Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad wonders how it can dance when our earth is turning

JayFest — Sci-Fi Book Fair & Group Signing — My friends at Powell’s are hosting a group signing in support of my cancer journey, book sales to benefit the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund. The evening of June 13, 2013, two days before JayCon, at Powell’s Cedar Hills in Beaverton, OR.

Almost All the Way Home From the Stars: Seven Science Fiction Stories — An ebook of my collaborate work with Ruth Nestvold is now available. Includes the story we had in SCI FICTION together.

Vintage Book Jacket Art — (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Two uncomfortable truths: New Merida looks a little whorey. Fewer people care about this than you would think.

Brain Training Helps Clear Cognitive Fog Caused by Chemotherapy — The mental fuzziness induced by cancer treatment could be eased by cognitive exercises performed online, say researchers. I play sudoku online rather obsessively when I am in chemo, as a form of cognitive self-check.

Ranbaxy: Looking Under the Rock — Why generic drugs do not always stack up. (Via David Goldman.)

Eyeball — A throwable building-mapping sphere from Bounce Imaging was recently chosen by PopSci for a 2013 Invention Award. The “throwable, expendable, baseball-size probe,” in PopSci’s words, “has a shock-absorbing shell embedded with six cameras, plus clusters of near-infrared LEDs to light up dark rooms (for the cameras).” Wow.

Opportunity Breaks NASA’s 40-Year Roving Record

Danish Teenager Makes Rare Viking Find — Cool!

Thrilling video of Portland PD high-speed chase… wait for it… — Ah, Portland.

Survey of 12,000 studies finds strong agreement on climate change — We already knew 97% of climate scientists backed the scientific consensus. It’s amazing the lengths liberals will go to in order to spread their climate change lies, even to the extent of using reality-based “facts” and “data”.

GOP raffling AR-15 “Sandy Hook”-type rifles as macabre pro-gun stunt — Stay classy, conservative America. It’s what you do best.

CBS: It was congressional GOP who faked Benghazi email — Conservatives can almost never win on the facts, so of course they lie. That’s the entire idea behind FOX News. And the Bush administration. (WMDs in Iraq, anyone? Anyone? Bueller?) Why should it be any different in the GOP congressional delegation? Water is wet, too.

QotD?: How do we sleep while our beds are burning?

5/17/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (0.5 revisions on my novella for METAtropolis: Green Space, plus WRPA)
Hours slept: 6.25 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 249.2
Number of FEMA troops on my block covering up evidence about Benghazi: 0
Currently reading: Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Cancer, climate, Cool, events, Funny, guns, health, healthcare, Iraq, Links, Mars, media, Personal, Politics, Portland, Publishing, Science, stories, Tech, Videos

Posted: 4:36 am Fri May 17 2013 | Comments(4) |

[links] Link salad gives a lecture today

The First 10 Pages: Science Fiction & Fantasy Boot Camp: 3/26/13 – 3/28/13 — Starting today, I’m co-teaching an online course from Writers Digest University on novel beginnings. This will led by writer (and friend) Phil Athans, with assistance from agent Carlie Webber and myself.

Nerd Nite #1: Sex, Dying, and the FUTURE! — A reminder, I’ll be talking about cancer and genomics this evening in Portland.

An 110-Year-Old Rejection Letter — Old school. (Snurched Steve Buchheit.)

Munsell, the man who colored America — How a Boston argument over better crayons ended up repainting the world. (Via Daily idioms, Annoated —

Scientists Castrate Iberian Lynx to Prevent them from Extinction

Humans blamed for ancient bird species extinctions

Cool dam — Speculative landscape?

Windfarm Sickness — (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Photographer Joe McNally Takes Photo From Top Of Burj Khalifa, World’s Tallest Skyscraper, In Dubai — Gah!

How best to clean out satellites before they become space garbage — Looking at options for quick and safe de-orbiting.

