Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad for a high altitude Wednesday

Cloned video GIFs — This is so cool. (Via threeoutside.)

The Phosphorous Atom Quantum Computing Machine — An Australian team unveils the fundamental building block of a scalable quantum computer that could be embedded in today’s silicon chips.

New Efforts to Overhaul Psychiatric Diagnoses Spurred by DSM Turmoil — (Via Marta Murvosh.)

If the Earth had rings — (Via Lisa Costello.)

Red Sprite Lightning with Aurora — A strange photo from APOD. Well worth reading the write-up.

Had the Cookie Crumbled Differently: East and West Dakota

Pat Robertson shrugs off adultery, CBN regrets the misunderstanding — Robertson said the “secret” was to “stop talking about the cheating. He cheated on you. Well, he’s a man. OK.” So glad religious conservatives had this viewpoint during the Clinton years. Imagine the political circus if they’d taken adultery seriously back then.

Asked by Wolf Blitzer if She Thanked God for Surviving the Tornado, Oklahoma Woman Responds: ‘I’m Actually An Atheist’ — Heh. It’s a stupid question on the face of things. If we’re supposed to thank God for surviving such an event, aren’t we equally blaming God for the lives lost? (Via shsilver.)

Anti-Sandy-relief Oklahoma Senator: Aid for Oklahoma is “totally different” than Sandy — The only difference is that the tornado victims vote in Oklahoma. Just like government support for hard working farmers is totally different from food stamps for the lazy urban poor. Ah, that justly famed conservative intellectual consistency.

Oklahoma GOP Sen. Tom Coburn Will Seek To Offset Tornado Aid — At least he’s being intellectually consistent in his conservative cruelty, unlike Senator Inhofe cited above. Unusual for a Republican, that.

Fisheries could be in hot water due to climate change — Warming waters are altering the distribution and abundance of fish species. Amazing, the lengths liberals will go to for their global warming hoax. Even to warming entire oceans. Thank god for Rush Limbaugh and the Republican party, otherwise we might have to do something about this.

Will Republicans Screw Up Again? Some Are Already Overreaching — Republicans allowed themselves to look as if they were primarily interested in scoring political points and overturning the results of the 1996 election, even if it meant paralyzing the government. That same danger exists once again for the GOP. “Look as if…” That’s remarkably kind to a party whose top legislative priority was ensuring that Obama was a one-term president. Not jobs. Not the economy. Not healthcare. Not our foreign wars. No, overturning the results of the 2008 election. And now, the 2012. They’re practically built their entire brand and message around it.

QotD?: What did you read yesterday?

5/22/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (workshop)
Hours slept: 5.5 hours (fitful)
Body movement: n/a
Weight: n/a
Number of FEMA troops on my block scamming disaster aid slush funds: 0
Currently reading: Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Art, climate, Cool, Culture, healthcare, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, Science, weird

Posted: 5:38 am Wed May 22 2013 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad checks in from 10,000 feet up in the mountains

Abandoned Stars Wars sets in the desert — Are these meta-artifacts? (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Divide & conquer makes quantum light a breeze to detect

One-Time Pad Reinvented To Make Electronic Copying Impossible

The Brick Testament — The world’s largest, most comprehensive illustrated Bible. Mmm, Legos. Something I think I’ve featured before. (Thanks to seventorches.)

Beware Social Nostalgia — An essay that cuts the heart out of one of the core impulses of conservatism — the Myth of the Golden Age.

Lesbian forced from partner, two kids by Texas judge’s ‘morality clause’ — A lesbian woman has 30 days to evacuate her home after a judge ruled only relatives by ‘blood or marriage’ can be around her partner’s kids past 9 pm. Compassionate conservatism strikes again. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Washington Gets Explicit: Its ‘War on Terror’ is Permanent — Senior Obama officials tell the US Senate: the ‘war’, in limitless form, will continue for ‘at least’ another decade – or two. We have always been at war with Eurasia. (Thanks to tillyjane, a/k/a my mom.)

