Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad wakes up way too early

Science fiction star Jay Lake keeps writing as cancer closes in — Jeff Baker at The Oregonian interviews me again.

Review: Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables — In which the reviewer rather liked my novelette, “You Will Attend Until Beauty Awakens”.

“The Stars Do Not Lie”, by Jay Lake — A positive review of my multiply nominated novella.

Landays — A fascinating essay on women’s culture and poetry in Afghanistan. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

How Not to Be Alone

The Insanity Virus — Schizophrenia has long been blamed on bad genes or even bad parents. Wrong, says a growing group of psychiatrists. The real culprit, they claim, is a virus that lives entwined in every person’s DNA. (Via Lisa Costello.)

World’s roundest object — A funny science geek video. (Via threeoutside.)

Bayes’ theorem: Its triumphs and discontents — Lessons learned from 250 years of a famous statistical theorem.

Our One-Continent World: Pangea — Mapping political geography onto paleogeology.

QotD?: What time of the morning seems reasonable to you?

6/9/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.5 hours (revisions to “Rock of Ages”)
Hours slept: 5.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (exercise room was occupied)
Weight: 248.2
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornadoes for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, Cool, Culture, health, healthcare, interviews, Links, Personal, Religion, reviews, Science, stories, Videos

Posted: 4:02 am Sun June 09 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad asks where did you come from, where did you go?

Waving My Tweak Flag High — On the process of revision. (Thanks to David Goldman.)

Timbuktu Libraries in Exile — Help us preserve a global cultural heritage from imminent loss and become part of the great learning adventure of Timbuktu. Fundraising for a profoundly worthy cause. (Via threeoutside.)

Looking It in the Face — On aging and death… (Via David Wilford.)

What Is Capuling? ‘Everyday I’m Çapuling’ Turkish Protest Video Goes Viral — Language and culture in motion. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Most European males ‘descended from farmers’ — Most men in Europe can trace a line of descent to early farmers who migrated from the Near East, a study says. Why is this surprising? (Via my Dad.)

Museum Bares All For Cycle Exhibition — Clothing is optional, of course. Riders will be charged one dollar admission for each item they wear. Portland Police recommend all cyclists wear a helmet, at the bare minimum. Ah, Portland.

Physics’s pangolin — Trying to resolve the stubborn paradoxes of their field, physicists craft ever more mind-boggling visions of reality. Interesting stuff. (Via AH.)

Mars rover Opportunity finds traces of ‘drinkable’ water

Atomic bomb tests confirm formation of new brain cells — Newly created neurons marked with isotopes from bomb tests. Because Science!

Contact Lens Computer: Like Google Glass, without the Glasses — Finally, retinal displays!

West Texas Oilfield Town Runs Out of Water — All those rural liberals in West Texas are just contributing to the climate change conspiracy.

4-year-old boy accidentally kills dad in Arizona — Because guns make us all safer. Just ask the 30,000 people killed in the United States every year by firearms. If you’re confused, the NRA and the GOP can explain.

Response to an Open Letter — Hal Duncan speaks brilliantly to wounded, self-valorizing Christian privilege from an atheist (and nonheteronormative) perspective.

If I Were a Black Kid… — Ta-Nehisi Coates on education. Though he’s speaking specifically of black youth, some of his comments are spot on for kids in any enclosed community, such as Christian homeschoolers or small towns.

#GOPHeartsLadies (video) — A great video from Emily’s Lists, titled #GOPHeartsLadies, walking us through the offensive things Republicans have said about women in just the past seven days. And Republicans wonder why they have a demographic problem. They just can’t stop longing for the days of white, male, dominance.

QotD?: What the heck did cotton-eyed Joe ever do to you?

6/8/2013
Writing time yesterday: 2.75 hours (revisions to “Rock of Ages”)
Hours slept: 6.5 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 247.9
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornados for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Christianists, climate, coo, gender, guns, healthcare, Language, Links, Mars, nature, Personal, Politics, Portlnd, Process, race, Religion, Tech, Texas, Videos, weird, Writing

Posted: 6:14 am Sat June 08 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad wakes up way too early and flies home

Well-known tumor supressor has a surprise double role: Killing cancer cells — An alternate protein is taken up by other cells, in some cases killing them. (Via Michael Fay.)