Marketing Deal Gives a Small Town an Identity Crisis — Dish, baby. (Thanks to Dad.)

Gender and Bathroom Graffiti

Unfit for Work — The startling rise of disability in America. Speaking as someone who will have to go on disability for a while as I near end-of-life with my cancer, this piece misses a lot of the point. (Via Steve Buchheit.)

The Day I Taught How Not to Rape — Sigh. (Via wild_irises.)

What If There Had Been Weapons Programs in Iraq? — Not that there were. (Facts not valid for FOX News viewers and other willful idiots.) Of course, as any Republican can tell you, presidential lies about trillion dollar wars of choice are much less important that presidential lies about blow jobs.

QotD?: What are you going to learn today?

3/26/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.25 hours (WRPA)
Hours slept: 8.5 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 242.4
Number of FEMA troops on my block building solar arrays to undermine the American fossil fuel industry: 0
Currently reading: Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, Cool, Culture, events, gender, health, healthcare, Iraq, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Publishing, sex, space, Tech, weird

Posted: 5:24 am Tue March 26 2013 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad is dressed up like a million dollar trooper

Why I don’t self-publish — Charlie Stross is wise. Yes, this.

Writer’s Call to Kill Feral Cats Sparks Outcry

Land of the K, Home of the W: America’s Radio Nations — Huh.

Meet the 6-legged robot lizards that may one day roam Mars

Rockets to Reefs — More on the recovered Saturn V engines.

Comet Castle — Such a lovely photo.

Planck Telescope captures Universe’s first light

The cycle of fear that drives assault weapon sales — The cause of gun control in the US is lost unless we address the underlying anxiety that makes people feel safer armed. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Boy kills Georgia infant in stroller, police say — Yep. Definitely safer with more guns. Absolutely. Nothing to see here, citizen, move along.

The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon’s ‘treason’ — Reminds me of Reagan’s October surprise. Republican have never failed to put partisan interest over national interest, have they? (Via danjite.)

For Sen. Portman, Sen. Kirk and the rest of us: The next big step is the important one — It’s the realization that because I didn’t understand others’ situation or others’ perspective until I myself faced the same thing, I should then strive to listen and to learn and to see the world through others’ eyes so that I can better understand the world without having to experience every situation, every injustice, every ordeal personally. One fundamental definition of conservatism is “lack of empathy”.

Phil Donohue Recalls how he Was Fired From MSNBC for Being anti-war — Progressives really were right on that one, and conservatives dead, dead wrong. Not that any FOX News viewer will ever come to understand that.

QotD?: Who are you trying hard to look like?

3/22/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hour (WRPA, revisions)
Hours slept: 6.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours stationary bike
Weight: n/a (away from home)
Number of FEMA troops on my block building solar arrays to undermine the American fossil fuel industry: 0
Currently reading: Guards, Guards by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cool, guns, history, Iraq, Links, Mars, media, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Science, space, Tech

Posted: 5:15 am Fri March 22 2013 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad has smoker’s hack without ever smoking

A Cancer Gene Therapy Activated by a Pill — This is not directly relevant to my disease, but it’s still cool as heck.

Oklahoma Woman Proof That Youth Should Not Preclude Breast Cancer Screening — Me, too. I was 43 when I presented with fully developed colon cancer. I couldn’t have gotten screened if I’d known to beg for it, as screenings for my kind of cancer aren’t indicated for patients under 50, and so not covered by health insurance and not prescribed by most doctors.

We Aren’t the World — Joe Henrich and his colleagues are shaking the foundations of psychology and economics—and hoping to change the way social scientists think about human behavior and culture.

Depression Stems from Miscommunication Between Brain Cells; Study Challenges Role of Serotonin in Depression

An Unlikely Plan to Revive the Passenger Pigeon — Advances in genetic engineering have some biologists convinced they’ll re-create extinct species.

Who Made That Cellphone? — Ah, history. (Thank to Dad.)