QotD?: What’s the highest altitude you’ve ever been at (not counting flight)?

5/20/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (con time)
Hours slept: 7.25 hours (fitful)
Body movement: n/a
Weight: n/a
Number of FEMA troops on my block covering up evidence about Benghazi: 0
Currently reading: Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Cool, Culture, Funny, gay, gender, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Religion, Tech

Posted: 6:17 am Mon May 20 2013 | Comments(6) |

[links] Link salad knows there’s no love inside the icehouse

Rick Novy interviews me

The Canadian Who Won’t be Returning From the Stars — specficrider on a joint project of ours.

Will insurance cover genetic testing, preventive surgery? — Women who discover they carry a hereditary gene mutation that dramatically increases their risk of breast and ovarian cancers face big decisions and the possibility of tens of thousands of dollars in medical costs. This story is a version of what I went through.

12 Tips from 12 Years Sick — Yep. I’m only barely into year six, but, yep. (Thanks to Lisa Costello.)

Star Trek: The Search for Science — The Bad Astronmer is much with the hilarity.

The secret laser-toting Soviet satellite that almost was — Here’s a little Cold War alt.hist for you.

Billion-Year-Old Water Found in Canada Holds Clues About Ancient Life — You really need to read the expiration dates on those gas station water bottles.

Hunting Pesky Pigs in Paradise — Ham sandwiches on the hoof, where they don’t belong.

Terahertz Image Reveals Goya’s Hidden Signature in Old Master Painting — Darkened varnish obscures Goya’s signature in a 1771 masterpiece, according to a new analysis using terahertz waves

The Spies Who Blundered — Alleged undercover CIA agent Ryan Fogle is one of many spies to bungle the job.

My Despair — Another of those sad, strange posts on Feminist Mormon Housewives where someone of apparent intelligence and progressive sensibilities finds their common sense and observations of the real world in profound conflict with their faith. If I were a faith-holder, I don’t think I could tolerate that much cognitive dissonance.

When did you choose to be straight? — Heh.

Christian denominations and marriage equality: A simple quiz — Slacktivist Fred Clark makes a point that many anti-gay bigots in pietist clothing would prefer to ignore. Christianists find it so much more comfortable to hate inconvenient people than to actually pay attention to their own morality.

What We Mean When We Say ‘Race Is a Social Construct’ — In a world where Kevin Garnett, Harold Ford, and Halle Berry all check “black” on the census, even the argument that racial labels refer to natural differences in physical traits doesn’t hold up. Ta-Nehisi Coates is far more elegant than I ever could be on this topic.

Tullahoma father being reckless when baby daughter shot, police say — Because guns make us all safer. Without the smiling protection of the NRA and the GOP, this dad wouldn’t have been able to exercise his theoretical defense of essentially liberties by blowing away his own child.

QotD?: Can you remember getting any older?

5/16/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (0.5 revisions on my novella for METAtropolis: Green Space, plus WRPA)
Hours slept: 8.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 248.2
Number of FEMA troops on my block covering up evidence about Benghazi: 0
Currently reading: The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Art, Books, Cancer, Christianists, climate, Funny, gay, guns, health, healthcare, interviews, Links, Movies, nature, Personal, Politics, race, Religion, Science, stories, Tech, Videos, weird

Posted: 5:20 am Thu May 16 2013 | Comments(3) |

[religion] In which we discover that I may be a Wheatonist

Yesterday, Lisa Costello and I were talking about religion, as we are sometimes wont to do. I am somewhat infamously an atheist, from a Calvinist background. She is a serious Shambhala Buddhist, also from a Protestant background.

What prompted the conversation was this comment on my blog, from Stevo Darkly, partially excerpted here:

I suspect Jay is as “saved” as he needs to be. The Catholic theologian Karl Rahner posits the concept of the “anonymous” Christian. Horrible label, but basically it means if a person lives as Christ would like, they are effectively a Christian. [...] Certainly Jay lives a life as loving and tolerant and kind as any sort if Christ or God could want. Better than most self-claimed Christians.

