD: What’s up, Tiger Lily?

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10/13/2011
Writing time yesterday: 1.25 hours (WRPA, including 1,000 words on two small nonfiction projects)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.0 hours (fitful)
Weight: 222.8
Currently reading: The Star Fraction by Ken MacLeod

Tags: Cool, Culture, guns, healthcare, interviews, Iran, Iraq, Language, Links, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, Tech, Videos

Posted: 5:42 am Thu October 13 2011 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad can kill you with its mind

Two Writers In Dialogue: A Conservative Evangelical And Gay Liberal Can Be Friends? Part 1

Two Writers In Dialogue: A Conservative Evangelical And Gay Liberal Can Be Friends? Part 2

Four years into the ebook revolution: things we know and things we don’t know

That’s it, I’m done with the internet for today. I think I’ll go outside. — Hilariously random YouTube video, not utterly worksafe or brainsafe for several reasons. (Thanks to danjite.)

2,000-Year-Old Dead Sea Scrolls Go Online

Invisible Ink Made Out of Engineered Bacteria

Fire in the Sky and on the Ground — The aurora australis, photographed from the ISS, and some Australian wildfires.

One third Of Sun-Like Stars Have Earth-Like Planets In Habitable Zone — Special creation my ass.

The Fraying of a Nation’s Decency — The things the article is talking about are fundamental outcomes of the application of conservative principles.

The bogus `third party’ dodge

Obama Rips Perry, GOP Debate Audience: Not Who We Are — You’re damned skippy that’s not who we are. “Let him die” isn’t an American sentiment. It never should be.

Correcting the Abysmal ‘New York Times’ Coverage of Occupy Wall Street — More on this from Dangerous Minds. (Thanks to danjite.)

Palin ‘on the Verge’ of Decision About Presidential Run — The circus is thinking about whether to come to town. That’s just what the GOP field needs — the kind of gravitas Palin can bring.

Romney and the “Apology Tour” — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison on Romney, foreign policy, and another of the stream of knowing, self-serving lies put forth by the GOP to rile their base.

?otD: Do you always cut your apples?

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9/27/2011
Writing time yesterday: 3.0 hours (WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 hours (solid)
Weight: 223.6
Currently reading: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Tags: Africa, business, gay, guns, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Science, sex, Writing

Posted: 5:36 am Tue September 27 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad curses your sudden but inevitable betrayal

Reading in Public: Advice from the Pros — Alex Bledsoe collects some commentary in mini-interviews.

A baby sea-serpent no more: reinterpreting Hagelund’s juvenile Cadborosaurus — Some biology and cryptozoology neepery for you.

Space station dweller shares orbital views

Saudi women to be given right to vote and stand for election in four years — It would be very easy for me to be sarcastic about this in comparison to the deeply retrograde ambitions of the American Taliban within the GOP, but honestly, this is something to celebrate. Juan Cole comments further on this.

Presidential Candidates’ Positions on Gay Rights — A handy and interesting chart. No real surprises.

Our budget problem in two charts (and one issue) — (Thanks to danjite.)

Fla. GOP sweats over Social Security — Is it possible that for once the GOP’s nutball rhetoric might actually have consequences? Normally they have a permanent “get out of jail free” card from Your Liberal Media and the voters at large for their bizarre crap.

DNC Chair: All GOP candidates are “the same” — “It doesn’t much matter which one of the Republicans gets nominated because they’re all the same,” the Florida Democrat said. “They are all embracing and bear-hugging the Tea Party. Moving to the right – they can’t move to the right far enough.”

Birther Civil War Breaks Out Over Marco Rubio — Extremist idiocy breeds extremist idiots.

Obama says Republicans would ‘cripple’ America — Well, yeah. Look what they did to the country the last time they were in power. Why anybody who cares a whit about our future as a country would vote Republican is beyond me, on the simple face of the recent historical evidence.

?otD: Feeling the serenity?

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9/26/2011
Writing time yesterday: 5.0 hours (novel outlining and short story revision, WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.25 hours (solid)
Weight: 222.2
Currently reading: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Tags: Africa, business, gay, guns, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Science, sex, Writing

Posted: 5:22 am Mon September 26 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad reads the wires

Roger Ebert on Writing: 15 Reflections From ‘Life Itself’

The science behind pleasure-seeking

Small Factories Take Root in Africa

Washington state gunman shot dead after firing near school field — Nope. No connections between guns and violence. I’m sure it says that in the Second Amendment somewhere. This poor fellow was just defending his essential civil liberties from the menace of middle school children. Move along, citizen, nothing to see here but liberal propaganda.

