Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad head back west

The unbearable loss of words

Dear 16 year old me — A video about malignant melanoma. (Via David Ivory.)

Mercedes apologizes for using Che Guevara image — Using a mass murderer to sell cars. Classy.

Great Science Frauds — Science is not known for drama, except when a researcher commits fraud.

New Storage Device Is Very Small, at 12 Atoms

NASA able to observe a long time ago, in newly found galaxies far, far away — Researchers used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to find five tiny but bright galaxies clustered together 13.1 billion light-years from Earth.

Saturn’s Iapetus: Painted Moon

Exosaturn — Discovering a ring system around a planet orbiting a distant star. Wow.

How Do Iraqis View the Effects of the Iraq War? — Ahem.

Uncompassionate Conservatism — The point isn’t necessarily that Romney has lived in privilege all his life; so did FDR. It’s his apparent inability or unwillingness to imagine what it’s like for those less privileged, his complete failure to try, even in his imagination, walking in someone else’s shoes that stands out. This echoes a point I’ve made a number of times in the past is that the contemporary incarnation of conservatism involves a failure of both empathy and imagination. (Via David Goldman.)

?otd: How many of you have never flown in an airplane?

1/13/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (not enough time)
Body movement: Airport walking to come.
Hours slept: 6.5 (fitful)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Lion’s Blood by Steven Barnes

Tags: Cancer, cars, Cool, Culture, healthcare, Iraq, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, Tech

Posted: 3:52 am Fri January 13 2012 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad plans travel

Honesty and depression — Mur Lafferty on mental health.

A Future History — Centauri Dreams with a history of space exploration yet to come.

Ohio earthquake was not a natural event, expert says — Frack, baby, frack.

Dallol – The World’s Weirdest Volcanic Crater — (Via danjite.)

Hairy-chested crabs seen in Antarctic deep-sea vents

First Hybrid Shark Found — The first-ever observed hybrid may be a sign the predators are adapting to climate change.

Wildlife find path to safety under US roads — (Via the Infrastructurist.)

Canada-US border crossed by man using iPad as ID — Huh.

It’s Over — Writer and war veteran Myke Cole on the US withdrawal from Iraq.

Top Tea Party Republican admits it: We’ve been employing hostage strategy — And that’s why people vote Republican: they value good, principled leadership.

Campaign Countdown: Final Report — The Iowa caucus results, in case you missed it elsewhere. Eight votes. Wow.

Three Republican Bears and none Just Right

?otd: How many US states have you visited?

1/4/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 9.25 (fitful)
Weight: 211.6
Currently reading: Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein

Tags: Canada, Cool, Culture, Iraq, Links, nature, Ohio, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science

Posted: 6:34 am Wed January 04 2012 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad for New Years’s Eve

A reader reacts to Green — Mostly with the liking.

Alone in the Old Republican Crowd — Ta-Nehisi Coates on writing in the coffee house.

Have We Met? Tracing Face Blindness to Its Roots — Some cool perceptual psychology here. (Via David Goldman.)

The Joy of Quiet — Hmmm.

Antarctic adventurers race against history’s clock

Ice Varieties along the Antarctic Coast

A history of the Earth in 24 hours — A nifty graphic. Not valid for Young Earth Creationists and others among the wilfully ignorant, of course.

Prior Visions of Star Flight — Interesting from an SFnal perspective as well as a historical technology perspective.

In Panama City, Colorful Red Devil Buses Yielding to Paler, Safer Kind

Energy giant hid behind shells in “land grab” — A perfect example of why the conservative rubric of “industry self-regulation” is total crap. Which, of course, is obvious to anyone with a junior high school education and intact critical thinking faculties who isn’t too invested in their ideology to think about the role of self-interest in corporate decision making. (Via Steve Buchheit, who got it from Tobias Buckell.)