I felt both complimented and amused by Stevo’s remarks, and took them in what I am fairly confident was the spirit intended. As it happens, Lisa and I have an ongoing dispute about whether I’m a good Buddhist or a bad Buddhist. Which is also pretty amusing, given my active commitment to atheism. The serious underpinnings of that dispute parallel the comment above, to the effect that Lisa claims I live my life much the way I would if I were trying to be a good Buddhist.

I observed that in simplistic terms, most constructive religious commandments boil down to Wheaton’s Law: “Don’t be a dick.” I’m not talking about the religious commandments about not eating shrimp, or avoiding cheeseburgers, or hating on gay people, or wearing magic underwear, or whatever. Those are tribal in-group signifiers, not moral guidance. I’m talking about the whole not bearing false witness thing, not coveting your neighbor’s ass in a non-consensual fashion, do as you would be done by, an it harm none, and so forth. Those are affirmative statements of social principle. (Some of which may of course also be tribal in-group signifiers.)

So I suppose if I were to subscribe to a religion, I’d be a Wheatonist. My religion would have one commandment: “Don’t be a dick.” That’s about it. Seems to cover almost everything what needs covering. Living as a Wheatonist, I could be mistaken for an anonymous Christian or a good Buddhist either one.

I think Wil is on to something bigger than he realizes.

Or maybe he already knows it…

Tags: Funny, Personal, radiantlisa, Religion

Posted: 5:25 am Wed May 15 2013 | Comments(49) |

[cancer] All my trials and tribulations, sinking in a gentle pool of wine

Sometimes being a clean-and-sober atheist kind of sucks. Take this little cancer hobby of mine, for instance.

People of faith have a higher power to turn to, both for aid and comfort in their times of trouble, and as a causative agent to help explain and justify their experiences. People who drink find another approach to escaping the troubles of their lives. Likewise my stoner friends. All of those behaviors are for some people paths that for a while help abstract them from the trials and tribulations of their everyday life. They can go some place where the pain either has less meaning, or is completely transformed.

I’m not a faith holder. I’m not wired for it. I’m too literally minded, too invested in the empirical universe, to hold a mythic truth without experiencing serious cognitive dissonance. There are times when I recognize this as a loss on my part. Comfort denied is comfort delayed, after all. But faith comes at too high a price for me to willing to pay. I won’t betray my reason, not even for the example of the best of faith holders. And frankly, the fact that most faith holders visible in American culture are far, far from the best of faith holders does nothing to set an example for my reconsideration. In other words, religion is not my opiate. (As for real opiates, the less said the better. I am boggled as to how anyone can do that vile shit recreationally.)

Likewise drinking. Alcohol just makes me stupid and loud. I don’t like being stupid, not one tiny bit. And I certainly don’t need to be any louder. Furthermore, the temptations to even minor misbehavior while drinking are strong for me. I can be mean or petty without even realizing it. Kindness is a social virtue I value far too highly to trade it away for a buzz.

Pot, too. Marijuana just makes me stupid and slow. That’s a slight improvement over booze, in that I’m less likely to say or do something regrettable, but I still don’t like being stupid at all. And slow isn’t really in it for me, either. I live in my head way too much to tolerate that.

The only other class of drugs I ever tried was hallucinogens. I dropped acid once, and ate mushrooms once. I liked each of them so much that I realized instantly I would never be able to indulge again. I wouldn’t have the willpower to stay off them, and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life tripping balls in a refrigerator box under a bridge somewhere.

Never coked up, never smoked crack, never shot heroin, et cetera. I think I did ecstasy once, but mostly that gave me an erection the size and density of a two-by-four which would not conclude in any satisfactory method whatsoever, despite enthusiastic assistance.