Are Both Political Parties Science Skeptics? — Sociological Images addresses this false equivalency. Topics such as evolution and climate change are subject to overwhelming scientific consensus. These aren’t “reasonable people can disagree” topics like tax rates or foreign policy. These are “the wilfully ignorant being exploited for political gain” topics.

Santorum asks Google to clean up search results for his name — Good luck with that, Senator Frothy Mixture of Lube and Feces Resulting From Anal Sex. This couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fellow. Well, okay, I can think of a few.

Texas GOP Rep On Cuts To Family Planning: ‘Of Course This Is A War On Birth Control’ — This should be a surprise to no one, of course. Are you proud of your Republican party?

Mitt Romney wins Michigan straw poll, Rick Perry a distant second — I really don’t have a dog in the Republican primary fight. I think they’re basically all nuts except maybe Huntsman, who doesn’t have a snowball’s chance. Romney, however, is marginally less nuts than the rest of that pack of baying fools. And I’m not one of those liberal-progressives cheering for the greatest nut to win the GOP nod so we can defeat them more easily. Fundamentally, that’s how we got George W. Bush, who came into office in an era of (relative) peace and (significant) prosperity, and a balanced budget, and brought us the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, the worst erosion of civil liberties since McCarthyism, a trillion dollar war of choice launched on false premises, and the deepest deficit in American history. (All of which is retroactively Obama’s fault according to the Tea Party, of course.) Not to mention the national embarassment of having an incurious fool for a leader for eight long, miserable years.

Rick Perry: The HP of Presidential Candidates — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison with more on Perry and especially (despite the headline) on Romney.

?otD: The New York Times or the Daily News?

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9/25/2011
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (novel outlining and short story revision, and WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 hours (solid)
Weight: 222.2
Currently reading: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Tags: Africa, business, gay, guns, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Science, sex, Writing

Posted: 7:27 am Sun September 25 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad wakes en Mass

The Problem Is You — The Internet and work ethics.

Google+ Improves on Facebook — (Via my Dad.)

Dawn probe set to orbit Asteroid Vesta

Loss of predators in the food chain can alter the ecosystem — As the Tea Party says, “We cannot elevate nature above people. That’s against the Bible and the Bill of Rights.”

The Mere Sight of an American Flag Can Shift Voters Republican — Exposure to Lee Greenwood has the opposite effect on me.

A Gun Activist Takes Aim at U.S. Regulatory Power — When you vote Republican, you’re voting for this nonsense. Hope you’re proud of it.

Church Doctrines and Politics — Conservative Commentator Daniel Larison on Michele Bachmann’s religion. He’s cheating a bit in this essay, in that he sidesteps the fact that Bachmann’s church explicitly declares in so many words that the Pope is the Antichrist. Not that I care personally in that other people are free to argue all day long over their imaginary friends, but that’s a bit more than the abstract doctrinal difference Larison is pretending is at stake. Also, c.f. Jeremiah Wright, who was very important to the press during the last election. Will Your Liberal Media treat Bachmann or Romney’s religious beliefs with the same critical eye they brought to Obama?

The Bible on marriage, in its own words — And Jesus was a single dude who mostly only hung out with men. One man, one woman, my ass. Read your own damned Bible, Christianists, instead of laying the hate on my GLBT friends for wanting the same rights you already have. (Snurched from Dispatches From the Culture Wars.)

Secular charities don’t discriminate — Making the point that religious charities, pretty much by definition, do. Mmm, that thousand points of light really shines.

?otD: Con this weekend?

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7/15/2011
Writing time yesterday: 2.5 hours (Sunspin)
Body movement: n/a (suburban walking to come)
Hours slept: 6.25 hours (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

Tags: Cool, Culture, guns, Links, music, nature, Personal, Politics, Religion, Science

Posted: 4:31 am Fri July 15 2011 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad awakens puzzled but not airborne

Don’t forget to enter the new Endurance caption contest: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]

Genre Bashing Dumbassery — Jim Hines is funny. (Via Steve Buchheit.)

The Blohm & Voss Ha 139 — Man, what an airplane.

In search of the world’s best pizza — Mmm.

Increasing Cultural Acceptance Of Gay And Lesbian Rights

Political Comic Book Covers — This is hilarious. (Snurced from Dispatches From the Culture Wars.)

Guns, Terrorism and Political Expediency — Can you even imagine what the Republicans would do with this if the tables were turned, if the Democrats voted against a bill to keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists? They’d to apeshit, calling the Democrats terrorist sympathizers who actually wanted to destroy America.

