[links] Link salad is woozy with the heady smell of December
Wondermark on Rudolph as R. Clement Moore fanfic
Asher at The Guru Handbook on grading and concurrency — I’m more interested in the grading model Asher cites as applied to writers, both in a workshop environment and as a critical tool in the published world. There certainly are books and stories which can be identified as “first wave” and “second wave” — I’m not so sure if the reviewer step is better reflected in the critical/critiquing apparatus or in another layer of writing.
My new word for the day: Abugida — Picked it up while reading this fascinating piece on textual analysis being used to investigate the Mumbai terrorist attacks. (Specifically, the comments section, which is very good on this post.) From an auctorial perspective, the whole thing is worth reading if you write fiction about multilingual societies.
Fuel-cell powered devices getting closer — Mmm. Multiday batteries.
Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home — For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides. (Thanks to swan_tower.)
From my cell I scent the reeking soul of US justice — Conrad Black writes from prison. (Thanks to danjite.)
Obama Birth Certificate Rears Its Head - Again — Mmm. I can smell the bipartisanship from all the way over here. Because there’s nothing Republicans love more than a good, enraging lie. Keeps the base energized, donchaknow. This is like Whitewater, it will never go away. (Thanks to lt260.)
Jones at NSC; Even knows French (Eat your Heart out Tom DeLay) — I’m posting this one mostly for the headline, which I find hilarious, but it’s also a discussion of Obama’s new National Security Advisor.
This Modern World with a brief (and sadly fictional) history of the past eight years
?otD: Why oh, why oh, why oh; did I ever leave Ohio?
12/02/08
Body movement: 30 minutes on stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: 220.8
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: Funny, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Science, Writing
Posted: 5:24 am Tue December 02 2008 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad for a new workweek
Holiday weekend reacharound, for those of you who weren’t online much:
Here at this blog, we read Herman Melville so you don’t have to. [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]
A writerly career meme: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]
More wit and wisdom of the_child: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]
Wisdom of Fred: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]
Plus the usual assorted bill of fare:
Lego safe — Um… (Thanks to willyumtx.)
Next Year In Birobidzhan? Stalin’s Siberian Zion — Strange Maps with a very odd bit of Jewish history.
Climate change juggernaut on the horizon, UN talks told — More liberal balderdash from the world scientific community and the pinko climate itself. Thank God we have the Republican party and its talk radio surrogates to keep us politically insulated from the inconvenience of reality.
A Handpicked Team for a Foreign Policy Shift — The New York Times on Obama’s foreign policy and national security team. …the United States has more members of military marching bands than foreign service officers. Because that’s what the War on Terror demands! The GOP, keeping you safer with clarinets.
The GOP’s McCarthy gene — Think Goldwater is the father of conservatism? Think again. A fairly cogent explanation of the profound cognitive dissonance between the GOP’s idealistic self-image and the party’s vicious behaviors. (Hat tip to Talking Points Memo.)
Juan Cole on Pakistani Reaganism — A very illuminating precis on the history of radical Islam in South Asia, and how much the current issues with the Taliban owe their roots to Reagan’s anti-Communist policies. Not news to most reality-based readers, but very well-explained. (Facts not valid for FOX News viewers.)
?otD: Who let the dogs out?
12/01/08
Body movement: 30 minutes on stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: 221.4
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: Child, Cool, Culture, Funny, Links, Memes, Personal, Politics, Process, Science, Writing
Posted: 6:12 am Mon December 01 2008 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad for when Black Friday comes
A couple of reader reviews of Mainspring, here and here
The Town That Neil Young Built — More from Strange Maps.
Patternicity: Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise — Why the brain believes something is real when it is not. Pareidolia, anyone? (Thanks to lt260.)
Black people can’t swim — The Edge of the American West on Peanuts and the politics of race. Another reminder of the many past triumphs of conservatism, such as segregation.
‘The Most Dangerous Woman in the World’ — Chances are that if you get yours news and information from Your Liberal Media, you’ve never heard of Aafia Siddiqui. If you have, you’ve almost certainly heard a highly filtered version of her story. This is worth the read, especially if you think the War on Terror represents America doing good in the world.
