Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad prove to you that it’s no fool, walks across your swimming pool

It’s hard to rely on my good intentions, when my head’s full of things that I can’t mention — Lisa Costello on how my cancer news is affecting her.

Game Theory and the Treatment of Cancer — Thinking about cancer as an ecosystem is giving biologists access to a new armoury of mathematical tools for tackling it, such as evolutionary game theory.

The History of Typography – Animated Short — This is kind of nifty. (Via threeoutside.)

Alice E. Kober, 43; Lost to History No More — Ancient languages and eccentric professors. It doesn’t get any better! (Via my Dad.)

Dull Flag and Tongue of Gangsta: The Laugh-out-loud Place-names of Shetland and Orkney

Beatnik JFK: 1957 — For some reason, I find this photo very funny.

Researcher Analyzes Oldest Fossil Hominid Ear Bones Ever Recovered

Fossil Amber Challenges Theories About Glass — Scientists discover that glass doesn’t flow like a liquid.

Kangaroos have three vaginas — Mmm, marsupials. (Via David Goldman.)

One Small Step for Geoengineering — or Is “Ecoengineering” Better?

Space Oddity — David Bowie’s Space Oddity, recorded by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station. We are indeed living in the future. (Via David Goldman and others.)

‘Einstein’s Planet’: New Alien World Revealed by Relativity

Climate Sensitivity Stunner: Last Time CO2 Levels Hit 400 Parts Per Million The Arctic Was 14°F Warmer!

The Dark Art of Racecraft — Jason Richwine’s place in the long history of research on race and IQ. Ta-Nehisi Coates is powerful on race and racism in academic tradition.

Infographic: Is Your State’s Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably) — I’m so proud of America at moments like this. With all the budget problems of government, and all the human suffering in our debated economy, we still have our priorities straight. (Via danjite.)

Japan WWII ‘comfort women’ were ‘necessary’ – Hashimoto — A prominent Japanese politician has described as “necessary” the system by which women were forced to become prostitutes for World War II troops. Oh, God. Really? Not only seven kinds of wrong, but disgusting and morally depraved. China indignant at Japanese politician’s “comfort women” statement.

Homophobes Might Be Hidden Homosexuals — A new analysis of implicit bias and explicit sexual orientation statements may help to explain the underpinnings of anti-gay bullying and hate crimes. Also, this just in: water is wet. Inside a great number of angry conservative bigots is a fabulous gay man struggling to get out.

Naked TSA Protester’s Appeal to Be Heard Tuesday — A story of local interest here in Portland. It would be pretty funny if it weren’t so darned serious.

Police search for 19-year-old man shooting, wounding of 19 at New Orleans Mother’s Day parade — Because an armed society is a polite society, and guns make us all safer. Think how much harder it would have been for this shooter to exercise his theoretical defense of essential liberties without the smiling protection of the NRA and the Republican Party.

Right-wing media check up: still crazy — The right-wing media hasn’t learned anything from its failures in 2012. It’s the same-old ‘Obama is evil’ conspiracy theories.

Gates: Administration Critics view of US Military Capabilities in Benghazi “Cartoonish” — Former Bush and Obama administrations secretary of defense Bob Gates, a lifelong Republican, replied to some of the GOP fantasies about the possibility of a US military mission into Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012. The Republican obsession with Benghazi is just as bizarre and counterfactual as the vast majority of their other obsessions. Not that bizarre counterfactuals stopped Whitewater from morphing into the Clinton impeachment. Essentially, the GOP has been unable to accept the legitimacy of any Democratic president since LBJ.

Government secretly obtains phone records from journalists — Prosecutors targeted the Associated Press in an attempt to learn who leaked information about the CIA and an apparent terrorist plot in Yemen. If proven out, this is seven kinds of wrong. I don’t care what your politics are, this isn’t what our government does or should be doing. Should these allegations be substantiated, Attorney General Eric Holder needs to go, and Obama needs to answer for this. If nothing else, can this administration give us accountability? And some counterpoint on this.

QotD?: What is it that you have got that puts you where you are?