Self-Healing Circuits for Deep Space — Huh. Wow.

Railroad Pageant: 1939 — Mmm, steam.

How Far Did She Fall? The Amazing Story of Vesna Vulović — I’ve read about this before. (Via David Goldman.)

A warmer planet means bigger hurricane surges — Not just in the future—the impact is already significant, a new study argues. Amazing, how liberal lies have affected even the behavior of the ocean itself. Thank God for Rush Limbaugh and the Republican party, otherwise those climate “facts” and “data” might have had some effect on US policy by now.

In Some States, Gun Rights Trump Orders of Protection — The judge’s order prohibited Mr. Holten from going within two blocks of his former wife’s home and imposed a number of other restrictions. What it did not require him to do was surrender his guns. About 12 hours after he was served with the order, Mr. Holten was lying in wait when his former wife returned home from a date with their two children in tow. Yep, I definitely feel safer with gun rights so thoroughly protected. Don’t you? If you’re a gun culture person, why is this all right with you? (Via Marta Murvosh.)

What we Lost: Top Ten Ways the Iraq War Harmed the US — This is what conservative leadership and ideals brought us.

QotD?: Cough much?

3/19/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (WRPA, working on Whole Genome Sequencing presentation)
Hours slept: 9.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours stationary bike
Weight: 240.0
Number of FEMA troops on my block building solar arrays to undermine the American fossil fuel industry: 0
Currently reading: Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, climate, guns, healthcare, Iraq, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, space, Tech, trains, weird

Posted: 5:24 am Tue March 19 2013 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad refuses to freeze its soup and nuts

A review of Endurance — A review with a very curious approach.

The First 10 Pages: Science Fiction & Fantasy Boot Camp: 3/26/13 – 3/28/13 — An online course I am etching with writer (and friend) Phil Athans and agent Carlie Webber. Phil comments at length.

Widespread Flaws Found in Ovarian Cancer Treatment — Sigh.

French Toilet Paper Ad: ‘Emma’ By Le Trefle Proves Both French Husbands & Technology Wrong — Hahahaha! (Thanks to Lisa Costello.)

“W T Warren Testing Helmet 1912” — Um, ok.

Seagulls — Drones in love. (Via goulo.)

Ukrainian Killer Dolphins Deserted to Seek Mates – Expert — Um, wow.

Neanderthal large eyes ‘made them extinct’ — No one knows what it’s like/To be the bad man/To be the sad man/Behind blue eyes

Mars rock yields building blocks of life — NASA says the Curiosity rover detected six elements in a rock that indicated Mars once had a habitable environment with plenty of water.

Google Concedes That Drive-by Prying Violated Privacy — This has been percolating for a while.

Raging on the Web May Not Really Make Us Feel Better — Huh. Who knew? I guess we’ll all have to back to yelling at the teepee.

No burden, no regret in ‘fair, respectful, equal’ — I have never seen anyone who described their former support for marriage equality as an oppressive weight or burden that they were later joyously relieved to be rid of. I have never seen anyone weep with remorse and regret for the votes they cast or the words they once spoke in support of equal rights. I don’t recall seeing anyone moving in that direction at all.

Illinois Republican: Gun control ‘exactly’ like castration — Ah, the cool logic of the gun culture once again expresses itself. Saving 30,000 lives a year can’t possibly be worth this much trouble, eh? (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Richard Nixon Wished for Total Handgun Ban — And he presided over the founding of the EPA. I sometimes wonder how we’d view Nixon now if he hadn’t left office under a criminal cloud. (Via ericjamesstone.)

Falsity of Nuclear Accusation against Iraq Was Known before Bush’s Invasion — Well, duh. They knew they were lying about it. But evidence-based reality was never a high priority for the Bush administration, being as how they were Republicans and all. The kindest interpretation I’ve ever come up with is that they were certain Saddam had nukes, and were doing the political equivalent of kiting a check, figuring once they found the goods, no one would care later that the initial evidence was false.