?otD: Do you know the way to San Jose?
11/28/08
Body movement: 85 minute suburban walk
This morning’s weigh-in: 222.4
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: Books, Links, Mainspring, Personal, Politics, reviews, Science
Posted: 10:53 am Fri November 28 2008 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad gives thanks that it is not a turkey
Becoming Screen Literate — Visual constructive and the creative process. (Thanks to willyumtx.)
How genes evolve — Some fairly cool stuff, albeit thick reading. Hang on to your ribosomes. (Thanks to lt260.)
Parastic DNA — It’s life, but not as we know it.
Building for the long haul — Centauri Dreams with a cool post about the survival of materials in outer space. With nifty photos!
Plumes from Saturn moon may come from liquid water — Mmm. Fountains of paradise. This is an exciting moment in science, between the work on the outer moons and the exoplanetary stuff.
Sweet molecule could lead us to alien life — Sugars in galactic space. For serious. Wow. Bring the Kool-Aid!
How the media talks about torture and the rule of law — (Thanks to chriswjohnson.)
The Extreme and Imaginary Pro-Obama Bias — Your liberal media at work.
Freakonomics asks its readers to explain how mortgages get securitized — Worth reading the comments section pretty carefully, if you’re interested in the root causes of the real estate component of the Bush Depression.
?otD: Why didn’t Bob Marley shoot the deputy?
11/27/08
Body movement: 30 minutes on stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: 222.8
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: Bush Depression, Cool, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Science
Posted: 7:54 am Thu November 27 2008 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad looks forward to some turkey
jeffsoesbe on the OryCon cheese party — Mmm, cheese.
First detection of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet — Oooooh. What you can learn from the light of a single pixel.
Bad Astronomy blog with some (retroactively) obvious logic about UFOs — Never thought of this angle before, myself.
Pirates protected from EU task force by human rights —
Eight Is Enough — Comment from The New Yorker with more on the Mormon Church and Proposition 8.
The Edge of the American West reminds us of the Iran-Contra scandal — Look! Over there! Whitewater!
?otD: How many tribbles can fit in a Volkswagen?
11/26/08
Body movement: 30 minutes on stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a [forgot to weigh]
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: cheese, Cool, Culture, Links, Personal, Politics, Religion, Science, weird
Posted: 6:44 am Wed November 26 2008 | Comments(2) |
[links] Link salad is barely awake
A few more OryCon reports here and here
One model, fifty years — Aging through lighting and makeup. (Thanks to willyumtx.)
Juan Cole on Red Sea piracy and Bush military policy
5 Myths About Our Ailing Health-Care System — Food for thought on healthcare finance reform.
Question of the day: Princess Leia or Barbarella? Discuss.
11/23/08
Body movement: 60 minute suburban walk
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: Conventions, Cool, healthcare, Links, Politics
Posted: 11:42 am Sun November 23 2008 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad flies back to Oregon
Fantasy Book Critic with a 2009 book preview — Including a nice little squib on Green.
DNA of Ice Age’s Woolly Mammoth’s Mapped — Quaternary Park, anyone? (Thanks to scarlettina.)
Race on to build world’s first space elevator — Offshore, near Perth. (Snurched from carolryles.)
Scientists say Copernicus’ remains, grave found
Ship of fools — The Economist on the GOP. (Snurched from John Scalzi.)
Question of the day: What flavor cheese is the moon made of?
11/21/08
Body movement: airport walking (and later, convention walking)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: Cool, Green, Links, Personal, Politics, reviews, Science
Posted: 2:42 am Fri November 21 2008 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad doesn’t freeze in the dark
The Pyrotomic Disintegrator Pistol — Another winner from Vintagraph. I am so using the word “pyrotomic” in Sunspin. Somewhere, somehow. If nothing else, starships need names, too.
The Hand Drawn Map Association — Some cool stuff here. (Thanks to lillypond.)
Learning From Mistakes Only Works After Age 12, Study Suggests — Huh. I think I was in my 40s before it started working for me. (Thanks to sheelangig.)