5/14/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (1.25 hours of revision, plus WRPA, editing METAtropolis: Green Space)
Hours slept: 5.0 hours (fitful)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: m/a (forgot)
Number of FEMA troops on my block digging for fossils in the yards of God-fearing Republicans: 0
Currently reading: The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, climate, Cool, economy, gay, guns, health, history, Japan, Language, Links, media, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, race, radiantlisa, Science, space, sports, Travel, Videos, weird

Posted: 5:15 am Tue May 14 2013 | Comments(4) |

[links] Link salad wonders what’s the fuss

Save Trent’s Teeth, Save His Life — Trent Zelazny needs help with a medical fundraiser of his own.

The Algorithm That Automatically Detects Polyps in Images from Camera Pills — Analysing the footage from camera pills is a time-consuming task for medical professionals. Now computer scientists are attempting to automate the process.

The British ‘Atlantis’ is mapped in detail — Using dual frequency identification sonar, the ruins of Dunwich rise again.

8BBC News – Close-up on Japan’s amazing lunchboxes — Mmm, bento. (Via willyumtx.)

Watch 32 discordant metronomes achieve synchrony in a matter of minutes — Huh. (Via David Goldman.)

‘Junk’ DNA Mystery Solved: It’s Not Needed — I am dubious of this story. National Geographic with more.

Happy whatever — Blogess Jenny Lawson says some very important things about women in general and mothers in specific.

Transgender woman wins right to marry in Hong Kong — Not exactly a noted hotbed of progressivism, that.

Dalai Lama Calls For Care For Our ‘Only Home’ Earth

‘Dramatic decline’ warning for plants and animals — More of that liberal conspiracy to keep the climate change hoax going.

Researchers Create “Hate Map” of the U.S. With Twitter Data — The same researchers previously mapped racist Tweets about President Obama. In both cases there’s reason to be a little skeptical.

Pediatricians take on gun lobby – carefully — Well, the NRA is better armed, and unlike doctors, some NRA members have a habit of publicly threatening people.

QotD?: Tell me what’s a-happening?

5/13/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (1.0 hours of revision, plus WRPA, editing METAtropolis: Green Space)
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 249.4
Number of FEMA troops on my block digging for fossils in the yards of God-fearing Republicans: 0
Currently reading: The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, China, climate, Cool, Culture, Food, gender, guns, health, Japan, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Science, sex, Tech, UK, Videos, weird

Posted: 4:36 am Mon May 13 2013 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad has counted all the lines on the road between here and Los Angeles

Roger Ebert, RIP — John Scalzi on Roger Ebert’s passing. Sigh.

A statement from Chaz Ebert — Sigh.

Talia’s Life: Coping with Cancer! — A 12 year old describes living with cancer. (Via the_child.)

Thousands of Medicare patients just lost chemotherapy because of sequester — Thank you, GOP. Your compassionate conservatism underwhelms. Fatally, for some. Are you proud of your Republican party?

Target apologizes for label on plus-size dress — Shoppers at a Target store in Brooklyn say a label that listed the color of a plus-size dress as “manatee gray” was insulting. The label for the same dress in smaller sizes described it as “dark heather gray.”

Police Surveillance May Earn Money for City — Interesting, and a bit frightening. (Via my Dad.)

Brazil Nut Effect Measured in Lunar and Martian Gravity Conditions — I think this is my favorite headline of the week.

The 25 Best Photobombs of All Time in the Universe Ever — Snerk.

Bitcoin May Be the Global Economy’s Last Safe Haven — Really?

Rat Chase Again Bedevils Fukushima Nuclear Plant — It’s like a bad post-apocalyptic short story.

Western U.S. Created From Geologic ‘Pileup’ Says New Study — Warning, facts about the majesty of the universe are not valid for Young Earth Creationists and others among the willfully ignorant.

Get Fuzzy nails the conservative mindset — Hahah.

In Sign of Warming, 1,600 Years of Ice in Andes Melted in 25 Years — Glacial ice in the Peruvian Andes that took at least 1,600 years to form has melted in just 25 years, scientists reported Thursday, the latest indication that the recent spike in global temperatures has thrown the natural world out of balance. Amazing, the lengths liberals will go to in order to perpetrate their climate change hoax.

Climate change may be irreversible, but we control the future trajectory — Or not. We all know reality doesn’t stand a chance when confronted with good, patriotic, “real American” conservative ideas.

