Jay Lake: Writer

[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) |

[links] Link salad invades with thirty armies and some hot dice

My story “‘Hello,’ Said the Gun” is live at Daily Science Fiction

Less Talk, More Rock — An old essay on Boing Boing about the creative process, from the perspective of videogames. Pretty interesting stuff. (Gakked from, um, somewhere.)

Eye of the Storm — A wonderful animated steampunk music video. Just watch. (Via oldcharliebrown here.)

Icemobile: 1905 — Shorpy with Grand Trunk car ferry crossing the Detroit River in winter. Mmm, trains on ice.

Walter Rothschild and the rise and fall of Sclater’s cassowary — Proof postive that zoological history is no less weird than any other branch of history. Plus trained zebras!

Remapping Computer Circuitry to Avert Impending Bottlenecks — A rethinking of computing architecture. (Via my Dad.)

Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years — And the award for Most Bizarre Headline goes to National Geographic.

Wingnuts Discover Limits to Executive Power — That would be “limits to executive power when wielded by a non-white, non-Republican.” Like Ed Brayton, I sure don’t remember the Right being angry at Bush for exactly the same thing. Hmm, what could the difference possibly be?

The Most Disturbing Personality on Cable Television — Conservatives on Glenn Beck. He’s your boy, enjoy him. (Though in fairness, Beck’s ratings have been in steep decline, so maybe there’s a limit even on the Right.)

Dagny Taggart Wept — Paul Krugman quoting George Will on railroads: [P]rogressivism’s aim is the modification of (other people’s) behavior. Uh, George…have you looked at a single conservative talking point in the last 30 years? The conservative movement is about nothing but modifying other people’s behavior. Who can be pregnant when, who can have sex with whom, who can marry whom, who can travel when and where, who is allowed to endure financial risk and who gets to be bailed out, what governments other countries are allowed to have. In plain language on the face of its own premises, conservatism is dedicated to the most intrusive government possible.

?otD: South America or Australia?

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3/2/2011
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (2,500 words on Sunspin)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.0 hours (interrupted)
Weight: 254.8 (! – too many carbs yesterday, ate dinner quite late)
Currently reading: Between books

Tags: climate, Cool, Links, media, music, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, Science, stories, trains, Videos, weird

Posted: 6:24 am Wed March 02 2011 | Comments(2) |

[personal] Weekend report, and what dreams did come

Whew. This weekend I:

• Went to a protest in support of the Wisconsin public worker unions
• Dined with a friend Friday night, then saw True Grit
• Brunched with a friend Saturday morning and did a bunch of walking
• Dined with a friend Saturday night and saw a jazz/klezmer group live
• Hiked part of the Cape Horn trail in the Columbia Gorge Sunday morning
• Advised and assisted the_child on preparing for her art showing next weekend
• Attended an Oscar party Sunday evening
• Wrote 5,100 words on Sunspin through all this
• Had strange dreams last night

Busy much?

The dreams last night were hilarious. As best as I can reconstruct them now, I was trying to arrange a social date for davidlevine. I stopped at the Philadelphia Zoo to sort out the details, borrowing a clipboard from their membership department.

As I sat on some empty steps to make notes about this date, I was trampled by a crowd of zoo patrons rushing to see an IMAX showing of some nature movie. I was so discombobulated by this that I threw down my clipboard in frustration. That narrowly missed a manager from the zoo office.

The Zoo Police took me into custody for attempted assault. I was informed that as my alleged crimes had occurred on public property, I would be charged with terrorism related offenses under the Patriot Act, and that Homeland Security was being called in.

For some reason I still had the run of the zoo offices at that point. Various writers and editors kept wandering in. I pled my case to the trio of Gordon Van Gelder, Tim Pratt and Ben Rosenbaum. Gordon told me I should be more careful with my clipboard next time. Ben said fifteen years in prison was a small price to pay for a just and peaceful society.

I wound up in the IMAX auditorium still looking for someone who could help me out. At that point the Zoo Police decided I was trying to effect an escape from custody by hiding in the crowd. They started a panic sending in a SWAT team after me, while loudly telling everyone I was a violent criminal threatening further violence.

I woke up laughing at myself. All that so David Levine could have a date?

What did you dream last night?

