[links] Link salad climbs inside
The Devil Made Me Read This Anthology! — Paul Goat Allen at bn.com on Sympathy For the Devil, with some good words for my story, “The Goat Cutter”.
Lois Tilton at Locus Online reviews Is Anybody Out There? — She says good things about my story “Permanent Fatal Errors”, from the Sunspin continuity.
A reader reacts to Dark Faith — Definitely does not like my story.
iPhone Users Have More Sex — :: checks iPhone :: Deponent sayeth diddly squat.
Vintage sewing patterns: a bunch of clowns — Can’t sleep, the clown pattern of English will chomp me.
Were Philly’s Irish Immigrants Murdered? — Ah, history. Back when the Irish weren’t white, either.
The Future of Mobile: Invisible, connected devices with infinite screens — Technology Review responds.
Thoughts on Brown Dwarfs, Disks and Planets — Centauri Dreams with more coolness.
Judge Walker’s Court Posts Video and Documentary Evidence Presented During Federal Prop 8 Trial — With ‘experts’ like this, no wonder the Prop 8 proponents failed the basic reality test. I continue to be boggled at the ‘retaliation’ argument, too.
?otD: Do you want to take me for a ride?
8/17/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hour (revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 242.2
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 2/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Explorer by C.J. Cherryh
Tags: Culture, Funny, gay, Links, Personal, Politics, reviews, Science, sex, stories
Posted: 5:09 am Tue August 17 2010 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad rubs sand from its eyes, resolves not to sleep on beaches
A reader reacts to METAtropolis
msagara on why it’s okay you haven’t read her books — Yeah. What she said. (Via matociquala and others.)
The Most Revealing #Wookieleaks — Hahahah.
Monogamy unnatural for our sexy species — Interesting bit of pop-sci. (Via Year of the Word.)
Coin shrinkers — A hobby I’d never heard of. One that comes with fatality disclaimers.
Clear CT Scans with Less Radiation — Researchers are devising new ways to get the same results with fewer x-rays. Among other things, this article explains how CT scans work.
A design feature — Certainly not all Republicans are racists, but the Republican Party deliberately exploited and exacerbated racial tensions for political gain for decades. Those Republicans now being shoved to the party’s new margins have no standing to complain. Where were they when they and their party were benefiting from the extremism that now is taking control of their party? Where was their sense of civic duty and basic morality?
Take that, Dennis Miller; Climate Change is Real and Dangerous — [G]lobal warming is not a partisan political issue, however much some people want to make it one. It is science. … Reality doesn’t have a political party. Actually, according to the GOP it does. Those of us in the “reality-based community” so sneeringly dismissed by the GOP are quite happy not to be Republicans.
?otD: Whilom or wherefor?
8/2/2010
Writing time yesterday: 3.25 hours (revisions, WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.25 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 239.1 (yikes!)
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh
Tags: Books, Funny, healthcare, Links, Personal, Politics, Publishing, race, reviews, Science, sex, stories, Tech
Posted: 5:09 am Mon August 02 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad returns from the coast, flies to Omaha
Jerry Gordon reviews Dark Faith at SF Signal — He liked my story.
Realms of Fantasy, October, 2010 — Look, it’s me!
John Scalzi on mid-career advice — From the department of recursive auto-linking.
Digital Tools for Making Brilliant Mistakes — Imperfections attract, or at least that must be the guiding belief behind a new digital camera described on an e-commerce site as producing “a soft, out-of-focus feel that brings back the feeling of your old Super 8mm home movies.” (Thanks to my Dad.)
Transgender(ed) — Grammatical arguments about identity and labeling.
World’s Best Preserved Crater Found Using Google Earth — This is cool.
BP’s tree fell on my lawn — Roger Ebert on corporate shielding from accountability.
?otD: Did you miss me yesterday?
7/26/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0 hours (travel day from Writers Weekend)
Body movement: Airport walking
Hours slept: 7.0 (interrupted)
This morning’s weigh-in: 236.0 (yikes!)