Why expanding background checks would, in fact, reduce gun crime — Oops. Once again that pesky reality contradicts the conservative narrative. As always.

Congress Obsessed with American Muslims, Neglects real threat of White Supremacists — This has been true for years, like when the GOP suppressed the DHS report on the threat of conservative domestic terrorism. Confidential to Republicans: It’s hard to think rationally about policy when your entire political fortune is built on lies and fear.

The Conservative Black Hope — For kids like me who came up in Baltimore during the ’80s and ’90s, Dr. Benjamin Carson has special importance. Ta-Nehisi Coates on Ben Carson. Though he doesn’t use this phrase, I would characterize what he is describing as cynical political opportunism.

North Carolina Republicans introduce bill to outlaw Baptist churches and establish N.C. Staatskirche — Slacktivist Fred Clark on the latest conservative lunacy out of North Carolina. Lowering the Bar has more.

QotD?: Ever been to a joint in Bakersfield called the Wagon Wheel?

4/5/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (reviewing existing material on Original Destiny, Manifest Sin)
Hours slept: 6.5 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 244.4
Number of FEMA troops on my block enforcing Agenda 21 by closing down golf courses: 0
Currently reading: Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, Christianists, climate, Culture, economy, Funny, gender, guns, healthcare, Japan, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, race, Religion, Science, weird

Posted: 5:19 am Fri April 05 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad sees that morning mists are parting to reveal

The cover art of my German editions of Mainspring and Escapement has been nominated for the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis in the Beste Grafik category &mash; Which doesn’t really have much to do with me directly, but is still pretty cool. Kudos to illustrator Max Meinzold.

Why Do We Hate Certain Words? — The curious phenomenon of word aversion.

‘I’m Google’ by Dina Kelberman: A Visual Exploration of Google Image Search — A very cool digital art project. Direct link here. (Via threeoutside.)

A Japanese medical blog reports on my Whole Genome Sequencing

End-of-life talks lacking between doctors, patients — I’ve already begun to have these conversations with my physician.

Cancer Drug That Shrinks All Tumors Set To Begin Human Clinical Trials — Huh. This is a treatment for primary tumors, not for metastases, so it probably isn’t relevant to me personally, but it’s still pretty damned cool.

Messenger RNAs Could Create a New Class of Drugs — New partnerships could help bring a novel class of biopharmaceutical to patients.

Steampunk iPad: 1922 — Another Shorpy classic. Hahah.

Scientists successfully create living embryo of an extinct species

Collision Course? A Comet Heads for Mars — Could have a significant impact on NASA programs there. (Via threeoutside.)

Melt may explain Antarctica’s sea ice expansion — Climate change is expanding Antarctica’s sea ice, according to a scientific study in the journal Nature Geoscience. This is what science does. It looks at contradictory evidence and tries to work out the contradiction. Ideology simply says, “If I believe this, it must be true”, and ignores contradictory evidence. Guess which view is based in reality?

Oceans continue to warm, especially the deeps — Altered patterns seen over past two decades. Amazing how the liberals can convince the entire planet to join in their climate change fraud. Any good conservative can tell you this is all wrong, no matter the evidence.

A New Map Of The U.S., Created By How Our Dollar Bills Move — Identifying functional regional boundaries through analysis of movements of paper currency. This is cool. (Via AH.)

1,200-year-old Egyptian text describes a shape-shifting Jesus — “Everybody need a mood lifter, Everybody need reverse polarity.” (Via shsilver.)

Google and white Christians’ search for ‘persecution’ — Christians will never be happy until they stop being the kind of people who, as TBogg put it, “can’t sleep at night because they can’t wait to see how the world will offend them the next day.”

Elite in China Face Austerity Under Xi’s Rule — Good luck with that. (Via my Dad.)

While GOP Elites Soften On Gay Marriage, Local Leaders Haven’t Gotten The Message — That’s what happens when one of your political cornerstones is irrational bigotry with no objective or principled value. I see a principled opposition to abortion, for example, though it’s sadly obvious most opponents aren’t actually standing on principled objections. I see a principled stance in favor of widespread private gun ownership, though again it’s clearly based on willful ignorance, promulgation of bad data and wholesale suppression of the reality of firearms in private hands. But opposition to gay marriage? Nothing but a combination of religious bigotry and personal ick factors. There simply is no principled opposition to be found, other than nicely rationalized versions of bigotry and ick.