QotD?: What’s the coldest you’ve ever been?

3/13/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (revisions and 900 additional words to “King of the Kingless”, to 4,000 words)
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (fitful)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (19 degrees and snowing outside, what do you think?)
Weight: n/a (away from home)
Number of FEMA troops on my block escorting ACORN thugs to steal the votes of “Real Americans”: 0
Currently reading: Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Cancer, Cool, Endurance, events, France, Funny, gay, gender, guns, healthcare, Iraq, Links, Mars, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, reviews, sex, Tech, Videos, weird, Writing

Posted: 3:57 am Wed March 13 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad is filing its nails while they’re dragging the lake

The Year’s Best Science Fiction #29 edited by Gardner Dozois — SF Signal reviews YBSF 29, including my 2012 Sunspin novelette “A Long Walk Home”.

The Phillip Pirages YouTube channel — Deep antique book neepery for extreme bibliophiles. (Via threeoutside.)

Should you keep copies of your medical records?

Report: No added hysterectomy benefit with robotics — Headline of the week.

Thunderstone: What People Thought About Meteorites Before Modern Astronomy — Mmm, sky iron.

Saturn’s Hexagon and Rings — Such a photo…

Interstellar Expansion: Colonizing Ice Dwarfs

Finding the Higgs? Good news. Finding its mass? Not so good. — “Fireballs of doom” from a quantum phase change would wipe out present Universe.

Is Evolution Now Predictable?

WTF, evolution? — Weird nature. Hahahah! (Via threeoutside.)

‘Mole mastermind’ sought for ‘perfect’ Brussels diamond heist — Behold the Underminer!

Brain Scans Can Predict Your Political Ideology — Whether you pulled the lever for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney may reflect how your brain copes with risk, new research finds. What I don’t understand is why Romeny’s campaign wad considered low risk. He was Bush-lite, and Bush was the worst president in modern history: destroying the economy, ballooning the deficit, dragging us into trillion dollar wars of choice under knowingly false pretenses, etc. About the most risky thing Obama has done is try to make sure more Americans have access to healthcare. Admittedly, something conservatives have stood squarely against, but their position on the ACA also increases both personal and social risk.

Historic oversight corrected: Film ‘Lincoln’ inspires look into slavery vote — Mississippi ratified the 13th amendment in 1995? Nope, no racism here. Just good, patriotic “real Americans”. Lowering the Bar with more on this.

Tea Party: Obama is Hitler — It’s time the we stopped pretending that the Tea Party is some real organization that deserves our respect. I can’t think of a tim when the Tea Party did deserve our respect. It was always a patently transparent Republican astroturf movement designed to tap racial resentment among angry, willfully ignorant, low-information conservatives.

Missouri Republican Wants To Make It A Felony For His Fellow Lawmakers To Propose Gun Laws — That’s the conservative view of democracy: their way or the highway.

Hagel and Repudiating the Bush Era — The fight over Hagel centers on Republican hard-liners’ continuing attachment to Bush-era foreign policy and the rejection of much of Bush’s legacy by everyone else. The problem for conservatives in repudiating the Bush era is coming to terms with the utter financial and foreign policy disaster that the Iraq War has been. They’re not good at admitting they were wrong, especially on such a massive and destructive scale. If a Democrat had launched a trillion-dollar war of choice under knowingly false pretenses, we’d be hearing about it every day for decades to come.

QotD?: Is she so cute?

2/20/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hour (0.5 hours on a new story, to 900 words, and 0.5 hours working on my collaboration with the_child)
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (fitful)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 234.4
Number of FEMA troops on my block covering up high crimes and misdemeanors in Benghazi: 0
Currently reading: Mort by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Cool, Culture, guns, healthcare, Iraq, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, race, reviews, Science, space, stories, weird

Posted: 5:38 am Wed February 20 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad asks what’s the matter with him? Is he all right?