The physics test — A classic, brilliant story. (Thanks to AH.)
Nov. 18, 1883: Railroad Time Goes Coast to Coast — The history of time zones, plus a bonus cool photo of railroading in the Cascades, back in the day.
Macaulay on Copyright — A discourse from 1841. (Thanks to danjite.)
Palin Strikes Gold — Sarah Palin’s $7 million book deal. Good for her. However, not so good for the rest of us. (Including, frankly, my Republican friends.) This only reinforces my conviction that Sarah Palin will be John McCain’s political legacy. I imagine he might wish to be remembered for something a little more constructive, somehow. But he picked her, and in doing so he pulled her on to the national stage. Thanks, John.
Question of the day: Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?
11/19/08
Body movement: 30 minutes on stationary bike (gym next door to hotel)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: Cool, Funny, Links, Personal, Politics, Science, Sunspin
Posted: 4:24 am Wed November 19 2008 | Comments(2) |
[links] Link salad does the Watusi, watches I Love Lucy
Don’t forget the voting poll for the Post-Novel Ennui Contest [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ], here. Vote early, vote often, influence your friends!
The Campbell Award Pin fundraiser is now underway. [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]
Pulp Magazines Struggle to Survive in Wired World — Simon Owens with a PBS article on the state of our field.
Non Sequitur on the rules of writing — Heh, yeah.
Photo Gallery: The World of Trench Warfare in Color — WWI history as you’ve rarely seen it. (Thanks to lt260.)
The Tabulator: 1917 — Shorpy with some seriously retro information technology.
Centauri Dreams with more on exoplanets — This is one of my favorite topics in science right now, in a big way.
Bad Astronomy on the oceans of Mars — Light from a distant sea, reflecting a red sky, showing us our own imaginations. Go, Schiaparelli!
The world has never seen such freezing heat — Scientific errors in global warming data. See the comments section as well. (Thanks to tetar.)
What’s a Christian Worldview? — Helpful hints from Focus on the Family. For example, let’s suppose you have bought the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder (secular relative truth) as opposed to beauty as defined by God’s purity and creativity (absolute truth). Wow. That’s a pretty bizarre definition of “truth”. Clearly I am not religious for epistemological reasons, if nothing else. (Thanks to danjite.)
Obama talks about his presidency — Worth the watch-and-listen.
Question of the day: Would you book yourself on a trip to the moon?
11/18/08
Body movement: 80 minute suburban walk
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: Contests, Cool, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, polls, Process, Publishing, Religion, Science
Posted: 5:08 am Tue November 18 2008 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad for a travel day
Don’t forget the voting poll for the Post-Novel Ennui Contest [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ], here. Vote early, vote often, influence your friends!
The Campbell Award Pin fundraiser is now underway. [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]
Fail Blog with a punctuation win — For all you GSP types.
The Guru’s Handbook on teachers and moral codes — Interesting stuff. (The term “teacher” here is used in a fairly broad sense, not specifically formal education.)
The Other — And, snurched from The Guru’s Handbook link above, a fascinating post on the Other. Worth reading from both a sociocultural perspective and a character creation perspective.
Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction — Just in case you were wondering. (Thanks to danjite.)
Ten-Minute Blood Test — A cheap chip rapidly identifies cancer proteins in a drop of blood.
More clockwork bugs — Mmmm. (Thanks to willyumtx.)
NASA Restores Historic Lunar Orbiter Image — Some weird, cool, retrotech stuff going on here. (Hat tip to io9.com.)
The Next RNC Chair: Captain Of The GOP Titanic? — Despite the amusingly snarky headline, an interesting from-outside-the-GOP-box analysis of what happens next for the Republican party.
Question of the day: What, precisely, did Billie Joe McAllister throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge?
11/17/08
Body movement: airport walking
This morning’s weigh-in: 224.0
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: Art, awards, Contests, Cool, Funny, Links, Personal, Politics, polls, Process, Science
Posted: 6:20 am Mon November 17 2008 | Comments(0) |
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