[links] Link salad learns Strine, eats kangaroo steak
yuki_onna on the glamour of being a writer at an overseas con — As has oft been observed, one of the paradoxes of developing a meaningful writing career is that the issues which are problematic to the writer begin to seem ever more odd to non-writers.
Detective Storytelling — Art guru James Gurney deconstructs the narrative of a painting. As a writer, I use narrative to create pictures. I love this kind of parallax view of the creative process.
The babbling phase: ranting toddler speaks out
WWII Poster: Are You Helping? — I love this image.
The New Science of Network Archaeology — …a powerful tool that is likely to generate some interesting new insights into the process of evolution, not to mention the history of the networks.
Beck-MLK flow chart — Because Glenn Beck is the white MLK. (Via lt260.)
Top 10 Reasons for Higher Taxes on the Top 1%
?otD: What’s the Australian word for beer?
9/4/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (AussieCon 4)
Body movement: convention walking to come
Hours slept: 8.5 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 4/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: The Judas Rose by Suzette Haden Elgin
Tags: Art, Conventions, Cool, Culture, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Tech
Posted: 3:53 pm Fri September 03 2010 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad wakes up, still on the far side of the world
Nick Gevers discusses steampunk on BBC’s World Service
Adjectives from country names? — Another fun post from Language Log. Be sure to check out the comments.
Retirement Haven Hunts Youthful Violators — A weird twist on the ongoing economic crisis in America.
Olbermann on religious intolerance in the US — Attention Islamaphobes: We have this little thing called the First Amendment. May I recommend it to you? I am certain conservatives of all stripes are with me on this, being the strict Constitutionalists that they are.
The D’Oh of Xenophobia — Must be hard to be a wing nut in America and keep up properly with the hate list…
?otD: Have you seen the Southern Cross?
8/30/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (convention time)
Body movement: urban walking to come
Hours slept: 10.25 (interrupted)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 5/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Deliverer by C.J. Cherryh
Tags: audio, Culture, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Religion, steampunk
Posted: 12:26 pm Sun August 29 2010 | Comments(5) |
[links] Link salad hangs out in Kiwi country
My tor.com story draws a lot of flak in comments — Apparently I write with tired, politically correct tropes. Good thing I always believe the story belongs to the reader.
SMBC on ending sentences with a preposition
Wombats, pangolins and platypuses in a Victorian mansion… in Wales — Huh.
A Battle of Britain anniversary poster — Some very nice design here.
Tags: Art, Cool, Culture, Fiction, Funny, gay, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Religion, stories
Posted: 2:01 pm Fri August 27 2010 | Comments(3) |
[links] Link salad has one foot on the platform, the other on the train
My semiautobiographical novelette, “Dream of the Arrow”, is up at Subterranean — A difficult story about my high school experiences, somewhat fictionalized. One of my regular readers here on LJ is a friend from those days, and is actually a character in this.
Editorial Evaluations, Moms and Pedatic Purple Prose — shadowhelm on critique. (Via lt260.)
Molybdomancy — Art haruspication guru James Gurney with a new one on me.
A Search Service that Can Peer into the Future — A Yahoo Research tool mines news archives for meaning–illuminating past, present, and even future events.
Space is the final frontier for evolution, study claims — Charles Darwin may have been wrong when he argued that competition was the major driving force of evolution. Oooh! Oooh! Somebody call the Discovery Institute!
Dattoos: Body Art Melds DNA, Computing — Very, very strange. (Via e_bourne.)
How Fox Betrayed Petraeus — A detailed take on GOP shenanigans in the faked-up Park51 controversy, a/k/a “Ground Zero Mosque”. (Via shsilver.)
?otD: Was your mother a tailor? Did she sew your new blue jeans?
8/25/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (Kalimpura outline)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 244.2
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Pretender by C.J. Cherryh
Tags: Cool, Fiction, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, Science, stories, Tech, Writing
Posted: 4:56 am Wed August 25 2010 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad’s wayward son carries on
Predicting the Death of Print — Two years ago print was going to soldier on another 10 years. Now it’s five–or fewer. Uh huh.
The Language of Leaks — (Thanks to my Dad.)
