Now, you know I like Chuck Wendig's "25 things" posts. But I really like his 25 things he'd like to say to his 18-year-old self. A good list not just for writers, but for a lot of people. And when I was 18 I would have heard those words and thought I understood them. And I might need to read these a few more times.
Speaking of letters to young writers, you did see last Sunday's Doonesbury, right?
"Since there are eighty of you, and since I do not wish to go blind or kill somebody, about twenty pages from each of you should do neatly. Do not bubble. Do not spin your wheels. Use words I know." Kurt Vonnegut assigns a term paper for the Iowa Writers Workshop. (Grokked from Tor.com)
Some more on Snorri inventing Norse Mythology. This time with the birth of poetry. There's another about how the gods got their treasure and Loki's lips were sewn shut.
The Star Trek Into Darkness teaser trailer surfaces.
Using Leap Motion (motion capture device and software) to make an Air Harp. Okay, not great music, buy an interesting concept. I wonder how this will change the Air Guitar Championships? And where's my air theremin? (Pointed to by Dan)
Somewhat related to Jim Hine's pose-off for charity, this photographer takes self portraits in awkward positions and surreal settings. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)
Think Steampunk is so retro? There's a new dirigible in town. (Pointed to by Dan)
Animation of the night side of Earth rotating. Okay, what if I tell you it uses actual images of Earth and not CGI? Now your psyched.
Want to know just how weird and adaptable life is? How about catfish that temporarily beach themselves to catch pigeons? The two other species listed in the article with similar behavior I will just remind everyone are not fish, but mammals. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)
The dog muzzle for people who really wanted a duck.
Apple plans to bring some of their iMac production back to the US. (Pointed to by Dan)
"People just like John Boehner created such a fantastical bogeyman that there is now no way, no way, for them compromise with that same bogeyman without admitting that they were wrong, that they just made it all up, that they were just using the stupid and the ignorant and the fearful to bolster their own power." Jim Wright is wise, as is his wont.
Gee, all those GOP Senators frothing at the mouth denouncing Ambassador Rice we're cosponsors of a Senate resolution denouncing the Benghazi attack using the exact same language they're criticizing the ambassador of using. Funny that. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
"… earlier analysis by the IMF staff suggests that… fiscal multipliers (for austerity measures) were near 0.5… during the three decades leading up to 2009. If the multipliers underlying the growth forecasts were about 0.5, as this informal evidence suggests, our results indicate that multipliers have actually been in the 0.9 to 1.7 range since the Great Recession." Bugger. Actually the IMF report is basically saying, "we based that 0.5 on several other things, all of which didn't happen." Who would have thought? You know, like everyone that lives in the reality economy. (Grokked from Charlie Stross)
Here's an interesting little thing, Anonymous quashes attempt by Karl Rove and others from stealing the President Election. I remember the controversy around the 2004 election and how the results came in (and the reports of the server crash at 11:14pm). Also King Lincoln v. Blackwell and the plane crash and death of Michael Connell. After that reporting on the story went underground. And the pre-election video of Anonymous warning Karl Rove does exist, as do all the players and the setup. So there are kernels of truth in there and it fits a narrative, but does that make the whole story true? The only way to be sure would be forensic network analysis, a criminal investigation, or Anonymous releasing its information (hopefully to prosecutors as well as wiki leaks, and that they have the ability to verify the authenticity and admissibility of that information). But Karl Rove isn't the only conservative not dealing well with the election results. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
3 comments:
THAT'S what I need to keep the boxer from chewing everything!
The catfish story is amazing. I wish any of us could be around in a million years to see what the fishes descendents were doing, and what (if any) heritable advantages for pigeon-catching those descendents had accumulated over the generations.
Barring that, we can ponder those ancient fishes we share common lineage with....
Phiala, my job here is done, then.
Eric, yeah, that's a pretty amazing adaption. The dolphin and killer whale examples are basically hunting their staple foods in a new manner. While the catfish, well, some fish do eat birds, but I don't think catfish do. Until now.
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