Paradise Lost 3 — Looking for a tight writers’ conference with a high staff:student ratio? Plus me? Check it out.

Post-Sick Sharks — Scrivener’s Error with a whole bunch of commentary and links on publishing and copyright, with focus on (among other things) orphan works. Recommended reading if you’re serious about this stuff.

Amazon ‘used neo-Nazi guards to keep immigrant workforce under control’ in Germany — Yep. That’s Amazon, predatory business practices and all. (Snurched from Andrew Wheeler.)

The Complete 14 Batman Window Cameos — Hahahah! (Via David Goldman.)

JayBall rules — Because reasons! (Thanks to garyomaha.)

I’m Elyn Saks and this is what it’s like to live with schizophrenia — Wow. (Via Lisa Costello.)

The CIA funded abstract art during the Cold War — Umm…

Optical Calibration Targets — Oh, wow, this is cool. I want to visit some of these in person.

Bioinspired fibers change color when stretched — Color-tunable photonic fibers mimic the fruit of the “bastard hogberry” plant. (Snurched from Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Love of aviation launches teens’ fight to reopen museum — A local story from the Portland area.

Why Almost Everyone in Russia Has a Dash Cam — And why we have so many videos of the recent Russian meteor strike. (Via David Goldman.)

Russian Meteor Is Largest Since 1908 Siberian Blast, NASA Says — A meteor that exploded in the skies above Russia’s Ural Mountains was the largest since the Tunguska blast in Siberia in 1908 and released about 33 times the energy of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

Sex in the Middle Ages — Life after 40? No, wait…

Before Love: Puritan Beliefs about Sex and Marriage — Unfortunately, that Puritan sexual ethos continues to have grip on American culture, especially in the minds of the vocal and destructive Christianist minority, as part of their ongoing campaign of wholesale social repression and denial of individual rights in the name of a very narrow view of religion and morality.

Rising Voices in S. Korea, Japan Advocate Nuclear Weapons — What could possibly go wrong>

How the NRA Hobbled the ATF

The Art of Infinite War, Ctd.: The Administration’s Drone Campaign — Ta-Nehisi Coates with commentary from Judah Grunstein, who edits World Politics Review.

QotD?: How do you know?

2/16/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.25 hours (2,400 words on novella in progress, to 15,700 words, plus 0.25 hours of collaboration with the_child.)
Hours slept: 7.5 hours (fitful)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 232.6
Number of FEMA troops on my block covering up high crimes and misdemeanors in Benghazi: 0
Currently reading: Mort by Terry Pratchett

Tags: amazon, Art, Christianists, conferences, Cool, Culture, guns, healthcare, history, Iraq, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion, Russia, Science, sex, space, sports, Tech, tv, Videos, weird, Writing

Posted: 6:54 am Sat February 16 2013 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad sees a little silhouette-oh of a man

SMBC on the perils of editing — Hahaha.

I Am Not a Camel … but I Do Have Epilepsy — On disease, treatment and medical stigmatization. (Via David Goldman.)

Pad Thai — The odd history of a favorite dish. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Abandoned — National Geographic television on treasure hunting in abandoned properties. Some cool stuff here. (Via threeoutside.)

Sea slug’s ‘disposable penis’ surprises — Yeah, I’ve been on dates like that.

Carbon Sponge Could Soak Up Coal Emissions — Emissions from coal power stations could be drastically reduced by a new, energy-efficient material that adsorbs large amounts of carbon dioxide, then releases it when exposed to sunlight.

NASA: Rapid Loss of Freshwater from Middle East Region — Oi. Not good news for anyone.

Zen Groups Distressed by Accusations Against Teacher — Sigh. Religious hypocrisy is religious hypocrisy, no matter where it comes from.

Papal cuts: why is he really resigning? — Something I suspect that is very close to the sad, hard truth.

AP bans use of words “husband,” “wife” for legally-wed gay couples — Ah, the bigotry continues, to the delight of conservatives across the land.