Ten Infamous Islands of Exile — Established to banish dissidents and criminals, these islands are known for their one-time prisoners, from Napoleon to Nelson Mandela. (Thanks to lt260.)
Alien hunters ‘should look for artificial intelligence’ — Everybody sing: ♫ “‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.” ♫
A Milky Way Shadow at Loch Ard Gorge — Mmm, gorgeous photo. From APOD.
What would Martin Luther King Say? Mosques and the New Jim Crow in America — Juan Cole with a great deal more to say about the shameful political opportunism and race-baiting of opposition to the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”.
Who are you callin’ unassimilated? — The Edge of the American West with another take on the same topic.
?otD:
Will there be peace when you are done?
8/23/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0.25 hours (WRPA, mostly took the day off)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.25 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Destroyer by C.J. Cherryh
Tags: Cool, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science
Posted: 4:40 am Mon August 23 2010 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad goes creeping now through the night and the poison gas
In Their Own Words: British Novelists Collection — Historical BBC interviews with an amazing range of British writers. (Thanks to danjite.)
Period speech — Language Log on a perennial problem for authors.
Get Fuzzy on the vampires in the sewers — Hahahah.
Embracing the Holy War — An article asserting that Bush 43 kept a lid on Republican Islamophobia. For reasons of both the historical record and personal conviction, I find it difficult to credit Bush with anything worthwhile, much as I find it difficult to credit amoebic dysentery with anything worthwhile, but it’s an interesting thesis in which I reluctantly find some merit.
Obama defends “ground zero mosque” — Like Glenn Greenwald, I at first thought the president was doing the right thing. Oh well. At least he’s still not Bush. Small comfort, that, but comfort it is.
Mosque Uprising — Islam and the emerging religious threat to our Constitution. This is disgusting. Japanese Internment in WWII polled well, but that didn’t make it right, and no one but a few conservative loons looks back on that with pride. I can’t even imagine what the Republican theocrats are thinking, calling for religious suppression. It’s their own protections they’re seeking to strip by making religious freedom subject to majority consent. And this from people who pretend to revere the Constitution. (Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)
Obama’s Islamic-Center Stance: Why the GOP Shouldn’t Run Against It — Mark Halperin in Time on the same question.
?otD: All these hunters who are shrieking now, oh, do they speak for us?
8/16/2010
Writing time yesterday: 3.25 hours (revisions and WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.0 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 242.0
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Defender by C.J. Cherryh
Tags: Funny, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, Writing
Posted: 4:59 am Mon August 16 2010 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad is on the road to somewhere
Don’t forget the new caption contest [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]
SMBC on steampunk vs real life — I’ve seen several reviews lately commenting unfavorably on the unrealistic technology in steampunk fiction. Which seems to me to be rather missing the point. Steampunk isn’t real life, it isn’t even SF.
The Death of Print/Publishing, Part MCCLWTFXVIII — jimhines on everyone’s favorite topic.
Cats and Mice — Armor for one of the oldest wars. (Thanks to e_bourne.)
New Desert Crater Found Using Google Maps and Free Software — For the second time in a few weeks…
English Gets the Last Word in Japan — More ELF? (Via Language Log.)
America Goes Dark — Everything we know about economic growth says that a well-educated population and high-quality infrastructure are crucial. Emerging nations are making huge efforts to upgrade their roads, their ports and their schools. Yet in America we’re going backward. [...] How did we get to this point? It’s the logical consequence of three decades of antigovernment rhetoric, rhetoric that has convinced many voters that a dollar collected in taxes is always a dollar wasted, that the public sector can’t do anything right. Thank you, Republicans, for sabotaging America’s future.
If You’re All White in America — Many prominent conservatives are making the argument that Judge Walker is gay and, therefore, his decision regarding Prop 8 might have been unduly influenced by his sexual orientation. [...] It’s not that I would suggest that his sexual orientation (if he is gay) has no influence on his jurisprudence, but here’s the thing, if homosexuality influences analysis of legal issues involving civil rights for homosexuals, doesn’t heterosexuality also influence decisions regarding these same matters? After all, heterosexuality is no guarantor of objectivity, it just provides a different set of subjectivities, which are not per se superior to other vantage points. Bigotry is normative. This is the moral equivalent of the typical conservative view that “the government aid I receive is a necessary stimulus, your is a lousy welfare handout.” (Hint, farm support payments and the home mortgage interest deduction.)
