Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad flies before the Flame of Udûn

Birthday Song’s Copyright Leads to a Lawsuit for the Ages — Ah, the magic of copyright. Especially in Happy Birthdayland. (Via tillyjane, a/k/a my Mom.)

Portland’s Hoyt Arboretum attempts to set the world’s tree hugging record — Because Portland! (Via @bobhole.)

Repairing Bad Memories — Hmm. No potential for abuse here.

Who Made That Mouse? — The history of a human interface. (Thanks to Dad.)

Scientists Moving 15-Ton Magnet From NY to Chicago — I think this was one of my word problems in 8th grade math.

Puffed-up hot Jupiters may be getting an electric charge — New model suggests they’re heated up by magnetic fields of solar wind.

The Pope’s Gay Panic — More moral bankruptcy from the greatest pedophilia shelter in history.

Why Dwindling Snow—Thanks Largely to Climate Change—Might Dry Out Los Angeles — I continue to be amazed at how liberal propaganda on climate change has fooled even reality itself. Thank God for Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party, or this country might have been able to do something about the problem before it got much, much worse. Which would be a shame, because that would have meant liberals were right. Every good conservatives knows it’s far better to drown Miami and dry out Los Angeles than let any part of the liberal agenda succeed.

What Sweden Can Tell Us About Obamacare — Last month, for the 37th time, the House of Representatives voted to repeal Obamacare, with many Republicans saying that its call for greater government involvement in the health care system spells doom. Yet most other industrial countries have health care systems with far more government involvement than we are ever likely to see under Obamacare. What does their experience tell us about Republican fears? Groundless paranoia has long been the conservative stock-in-trade on almost every issue — that’s how you manufacture more angry white men, after all, which by the GOP’s own admission is its key political strategy. Why should healthcare be any different?

Antonin Scalia Does Not Believe in Molecular Biology — Duh. He’s a Republican. The GOP has spent the past decades very carefully and deliberately privileging willful ignorance over either science or evidence-based critical thinking. What else would we expect? (Via shsilver.)

QotD?: Would you stand and fight?

6/17/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (too many errands, not enough time)
Hours slept: 5.75 hours solid
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 248.0
Number of FEMA troops on my block leaking intelligence secrets: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg; Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Tags: climate, Cool, gay, healthcare, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Portland, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech, weird

Posted: 5:03 am Mon June 17 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad wakes up with a JayCon hangover

No, That’s Not Too Much Jay — File 770 is both kind and funny about me.

Mainspring (Jay Lake, Clockwork Earth #1) — A review of my novel by a readeer who really, really didn’t care for it.

Superman: Flying to a church near you — Well, ok then. (Via shsilver.)

A Pocket-Sized Micro House Built To Withstand Severe Weather

Could a Surplus of California Milk Fulfill China’s Cheese Needs? — I was not aware that China had cheese needs.

Restoring Trees to Save the World’s Rarest Parrot —

South Africa’s Cape parrot needs more yellowwood trees to survive.

La Salle’s long-lost ship?

QotD?: Are you as stonkered as I am?

6/16/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (too many errands, not enough time)
Hours slept: 5.75 hours solid
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 248.0
Number of FEMA troops on my block leaking intelligence secrets: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg; Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, California, China, Cool, economy, history, interviews, Links, Mainspring, Movies, nature, Personal, Religion, reviews, Tech

Posted: 6:33 am Sun June 16 2013 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad says it’s time to celebrate a birthday

Jay Lake – Próba kwiatów — An (apparently) largely positive review of the Polish edition of Trial of Flowers.

How we feel can change how we taste fat — Content people can detect changes in fat content, unhappy people do not.

Australian squid eat sperm for better bodies and babies — Presented without further comment. (Via David Goldman.)

Leprosy’s disappearing act came from public health improvements

Japanese eyeball-licking craze carries blindness risk

The Invention: 1928 — Flat panel display?