2011: End of US Hyperpower & its War with Islamdom

The Price of ‘Victory’ — The war in Iraq is over … just not for the Iraqis. Lest you are somehow ignorant enough to believe that Iraq war was in any way good for Iraqis or their country. (Via Eunomia.)

Newt Gingrich: “I’m A Middle Class Person” — Right. Because all us middle class people have half million dollar lines of credit at Tiffany’s. Sadly, millions of low-information GOP voters will nod along to this tripe, as they always do.

?otd: Partying tonight?

12/31/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 10.5 (fitful)
Weight: 209.4
Currently (re)reading: The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

Tags: Antarctica, Books, Culture, Green, Iraq, Links, Panama, Personal, Politics, Process, reviews, Science, Tech, Writing

Posted: 8:46 am Sat December 31 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad thinks some they do and some they don’t

A French review of Extraordinary Engines — Including my story, “The Lollygang Save the World on Accident”.

Getting out of the way — Roger Ebert on prodigies and the creative process.

5 Timeless Books of Insight on Fear and the Creative Process — The only time I experience fear in my creative process is immediately before diving into a large scale project.

Mysterious 16th-Century Sext Discovered in Copy of Chaucer — Heh. (Via danjite.)

Led by the child who simply knew — Raising a transgendered child.

Having to think about the unthinkable — Most people don’t like to plan for dying, but in our state of denial, we leave ourselves vulnerable to conditions we would never want. Arrangements for the end of life are essential.

NASA is planning to use a giant crossbow and harpoon to capture samples from an asteroid. — Oh, the opportunities…

How the 10,000-Year Clock Measures Time> — The Earth’s rotation is notoriously unpredictable. So how can a clock keep time for 10,000 years?

Higgs boson: the particle of faith — There are parallels between the search for the ‘God particle’ and the search for God Himself, writes Alister McGrath.

Overnight Makeover for a Kosher First Kitchen — Making the White House kitchen kosher. (Thanks to Dad.)

A common atheist delusion — This is one of my mental failings as an atheist as well. I find religious dogma so preposterous and obviously suspect that I have a lot of trouble believing that other people really believe it. My default assumption is always that they are going through the motions for some other reason. Which is an error-of-thinking on my part, to be sure.

Texas school may build protective wall after 2 students shot while trying out for basketball — See, your your Constitutionally guaranteed right to defense of essential liberties with firearms requires that rather than limit firearms use near schools, or any other sensible measure, we build walls around those schools. Because otherwise students might get shot by people out exercising their constitutional rights, and after all it’s kids’ fault for getting in the way of the bullets. This is yet another reason why I can never be a conservative. I just can’t think myself that twisted and inhumane, to believe that gun rights trump the safety of schoolchildren.

Empathy, Cont. — Ta-Nehisi Coates on culture as a toolbox. I will also note, in parallel to his observation about weight and class, that there are no overweight kids in the_child‘s eight grade class, and vanishingly few in her entire school — which is a Waldorf school populated largely by the children of relatively (or heavily) monied white liberal-progressives. I am one of the few overweight parents, as well.

Non Sequitur nails contemporary politics — Read the blackboard in the background.

Physics Envy — Creating financial models involving human behavior is like forcing ‘the ugly stepsister’s foot into Cinderella’s pretty glass slipper.’

Panetta formally shuts down US war in Iraq — And we’ll just leave the money on the dresser on out way out, right?

?otd: Some you just can’t tell, right?

12/15/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 9.5 (solid, plus plus napping)
Weight: 209.6
Currently (re)reading: Retief! by Keith Laumer

Tags: Books, Cool, gender, guns, healthcare, history, Iraq, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, reviews, Science, sex, stories, Tech

Posted: 5:55 am Thu December 15 2011 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad tries to wake up

Interview: Lilith Saintcrow, author of ‘The Hedgewitch Queen’

Could This Be The End Of Cancer? — It’s a disease that kills millions a year and a slew of hoped-for miracle treatments have gone nowhere. Now scientists say vaccines could hold the key—not just to a cure but to wiping out cancer forever.

