I'm going to post this linkee-poo early, I was saving it for Monday. This is for several reasons. Because of clinicals I've been punting on the Friday posts and because it's getting very long. This coming week is Finals, so I'm going to be a little distracted this week. Also I'm trying to figure out how to make Spring Semester and 16 hours of clinicals work with classes and putting in a 40 hours week at the day thing. Which is giving me freakouts over the future of 32 hours in the Summer and 24 hours of clinicals next Fall and Spring. When I started this I thought I had the effort in me. Right now I'm not so sure.
As the negative reviews of the Hobbit start coming in, Peter Jackson releases more footage and materials from the movies to counter act them (there's a video on that guardian page that collect 6 clips from the movie, somewhat long clips). (Grokked from Mrs. Tad)
Sea silk. More proof that the world we live in is stranger than we think. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
"Have you ever tried to have an idea. Any idea at all, with a gun to your head? This is the daily reality for the creative drone. And when he’s done, sometime in the wee small hours, he then has to face his two harshest critics. Himself, and everyone else." A post called "A short/overdue lesson in perspective." That perspective is of a lifetime in the advertising profession (of which I work in a very closely related field) from someone now facing cancer and forced to drop from the race. Their career started before mine, I came in in those crazy 90s, so I didn't have that time of "the creative process", although that's what I studied in school. Now nearing if not the end of that career, at least the twilight edge of it, oh yes this. Including the saddest statement of all in that essay, that even now there is no lack for bright-young-things coming in who have no clue what they're really signing up for. I've had two "dream" jobs in this business, and both were built on that premise of, "but we allow you to be so creative, why do you want to be paid money for it?" and that concept of "competition." I've also missed a lot in life, many times I should have been home but instead was working on something that just doesn't matter, trading my health (physical and mental) for baubles. This, or something like it, should be required reading in design school. (Grokked from Xeni)
On a slightly related note to the above, some creatives do get it, do know their value, and aren't willing to be guilted or manipulated in a passive-aggressive manner to do excellent work for peanuts. In this case attempting to get John Scalzi to write for you for free. And for anyone that cares, yeah, we designers get those types of requests all the time.
The Keep Calm-o-matic. It seems amazing to me how much this WWII Blitz poster has become a meme in the past year. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
The CNBC Holiday Tipping Guide. You know what would be better than tipping for, say, your garbage collectors? Paying them a decent salary to begin with. (Grokked from the Slactivist)
The sworn virgins of the Blakans. Some more fodder for your world building experiences. To say nothing of the intense social commentary on the positions of women in the patriarchal Western Culture. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
Know why there's all that regulation that is "stifling business innovation"? Because the industries that are being innovated have existing players that want it that way. And they're willing to donate big to make sure it stays that way. It's a legal form of corruption. (Grokked from Morgan J Locke)
You know all the talk here in Ohio about fracking not affecting groundwater and how it's all safe and everything? Well in Colorado they're starting to think a little differently because of their longer experience with drilling. (Grokked from Paolo Bacigalupi)
A story on NPR about the increasing acidification of the worlds oceans as they continue to act as a buffer for our pumping out CO2. The canaries are starting to keel over in more noticeable numbers and places. In this case the oyster trade is being put in peril. See, acidic waters dissolve shellfish calcium based shells and exoskeletons. But now the pH has dropped enough that it's killing oysters outright. Most humans don't think about things like this, but we're also susceptible to these problems. We miss it because our bodies are normally pretty good at keeping homeostasis. But once we tip over (for pH and temperature, not to mention some other chemicals balances like where you have salt accumulations), death quickly follows (look at the tables of how long you can last in near freezing water without a survival suit). And here is the problem with buffers, they continue to absorb whatever they buffer at a good rate, until they become saturated. And then the absorption drops precipitously. So the ocean is taking in CO2, which is keeping it from increasing the greenhouse effect. Now it's pH is dropping, which means it's approaching saturation.
"It isn’t just the Conservative entertainment complex that is driving the GOP to ever more ridiculous and preposterous positions, the Conservative scam-PACs are demanding the same… To get eyeballs glued to the screen, and to liberate cash from wallets, Fox News and the GOP PACs need a continuous state of political crisis… GOP politicians must know that they are going to lose this game, but if you can lose and get an $8m payout, then is it really losing at all?" Well, all that money has got to go somewhere. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
"At heart Fox News remains a business where the bottom line is just as important, if not more so, than the political line. And in a second Obama term, there is still a rich vein of conservative anger to be mined among core viewers." A leopard can't change it's spots, but it can wear a coat for a while. (Grokked from Mrs. Tad)
Bryan Fischer with Barack the Destroyer. Wasn't that the Conan movie people don't remember going to see? Okay, I'm just wondering when this fruit-loop will find his "one step to far" moment. Either that or we should take up a collection for tag and release of the wackaloons. Or maybe use the tranquilizer darts for remote administration of Prozac. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
One Million Moms again shows that what conservatives are really upset with concerning gay spokespeople and marriage is that it doesn't allow them to deny that gay people exist. In this case the AFA's overly optimistically named One Million Moms Movement is upset that JC Penny had the audacity to use Ellen DeGeneres on a holiday ad. I guess all five of those families' kids will be getting Chick-fil-A gift certificates in their stockings this year. (Grokked from Vince)
"Boehner is a man riding a proverbial tiger in the tax issue; it could consume his speakership if he gets it wrong for the country and/or his party. But Obama’s got his own problems with left-wing irreconcilables in his own party." An article supposedly on how GOP politics are unravelling, but it pretty clearly states out some of the political issues over the financial cliff. And I agree that preogressives maybe gleeful a bit prematurely. The GOP has a lot of experience of nearly unraveling and then refocusing on the hard right and reforming. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
Tweet of my heart: @johnjbarry: @neilhimself Why are people talking about 'the' meaning of a story? As if stories have only one. Every person gets their own one...
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