Release of Sarah Palin emails angers US conservatives — You mean that documenting her petty corruption and vendettas is a bad thing?

The Reluctant Mormon — A profile of unlikely GOP candiate John Huntsman. (He’s far too sane and nuanced for the Republican base. Admittedly this would also be true of Hulk Hogan.)

God Caught Backing Multiple GOP Candidates for President — After a thorough investigation, Daily Intel has discovered that God is separately backing at least three different contenders for the Republican presidential nomination. Over the course of the past few months and even years, God has sent signs and direct messages to each of these candidates encouraging them to run, presumably without telling them that he supports other candidates as well. Hahahahahaha. (Thanks to shsilver.)

?otD: Can you fly without a plane?

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6/11/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (aborted chemo session followed by intense fatigue)
Body movement: 60 minute suburban walk to come
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (solid)
Weight: 234.2
Currently (re)reading: A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

Tags: Books, Contests, Endurance, Food, Funny, gay, guns, Links, Personal, pictures, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion

Posted: 5:35 am Sat June 11 2011 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad looks forward to JayCon XI

Right Tools Unleash Creativity on an iPad — Hmmm…

Helium Hokum: Why Airships Will Never Be Part of Our Transportation Infrastructure — Why let a little reality get in the way of a good steampunking? Some cool history and tech here. (Via David Goldman.)

Plan for China’s Water Crisis Spurs Concern — (Thanks to Dad.)

‘Global Commission’ Of Former Officials Says War On Drugs Has Failed — Also, this just in: sun rises in east. More on this from The Independent.

Mudbugged: Crawfish shortage spurs shooting at business — Second Amendment right to an assault rifle, check. Defense of essential liberties, check. No background requirements for gun ownership, check. Exercising your Constitutional rights by shooting up the fish market because they’re out of crawdads, check. Just another day in conservative America.

[NJ] Gov. Christie’s proposed income limits would cut Medicaid for working poor — Adults in a family of three that makes as little as $103 a week would earn too much to qualify for health care provided by Medicaid under a sharply curtailed program Gov. Chris Christie wants the federal government to approve this year, according to state officials and advocates briefed on the proposal. Now that’s compassionate conservatism in action. Are you proud of your Republican party?

Straight from twitter – perception and reality about Obama — Conservative “thought” untrammeled by facts. It must be comforting to have a hermetically sealed worldview that is not intersected by reality. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Fact Checking Romney — [H]e falsely said that President Barack Obama “has stood watch over the greatest job loss in modern American history,” calling this an “inconvenient truth.” Actually, the truth, inconvenient or not, is that more jobs were lost under President George W. Bush during the recent recession than under Obama. Those pesky facts, so often biased against conservatives. Luckily for Romney, his audience is far more interested in rhetoric than reality.

The Goodwin Liu nomination: Impaired judgment — How times have changed. In 2005, when Democrats balked at confirming some of then-President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees, Senate Republicans widely declared that filibustering a judicial nominee violates the Constitution. Late last month, however, Senate Republicans embraced the tactic, almost unanimously joining a filibuster of professor Goodwin Liu’s nomination to a federal appeals court. Remember angry Republicans denouncing filibusters and calling for an “up or down vote”? Neither do they. Ah, conservatives, intellectual consistency is thy name.

?otD: Coming to JayCon tomorrow?

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6/3/2011
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (revised non-fiction project, some WRPA, too brain-fuzzed to write first draft fiction)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 hours (solid, plus napping)
Weight: 229.8
Currently (re)reading: A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

Tags: China, Cool, Culture, guns, healthcare, iPad, Links, media, Personal, Politics, steampunk, Tech

Posted: 5:02 am Fri June 03 2011 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad is a Gemini doing Cancer

A reader reacts to Green — Among other reviews. I’m not sure if they liked it or not.

Guest Blog: Lauren Beukes on Writing the Other — Good for her. I sure hope Lauren fares well with making this point, as talking about this is decidedly playing with fire.

At and Around the Con: A Guide for Horrifying Baboons — nihilistic_kid is wise.

Savoring — Ta-Nehisi Coates on reading.

Problem Competition: Who is Worse Off? — Amy Sundberg with more on problems.

Flashback post: “What’s the score?” — Slacktivist Fred Clark with a (re)post on Terry Schiavo and “red facts” vs “blue facts”, still very much germane to the current political and media discourse.

Guns at home more likely to be used stupidly than in self-defense — Also, this just in, water is wet. Yes, Sparky, your theoretical defense of essential liberties is still more important than the 14,000 or so gun deaths per year. In four decades of gun ownership over half a million people will be killed so you can sleep more soundly at night! The Constitution says so.