New GOP plan: Guns for domestic abusers — As president Obama visits Colorado to discuss guns, state GOP launches fight to protect batterers’ gun rights. Because nothing says compassionate conservatism like protecting a violent man’s right to a firearm.

Jim Carrey: Fox ‘News’ is “A media colostomy bag… a public health issue” — Well, duh. The polling on how misinformed (strongly in the direction of conservative bias) FOX News viewers are is remarkably consistent. It’s almost like media isn’t liberal or something.

QotD?: Ever been to the Blue Mountains?

4/2/2013
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (WRPA, specifically critique)
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 245.6
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: Art, Awards, Cancer, China, Christianists, climate, Cool, Culture, economics, gay, Germany, guns, health, healthcare, Japan, Language, Links, Mars, media, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, Science, Tech

Posted: 5:20 am Tue April 02 2013 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad waits for big announcements

The Dark Stuff, Distilled — A review of The Americans.

Sit! Staaayyyy. Play Music! Good Dog! — iPhone Tamagotchi?Oookay… (Via my Dad.)

Do robot ants dream of electric crumbs? — Which is smarter: a swarm of brainless mini-robots with clockwork guts, or a colony of ravenous, half-blind Argentine ants? If you answered mindless robots, you’re right — but just barely.

Endling — An endling is an individual animal that is the last of its species or subspecies. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Fossil DNA used to reset humanity’s clock — Provides a better date of when some of our ancestors left Africa.

How to Make a Computer from a Living Cell

Scientists Discover First Meteorite From Mercury — Oooh.

What remains of an irradiated, damaged, and abandoned Japanese town

Dear Rightwing Catholic Islamophobes: Pope Francis just washed the feet of a Poor Muslim — Not in Tennessee, he didn’t.

The Austerity Agenda and Public Employment

Group plans free shotgun give-away to boost safety in Tucson — What could possibly go wrong with free guns? (Via threeoutside.)

Bill would extend waiting period for divorce to two years — Now that’s compassionate conservatism. (Via shsilver.)

QotD?: Do you know what a difference a day makes?

3/30/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (con time)
Hours slept: 7.5 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (overslept, but plenty of con walking to come)
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: Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Christianists, Culture, guns, Japan, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Religion, Science, space, Tech, weird

Posted: 9:48 am Sat March 30 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad gets ready for a St. Patrick’s Day party

Hidden Menu — Secret food in a public world. (Via my Dad.)

Kidd’s Toy Museum — A slightly oddball Portland attraction. (Via my Dad.)

The Cesar “biplan mixte”, circa 1910 — Oh, wow. That’s just freaky.

Meshworm — A “soft robot”.

The CIA’s secret experiments to turn cats into spies — Weird stuff. (Thank to AH.)

Will Methane Hydrates Fuel Another Gas Boom? — Energy-hungry Japan extracts natural gas from deep-sea methane hydrates, but it’s not clear whether the “flammable ice” makes economic and environmental sense. Flammable ice? Really?

How Beer Gave Us Civilization — [S}cholars have found circumstantial evidence that supports the idea that some early humans grew and stored grain for beer, even before they cultivated it for bread.

Biological Evolution in Interstellar Human Migration

Google like dairy farming? — Huh. (Via AH.)

Can we Get the Media to Report Climate Change? — No. Reality has a well-known liberal bias, so media reports on reality are met with a lot of opposition and criticism from the Right.

Little Princesses and Mighty Warriors — Bibles for boys and girls. Weird. Really weird.

Pope Francis wants Church to be poor, and for the poor — Good luck with that. If nothing else, they need to keep the money to continue paying damages for decades of sheltering pedophiles.

CPAC Event On Racial Tolerance Turns To Chaos As ‘Disenfranchised’ Whites Arrive — Nope. No racism in the Republican party. Nuh uh. By the way, where is Obama’s real birth certificate, conservatives keep asking?

Rubio and the “Idea” of America — Rubio speaks here as if there is only one conception of what America is, and he seems to think that one political movement has exclusive rights to it. This is what comes of a movement that rewards and encourages sloganeering in place of argument. Rubio’s statement is an admission of intellectual exhaustion dressed up as a celebration of conservatism. Yes, this.