Periodic Table of Swearing — Yes, this is NSFW, both visually and audibly. Funny as hell, though.

The assholocracy — Language Log with a useful new word.

Accidental Scientist Hawks ‘Online Marketplace for Brains’ — The headline on this very cool story is a bit misleading. This is about data science crowdsourcing.

Trillion-frame-per-second video — This story makes my brain hurt. In a good way. SCIENCE!

Augmented Reality for Six-Year-Olds — Toy makers bring augmented reality to the masses.

Next Big Bet for Space: Airborne Rocket Launcher — This is cool. More here.

A second life for Vietnam’s bile bears

Did walking evolve underwater? ‘Walking fish’ suggests that it did. — A study of the African lungfish suggests that our evolutionary ancestors first started walking before they migrated onto land.

Pakistan police rescue chained students from madrasa — Pakistani police say dozens of students were at the Madrasa Zakarya, an Islamic seminary, in Karachi. Several were reportedly chained in a basement, denied food and pressured to join the Taliban. The only difference between this and some Christian ‘schools’ in America is a matter of degree, not intent.

Tennessee family home burns while firefighters watch — Life in a fee-for-service conservative paradise.

What Perry gets wrong about religion in America — Everything, basically, outside the narrow box of Christianist bigotry so beloved of the GOP. Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson comments.

Post-American Iraq by the Numbers — In case you labor under the delusion that we somehow improved things in Iraq.

There Is Only One Issue In America — Hmm. Interesting article. I think he ignores the issue of faith-based social conservatism, which fatally distorts the compromise process essential to party politics, but still an interesting point.

?otd: Coffee or hot chocolate?

12/14/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 10.0 (solid, plus plus napping)
Weight: 208.4
Currently (re)reading: Return of Retief by Keith Laumer

Tags: Cancer, Christianists, Cool, Funny, health, interviews, Iraq, Language, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech, Videos, weird

Posted: 6:03 am Wed December 14 2011 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad celebrates hump day

The Fathomless Abyss — A shared world project of which I am a part is announced. Go check it out.

British garbage worms survive in space without human help — Boy do I feel better now.

‘New Earth-like planet may have water, life’

Turn on, tune in and get better? — Hallucinogens and other street drugs are increasingly being studied for legitimate therapeutic uses, such as helping patients deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, chronic pain, depression and even terminal illness.

The Accented Activist, the Blue Woman and One Curious Year in Court — Ah, justice. (Via tillyjane.)

The Afghan General Who Fell to Earth — She was a national hero—and some powerful men didn’t like that.

?otd: Work a five day week?

11/30/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 (fitful)
Weight: 212.4

Tags: Culture, Iraq, Links, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Science, stories

Posted: 6:23 am Wed November 30 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad won’t go out tonight

“Remember, Harlan!” said the driftglassman — Harlan Ellison and a copyright problem.

Junot Diaz and Min Jin Lee Tell it Like it is #origins #doubt #why people want to become writers — (Via @literaryanimal.)

Why Fingernails on Blackboards Sound So Horrible — Heh.

Scientists: Modern humans mated with different species — Rishathra, anyone?

China Launches Shenzhou-8 To Test Docking For Chinese Space Station

Are Bendable Smart Phones the Future? — For you near-term futurists.

System D: The Shadow Economy is the Second Largest in the World — Huh. Real life version of what we see in cyberpunk and elsewhere.

The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest — Working beyond the authority of parliament, the Corporation of London undermines all attempts to curb the excesses of finance. A strange and fascinating squib on a British legal oddity that affects us all. Plus bonus China Mieville references. Plutocracy on the hoof. (Via multiple sources.)

Dr. Livingstone’s lost 1871 ‘massacre’ diary recovered; discovery rewrites history — Interesting stuff about digital imaging. (Via danjite.)