The New York Times is Stupid on Plagiarism — Cora Buhlert on the American view of German politics and politicians. This brings us to the fact that a whole lot of German politicians, including most of the current cabinet, have advanced degrees and doctorates. For some reason, this seems to boggle American minds, which in turn boggles mine, because don’t Americans want politicians who are smart and educated? That said, looking at some of the American politicians who cropped up during the recent election season – you know, the sort who consider the Soviet Union a valid threat for the 21st century or displayed profound ignorance about human biology and reproduction – I guess the answer is “no”. That institutionalized political anti-intellectualism would be a conservative tic, Cora, and every bit as stupidly destructive as you imply.

Missouri bill redefines science, gives equal time to Intelligent Design — Bill has a long list of brain-melting stipulations. If nothing else, I could never be an American conservative because it requires endorsing this kind of deep intellectual dishonesty. Even those Republicans who personally know better enable this idiocy with their votes, their campaign contributions and their political support.

Ted Nugent Is Not Amused — Republicans hear very little they like in the president’s State of the Union address. Hey, Nuge, I thought you said you’d be dead or in jail if Obama was re-elected. So, pick one and get on with it.

The Art of Infinite War — Ta-Nehisi Coates on the American obsession with “security”.

QotD?: Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?

2/13/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (2,500 words on novella in progress, to 8,700 words, 30 minutes on a joint project with the_child)
Hours slept: 7.25 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 231.0
Number of FEMA troops on my block helping illegal immigrants infiltrate America: 0
Currently reading: Mort by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Christianism, climate, Cool, Culture, Food, Funny, gay, gender, Germany, healthcare, Iraq, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, sex, Tech, Writing

Posted: 6:05 am Wed February 13 2013 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad has the staples

The Acts of Whimsy cancer fundraiser is still live. It has made goal, but additional support is always welcome, especially given my new complications. Please check it out if you have not done so yet.

The Lakeside Kickstarter has expanded its stretch goals to include documenting the science around my genomic testing by traveling to the testing lab and interviewing the scientists there. They’v also posted a new trailer for the movie, which is very striking. So give a little to support SCIENCE!

The Drink Tank talks about me, cancer and fandom — Thank you, Chris.

RNA Fragments May Yield Rapid, Accurate Cancer Diagnosis — A new method to noninvasively diagnose cancer and monitor its progression could eliminate the need for painful and sometimes life-threatening biopsies. (Thanks to Barb M.)

Chemotherapy Can Inadvertently Encourage Cancer Growth — This may be what has happened to me. (Via @dratz.)

Meyer the Mormon — Sherwood Smith with an interesting bit about Twilight, as well as a link to a much longer article.

Men who help with housework get less sex — This story seems both counterintuitive, and filled with dodgy assumptions.

Disco Scallops Know How to Boogie Even if They Aren’t Scallops — (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

How owls swivel their heads

The Old Bus: 1937 — Old school bus. Williams County, North Dakota. Wow…

How Drought on Mississippi River Impacts You — The drought-plagued Mississippi is holding up barge traffic, sending global ripples.

Will Deep-sea Mining Yield an Underwater Gold Rush? — Some environmentalists say the lure of precious minerals threatens ocean life and local cultures.

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire — Wow. (Via Lisa Costello.)

What Gun Owners Really Want I’ve owned six guns. I’ve drawn them on bad guys. I want to be understood. — Firearms exist to manage situations where rationality has failed, so thinking rationally about them can be hard.

Milan court convicts 3 Americans in CIA kidnapping — Good. Apparently the American justice system is never going to hold anyone accountable for the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush administration. It’s nice to know the rule of law applies somewhere.

Chuck Hagel Mauled in Bizarro World of US Senate — Yep. This.

QotD?: Ever had 32 staples pulled from your belly?