As a result of all this, for many years, reality has been my drug of choice, with an assist from fiction. The trials and tribulations of my life have been faced with a clear head and open eyes, and no higher power than myself to turn to for either comfort or to assign responsibility to. I have always faced the world on its own terms and mine, owned my responsibility as best I could, and taken the steps to move on when required.

Cancer, especially now at the beginning of my end game, has been one of the greatest trials of my life. Believe me, I really do understand why people self-medicate or turn to God or half a hundred other solutions. I can’t. So I don’t get see all my trials and tribulations sinking in a gentle pool of wine. They ride me now, they will ride me into the grave.

I see cancer. Cancer sees me. No one and nothing stands between us.

Tags: Cancer, cultural, health, Personal, Religion

Posted: 5:10 am Mon May 13 2013 | Comments(41) |

[cancer|religion] Cancer and religion and you and me

Not unexpectedly, my terminal diagnosis has brought out the religion in some of my friends and acquaintances. I know this is sincere, and very well meant, but it’s also annoying as hell. People who hold faith sincerely take it very seriously. This I respect. Some people who take their faith very seriously desperate want to share it with me as a way to help me. This I respect.

But I really don’t need to hear it.

First of all, I’ve heard the Good News. As an atheist, I take a great interest in religion. Whatever variety of it you happen to subscribe to, there’s a good chance I know something about it. I’m aware of the truth of the word of God. I’m also aware that there are about 30,000 versions of it (the rough count of Christian denominations in the world), which right there tells any thoughtful person everything they need to know about the obviousness and inviolability of God’s word. Come on, you can’t grow up in American culture without being saturated with the Christian message.

More to the point, I have been thoroughly churched. My grandfather was a pastor in the Disciples of Christ, with a divinity degree from Texas Christian University. I won all kinds of awards in Sunday school as a child. I was baptized at thirteen. I have a whole shelf of Bibles and concordances here at Nuevo Rancho Lake. I’ve read the King James Bible from cover to cover. I know the word of God from the inside.

My atheism is a conscious, confident choice. Not an error, not simple ignorance of some better way. A considered position based on a lifetime spent grappling with both faith and reason. While I am pathologically cynical about religion in the public square and in politics, I am absolutely respectful of religion as a private choice and a personal behavior.

My private choice and personal behavior is to be an atheist.

I wouldn’t dream of approaching a religious friend who is mortally ill and attempting to convince them how much better their life, and death, would be if they rejected God and turned to the comfort of rational, empirical humanism. Yet I have religious friends who feel compelled to do this very same thing to me. I’ve been told in so many desperate words that a friend cannot understand how I can face such trials without Jesus in my life.

I know this is motivated out of love and concern. I know that for many Christians (and a number of other religious) proselytization is both a duty and an act of faith. But I’m extremely comfortable with my spiritual stance. What kind of hypocrite would I be to turn away from my intellectual bedrock now, in the face of troubled times?

Besides which, cancer is the Problem of Evil on the hoof. If I came to once again accept belief in God, the first thing I’d do is get into a knock-down, drag-out argument with Him over why He is treating me this way.

So I recognize that you love me when you reach out to me about faith. But really, truly, I’ve heard it before, and I know what’s important to me. Your spiritual truths are not mine. And with a life full of cancer and all its discontents, I don’t need that distraction now.

Tags: Cancer, health, Personal, Religion

Posted: 5:41 am Fri May 10 2013 | Comments(130) |

[links] Link salad cried because it had no shoes

The fate of today’s book bloggers — Toby Buckell is interesting.

Pear-shaped nuclei may be a key to why our universe survived the big bang — Being rather pear shaped myself, I consider this good news.

Hubble finds dead stars “polluted” with planetary debris

Moon and Earth Have Common Water Source — Researchers used a multicollector ion microprobe to study hydrogen-deuterium ratios in lunar rock and on Earth. Their conclusion: The Moon’s water did not come from comets but was already present on Earth 4.5 billion years ago, when a giant collision sent material from Earth to form the Moon. (Snurched from james_nicoll here.)