World’s Oldest Human Tumor Discovered – Over 120,000 Years Old

The Visual Patterns of Audio Frequencies Seen through Vibrating Sand — (Via threeoutside.)

A Password So Secret, You Don’t Consciously Know It — Researchers work to develop passwords so secret that only your unconscious mind knows them.

Marriage is Over: “Live With It” — Fascinating.

5 Surprising Drone Uses (Besides Pizza Delivery)

Squadron Leader J A F MacLachlan, the one-armed Commanding Officer of No 1 Squadron RAF, standing beside his all-black Hawker Hurricane Mark IIC night fighter — Heck of a story here.

WWII Drug: The German Granddaddy of Crystal Meth — Crystal meth is notorious for being highly addictive and ravaging countless communities. But few know that the drug can be traced back to Nazi Germany, where it first became popular as a way to keep pilots and soldiers alert in battle during World War II. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Preventing Pearl Harbor — Scrivener’s Error with a detailed analysis of the current government surveillance scandal.

NSA-Verizon Surveillance: Welcome to the United States of Total Information Awareness — Juan Cole on the same.

Yeah, About Benghazi — There is no scandal there, assuming you live in the real world. Which the GOP demonstrably does not. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

QotD?: Where will you go today?

6/7/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (Birthday busy-ness)
Hours slept: 5.25 hours (interrupted)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (feet hurt)
Weight: n/a (traveling)
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornados for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, Culture, Funny, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Tech, weird

Posted: 3:13 am Fri June 07 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad says Happy Birthday to me

Coming Soon: “Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction” — A project of which I was a part. I provided the chapter on steampunk. Unfortunately, I did not inquire as to the stable of my co-authors.

Jay Lake and Austin Sirkin in Conversation — Locus with a podcast recorded last spring at ICFA. We talk steampunk, mostly.

We are here to protect you. We are here to protect you from the terrible secret of Seanans. — seanan_mcguire on (among other things) our current WIP collaboration.

Think Similar — Rhetoricians call switching a word from one part of speech to another “anthimeria”. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Book Domino Chain World Record — Oh, this is so cute. (Thanks to threeoutside.)

There Are Whales Alive Today Who Were Born Before Moby Dick Was Written — (Thanks to threeoutside.)

On Being an Octopus — Diving Deep in Search of the Human Mind. (Thanks to AH.)

Fresh-Squeezed: 1951 — Mmm. Oranges.

What We Think Martians Look Like: Photos — Some classic images.

New Science of Cosmography Reveals 3-D Map of the Local Universe

Chester E. McDuffee’s patented diving suit (1911) — Wow. And a cool site it’s on, too. (Thanks to David E. Vincent.)

First “Small Modular” Nuclear Reactors Planned for Tennessee

Helicopter Operated By Pure Mind Control

Invisibility ‘time cloak’ developed

Can “Infinite Variation” Be Mass-Produced Using 3-D Printing? — Shapeways looks to software to bring down production costs and time to market in its 3-D printing factory in New York City.

Rep. Marc Veasey condemns racist remarks by Dallas Republican activist — “I’m going to be real honest with you, the Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote if they’re going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats,” [Tea Party Republican] Ken Emanuelson said. Are you proud of your Republican Party?

IMF ‘to admit mistakes’ in handling Greek debt crisis and bailout — Wait? What? Austerity isn’t the answer to everything? Clearly we need more tax cuts!

“Yes Virginia, There Are Death Panels”: Limbaugh Exploits Child Transplant Patient To Revive Obamacare Myth — Because conservatives lie. Constantly and knowingly. That’s what happens when truth and reality aren’t ever on your side.

Obama says GOP obstruction of nominations is ‘unprecedented.’ What if he’s right? — Republicans deny that their obstructionism is unprecedented. As it happens, though, there is a set of actual facts we can look at to try to determine who is right.

QotD?: When is your birthday?