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 4/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
Tags: Art, Cool, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, reviews, Science, sex, stories
Posted: 4:21 am Mon July 26 2010 | Comments(2) |
[links] Link salad is stumped by mornings, branches out
Talkback… or is it soccer? — A.M. Dellamonica with a bit more on the talking to mid-career writers discussion, plus a source attribution back to Jessica Reisman for raising the question in the first place.
Critix Redux — Art guru James Gurney on art criticism (again), which he compares to music criticism. How does this apply to literary criticism? It would seem that SF/F is to literary criticism as comics are to art criticism, but still.
SMBC on sex with nerds — Though this could be sex with writers. Binding, bondage: is there a difference?
Big Bend National Park — One of my favorite places on Earth, from orbit, natch.
Robot vs. Lobster — When a hexapod robot challenges a decapod crustacean, who wins? A million years of human evolution. Fifty thousand years of cultural development. Over two centuries of industrialization. And now, this.
?otD: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
7/18/2010
Writing time yesterday: 6.5 hours (revision, editing and WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 (pretty good, look, ma, no Lorazepam!)
This morning’s weigh-in: 233.0
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 2/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
Tags: Cool, Funny, Links, Personal, Photos, Process, Science, sex, Videos, weird, Writing
Posted: 5:50 am Sun July 18 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad thinks this song is about you
A mixed but ultimately positive review of Mainspring
How to soar when you’re already in flight… — A.M. Dellamonica asks a really interesting question about how writers talk to one another. My facile answer to her is that aspiring writers outnumber established writers by a ratio of thousands:one, so the audience is distinctly different. But that’s a lousy answer. I need to think on this.
Pot, Meet Kettle — Scrivener’s Error deconstructs agent Rachel Gardner’s recent post on rejection. (As well as covering some other issues in publishing.)
Asterisks Justin’s dad says — A funny piece from Language Log on tabu words and US-UK translations.
Vintage ads: Holeproof Hosiery, 1920s — I love this art.
On the History Channel’s unrealistic plots — Hahahaha. Yeah, as calendula_witch says, who wrote this novel? (Via
Easter Island Eclipse — Aww, man. One of the most intense experiences of my life was witnessing the totality of the 1991 eclipse in southwestern Mexico. But Easter Island? From APOD, of course.
Arctic genes kill bacteria — Ooh, cool. Temperatures-sensitive genetic self-termination.
The Coming Birth Control Battle — Health-care reform raised the possibility that birth control could soon be free for most women. But not if conservative activists have their way. Yeah, because birth control wouldn’t bring down abortion rates or anything. No, wait. There’s a reason I refer to the anti-choice movement as “forced pregnancy enthusiasts”. I understand principled opposition to abortion, though I am not in agreement. But where’s the principle in opposing birth control?
?otD: Ever seen a total eclipse of the sun?
7/14/2010
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (4,000 new words)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 5.0 (lousy)
This morning’s weigh-in: 232.2
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
Tags: Art, Books, Funny, history, Language, Links, Mainspring, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, Publishing, reviews, Science, sex, Writing
Posted: 5:48 am Wed July 14 2010 | Comments(4) |
[links] Link salad reaches for its Maker hooks
A brief reader review of my story “The Dead Man’s Child” — With an interesting set of remarks at the end.
Marty Halpern with more info on the Fermi paradox-themed anthology, Is Anybody Out There? — Check it out.
The Writer Who Couldn’t Read
Controlled Access Lickometry — Language Log compares me to tech spam. :: laughing :: (Via @LeviMontgomery.)
If Men Could Menstruate — A classic reprint from Gloria Steinem. (Via .)
The 10 Most Important Things They Didn’t Teach You In School
Targeting mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) for health and diseases — Some serious anti-aging science. (Via .)
Are Your Friends Making You Fat? — The role of social circles in behavioral adaptations. Some thinking in here that reflects my observation that cancer is a social disease. Gives me a lot to consider about social networks, too. FYI, headline is very misleading, the article is about much more than implied. (Thanks to .)
‘Party of Parasites’ author took $1M in farm subsidies — Ah, that famed intellectual consistency of the conservative movement. Somebody please explain to me why it’s welfare when somebody else gets the money, but a vital government program when a conservative gets the money?
Military Discipline — Elizabeth Moon on General McChrystal. Very well stated.