2/1/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (still in post-operative recovery)
Hours slept: 9.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (still in post-operative recovery)
Weight: 224.6
Number of FEMA troops on my block protecting women from violence: 0
Currently reading: Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Cancer, climate, Cool, documentary, fundraiser, guns, health, interviews, Iraq, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, sex, Videos, weird

Posted: 8:27 am Fri February 01 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad keeps trying to find its footing

The Acts of Whimsy cancer fundraiser and the Lakeside Kickstarter for the documentary about me, the_child, and cancer are still live. Both have made goal, but additional support is always welcome. Please check them out if you have not done so yet.

Skiffy and Fanty with a random Act of Whimsy on my behalf.

Sex Operator Cards Against Humanity — Rebecca Blain with an Act of Whinsy pace Mary Robinette.

PolarBearSwim — Rick Novy commits an Act of, well, something, in support.

Creative genius and science — mckitterick with a fascinating post, including a recording of the oldest documented piece of music in the world.

Cephalophore — A cephalophore (from the Greek for “head-carrier”) is a saint who is generally depicted carrying his or her own head. I hate it when that happens. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

PaperTab: A Tablet As Flexible As Paper Debuts At CES 2013 — Not quite fully baked, but still cool as heck. (Via David Goldman.)

Ancient migration: Genes link Australia with India

Chimpanzees possess sense of fairness akin to humans — Much like reality itself, even nature has a liberal bias.

The Airplane’s Infancy — By 1913 we’d learned how to fly. Now came the hard part—designing flying machines that were safe and reliable. A view of aeronautics from 100 years ago.

25 Places That Look Not Normal, But Are Actually Real — (Via Lisa Costello.)

The Weathermen Don’t Know Which Way the Wind’s Blowing — Four in 5 Americans believe in global warming–but nearly half of local weather reporters don’t. Believing in global warming is like believing in tomatoes or gravity. Global warming denialism has as much intellectual credibility as tomato denialism or gravity denialism. All of those phenomena are pieces of evidence-based reality, regardless of your opinion or ideology. But weathermen? Really?

Summer Down Under — Heat-related photos from Australia, which is having a nastily record-breaking summer. Warning: Some of these might be triggery. Good thing climate change is a liberal hoax, otherwise there might be something to worry about. (Via tillyjane, a/k/a my mom.)

Debunking the Denial: “16 Years of No Global Warming” — A well constructed, ideologically confirming lie can outperform the facts for a long time if people are sufficiently enthusiastic in their willful ignorance.

Little-known laws shed light on NRA influence — The gun culture is as pervasive as it is destructive.

The Hitler gun control lie — Gun rights activists who cite the dictator as a reason against gun control have their history dangerously wrong. Like pretty much all contemporary American conservatives, gun rights advocates prefer their beautiful minds blissfully untroubled by so-called “facts”.

More Guns, Less Crime: The Switzerland Example — Ta-Nehisi Coates on why the gun culture in Switzerland is actually nothing like what a American gun enthusiasts like to pretend it is. Once again, those liberal “facts” don’t align at all with cherished conservative beliefs. Quel surprise.

I Wish That I Knew What It’s Like to Be Free — More crazy conservative gun culture shit. (Referred from reynardo.)

Colin Powell blasts GOP’s “dark vein of intolerance” — This would be the same Colin Powell who knowingly lied to the US and the UN about Iraq’s alleged WMDs? Even though I appreciate his newfound message (a few years too late, sir, given what a much bigger difference you could have made back in the day), Powell permanently trashed his credibility with the Iraq lies.

?otD: What do you do when your deck is burning?

1/15/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (stress)
Hours slept: 6.25 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: n/a (forgot to weigh)
Number of FEMA troops on my block enforcing disability rights: 0
Currently reading: The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks

Tags: Cancer, climate, Cool, Culture, Funny, guns, health, Iraq, Links, music, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Tech, Videos, weird

Posted: 6:19 am Tue January 15 2013 | Comments(2) |