6/6/2013
Writing time yesterday: 2.25 hours (WRPA editing and revising “Hook Agonistes”)
Hours slept: 6.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (feet hurt)
Weight: n/a (traveling)
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornados for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Tags: audio, Books, Cool, economy, Funny, healthcare, Language, Links, Mars, nature, Personal, Photos, podcasts, Politics, Process, race, Science, stories, Tech, Videos, weird, Writing

Posted: 3:06 am Thu June 06 2013 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad posits a spherical cow of uniform density

Roger Ebert on Kindness — Ah, me. (Thanks to threeoutside.)

More Fun With Jeremy Bentham — And people think I’m weird…

Is our genome a straitjacket or a comfy sweater? — We can’t know how significant epigenetics is until scientists define it.

Aurora over Oregon’s Mt. Hood this weekend — Beautiful. And darn it, I’ve been hoping to see this for years, but was out of town the weekend it happened. (Via David Goldman.)

A Scarred Landscape in Oklahoma — A satellite view of tornado damage.

Extinct lizard named after The Doors’ singer Jim Morrison

Scientists solve 3.5 billion-year-old mystery of life and its link to meteorites — Phosphorous from outer space?

Barns Are Painted Red Because of the Physics of Dying Stars — Cool. I mean, I knew this science, but this example is a neat way to make the connection to that science. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Endangered Coral Reefs Die as Ocean Temperatures Rise and Water Turns Acidic — The lengths liberals will go to for their global warming hoax. Imagine what we could accomplish if we used our powers for good? Thank God for Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party, or we might have to do something about all this.

Komen breast cancer charity cancels walks in seven U.S. cities — Good. Given that Komen has become a political front group shilling for conservative America’s anti-woman obsessions, those cancer dollars need to go somewhere else where they will actually help people in need, and support the research that will benefit them.

QotD?: Know any good physicist jokes?

6/5/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (WRPA, specifically editing time on METAtropolis: Green Space)
Hours slept: 6.5 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (feet hurt)
Weight: n/a (traveling)
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornados for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, climate, Cool, Culture, Links, nature, Oregon, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, space, weird

Posted: 2:52 am Wed June 05 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad’s lips move, but you can’t hear what it says

How Does Writing Affect Your Brain? [infographic] — (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Colors in Lord of the Rings — A palette of the movie images.

“The Falling Problem” — SMBC cuts it very close to home.

The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill — The high price paid for colonoscopies mostly results not from top-notch patient care, according to interviews with health care experts and economists, but from business plans seeking to maximize revenue; haggling between hospitals and insurers that have no relation to the actual costs of performing the procedure; and lobbying, marketing and turf battles among specialists that increase patient fees.

Earliest Evidence of French Winemaking Discovered

Bell Labs Invents Lensless Camera — A new class of imaging device with no lens and just a single light sensitive sensor could revolutionise optical, infrared and millimetre wave imaging.

Space-based clouds of atoms: Future gravitational wave detector — Timing laser light between atomic clouds to sense gravitational waves.

How Can You Tell a Fake Jesus? — This article is goofy on so many levels.

GOP governors’ endorsements of Medicaid expansion deepen rifts within party — What happens when reality meets ideology.

Young Republicans Aim To Revitalize GOP — In which a young Republican appears to genuinely appalled that young voters see the GOP as “closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.” I want to ask this woman if she’s ever read a Republican party platform or listened to a Republican campaign speech or taken a look at the GOP legislative record in the House and Senate, let alone any of the states where they have legislative majorities? Because a contemporary conservative being surprised by those labels is like a bird being surprised by the sky being blue. Stirring up hatred, intolerance and fear is what the whole staying in business by generating angry white men thing is all about.

QotD?: Are you comfortably numb?

6/4/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.5 hours (revisions to “Rock of Ages” and “Hook Agonistes”)
Hours slept: 6.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (feet hurt)
Weight: n/a (traveling)
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornados for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Art, Christianists, Cool, Culture, healthcare, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, Science, space, Tech, Writing

Posted: 2:47 am Tue June 04 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad’s hands felt like two balloons

Game of Thrones author braces for backlash after shocking ending — Sucker’s been in print for years, not sure what’s shocking about the Red Wedding at this point.