Lessons of Petraeus’ Iraq for Petraeus’ Afghanistan — It is frequently asserted that Gen. Petraeus “succeeded” in Iraq via a troop escalation or “surge” of 30,000 extra US troops that he dedicated to counter-insurgency purposes in al-Anbar and Baghdad Provinces. [...] But it would be a huge mistake to see Iraq either as a success story or as stable. See also Daniel Larison’s remarks, which I think I largely agree with.
Scrivener’s Error with interesting squibs on McChrystal (and the military-civilian interface in general) as well as a Supreme Court ruling on the right to privacy of anti-gay bigots to have their petition signatures hidden — Because you know, it’s so dangerous to be straight and homophobic in America, what with all the violent gay mobs out bashing straights, and special legal rights for homosexuals and stuff. How’s a Real American supposed to stand up to “San Francisco values” if they can’t conceal their identity?
?otD: Water of life, or spice beer?
6/25/2010
Writing time yesterday: n/a
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 (fiftful)
This morning’s weigh-in: 222.6
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 8/10 (post-infusion)
Currently (re)reading:
Dune by Frank Herbert
Tags: Books, Culture, gay, health, healthcare, Iraq, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, reviews, sex, stories, Writing
Posted: 4:59 am Fri June 25 2010 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad’s face is at first just ghostly
A rather nice review of Mainspring From Alex J. Kane.
My single-title novella “The Baby Killers” is up for pre-order — With a nice write-up.
My short story “The Dead Man’s Child” is up at Cosmos
Podcast of my widely-reprinted short story “On the Human Plan”
Fifty Years of Romance and Research or a Jungle-Wallah at Large — My new favorite book title. Snurched from Tetrapod Zoology, with the following description: Two of the seals died and Hose performed dissections on them while still in the carriage, “flinging the more perishable parts out of the train window, to the consternation of fellow passengers”.
Star Trails and Tajinastes — Quite an image from APOD.
Genetic Programming: Evolution of Mona Lisa — Ok, this is darned cool. (Thanks to .)
What Is I.B.M.’s Watson? — Mmm. SkyNet. (Thanks to .)
The Ten Most Disturbing Scientific Discoveries — Honestly, they could have dug a little deeper ‐ teratoma, anyone? — but still an interesting article. (Via @inkhaven.)
Panel Recommends Approval of After-Sex Pill — Forced pregnancy enthusiasts oppose reproductive freedom, of course. Also, this just in, sun rises in east.
Republicans Side With BP — The party of personal responsibility seems to think that corporations, while persons, aren’t personally responsible for anything. Mmm yes. (Via a guest post at the blog of Ta-Nehisi Coates.)
No Price to Pay for Torture — NYT on the Obama administrations ongoing defense and coverup of the Bush administration’s torture policies. Ths makes me sick. I voted for Obama because I wanted someone better than Bush in the White House. It wouldn’t take much to be Bush’s intellectual or moral superior, but in this matter (amomg others) Obama is failing at that simplest of tasks. I am angry and disappointed in our president.
?otD: What is your favorite whiter shade of pale?
6/18/2010
Writing time yesterday: n/a
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.5 (interrupted, nightmares)
This morning’s weigh-in: 231.6
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 6/10 (exhaustion)
Currently (re)reading:
A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
Tags: Baby, Books, Funny, Links, Mainspring, Personal, Photos, Politics, reviews, Science, sex, stories
Posted: 6:15 am Fri June 18 2010 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad doesn’t serve your country, doesn’t serve your king
Two Weeks to Viable Paradise Application Deadline — If you’re interested, go go go! Despite a strong desire to do so, I never made it to Clarion/Clarion West (application rejected) or VP or Odyssey or any of the other workshops as a student. One of my few regrets in my career so far. I hope to someday be lucky enough to make it as an instructor, but that’s a tale for another time.
The excellent Doug Lain is teaching a writing workshop with Portland Parks and Recreation starting July 1st — Guest instructors include MK Hobson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Eileen Gunn, Ken Scholes, Tina Connolly and me. If you’re in the PDX area, check it out.
Joe Haldeman on writing — I’m impressed with this one.