QotD?: Is it not easy being green?

3/16/2013
Writing time yesterday: 2.75 hours (revisions to nonfiction piece on steampunk)
Hours slept: 7.5 hours (fitful)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 242.6
Number of FEMA troops on my block escorting ACORN thugs to steal the votes of “Real Americans”: 0
Currently reading: Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

Tags: climate, Cool, Food, gender, Japan, Links, media, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Portland, race, Religion, Science, Tech, weird

Posted: 6:43 am Sat March 16 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad is more than a feeling

The latest Lakeside trailer — Sigh.

Where Things Stand — Nearly 90% of the books reviewed by The New York Times are written by white writers. That is not even remotely reflective of the racial makeup of this country, where 72% of the population, according to the 2010 census, is white. We know that far more than 81 books were published by writers of color in 2011. You don’t really need other datasets to see this rather glaring imbalance. (Snurched from james_nicoll.)

Dork Tower on tweeting and writing novels — Hahahah. (Via goulo.)

Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling — (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

On Facebook, smart people like The Colbert Report and curly fries — Hello Kitty fans scored low on emotional stability.

Astronomers Conduct ‘Reconnaissance’ Of Another Solar System

Toward a Space-Based Civilization

Electronic Sensors Printed Directly on the Skin — New electronic tattoos could help monitor health during normal daily activities. I can think of some pretty cool nonmedical uses for this, too.

Sequencing the Underdogs — Transcriptome studies reveal new insights about unusual animals whose genomes have not been sequenced.

Failure to Hunt Rabbits Part of Neanderthals’ Demise? — The inability to shift prey may have been deadly, study says.

Cross-Species Infrastructure

Japan Erects Massive Sculpture of the Last Standing Tree from a Forest Destroyed by the 2011 Tsunami — (Via threeoutside.)

Catholic officials break into a sweat over €23m investment in gay sauna

Why the world is so angry with Christians — It’s ludicrous, really, the way some Believers carry on in this nation about being persecuted. You know the type. They can be heard most often on talk radio or some cable television channel whining about how their religious freedoms are being infringed upon. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Calgary Cruz sure is lucky he wasn’t born in Hawaii — Anyone with the foggiest awareness of the facts understands that there’s nothing controversial about Cruz’s status. He’s just really damn lucky that he was born in Canada instead of someplace overseas, like Hawaii, because then we’d have some investigating to do.

The GOP’s Bush Baggage — Bush did everything that fever-swamp conservatives like to accuse Obama of, and far worse. Why would anyone vote Republican after that disastrous presidency?

QotD?: Did you lose yourself in a familiar song?

3/12/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (took the day off)
Hours slept: 7.25 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (21 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: Christianists, Cool, Culture, healthcare, Japan, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion, space, Tech, Writing

Posted: 4:24 am Tue March 12 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad falls to the ground with that high, lonesome sound

U.S. booksellers, meeting in KC, express optimism — (Thanks to garyomaha.)

The Arts Set — Scrivener’s Error is interesting on various aspects of literature, art and publishing.

Streampunk Vegan Leather Corset — Streampunk? Really? Heh. (Via Chris W. Johnson.)

Yo as a Pronoun — Yo. Fascinating. (Thanks to Lisa Costello.)

Capturing life with ‘the last roll’ — Wow. (Via Lisa Costello.)

Was Wittgenstein Right?

The not-so-slight return of Jimi Hendrix

Swimming with spacemen: The image gallery

Retro Revival: Man as Industrial Palace — Vintage German artwork on digital steroids, or why you house a factory. (Thanks to threeoutside.)

Graphene Antennas Would Enable Terabit Wireless Downloads

‘I am one of the Fukushima fifty’: One of the men who risked their lives to prevent a catastrophe shares his story — They displayed a bravery few can comprehend, yet very little is known about the men who stayed behind to save Japan’s stricken nuclear plant. In a rare interview, David McNeill meets Atsufumi Yoshizawa, who was at work on 11 March 2011 when disaster struck.

African forest elephants decline by 62% in 10 years

An Iowa Farmer’s Quest for No Ordinary Pig — (Thanks to Dad.)