Tags: Art, Books, Child, dreams, Funny, Movies, music, nature, Personal, Publishing, Sunspin, Washington, weird, Writing

Posted: 6:47 am Mon February 28 2011 | Comments(4) |

[personal] Keep them dogies rolling

Yesterday morning I whacked out 2,500 words on Calamity of So Long a Life, met a friend for brunch, walked a few miles after, vegged a bit, then went out for dinner and klezmer music with another friend at the Rogue Brewery.

Here’s me bottling what I got, courtesy of mlerules.

All rights reserved, used with permission.

The food was good, but we were mildly disappointed in Klezmocracy, the band, because while they were quite a good jazz band, they played exactly one song I could recognize as klezmer, which is what we thought we’d come to hear.

This morning I’m off shortly with friends for the first Gorge hike of the 2011 season. I was going to be cooking momos this afternoon, but that got crosswise of an outing this evening, so the cooking is postponed. Busy play day, at any rate.

Tags: Books, Calamity, Food, music, Personal, Portland, Writing

Posted: 7:08 am Sun February 27 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad enjoys musical irony supplements

L. E. Modesitt, Jr. with a passing, favorable mention of my novel Green

Odd Cover Songs We’ll Probably Never Get — Hahahah. Andrew Wheeler is hilarious. What about Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds doing “Brand New Key”?

Weird Vintage Ads — From Dark Roasted Blend.

Has Indian inventor REALLY made a Back to the Future style flying car? — Hmm. (Thanks to madwriter.)

How Reporter Vanessa Grigoriadis Was Mommy-Shamed After Biebergate — Interesting stuff about the culture normativism of parenthood.

Northwest US fights against alt-med — A pair of interesting and difficult stories from the Pacific Northwest.

Washington’s Echo Chamber — A long article on American assumptions in the current changing world.

Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators — Mmm, classy. (Via ms_daisy_cutter.)

Plutocracy Now: What Wisconsin Is Really About — An analysis of politics and income inequality from the point of view of the (American) left.

Death Penalty for Miscarriages Coming Soon to Georgia? — More compassionate conservatism from America’s thought leaders.

Tennessee bill would jail Shariah followers — Criminalizing religious law. So long as America’s thought leaders are all over that, there’s a bunch of pretty toxic stuff in the Bible that needs addressing, too.

?otD: What oddball cover would you like to see?

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2/25/2011
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (WRPA only)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.75 hours (interrupted)
Weight: 251.2
Currently reading: Dead Iron by Devon Monk

Tags: Afghanistan, Books, Culture, Funny, Green, healthcare, Links, music, Personal, Politics, Religion, Tech, Wisconsin

Posted: 6:36 am Fri February 25 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad parties with the belly dancers

A nice review of “Rolling Steel” by me and calendula_witch

Star Wars’ Imperial March played with a floppy disk — Um, wow. (Thanks to Dad.)

How a steam powered sawmill works — (Thanks to KF.)

Computer Wins on ‘Jeopardy!’: Trivial, It’s Not — A discussion of what Watson’s recent win means. (Thanks to my Dad.)

The ‘core pathway’ of aging — Cool stuff in the biology of senescence. (Thanks to David Goldman.)

No Argument: Thomas Keeps 5-Year Silence — A curious piece on America’s most fair-minded, non-partisan jurist, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

?otD: Got fringe?

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2/19/2011
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (2,400 words on a short fiction project)
Body movement: 55 minutes of belly dancing workout/class
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (interrupted)
Weight: n/a (away from home)
Currently reading: Dead Iron by Devon Monk

Tags: Calendula, Cool, Funny, health, Links, music, Personal, Politics, reviews, Science, stories, Tech

Posted: 11:34 am Sat February 19 2011 | Comments(0) |

[personal] Things I have been wondering about lately

• Why anyone lives in Omaha, or anyplace where 1 degree F is a normal temperature
• Why I was awake 21 hours yesterday
• Who thought Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” was a good choice for a middle school girls’ choir to sing
• Who had to explain to the kids what the song meant
• Why my WordPress comment spam has spiked so high these past few days
• Why my process for Sunspin is so vastly different from any other novel I’ve ever written
• How yogurt can go bad
• What everyone else is wondering about

Tags: Books, Food, Funny, music, Omaha, Personal, Process, Sunspin, Travel, Writing

Posted: 7:51 am Sat January 22 2011 | Comments(9) |