Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad enjoyed the reading

A reader reacts to Endurance — I think they liked it.

The Self-Sabotaging Writer — Kameron Hurley on the perils of being a writer. (Via Steve Buchheit.)

What the Nook Means — A new Nook’s on its way. Can it save books?

The Milhous Collection — A meticulously assembled selection of mechanical musical instruments, vintage automobiles and more. (Via danjite.)

Cloud Cover’s Role in Exoplanet Studies

Study measures mammalian growth spurt — It takes 24 million generations for mouse-sized mammals to evolve into elephants — but shrinking back is much faster.

Mind-reading program translates brain activity into words — The research paves the way for brain implants that would translate the thoughts of people who have lost power of speech.

cassiealexander on Rick Santorum, privilege, healthcare, and sick kids — What she says.

The End of Health Insurance Companies — I don’t think I actually believe this piece, but it’s a nice thought.

Inside the heresy files — Interrogation. Surveillance. Ethnic profiling. Censorship. The words come from 21st-century headlines, but they have an ancient pedigree. Cullen Murphy on how the Inquisition ignited the modern police state. (Snurched from Scrivener’s Error.)

McConnell’s Revisionist History: Congress Gave Obama Everything He Wanted! — Can he possibly believe this? McConnell, of all people? More to the point, why does anybody else believe this?

Marsh on Obama: The Party’s Over — Sigh.

Delusions of Obama the Idiot — It’s amazing that the GOP has somehow convinced itself that Obama is some kind of beguiling intellectual lightweight. Once you accept that ideology trumps reality, it’s easy to put faith in any whackdoodle idea that enters one’s head.

Gingrich, Romney, and “Reckoning with the Base”

Romney versus Gingrich slugfest is harbinger of Republican civil war — We can only hope. Meanwhile, I continue to marvel at the Republican base’s vitriolic view of liberals, who are guilty of bringing America such heinous sins as the forty hour work week, paid vacations, child labor laws, clean air and water, and other such violations of our civil rights, all over the strong objections of conservatives.

Welfare Drug Testing Bill Withdrawn After Amended To Include Testing Lawmakers — Don’t worry, it will be back. Oppressing the poor is a club sport for the GOP.

Huh? Mitt claims Newt outspent him in S.C. — Huh. Republicans lying about each other. The candidates and party leadership know it doesn’t matter. The message always trumps facts. The low information voters who make up the GOP base will just nod and follow along like they always do.

The Myth of the American Political Intelligence Gap

?otd: When’s the last time you attended a live reading?

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2/1/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (solid)
Weight: 228.8
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Books, cars, Cool, ebooks, Endurance, healthcare, Links, music, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion, reviews, Science, Videos, Writing

Posted: 6:23 am Wed February 01 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad looks toward the weekend

A reader reacts to Green — Rather much with the liking.

The language of stamps — A little bit of lost culture. (Via David Goldman.)

Pass the Large Grain of Salt — I found this article on cuisine to be hilarious.

Old, million-dollar violins don’t play better than the new models

US Cancer Deaths Continue To Fall, ACS Report

Cubelets Are Modular Programming in Meatspace — I still love this concept.

How researchers learned to stop time (and maybe enable hackers)

“Nobody has the right to take another life” — Roger Ebert on the death penalty. Worth the read, as most of his posts are.

Petitioners Ask Portland To Stop Regarding Corporations As People

Boehner: Richard Cordray appointment ‘unprecedented power grab’ by Obama — Right. Because no Republican president ever made a recess appointment. Not ever. Nope. No way, no how. No, no, don’t go look up the facts! Believe my opinion!

Could a mystery candidate for GOP race still emerge? — “Anybody but Romney” is still a powerful force in GOP politics. And in a party that has made a fetish out of mixing religion and politics, specifically Christianism, his Mormonism will always be an issue.

Gingrich is out for revenge — Ah, the Newt we know and love, long time GOP standard bearer.

Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies

?otd: Cheese, Grommit?

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1/5/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.5 (fitful)
Weight: 213.2
Currently reading: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Tags: Books, Cancer, Culture, Food, gay, Green, healthcare, Links, music, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Politics, reviews, Science, Tech

Posted: 6:21 am Thu January 05 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad celebrates Boxing Day

Bad Fathers — A fantasy trope?

Publishers vs. Libraries: An E-Book Tug of War — (Via my Dad.)

11 Christmas songs we hope never to hear again — Heh.

Leadership Lessons From the Shackleton Expedition

Decades later, a Cold War secret is revealed — Building spy satellites.

Report Condemns Japan’s Response to Nuclear Accident

Medicare passes on big profits to insurers — Explain to me again why the profit-taking from private health insurance adds value? Coz I’m confused.

?otd: Do you float like a butterfly? Would you like to?

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12/26/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 11.75 (solid)
Weight: 203.4
Currently (re)reading: The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

Tags: Antarctica, Culture, ebooks, Funny, healthcare, Japan, Links, music, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Tech

Posted: 8:25 am Mon December 26 2011 | Comments(0) |

[writing] Why do you write?

Why do you write? Why do any of us write? Here’s some of my reasons.