After-birthers running through the fever swamps — And that belief lies in their fundamental, bedrock definition of what constitutes a Real American — a white, Christian conservative. There’s no way they will ever be able to reconcile the idea that a black Democrat could legitimately represent a majority the American people. Clearly, they will rewrite history and the constitution if they have to in order to make that case.

Birth Certificate just Jim Crow all Over Again — The strong link between birtherism and the Jim Crow states. No racism here, nope, nosirree Bob. I’m pretty sure that birtherism would also map well to evolution denialism, which just reinforces my long-held point about how legitimizing magical thinking just leads to more magical thinking. Gosh, realworld consequences to conservative delusions?

?otD: What’s your sign?

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4/29/2011
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (revisions to Kalimpura)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 hours (solid)
Weight: 244.8
Currently reading: Nifft the Lean by Michael Shea

Tags: Books, Conventions, Culture, Green, guns, Links, Personal, Politics, race, reviews, Writing

Posted: 5:11 am Fri April 29 2011 | Comments(4) |

[links] Link salad has a lust for life

The trade paperback edition of my novel Green goes on sale this week — Maybe time for some book love?

Marissa Lingen comments on Green — Including, unusually, critiquing the dedication. Also, the comments section is interesting.

Anyone Home? — Salom Futura on last-man-on-earth stories, including my own Sunspin short “A Long Walk Home“. I find her comment about female protagonists in this subsubsubgenre mildly ironic given the prevalence of female protagonists in the Sunspin universe as a whole, albeit as she correctly points out, absent in this particular story.

Experts determine age of book ‘nobody can read’ — More fun with the Voynich manuscript. Personally, I suspect Jeff VanderMeer and a time machine.

Dunbar’s Number — How many people can you be connected to? I suspect my Dunbar’s Number is unusually high. How’s yours looking? (Via willyumtx.)

Watching a Video Shot in 2,564 Frames per Second is Mind Numbingly Amazing — This is some intensely cool, strange stuff.

Gene tests inadvertently exposing cases of incest — Sad and strange. The sociology of medical progress.

Do Anonymous Leaks Have a Future? — Successors to WikiLeaks are springing up, but they face a range of obstacles.

Doonesbury on gun violence — Um, yes. Common sense, where have you gone? (Via markbourne.)

Communique No. 5 Suspends Constitution, Prorogues Parliament — Juan Cole on current events in Egypt, also providing me with a new vocabulary word.

What’s good for CEOs isn’t good for America — Mitt Romney says the United States needs a president with private-sector street cred. Here’s why he’s wrong. Wasn’t part of the GOP sell job on Bush 43 that he was going to be a ‘CEO president’? Look how well that worked out. (Snurched from Dispatches From the Culture Wars.)

?otD: Ever hypnotized a chicken?

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2/14/2011
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (copy edits on Endurance)
Body movement: 30 minutes on stationary bike
Hours slept: 6.0 hours (solid)
Weight: 254.2 (waaaay too good a time this weekend, not enough exercise)
Currently reading: Between books

Tags: Books, Cool, Culture, Egypt, Green, guns, healthcare, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, reviews, stories, Tech, Videos, weird

Posted: 6:01 am Mon February 14 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad emerges from slumberland

Cascade Writers still has a few slots open this summer — Workshop with me, David Levine and Beth Meacham.

Tai Nasha No Karosha: Reflections on a Week of Blogging — Michael Chabon ruminates on being a guest blogger for Ta-Nehisi Coates, including some very funny and striking thoughts on what it means to be a novelist.

Space Invaders: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period. — A lovely rant. More than a bit overdone, but a lot of fun to read.

Criminal Minds Greatest Hits — Do not drink fluids near keyboard while watching. (All blame to matociquala.)

From Mud Boots to Polyester – Fashion’s Still Nothing but Shelter, Status and Sex — √Recently, some rather better-dressed humans took a close look at the DNA of clothing lice and determined (based on an assumed rate of mutation) that humans first started wearing clothes about 170,000 years ago. A nifty squib from Science In My Fiction.

Asking a Rude Question — Andrew Wheeler on the Tuscon shootings and the subsequent spike in gun sales.

?otD: Captain Nemo or Little Nemo?

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1/15/2011
Writing time yesterday: 2.5 hours (revisions to Sunspin outline)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 hours (solid)
Weight: 250.8
Currently reading: Salamanca by Dean Francis Alfar

Tags: Conventions, Culture, Funny, guns, Links, music, Personal, Process, Science, Videos, Writing

Posted: 8:03 am Sat January 15 2011 | Comments(1) |