Are big banks feeling pressure from Occupy Wall Street? — Hmmm.

Major Parties Struggle for Popularity; Broad Interest in an Alternative

Wartime Contracting Commission Classifies Findings for Next 20 Years — Although the Commission on Wartime Contracting was created to expose waste and abuse, their records are sealed until 2031. Come on, Obama, we elected you to be better than the GOP. And that is a low, low bar.

Remember when Romney said he wouldn’t put a Muslim in the cabinet? He made his Mormonism relevant. — Interesting point. Up til now I’ve maintained Romney’s religion isn’t relevant to his run for the presidency, being a fundamentally private matter. But why should he be exempted from the same religious test he would place on people he would name to his own cabinet? We all know the answer, of course, because Republicans can always have it both ways. I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

Bruce Bartlett, Ex-Reagan Economist: Idea That Deregulation Leads To Jobs ‘Just Made Up’ — Well, that’s what the facts say, but unlike those of us in the reality-base community, facts never got in the way of a good red meat to the base conservative talking point. (Via madwriter.)

?otD: Is it bound to take your life?

11/2/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.25 hours (chemo fatigue, tiny bit of WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 11.0 hours (fitful overnight plus napping)
Weight: 214.4
Currently (re)reading: Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett

Tags: business, Cool, Culture, England, history, Iraq, Links, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Politics, Process, Science, Tech, Writing

Posted: 5:20 am Wed November 02 2011 | Comments(0) |

[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 thinks about spam names

Fun with Siri — (Via David Goldman)

Radiation detected in Tokyo seven months after earthquake… but it’s not from Fukushima — High readings triggered by old glass bottles in a basement.

Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD — Can you image the reaction if the Tea Party were being subverted this way?

The 1930s Sure Sound Familiar

America’s growing anti-intellectualism — Paul Rosenberg concludes his analysis of critical deficits leading to the “Occupy” movement sweeping the nation.

In charging diocese, prosecutor takes rare step — Given the Catholic Church’s decades-long written policy of protecting priest sex offenders, these kinds of charges can hardly come too soon.

Active Duty Gays Say Coming out Has Been Nonevent — But the GOP leadership assured us there would be a mass exodus from the military! Once again, as almost always, the facts are biased against the conservative position.

Obama, take a page from Reagan — Ronald Reagan was a successful president because he understood that in frightening times, Americans want to be reassured that their leaders can defeat all foes and deliver a happy ending. What, get Alzheimers, crash the social safety net and listen to the economic lunatic fringe?

This is the Way the Iraq War Ends, with Bangs and Whimpers — The US will receive no benefit from its illegal war of aggression, no permanent bases, no bulwark against Iran, no new Arab friend to Israel, no $14 a barrel petroleum– all thing things Washington had dreamed of. Mr. Bush’ war. Launched under knowingly false pretenses, ending under no appreciable gain to the US. Thanks to PNAC and the GOP, all we’ve done is spend a trillion dollars and waste thousands of US lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Are you proud of your Republican party?

God is not registered to vote in New Hampshire — Several explanations suggest themselves for how four candidates for the same office came to believe they were called by God to do so. It’s possible that at least three of them are mistaken. Or this may be evidence that those of us who are monotheists are mistaken and all four candidates really were called, just by four different Gods. Or perhaps God simply subscribes to a management theory that values fostering competition.

Cain: I won’t be ‘flavor of the week’ — Been asked to show your birth certificate yet, Herm? You’re not nutty enough for your base in the long run, especially not the White Right.

?otD: Who is Monocler Vest?

10/16/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (chemo)
Hours slept: 9.5 hours (fitful)
Weight: Did not weight (chemo)
Currently reading: The Star Fraction by Ken MacLeod

Tags: Christianists, Funny, Iraq, Japan, Links, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Politics, Religion, sex, Tech, weird

Posted: 8:46 am Sun October 16 2011 | Comments(2) |

[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?

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) |