• I have something to say (though I am rarely if ever didactic)
• I like the sound of my own voice, so to speak
• I am in love with the language itself
• Storytelling is fun
• I want to be read
• I want to be remembered as have added something of value to the world

Always hoped that I’d be an apostle
Knew that I would make it if I tried
Then when we retire we can write the gospels
So they’ll still talk about us when we’ve died

What about you? Why do you write?

Tags: music, Personal, Process, Writing

Posted: 5:37 am Wed September 28 2011 | Comments(11) |

[links] Link salad is juiced on the pump

A Fistful of Dub — Mmm.

Ca. 1930: View from the gondola of a zeppelin.

Twittering With Aliens — SiMF talking to, and about, birds.

New York Prisoners Left In The Path of Hurricane Irene

Glenn Beck’s Ignorance of Science — Right. Because evolution is only a theory. So is gravity, Glenn, but it’s just as demonstrable. Maybe you and your conservative wilful ignorance could step off a high building to prove to your listeners the value of a scientific theory. Feel free to pray all the way down.

?otD: FOLFIRI, anyone?

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8/28/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemotherapy)
Body movement: n/a (chemotherapy)
Hours slept: 14.0 hours (overnight plus naps, yikes!)
Weight: 225.8
Currently reading: The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Tags: Cool, Culture, Links, music, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, weird

Posted: 10:13 am Sun August 28 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad wakes en Mass

The Problem Is You — The Internet and work ethics.

Google+ Improves on Facebook — (Via my Dad.)

Dawn probe set to orbit Asteroid Vesta

Loss of predators in the food chain can alter the ecosystem — As the Tea Party says, “We cannot elevate nature above people. That’s against the Bible and the Bill of Rights.”

The Mere Sight of an American Flag Can Shift Voters Republican — Exposure to Lee Greenwood has the opposite effect on me.

A Gun Activist Takes Aim at U.S. Regulatory Power — When you vote Republican, you’re voting for this nonsense. Hope you’re proud of it.

Church Doctrines and Politics — Conservative Commentator Daniel Larison on Michele Bachmann’s religion. He’s cheating a bit in this essay, in that he sidesteps the fact that Bachmann’s church explicitly declares in so many words that the Pope is the Antichrist. Not that I care personally in that other people are free to argue all day long over their imaginary friends, but that’s a bit more than the abstract doctrinal difference Larison is pretending is at stake. Also, c.f. Jeremiah Wright, who was very important to the press during the last election. Will Your Liberal Media treat Bachmann or Romney’s religious beliefs with the same critical eye they brought to Obama?

The Bible on marriage, in its own words — And Jesus was a single dude who mostly only hung out with men. One man, one woman, my ass. Read your own damned Bible, Christianists, instead of laying the hate on my GLBT friends for wanting the same rights you already have. (Snurched from Dispatches From the Culture Wars.)

Secular charities don’t discriminate — Making the point that religious charities, pretty much by definition, do. Mmm, that thousand points of light really shines.

?otD: Con this weekend?

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7/15/2011
Writing time yesterday: 2.5 hours (Sunspin)
Body movement: n/a (suburban walking to come)
Hours slept: 6.25 hours (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

Tags: Cool, Culture, guns, Links, music, nature, Personal, Politics, Religion, Science

Posted: 4:31 am Fri July 15 2011 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad wishes Omaha had better weather

…Jennifer McGee…365 project… — Wow. Someone is using my book Escapement as the basis of an art project. Wow.

Nothing happens over 4th of July weekend, except this year — Some significant publishing tidbits. (Thanks to danjite.)

Forget Diet Coke and Mentos: Singing Bowls Excite Droplet Fountains [Video] — (Thanks to David Goldman.)

The colorectal surgeon song — Hey, mine saved my life. (Snurched from @willshetterly.)

Spacetime Beyond the Planck Scale — For your morning pleasure.

The Soviet Superplane Program That Rattled Area 51 — One of my old favorites. (Reminder courtesy of Chris W. Johnson.)

B-36 engines (1955)

Thirst for Fairness May Have Helped Us Survive — (Thanks to Dad.)

No ‘him’ or ‘her’; preschool fights gender bias — Hmmm. (Via willyumtx.)

10 Ways Arab Democracies Can Avoid American Mistakes — Juan Cole is fascinating.

Mormonism and 2012 — Specifically, Romney and Huntsman. Mormonism suffers from the same problem Scientology does; neither is any more or less silly than any other religion at the root, but neither has been around long enough for the faith-based narrative of the religion’s founding to fully obscure the far grubbier objective reality of its founding.

Republicans Falsely Claim Obama Advisers Burying Data ‘Proving’ Stimulus Is Hurting Economy — I find it inconceivable that those sterling ethicists on the American Right could lie about anything. Why, when have they ever– Never mind.

The Mother of All No-Brainers — The now-infamous David Brooks column on GOP intransigence, in case you missed it.

?otD: What the hail?