Ships to sail directly over the north pole by 2050, scientists say — Melting sea ice will allow ice-strengthened vessels to sail directly over the pole, and normal ships to take the ‘northern sea route’. It’s amazing, the lengths liberals will go to for their global warming conspiracy, right up to actually melting the Arctic ice cap to perpetrate the fraud that the Arctic ice cap is melting!

From Wary To Full Embrace: Obama’s Complete Turnaround On Gay Marriage — Another bigotry domino falls.

Staying In: Growing Up Lesbian in Evangelical America — Oi. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Republicans who didn’t vote for Violence Against Women Act say they did anyway because why not? — When your political ideas are socially and intellectually bankrupt, you may as well lie. That’s conservative morality in a nutshell, right there.

Mooching Off Medicaid — Paul Krugman on the conservative fetish for privatization no matter how much it drives up costs.

The Pope and Prisoner X — Both Israel’s poor handling of the Prisoner X debacle and the Vatican’s mismanagement of the pontiff’s resignation show how maintaining a culture of secrecy, whether through gag orders or media silence, is both damaging and counter-productive.

Voting is no ‘racial entitlement,’ Justice Scalia — So, Justice Scalia, when you spew that entitlement discourse from the bench you undermine the very core of our democracy. But you know what? I want to thank you for what you said. Because on Wednesday, you showed us all exactly who you are.

Romney is still wooing that all-important brown-hating vote, but why? — Because manufacturing more angry white men is all conservatives know how to do.

Continuing to Get the 2012 Election Wrong — It certainly didn’t hurt Obama’s chances that many Americans still held Bush responsible for the country’s woes, which created a significant obstacle to Republican efforts to pin blame on the incumbent, but that wasn’t the only problem. Republicans couldn’t distinguish their economic agenda from Bush’s economic record because there was little or no substantive difference between them, and the economic agenda that their nominee presented also happened to be irrelevant to most voters. Many Americans still hold Bush responsible for a perfectly good reason: reality.

QotD?: Did she follow you down for the kill?

3/5/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (WRPA and editing)
Hours slept: 6.75 hours (fitful)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike, yay hotel gym!)
Weight: n/a (traveling)
Number of FEMA troops on my block faking evidence for climate change: 0
Currently reading: Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Christianists, climate, Cool, Culture, Food, Funny, gay, gender, healthcare, Japan, Language, Links, media, music, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Publishing, race, Religion, Science, sex, steampunk, Tech, weird

Posted: 4:23 am Tue March 05 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad for a thirsty Thursday

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. Note that the next unlock goal at $44,000 is the_child‘s video, “How to Write Like My Dad”.

Jay Lake on the Whole Genome Sequencing project — Waterloo Productions with a short video from me explaining the genomic sequencing that the Acts of Whimsy fund raiser is paying for.

Throne of the Crescent Moon and the use of God in epic fantasy — Some neat commentary from ericjamesstone

Video of Nichelle Nichols describing the filming of Star Trek’s first interracial kiss (on American network television.) — Wow. (Via David Goldman.)

How to ice a cake — Hahahah. This one is sure to be a favorite with anybody whose gender orientation includes an interest in hot, shirtless men. (Via Lisa Costello.)

Bristling Dixie — Uncle Walt thought Song of the South would be his masterpiece. Now it’s invisible. I remember seeing this as a kid. (Snurched from Cora Buhlert.)

Medieval helpdesk — German humor, with English subtitles. Hahah. (Via lillypond, a/k/a my sister.)

“Meeting de Monaco – Mars 1912 – Le Canard Voisin” — A truly lovely photo from the early days of aviation. x planes is back from its holidays with a very nice series of images.

Operation Deep Sleep: or, dormant robots at the bottom of the sea — Briefly, it seems worth mentioning that this vision of waking things up from slumber at the bottom of the sea reads like a subplot from Pacific Rim, or like some militarized remake of the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Japan’s Philanderers Stay Faithful to Their ‘Infidelity Phones’ — ads Attracted to How Outdated Device Hides Calls, Texts; Juggling Three Girlfriends. Wow… I’m not in the habit of linking to the Wall Street Journal, as they are only slightly more trustworthy than FOX “News”, but this article falls outside of their range of reality distorting obsessions and in the realm of real, if weird, culture. (Snurched from Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Complex behaviors driven by remarkably simple genetics — A mouse’s intricate architectural tastes are the product of “modular” genetics.

