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

Friday, May 3, 2013

Linkee-poo, years ago I was an angry young man

Cat Rambo on the difference between the narrator's internal voice and "telling instead of showing." With examples.

Oh noes, a NY Times article about women writing SF/F. Written in 1982, but sounds strangely familiar to current arguments. Including "Richard Geis, editor of the small-press magazine SFR, protests that 'there must be a recognition of the emotional needs in fiction of the insecure young male who has made up the bedrock readership of SF for 50 years.'" Although a little too close to the truth, sounds like things that have been said about the "Oh noes, gurls in our fandom!" blatherings of the past few years. (Grokked from Steve Gould)

Just because the the snake bite doesn't kill you, doesn't mean it won't do major damage. WARNING! Do not look at that link if you are easily sickened. There was a lot of tissue necrosis, you can see the layers of muscle and the metatarsals of the foot after they had abraded away the dead tissue. It is not bandaged. (Pointed to by John)

A Boy and his Atom. The world's "smallest" movie made by positioning atoms. It's basically a demonstration ad form IBM, but still pretty neat.

Twenty of the most beautiful World Heritage Sites. Since it's getting to be vacation time for normal people. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Short Packed about history. Yea, I've had conversations like that. "When the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" "Forget it, he's on a roll."

Why your iOS device may be vulnerable to spoofing. Yea, I hate that "feature". (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Yep, the conservatives are still coming for your birth control. This time in our own Ohio. So now that the conservatives got some ground with the "Obamacare birth control mandate violates our religious freedom" our own AG is trying to get that exemption extended to private employers. If I had to make a guess, most of those people's insurance currently offers birth control and they were perfectly fine with it (like most of the Catholic Diocese plans had). (Grokked from the Slactivist)

And not only are they coming for your birth control, they're coming for your science. Yea, because, you know, all those people in Congress are such good judges of scientific value. Plus everything has to be "groundbreaking"? Um, I don't think they even understand what science is about. Was penicillin groundbreaking? You'd think so, but it wasn't. Lots of people were looking for something like it. Many people almost had it. In that case, we were trodding old paths. If Pasteur would have applied for a grant to find out just what they heck had grown in his petri dish he would have been denied even just under a cursory examination of these new rules. This legislation isn't just bad, it's down right dangerous and injurious to your health. (Pointed to by Bette)

Hey look, something that actually works and saves money in health care. Welp, better shut that down soon because of that. Also because it transfers power from doctors to nurses. Can't allow that.

Vince shares a video of which is the worse pain, childbirth or being kicked in the gonads. Um, "What is 'having kidney-stones.'?"

They're still burning witches in Papua New Guinea. You know, in case you're still under the delusion we live in a rational world. Or that only certain religions have atrocious records when it comes to women's rights. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

Well, the Pentagon continues to worry about global warming. What could they be worried about? Well, one of the things our defensive strategy is based around are threats coming from the N. Atlantic and W. Pacific. Now we need to add parking an aircraft carrier North of Canada and being able to strike our most populous cities (although they'd have to "pacify" the Canadian Air Force first). Then there is the immense destabilizing effect of crop failures, scarce water, animal migrations, wholesale collapse of ecosystems (and agriculture) just to name a few things.

When progressives talk about how the right has become unhinged and their leaders are bilking the followers of both their money and their votes by promoting Big Fear, this is what we're talking about. That's the past 16 months of the NRA's flagship magazine. What I think is hilarious is the NRA's position of supporting law enforcement, when most law enforcement officials are all for more restrictive gun laws (including overturning concealed carry). But I'm sure thy have to make that nod to stamp their "Patriots" card. (Grokked from the Slactivist)

And just in case you don't think our weapons laws are severely out of step, here's 10 weapons it's legal to own. (Pointed to by John)

Some real estate employees get corporate logo tattoos for a 15% raise. Okay, well, I expect the lawsuit to start anytime now (some religions prohibit tattooing). And I wonder how those employees will feel when the layoffs happen. Also, didn't any of these people ever hear the phrase "hostile work-environment"? I expect they will in the future. Seriously, given the amount of turn over and how many jobs one can expect to hold in the course of their career, who things this is a good idea? (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

Fred Clark has a great roundup of links showing the economic divide. Including: "The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) just released a ranking of developed countries by the percent of children who live in poverty, and the U.S. clocks in at number 34 out of 35, only beating out Romania." Yea, we don't need to do anything to correct that. You know, like the emergency legislation passed to allow the air traffic controllers to get back to work, some of it hand written, so that people who fly wouldn't be inconvenienced by the cuts that some of them believe are vital to our nation. Notice no such heaving lifting is being done to get money back into Head Start, CHIP, or any of the other food or education programs.

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