Google Earth enters fourth dimension, highlights humanity’s heavy hand — Satellite imagery lets you follow terrain changes over time.

Printing Electronics Just Got Easier — A new technique developed by researchers in China allows easier printing of electronic components onto paper.

Sim City: An Interview with Stone Librande — This is interesting. Also, a long time ago, I was addicted to Sim City, and still remember it fondly. Ta-Nehisi Coates on how EA screwed up the new launch, big.

How to Make an Implant that Improves the Brain

Gang stole $45m from cash machines across globe in hours, say prosecutors — ‘Virtual criminal flash mob’ used bogus swipe cards loaded with data from hacked bank databases to commit thousands of thefts.

That old-time religion — Yep, the intellectual consistency of the religious mind on display once more. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

After passage, same-sex supporters express bliss — Go, Minnesota. Another domino falls. There simply is no principled opposition to gay marriage, only bigotry disguised as piety and principle. (Hint: nearly identical arguments were used to oppose interracial marriage by people who thought of themselves as high-minded and moral. Does their opposition to interracial marriage seemed anything but bigoted now?)

Boy, 2, dies after shooting self at Corsicana home — Because guns make us all safer, right?

Arizona AG Pleads No Contest To Leaving The Scene Of An Accident — He was in the car with the woman with whom he was having an affair. Ah, those family values, law and order Republicans — so much better than dirty liberals who just want to make sure people have food and clothes and jobs and educations and clean air and clean water.

QotD?: Got feet?

5/10/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (stress)
Hours slept: 7.25 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 247.8
Number of FEMA troops on my block digging for fossils in the yards of God-fearing Republicans: 0
Currently reading: Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Christianists, Cool, Culture, economy, gay, guns, Links, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science, space, Tech

Posted: 5:05 am Fri May 10 2013 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad wakes up in a different, shorter world

2013 Locus Awards Finalists — My Nebula- and Hugo-nominated novella, “The Stars Do Not Lie”, is also a finalist for the Locus Awards as well. I am quite pleased

A reader reacts to Escapement — They didn’t like it so much.

Ultraconserved words? Really?? — Language Log responds to the recent “ultraconserved words” story.

Sky Crane — A gorgeous photo of the construction of One World Trade Center.

Ridge could be piece of Pangaea — Speaking of ultraconserved.

First Quantum-Enhanced Images of a Living Cell

San Francisco gives up on cell phone warning stickers — Reuters’ reporting makes a hash of the science.

Changing U.S. Racial Demographics — This one pretty much explains itself.

Heritage: We Have Nothing To Do With Racial Immigration Study — This is the quality of conservative intellectual discourse. These are the people who produce it.

A former religious extremist explains how radicalization happens {plus, a theory of how suspected Boston Marathon bombers were radicalized} — The enemy is fundamentalism because fundamentalism is very attractive to people looking for Definitive Answers. Extremist religion provides a rigid, black-and-white framework for understanding the world. Much the same could be said of contemporary conservatism. Conservatives proudly “don’t do nuance“, and have explicitly rejected critical thinking and sneered at the reality based community. How different is that from religious extremism with its comfortingly simple answers? (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

On gun fatalities and terrorist fatalities — In the last 30 years, there have been 30,000 to 40,000 gun deaths in the United States per year, more than 900,000 people. In the last 40 years since 1970, there have been about 3,400 terror-related deaths. What would the response of a rational society be? Here in America, we will never know. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

10 Things You Can’t Do and Become President

QotD?: Are you going to do something wonderful today?

5/9/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (stress)
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 246.8
Number of FEMA troops on my block digging for fossils in the yards of God-fearing Republicans: 0
Currently reading: The Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Awards, Books, Christianists, Cool, Escapement, guns, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, race, Religion, reviews, Science, stories, Tech

Posted: 5:04 am Thu May 09 2013 | Comments(4) |

[links] Link salad knows that it is not Iron Man

Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy — This is freaking genius. (Spotted lots of places, but sent to me first by Lisa Costello.)