Fecal transplants cure most cases of C. difficile, first clinical trial shows — I know this is serious stuff, but sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

A Vaccine Eliminated A Deadly Killer Of Infants. So Why Do Some People Fear It? — An article with a lot of detail on one specific strain of anti-vax lunacy.

Pregnant? That Might Get You Arrested — The unhealthy obsessions of the forced pregnancy enthusiasts in the so-called “Right to Life” movement have real, hard consequences for other people. Conservatism really is very much about punishing and controlling female sexuality.

‘There’s nothing mutual about it’: White evangelicals, privileged distress and grievance envy — Slacktivist Fred Clark is much kinder than I am able to be about Bible-based bigots and the pervasive politics of Christianist hate.

Global Warming Brings Earlier Spring Flowers — Henry David Thoreau was one of the most iconic figures of the 19th century. The famous naturalist and poet wrote the book “Walden” about his years living at idyllic Walden Pond in Concord, Mass. Starting in 1852 and at different points throughout his life, he also created the first “spreadsheets of flowering dates” for many well-known flowers, including the wild columbine, the pink-lady slipper orchid and the marsh marigold. It must be tough to be a conservative and hold on to your moral certainties when every aspect of nature is cooperating with the liberal climate change hoax. Thank God for Rush Limbaugh and the GOP to tell good conservatives what to think. Clinging to ideological denialism is obviously much more satisfying than actually acknowledging an entire planet’s worth of reality-based “facts” and “data”.

Solving Global Warming Will Require Far Greater Cuts than Thought — A new look at climate change implies that we’ll need energy breakthroughs as soon as possible. The longer our political and business cultures are trapped in global warming denialism, the harder the solution gets. Thanks conservative America for running the bills up so high and saddling future generations with ever-burgeoning costs. History will not be at all kind to you.

Roe vs. Wade at 40: Pew poll finds abortion not a key issue — I know it’s too much to expect the forced pregnancy enthusiasts in the so-called “Right to Life” movement to back down from their continuous assault on women’s health and sexual autonomy, but it’s nice to see they’re a losing demographic.

NRA knocks Obama on daughters’ security — The National Rifle Association released a video Tuesday calling President Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for being skeptical of armed guards in schools when his daughters receive armed Secret Service protection every day. Wow is this disgusting. Even taking the question at face value, it’s stupid. Obama’s kids need protection from precisely the kind of people who become NRA members. Stay classy, and illogical, conservative America. It’s what you do best.

Portland judge lets loose with strong words — ‘We live in a gun culture’ — at manslaughter sentencing — People don’t like the truth about guns. It challenges their comfortable self-image.

Obama to announce most expansive gun-control agenda in generations — Excellent. And no, executive orders are not a power grab. They’re part of the system, one way for a president with an intransigent Congress to still govern effectively. Now, if only he’d gone far enough. Just like the ACA, half a loaf is better than none, but also just like the ACA, the entire country, regardless of voters’ individual politics and personal beliefs, would be much better served if Obama had gone all the way.

Gun Murders vs. Terrorism by the Numbers — Some plain language statistics that every gun owner and conservative needs to see, and very few ever will. Few of those who do see will believe, because acknowledging the reality of firearms challenges too many of their cherished beliefs.

Les Insufferables — In which the Wall Street Journal demonstrates how utterly out of touch they are with the 99%. This graphic is laughably bizarre, but it’s what the Manhattan high flyers are nodding in agreement over.

Republican Woes Go Far Beyond Poor Tactics and Weak Arguments — A fascinating squib from conservative commentator Daniel Larison. If party leaders sometimes deserve not to be trusted, perhaps the “debilitating lack of trust” isn’t solely a product of conservative myth-making. Perhaps it is a result of the leaders’ substantive errors and/or betrayals of principle. Put another way, perhaps current party leaders suffer from a lack of trust because they have done an abysmal job over the last ten years or so and have led their party to one policy or political disaster after another.

?otD: What are you drinking today?