?otD: Have you been to Erehwon?
8/10/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (travel for Day Jobbe)
Body movement: 35 minute urban walk
Hours slept: 6.25 (interrupted)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Inheritor by C.J. Cherryh
Tags: Art, Contests, Cool, Fiction, Funny, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Publishing, reviews, Science
Posted: 5:41 am Tue August 10 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad has a devil set aside for you
The Importance of Worldbuilding in Steampunk — (Via jaborwhalky.)
Oil Slick, Mississippi River Delta, Gulf of Mexico — Is it shining like a National guitar?
More vintage Japanese illustration and design
Sinking the Tunnel: 1910 — Some serious steampunkery, from Shorpy.
Of dialects, armies and navies — (Via Scrivener’s Error.)
Mosque Building and Gay Marriage vs. Mob Rule by the Right — Ah, the tyranny of the majority.
Scrivener’s Error on the Proposition 8 decision — Some choice cites here, including: Proposition 8 is unconstitutional because it denies plaintiffs a fundamental right without a legitimate (much less compelling) reason. Yes, Virginia, bigotry is not part of the state’s compelling interest, no matter how sincerely held it may be by people with money and political influence.
?otD: Do we call it Myanmar-Shave now?
8/5/2010
Writing time yesterday: 3.0 hours (revisions, WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute urban walk
Hours slept: 7.75 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy, emotional distress)
Currently (re)reading: Inheritor by C.J. Cherryh
Tags: Art, Cool, Culture, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, Science
Posted: 5:05 am Thu August 05 2010 | Comments(3) |
[links] Link salad heads east
ELF test? “Geoffrey the subtle salmon” — English as a Lingua Franca.
Eclipse Shadow Cone Over Patagonia — APOD is on a roll this week.
Kosher Burkas — Umm…
GOP shows historic amnesia on spending cuts — Alas, historical amnesia appears to have affected some readers, many of whom are under the impression that President Bush actually believed in small government and that recent Republican congressional leaders actually opposed federal spending. I’d be a lot more impressed with the GOP’s current anti-spending stance if it bore even the vaguest connection to how these same GOP leaders governed while in the majority.
If Only The Right Would Leave The Constitution Alone — Taken together, that’s 10 constitutional amendments proposed, endorsed, and/or introduced by leading Republicans over the last decade. [...] Given the alleged reverence for the Constitution in far-right circles, the irony is rich.
?otD: What color is your parachute?
8/4/2010
Writing time yesterday: 2.5 hours (revisions, WRPA)
Body movement: airport walking
Hours slept: 6.0 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 241.4 (yikes!)
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy, emotional distress)
Currently (re)reading: Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh
Tags: Cool, Culture, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, Science
Posted: 4:42 am Wed August 04 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad has a devil set aside for you
Art for my forthcoming Realms of Fantasy story, “The Fall of the Moon”
Random House chief sees bright but worrisome future for e-books — Excuse me, I gotta wear shades.
“Bohemian Rhapsody”: Bismillah or… Mitch Miller? — Lady Mondegreen strikes again.
The Sarcastic Fringehead — This appears to be the real name of a real fish, though I still suspect an Internet prank. (Thanks to willyumtx.)
Imaging Giants and Dwarfs — More on brown dwarfs from Centauri Dreams.
The Planet and the Radio Dish — APOD with a very curious image, indeed.
Reason To Workout WIN — Hahahah.
The GOP’s New Tax Cut Hypocrisy — Five years ago, Republicans backed tax cuts—but said deficits didn’t matter. Today, they say deficits are all that matters, but still like tax cuts.
?otD: Will you be back this time tomorrow?
8/3/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hour (revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.0 (interrupted)
This morning’s weigh-in: 242.8 (yikes!)
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy, emotional distress)
Currently (re)reading: Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh
Tags: Art, ebooks, Funny, Language, Links, music, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Science, stories
Posted: 5:07 am Tue August 03 2010 | Comments(1) |
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