This weekend is World Fantasy, and I plan to be there, as long as the waters don't rise and the damn don't break. And this week promises to be another draining week. I'm really getting tire with how all my extra stuff tends to find the times I have a need to be rested for and then screwing it up. I typically refer to this as "my day job doesn't want me to have a life" (although in this case it's the freelance and the night thing).
Steve talks about what our words say about ourselves. I'll just mention that I try persuasion, but it's damn hard against those who have "religion" in their political philosophy and sometimes it's just more fun to screed that to turn a world view around (laughing as the car goes over the cliff so to speak). While Steve and I disagree politically (sometimes vehemently), I know he thinks about his positions. Also, I'm glad all my commentors here are wise enough to make coherent arguments for their positions.
John Joseph Adams expands his domain of conquest. Or something like that. Actually he's just been names as editor for Fantasy Magazine (as well as keeping his gig at Lightspeed). I've had a beer with John. Nice guy. Hopefully I can sell him something down the road.
And since we're in high spin mode, some of the false things "we know" (or as I call them, the Myths We Tell Ourselves). Yes, it's a biased site, but prove their facts wrong.
And since I'm talking about the myths, here's a photo of a bucket-wheeled excavator. You know all those who say, "humans can't do much to affect the Earth," well, yeah, that. Plus, as you can read from the description, some open pit mines can be seen from orbit (not to mention that with our damns and swimming pools, we've increased the rotation rate of the Earth by holding more water at higher latitudes, granted, it's only fractions of seconds each year, but it is measurable). (photo link grokked from Jay Lake)
The Ferret takes on some myths as well (this time libertarian myths, which I think I've pointed out that we've tried that experiment before, it didn't turn out so well). Also see: In Medieval/Ren Fairs, everybody is of the noble class, when hardly anybody was. Also, they like to run about with swords when very few people could 1) afford them and 2) were permitted to wear them (my lineage on my father's side was allowed). Not everybody is a Jedi. And it sucks when you're not. We get grumpy, and then those Sith people keep telling us things could be better if we'd just let them in power (and I like the various permutations of that sentence, so I'm keeping it, and yeah, in the Libertarian=Jedi scenario of this, the Sith are people like me, which tickles my fancy something fierce right at the moment).
And finally, fun with statistics. That's an article on Amazon's "ZOMG Kindle sales are Fabulous" (said with Jazz Hands) press release. While, you know, not releasing actual numbers. And their new Kindle is selling well? Yes, I guess that means you've hit the right price point (with the nudge from competition). And I would hope you're selling more kindle books this year over last considering the numbers of e-readers (the Kindle and things like my iPod Touch which has the Kindle software) are skyrocketing. Still, let's have the numbers so we can compare "paid" Kindle purchases (compared to the Free books) vs. all the other segments (they're still saying "better than hard cover" but hard covers are the smallest segment of physical book sales - trade and mass market paperbacks outselling them in ridiculous numbers - I wanna be a paperback writer!). (grokked form Steven Gould)
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