The earwormery — An ongoing academic study of that most annoying phenomenon. (Via Lisa Costello.)

Untouched water as old as 2.6 billion years is found: Don’t drink it — Wow.

An Elizabethan Cyberwar — Huh. (Thanks to my Dad.)

The Extraordinary “Disco Ball” Now Orbiting Earth — A mirror ball–the most perfect test particle ever placed in orbit–should help Italian scientists measure an exotic effect predicted by general relativity It’s called LARES. Does that mean we’ll soon see one called PENATES?

Microsoft and IBM Researchers Develop a Lie Detector for the Cloud — A way to check whether calculations have been tampered with could make cloud computing more reliable, and boost privacy.

Fox’s Stossel Dismisses Aid To Needy With Claim That No One Starved During The Great Depression — Yet another in the endless series of objective proofs that conservatives lie about everything. (Especially on FOX.)

QotD?: Can you tell me where it hurts?

6/3/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.75 hours (revisions to “Rock of Ages”)
Hours slept: 6.25 hours (interrupted)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (feet hurt)
Weight: n/a (traveling)
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornados for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Cool, history, Links, media, music, Personal, Politics, Science, space, Tech

Posted: 3:03 am Mon June 03 2013 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad wakes up in the Midwest covered in clown makeup

Jay Lake: The Stars Do Not Lie — A Finnish review, which insofar as I can tell through the good offices of Google Translate is rather tepid.

Apple, betrayed by its own law firm — Lawyer-turned-”troll” started planning patent suit six days after iPhone launch. Because ethics!

Iron in Egyptian relics came from space — Meteorite impacts thousands of years ago may have helped to inspire ancient religion.

A Roll Cloud Over Uruguay — These are so cool. I’ve never seen one.

Unapproved genetically modified wheat from Monsanto found in Oregon field — Sigh. As it happens, I think GMO panic is significantly overblown (unless you’re also afraid of livestock breeding and crop varieties), but this isn’t how it should work.

Study sees climate upside in greening arid regions — Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a “fertilization effect” on plants in arid regions that has contributed to the flourishing of foliage there, Australian researchers report.

Shame on a Paddy — More on the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland, and Catholic apologist Bill Donohue. In case after all the high level pedophilia coverups you still somehow thought the Catholic Church was a force for good in the world.

Former chair of TX GOP: Grover Norquist is a Muslim because he has a beard — The conservative stupid, it burns. On the other hand, it’s kind of fun to watch them eat each other’s young.

Far-Right Extremists Chased Through London by Women Dressed as Badgers — Because we live in the future! (Thanks to threeoutside.)

QotD?: Ever wear a pair of size 65s?

6/2/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (revisions to “Rock of Ages”)
Hours slept: 6.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (feet hurt)
Weight: n/a (traveling)
Number of FEMA troops on my block creating tornadoes for political distraction: 0
Currently reading: Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Apple, Christianists, climate, Cool, history, Links, nature, Oregon, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, review, Science, space, stories

Posted: 3:42 am Sun June 02 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad heads for corn country

Giant genome study finds tiny links between genetics and schooling — Huge study finds few genes, effects that barely register.

8 biting responses to Erick Erickson’s biological critique of ‘breadwinner moms’ — Because being a conservative means never having to check your facts.

From the Mouths of Babes — Look, I understand the supposed rationale: We’re becoming a nation of takers, and doing stuff like feeding poor children and giving them adequate health care are just creating a culture of dependency — and that culture of dependency, not runaway bankers, somehow caused our economic crisis. But I wonder whether even Republicans really believe that story — or at least are confident enough in their diagnosis to justify policies that more or less literally take food from the mouths of hungry children. As I said, there are times when cynicism just doesn’t cut it; this is a time to get really, really angry. Ah, compassionate conservatism: as always from the GOP, a giant, ringing “fuck you” to everyone who isn’t white, male and monied.

The GOP is too juvenile to govern — Also, this just in: water is wet.

Former Bachmann Staffer: Lies Okay Because Her Constituency Believes Them — That’s the entire conservative political-media complex in a nutshell, right there. They don’t even pretend anymore. Wow. (Via madwriter.)