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7/6/2011
Writing time yesterday: 60 minutes (short fiction and WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 9.0 hours (interrupted)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

Tags: Art, Books, Cool, Culture, Escapement, Funny, gender, healthcare, Links, music, Personal, Photos, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech, Videos

Posted: 5:13 am Wed July 06 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad eats badly, lives to regret it

Spam for sale — Ah, the magic of self-published ebooks.

Apple vs. the world: App Store showdown looms — Ebooks and more.

What we believe in — Language Log on the linguistics of belief. Or, as I say from time to time, just because you believe it doesn’t mean it’s true.

Civil War submarine rotated to upright position

Nighttime or violent TV tied to tots’ sleep woes — Science fiction’s very own Miki Garrison is the author of this study. Cool.

Why I’m raising my son to be a nerd — (Snurched from Scrivener’s Error.)

The Hajnal Line — Fascinating bit of sociology.

Fossilized eyes reveal a predator’s sharp vision — 515 million-year-old shrimplike beast with compound eyes just discovered.

Awesomely weird expanding halo of light seen from Hawaii

Tom Petty’s War On Michele Bachmann

Constantine is dead — Slacktivist Fred Clark on Evangelical Christian morality. A bit inside baseball for this atheist, but still pretty interesting. And a real strong commentary on the Christianist minority who dominate politics on the American Right.

While Fighting To Block SEC Investigation Of Goldman Sachs, Rep. Darrell Issa Bought Goldman Sachs Bonds — All my life I’ve heard that conservatives vote Republican because of ethics and family values, that godless liberals and unprincipled Democrats can’t be trusted. If this is Republican trustworthiness, y’all are fucking idiots. (Snurched from @twilight2000.)

U.S. foreign policy: War fever subsides — Remember the period of time where if you opposed the Iraq War, you were “objectively pro-Saddam.” US war hawks on both sides of the aisle have a hell of a lot to answer for. What most Americans have never understood is that the Iraq War especially was a creation of Republican think tanks for political gain. Despite the vicious faux-patriotic rhetoric, the real, underlying logic for attacking Iraq was never about national defense or 9-11, it was about GOP electoral gains and affirming the conservative worldview. Google “Project for a New American Century”, or “Iraq Study Group” if you don’t believe me. Thanks, GOP. Besides a second term for George W. Bush, what did we get for our $4 trillion and our thousands of dead and the hundreds of thousands of civilian dead?

?otD: Chocolate or bacon?

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6/30/2011
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (Sekrit Projekt)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.75 hours (solid)
Weight: 230.4
Currently (re)reading: A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

Tags: Cool, Culture, ebooks, history, Language, Links, music, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, Science, Tech

Posted: 4:56 am Thu June 30 2011 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad heads back to the infusion center again

Don’t forget to enter the new Endurance caption contest: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]

The Five Worst (Hard) Science Fiction Movies Ever

Low Cost and Hi-Fi: Building a Player — Hacking music. (Thanks to Dad.)

More on how to see the aurora borealis — (Via Julianna Hinckley.)

The Earth Is Full

Thoughts on the eternal headache that is nuclear power – part 1 of 6 — Some smart thinking from happyinmotion. (Thanks to danjite.)

A Short History of Political Suicide — Anthony Weiner’s Twitter disaster may well cost him his seat in Congress. Washington has seen many other sordid meltdowns

?otD: Tired Much?

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6/10/2011
Writing time yesterday: 1.25 hours (short fiction, interviews and other WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute suburban wak
Hours slept: 9.5 hours (interrupted)
Weight: 233.0
Currently (re)reading: A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

Tags: Books, Contests, Cool, Culture, Endurance, Links, Movies, music, Personal, Politics, Science, Tech

Posted: 8:59 am Fri June 10 2011 | Comments(0) |

[personal|travel] Doing better, going places

I did feel better yesterday, after being sick the previous two days. Not ideal, but better. Superbusy day at the Day Jobbe, thanks to being out. I met up with camillealexa for a late lunch, then did writerly things at Fireside/Fat Straw, then hit some live music with mlerules. The Pagan Jug Band at Cafe Magnolia, to be specific — they play every Tuesday night in a conveniently early show. Bluegrass/folk/zydeco is not my most beloved musical genre, but I had a lot of fun and I even danced a little, and still went home early.

Sunspin did advance by another 2,500 words, and I’m on the downhill slide for this second section section of Calamity of So Long A Life. This bit might wind up about 70,000 words, I’m not quite sure yet. Once I wrap it, hopefully by sometime this weekend, I’ll step away from the book again to pursue several invited short fiction projects. Then I’ll poke at the synoptic outline for the third and last section of Calamity, write some general backgrounders for the overall outline, and evaluate my schedule with respect to when I need to set this project aside and conduct rewrites on Kalimpura.

Tomorrow morning I am off well before the crack of dawn for Orlando and ICFA. I’ll be back stupidly late next Sunday evening. While I’m there I’ll see old friends and new and just generally chill for a couple of days. Blogging service may be a bit irregular in my absence, depending on how good the parties are.

So here’s to health, writing and travel. Away I go.

Tags: Books, Calamity, Conventions, Florida, Kalimpura, music, Personal, stories, Sunspin, Travel, work, Writing

Posted: 5:05 am Wed March 16 2011 | Comments(0) |