1/17/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (stress)
Hours slept: 6.25 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 221.2
Number of FEMA troops on my block enforcing disability rights: 0
Currently reading: The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks

Tags: Christianists, climate, Cool, Culture, economy, Food, fundraiser, Funny, gender, guns, healthcare, Japan, Links, Movies, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, race, Religion, Science, sex, Tech, Videos, weird, Writing

Posted: 6:15 am Thu January 17 2013 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad knows you’re gonna fly high, you’re never gonna die

Fuck Yeah SciFi/Fantasy WOC — Author Scott Lynch responds to a critic of the character Zamira Drakasha, a black woman pirate in his fantasy book Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second novel of the Gentleman Bastard series. Plus Anne Bonny. Duh. (Via rekre8.)

The Misty Mountains song from The Hobbit — This gets me every time, even in this European cover version from str8bvoices.

Notes After a Viewing of Red Dawn (2012) — The Mumpsimus is interesting. Long but worth the read if you’re interested in either film criticism or politics.

‘Bird Buggy’ keeps noisy parrot quiet — and mobile — I for one welcome our new psittacine overlords. (Snurched from @jeremiahtolbert.)

Tennis star Novak buys up world’s supply of donkey cheese at £400 a pound for new restaurant chain — Because… I got nothing. Except that I want to try it. (Via danjite.)

Cafe Ginza: 1941 — I continue to be fascinated by this image, both for haunting historical reasons (note the date, and probable fate of all the business owners and families on this street), and for the curious details, like the name of the doctor on the sign in the right edge of the frame. Even the movie posters on the wall of the cafe are interesting.

Apple Maps ‘is life-threatening’ to motorists lost in Australia heat — Hey, Apple. Your Maps app is the Newton of this generation. Give it up already. Enough with the corporate dick waving. Can we please have our damned Google Maps back on the iPhone?

On “Otherness” at Christmas — The Velveteen Rabbi writes about being Jewish at Christmas. Highly recommended reading for any Christian who somehow imagines they are part of an imperiled religion in modern America. I think there’s something profoundly valuable in the de-centering experience of recognizing that one’s own paradigm is not the only paradigm. But I recognize that it isn’t always easy or comfortable. And if it isn’t happening in a reciprocal way — where I recognize that my way isn’t the only way, but so does the other guy; specifically, so does the person with the privilege of being in the dominant / majority position — it can feel alienating and painful. Everyone else is having a great time and I’m outside the party — alienating and painful. That mainstream experience is “normal,” and I feel perennially “other” — alienating and painful.

Climate Change 101: Separate Fact from Fiction

Same-Sex Issue Pushes Justices Into Overdrive — I’m extremely dubious of the assumption that the narrow ideologues on the Court’s Right are going to place any emphasis at all on public opinion. They’ve proven time and again they’ll place the conservative political agenda above either the national interest or the Constitution. Scalia’s tortured reversal of a lifetime of his own legal reasoning in order to avoid supporting the Obama administration on the ACA ruling was just the latest example.

Likely Increase in Births Has Some Lawmakers Revisiting Cuts — The latest Health and Human Services Commission projections being circulated among Texas lawmakers indicate that during the 2014-15 biennium, poor women will deliver an estimated 23,760 more babies than they would have, as a result of their reduced access to state-subsidized birth control. And it’s costing the state a lot of money in post-natal healthcare. Gee? Ya think? Obviously it requires a grasp of that nasty liberally-biased reality to understand the causal link between availability of birth control and birth rates.

Laura Ingraham Has the World’s Worst Imagination — Conservative commentator outraged at liberal-progressives doing with Obama exactly what she did with Bush. More of that justly famed conservative intellectual consistency in action.

?otD: By the way, which one’s Pink?

12/10/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo brain)
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (fitful)
Body movement: 0.5 hours stationary bike ride
Weight: 216.4
Number of FEMA troops on my block dissolving traditional marriages and plastering OBAMA bumper stickers on SUVs: 0
Currently reading: The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks

Tags: Apple, California, Cheese, Christianists, climate, Funny, gay, gender, healthcare, Japan, Links, Movies, music, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, Religion, sex, Tech, Videos, weird, Writing

Posted: 6:14 am Mon December 10 2012 | Comments(3) |