QotD?: Do you know the way to Omaha?

6/1/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.5 hours (revisions to “Rock of Ages”)
Hours slept: 6.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (airport walking to come)
Weight: 247.0
Number of FEMA troops on my block scamming disaster aid slush funds: 0
Currently reading: Thud by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Links, Personal, Politics, Science

Posted: 4:57 am Sat June 01 2013 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad for a sleepy Friday

Why John O’Halloran shaved his head mustache and beard — For Christine, and for me. Go read this.

Jay Lake, Alien Hunter — The recent Waterloo Productions video in a non-Facebook environment.

Jay Lake’s Tub (and on being a newer writer) — Writing advice, which I originally got from Dean Wesley Smith and Kris Rusch. The tub is not original to me.

The System: C’est La Wifi — Haha. We had exactly this discussion in my house earlier this week.

Sad Cat Diary — Hahaha. (Via David Goldman.)

Great tweets of science — Hahahahah.

Parents have gastric bypass; children’s DNA may receive the benefits — It’s epigenetics: Kids’ gene expression may occur a generation after surgery.

Neuron growth in children ‘leaves no room for memories’ — The reason we struggle to recall memories from our early childhood is down to high levels of neuron production during the first years of life, say Canadian researchers. I have very few memories prior to age seven. (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Mars mission astronauts face radiation exposure risk — Ya think?

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Discovers Evidence for Ancient Streambed and Flowing Water

Oceans Under the Ice Worlds? — This is intensely cool.

How the turtle got its unique hard shell — How the turtle shell evolved has puzzled scientists for years, but new research sheds light on how their hard shells were formed. The really great thing about science is how it institutionalizes uncertainty. No easy answers, no hard truths, just a continual process of observation and evidence gathering and refinement of theory.

Slow-motion 7.0 earthquake drags on for 5 months under New Zealand

Northern Ireland Town Fakes Prosperity for G8 Summit — Um…

The Questions People Get Asked About Their Race — Wow…

Pundits get more followers for being confident than correct — Dunning-Kruger FTW!

As Glaciers Melt, Alpine Mountains Lose Their Glue, Threatening Swiss Village — It’s amazing, the lengths liberals will go to for their global warming hoax. Thank God for Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party, otherwise we might have to do something about this before it’s too late.

What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers? — Wow. Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson actually said this. Replace “humanity” with “my bank account” and that’s conservatism in a nutshell. They’re not even pretending any more.

Big Utah Gun Rights Advocate Arrested, Accused Of Domestic Violence — Yep. We are definitely all so much safer, especially with guns in the hands of people like this gentleman and all he represents.

Rick Perry Vetoes “Buy American” Bill Approved 145-0 by Texas House — Because patriotism! (Via shsilver.)

Imprisoned CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou Pens “Letter from Loretto”

Michele Bachmann is gone, but her paranoid politics has become the norm for GOP

Lincoln Chafee’s long journey from Republican to Democrat — But what’s remarkable is that someone with Chafee’s priorities was once a Republican. Chafee left the GOP six years ago, largely because he had decided it had squandered its mantle as a party of fiscal responsibility. Yep. Reality will do that to you. If you’re in favor of fiscal responsibility, strong on defense, and interested in pro-business economic growth, the GOP is not the party for you based on the historical record of both major parties in the past thirty years. If you’re in favor of social justice, income equality, consumer protection, jobs or the environment, the GOP has never been the party for you. What’s left? Proudly fact-free rhetoric bent on generating angry white men is all I can see.

QotD?: What week is this?

5/31/2013
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (revisions to “Rock of Ages”)
Hours slept: 6.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: n/a (forgot)
Number of FEMA troops on my block scamming disaster aid slush funds: 0
Currently reading: Thud by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cancer, climate, Cool, economy, Funny, guns, health, healthcare, Ireland, Links, Mars, media, nature, New Zealand, Personal, Politics, Process, race, Science, space, Tech, Texas, Videos, Writing

Posted: 5:07 am Fri May 31 2013 | Comments(2) |