How Google Will Use High-Flying Balloons to Deliver Internet to the Hinterlands — I do love Google, except for the banal evil that is the Google Books Settlement.

Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere — Both funny and sobering. (Via David Goldman.)

Feds to comply with NY morning-after pill ruling — Conservative sexual paranoia really isn’t a good basis for national policy. I’m glad to see sanity prevailing once in a rare while.

The Tragic Fall of the White Race in America — Yup. Too bad for the Republican angry white man freakshow.

QotD?: Going to be at JayCon today?

6/15/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (too many errands, not enough time)
Hours slept: 5.5 hours (fitful)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (exercise room was occupied)
Weight: 246.6
Number of FEMA troops on my block leaking intelligence secrets: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg; Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Food, gender, healthcare, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, race, reviews, sex, Tech, Trial, weird

Posted: 5:36 am Sat June 15 2013 | Comments(4) |

[links] Link salad wanders into Friday

A reader reacts to Kalimpura — Generally rather favorable. I loved this bit: There are several big themes in the book that I really like too. First, Green is a bad-ass queer woman of color. Her story isn’t about any of those aspects of her, they just are facts about her. Sometimes those facts contribute to her interactions with other characters and sometimes they don’t. This is so important. Especially because Green is young and brave and flawed and impetuous and foolish and special all at once. She’s an individual, not a stereotype, and we need more of those depictions of queer women of color in our literature.

Bride of the Girl Cooties — Cora Buhlert with an excellent link roundup and commentary on the current iteration of arguments about gendering in SF.

Will McIntosh, On Choosing a Title for Your Novel — I’ve had a things or two to say about this in the past. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

The Secret to a Video-Game Phenomenon — I always thought Minecraft is what Lego should have invented.

The Renaissance Military Compass — Ok, that is cool. 500 year old milspec technology. Scroll down a bit when you land on the page. (Thanks to threeoutside.)

Excel Is An Art Form: These Beautiful Images Are Proof — Wow. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

U.S. Supreme Court Says “Natural” Human Genes May Not Be Patented — Huh. Some unlooked-for sanity in patent law.

Gene/culture co-evolution

Oxygen mystery: How marine mammals hold their breath

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories — Because reasons, damn it! (Thanks to David Goldman.)

Antarctic ice melting from below, finds study — Ice loss in Antarctica is largely driven by warm ocean currents, a discovery that could lead to more accurate predictions of sea level rise. Must be scuba diving liberals with blow torches. Everyone knows climate change is a fraud, no matter what the evidence says.

‘Spiritual’ young people more likely to commit crimes than ‘religious’ ones — Which is why atheists are one of the most distrusted groups in America. No, wait, what…? (Thanks to shsilver.)

California Prepares for Fallout as High Court Ruling on Prop. 8 Nears — Prop 8 is institutionalized bigotry driven in large part by funding from the Mormon Church, which has joined the Catholic Church as an example of total failure of moral leadership and social conscience because of that. It would be very nice to see Utah’s exported religiously-branded hate run back out of California.

[Iowa GOP governor] Terry Branstad May Need To Approve Medicaid Abortion Funding — Yes. Every single one of them. Because one thing conservatives believe absolutely is that the government shouldn’t come between you and your doctor. Which is what makes Obamacare evil and government oversight of abortions good… that much-vaunted conservative intellectual consistency. You know how much Republicans hate those situational ethics. (Via scarlettina.)

GOP congressman Trent Franks: It’s hard to get pregnant from rape — Republicans apparently cannot keep themselves from being both vile and stupid on this topic.

QotD?: Force choke or Vulcan nerve pinch?

6/14/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (too many errands, not enough time)
Hours slept: 5.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 246.8
Number of FEMA troops on my block leaking intelligence secrets: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg; Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Art, Books, climate, Cool, Culture, gay, gender, Kalimpura, law, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, reviews, Science, Tech, weird, Writing

Posted: 5:36 am Fri June 14 2013 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad for a JayFest Thursday

Altitude May Influence Language Sounds — The lower air pressure at high altitudes may be a factor in why ejective consonants are more popular in languages spoken higher up.