What Did Jesus Do? — Reading and unreading the Gospels. Part pop theology, part literary criticism, interesting reading in any case.
Windsor Shades: 1935 — Good gravy. Look at the chimneys on this thing.
Three Isn’t Always a Crowd: The Third Gender — The latest essay from Science In My Fiction, a fascinating survey of a complex, difficult topic. Which also led me to Sworn Virgins, which is a rich, strange story mine waiting to happen.
Arizona’s Next Immigration Target: Children of Illegals — Given the widespread conservative rhetoric regarding strict Constitutionalism, why is it okay to throw out the parts you don’t like? As in, say, the Fourteenth Amendment. If you’re going to practice textual fundamentalism (Christian or otherwise), you don’t get to pick and choose. If you’re going to go for context and nuance, you’ve lost your claim to absolutist inerrancy pretty much by definition. If as some Arizona Republicans seem to be asserting, the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment has changed with the times, why not the meaning of the Second Amendment?
The Hallmark of a black hole — This one boggles me. There’s more than enough real racism in the world that needs dealing with. Why go looking for it in places where it just isn’t there?
Because There Are No Racists… — Ta-Nehisi Coates on Rep. King’s charges of black-on-black favoritism by Attorney General Holder. This reminds me of the conservative notion that gay-identified judges shouldn’t rule on cases involving gay rights issues. Yet somehow, I’ve never seen or heard a conservative arguing that white male politicians favor white men, or that white male judges shouldn’t rule on cases involving white men. Why is that?
?otD: How can we dance when our Earth is turning?
6/15/2010
Writing time yesterday: n/a
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (fitful)
This morning’s weigh-in: 229.6
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 6/10 (exhaustion, irritation)
Currently (re)reading:
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Tags: Conventions, Culture, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, race, sex, Writing
Posted: 5:43 am Tue June 15 2010 | Comments(2) |
[links] Link salad remembers those who served, and those who still serve
responds to my post yesterday about cancer, discomfort and pain — Not to mention Oxycontin.
Writer’s Risk — Steve Perry on the risks of success and reader identification. (Via Year of the Word.)
Today’s college kids lack empathy — Compared to 30 years ago, it’s all about me now, study finds. Kids today. Hey, get off my lawn!
xkcd on Geeks and Nerds — Whatever happened to biting the heads off live chickens? Or did those guys become media consultants?
Fainted after macerating — Hahaha. Not utterly worksafe, but nothing that should trip a keyword filter.
Documents Show Early Worries About Safety of Rig — Hmm.
Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it — The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades. (Thanks to .)
Pray for the First Amendment — Repeat after me, kids. Freedom of religion means freedom from religion. Any other way iies madness, especially for the faithful. See for a cogent argument of this point.
?otD: What soldier do you most admire?
5/31/2010
Writing time yesterday: none (chemo exhaustion)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 (fitful)
This morning’s weigh-in: 235.2
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 8/10 (fatigue, GI distress)
Currently (re)reading:
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Tags: Cancer, Culture, Funny, health, healthcare, Links, oil, Personal, Process, Religion, sex, shellyrae, Tech, Writing
Posted: 7:04 am Mon May 31 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad sleeps like the undead
Welcome home, Atlantis
A doctor talks about medical billing — is the procedure worth it even if you need to default on the hospital bill and declare personal bankruptcy? Well, if it means the difference between life and death, I think it probably is, and I don’t know who wants to argue that it isn’t. Or, if you’re a Republican, you can barter chickens.
Fingerspitzengefühl — Language Log on the Netherlands, Switzerland and language integration.
From ships to bits — Common carriage is an ancient idea being applied to a modern problem—internet access. A squib on the history of regulation. (Via Scrivener’s Error, complete with the usual interesting comments there.)
Are You Straight If You’re Celibate? — More on the Right’s darling little obsessions with forcing government ever deeper into your private life.
?otD: What? Huh?
5/26/2010
Writing time yesterday: none (chemo exhaustion)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 4.5 (badly interrupted)
This morning’s weigh-in: 230.4
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 8/10 (fatigue)
Currently (re)reading:
Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold
Tags: healthcare, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, sex, Tech
Posted: 5:46 am Wed May 26 2010 | Comments(1) |
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