I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Weekend Linkee-poo wants to tell her that it loves her a lot, but it has to get a belly full of wine

Scott Westerfield on rewriting. Mostly for NaNoWriMo, but applicable for any rewrite.

The beam in SF/F's eye. Woody Allen was outed as a serial child rapist over a decade ago, but he isn't the only one who has been shown to be a pedophile only to gain support from their industry. This really is a secondary crime that as a society (in general) we enable this. We make excuses for them, display co-dependent behavior, and simply refuse to believe people we know, who "look normal" could engage in such travesties. We only believe in "stranger danger" as a culture and try to ignore the fact that the majority of child rapists (and rapists in general) aren't strangers at all and they don't look creepy. Many of them look like the fine, upstanding pillars of the community they project.

Dos-a-dos binding. Huhn. Never heard of that before. Six books bound together which can be read separately. (Grokked from Tor.com)

Stellarium. Planetarium open source software. (Grokked from SFWA)

This urban gorilla art is pretty cool. Someone has been "altering" signage on the London Underground. My only issue is that is might confuse someone not familiar with the tube (the alterations to the maps). (Grokked from Jay Lake)

You know, the more I learn about anatomy and physiology, the more I laugh at people who embrace intelligent design. If we're intelligently designed, our designer is a cruel, sick, twisted bastard. Not mentioned in this list is the design of hemoglobin. Most people think that hemoglobin, the highly complex protein found in red blood cells which holds organic iron (heme), is there to get O2 into our bodies. Well, it does that, but mostly it's to get CO2 out of our bodies (it's very highly efficient in doing that, having thousands of connection points, but only one for O2). However, hemoglobin prefers something else over both of those. Carbon Monoxide (CO). It loves CO so much, once it grabs some, it never lets it go (which renders it useless). This is why CO poisoning is so deadly. (Grokked from Kelly Swails)

Who is buried in Charlemagne's tomb? Turns out it was probably Charlemagne. I didn't know there was a controversy. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Four schools that are engaging in class warfare. I… I just… what is wrong with these people? (yea, I know, local elections, asshole conservatives on local school boards, etc). Christ on a pogo stick, people. I know the 70s and 80s happened. I was there. (Grokked from Vince)

Google slaps phasing alert on those Republican scam sites (meant to gather donations from people thinking they're donating to Democrats). As the final paragraph states, who thought this was a good idea? Really, conservatives, are you still discovering the internet? (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

As a recovering workaholic, I can so totally verify all the points made in this Freakonomics article about the inefficiency of working long hours. Also, one of the business habits that has lead to my reboot (ie. firms expect their employees to work these hours, don't think us old people can, but we don't mostly because we've learned how to work smarter, not harder). (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Rand Paul makes the second most dangerous mistake in the US. The first of which is "never piss off Mickey Mouse". The second, slightly deadlier at least politically, mistake is never piss off Bill Clinton. He will bury your ass.

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