What Will Humans Look Like in 100,000 Years? Here’s a Guess — Callista Flockhart, apparently. And white, totes white.

Paper Dolls: 1960s TV Stars — For all your retro needs.

Virus That Evolved in the Lab Delivers Gene Therapy into the Retina

Does the Big Bang necessarily mean we’re part of a multiverse?

Mapping Color Names — Oooh. Cool.

The Surprising History and Science of Tear Gas

The lost city of Heracleion — Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

New York’s Sea-Level Plan: Will It Play in Miami? — Once again I am reminded that there is no objective reason for climate change to be a partisan issue. Just reflexive conservative hatred of anything liberals care about, as well as the usual GOP contrarianism, in play over what in retrospect will prove to be the biggest and costliest mistake in the history of human civilization.

To Stop Being the Party of Stupid You Must Stop Being Stupid — If you are not around people who will look at you like you are crazy when you make stupid claims about other people’s experiences, then you tend to keep saying stupid things about other people’s experiences. It is not enough to pay a political price, or even to be shamed into silence. You have to come to believe — in your heart — that sincerity itself is not the same as accurate information. That’s the awesome socially engineered glory of the conservative media echo chamber: epistemic closure that keeps its followers from ever needing to question themselves or examine any evidence that contradicts their cherished worldview. As a political strategy, it has been brilliant. As a cultural strategy, it is profoundly toxic and counterproductive, even to conservative interests.

QotD?: What did you do with that book?

6/13/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (too many errands, not enough time)
Hours slept: 4.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 246.4
Number of FEMA troops on my block leaking intelligence secrets: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg; Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Tags: climate, Cool, Culture, healthcare, Language, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, Tech, weird

Posted: 4:36 am Thu June 13 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad wishes its parents a happy anniversary

What Makes Fiction Good? It’s Mostly the Voice — Ta-Nehisi Coates on reading Slaughterhouse Five.

A Glamorous Killer Returns — Cougars in the east.

Marks on Martian Dunes May Reveal Tracks of Dry Ice Sleds — Calvin and Hobbes go to Mars?

New phylum of bacteria found lurking in hospital sink’s drain — Its genome hints that it may live inside some other organism. Don’t wash your hands!

Slaying the Zombie Ideas of Climate Change Denial — These are ideas that cannot be killed, no matter how thoroughly they are debunked. They always rise to shamble again, reanimated by the deniosphere. “The hockey stick is broken,” “the world hasn’t warmed in 16 years,” “Antarctic ice is growing.” These ideas are all wrong, demonstrably so, but they are still walking the countryside, looking to eat innocent people’s brains. Good luck with that so long as conservatives continue to have political and cultural credibility.

Parents to hear evidence in 2 faith-healing deaths — Child abuse and neglect are not First Amendment rights, no matter how sincerely held your personsal beliefs might be. It’s extreme cases like this which highlight the fact that religion does not belong in the public square in a free and democratic society.

If work is a responsibility, then work is also a right — Slacktivist Fred Clark deconstructs yet another piece of pointless and cruel Christianist political lunacy.

Prostitution, drugs alleged in State Department memo — Hmm. A lot of people are out to get Mrs. Clinton these days. Wonder what they’re scared of?

The Top 1% of U.S. Income Earners Receive 15% of Tax Breaks and Credits — People complain about government payments to the poor, but tax breaks are also payments, though less obviously so, to the rich. And those tax breaks cost the government a lot more money.

QotD?: Got celebration?

6/12/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (too many errands, not enough time)
Hours slept: 6.75 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 246.2
Number of FEMA troops on my block leaking intelligence secrets: 0
Currently reading: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg; Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Christianists, climate, healthcare, Links, Mars, nature, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, Science, Writing

Posted: 5:11 am Wed June 12 2013 | Comments(6) |

[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 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 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) |