Batman: 1966 — Adam West, back in the day. Courtesy of Shorpy.

Linguists identify 15,000-year-old ‘ultraconserved words’ — Hmmm. (Via my brother.)

European migration evident in DNA patterns — A study of people in 40 countries illustrates long-established changes in Europe’s population. Going back a few thousand years, researchers find that everyone on Earth is related to everyone else. This is cool, but hardly surprising, I should think.

More than one-third of Oregon’s National Merit Scholars live in a single Portland-area ZIP code

More than half of the world’s population lives inside this circle

US Air Force Measures Potato Cannon Muzzle Velocities

Antibiotics could cure 40% of chronic back pain patients — Really? (Thanks to David Goldman.)

On the Rise — BLDG BLOG on the elevation of Galveston, TX after the devastating hurricane of 1900.

Tropical Climate History…Shrinking — Ice in the tropics.

“While some are seeking to withhold Communion from pro-choice and pro-marriage-equality Catholics, I have heard no call to withhold Communion from priests and bishops who have engaged in horrific sexual abuse against vulnerable children, nor their enablers.” — Yes. This. Religious activism in pursuit of anti-gay bigotry is all about politics and power. Not about morality or what is right and good. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

QotD?: Do you face Stark choices?

5/8/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (stress)
Hours slept: 7.25 hours (fitful)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (stationary bike)
Weight: 248.0
Number of FEMA troops on my block digging for fossils in the yards of God-fearing Republicans: 0
Currently reading: The Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Christianists, climate, Culture, Funny, healthcare, Language, Links, Movies, Oregon, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, Science, Tech, television, Texas, Videos

Posted: 5:22 am Wed May 08 2013 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad watches the moon ride the sky of a morning

Walk The Fire: a shared-world SF anthology series — An interesting Kickstarter.

Willie Nelson’s Audition Tape for “The Hobbit” — Hahahahah.

The ultimate cancer taboo: Sometimes it kills you — We keep talking about battles, warriors, miracles and hope. Meanwhile, those with metastatic cancers are ignored. That would be me.

In Germany, a U.S. beer invasion — This seems improbable.

The World’s Largest Rubber Duck Arrives in Hong Kong — Wow! Hahah. (Via threeoutside.)

The Data Made Me Do It — The next frontier for big data is the individual.

5 Ways to Make Google Glass Better — Number 6, make it possible to use them with prescription lenses.

High-tech camera acts like a bug’s eye

Space Ape Parody Shows Why Aquatic Ape Theory Is All Wet — (Via David Goldman.)

Religious Knowledge Quiz — You answered 14 out of 15 questions correctly for a score of 93%. Which puts me in the 99% percentile. Not bad for an atheist. I also note that when this survey was done with the general public on an outbound basis, atheists came in second only to Jews in their knowledge, well ahead of a number of different identified Christian groups, though the Mormons were a close third. This is parallel to the science quiz I recently posted. (I missed the First Great Awakening question.)

Man shot and killed at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport, authorities say — Thank god for the NRA and the Republican party, or the shooter wouldn’t have had the right to exercise his theoretical defense of essential liberties in such a fashion. Where would we be as a society without our guns?

Even Counting Votes too Scientific for North Carolina — Typical conservatives. They cannot win on their ideas, so they cheat. Egregiously, in this case. (Via corwynofamber.)

QotD?: Would you go to the moon if you could?

5/3/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.75 hours (WRPA editing work on METAtropolis: Green Space, plus audiobook prep)
Hours slept: 8.75 hours (interrupted)
Body movement: 0.0 hours (foot hurts)
Weight: n/a (away from home)
Number of FEMA troops on my block digging for fossils in the yards of God-fearing Republicans: 0
Currently reading: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Art, Cancer, China, Cool, Funny, Germany, guns, Links, Movies, nature, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech, Videos

Posted: 6:13 am Fri May 03 2013 | Comments(6) |