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, May 26, 2013

Weekend Linkee-poo is lost and alone, and sinking like a stone

Ten podcasts for writers. Yep, I have a few of those in my queue. Might need to look at some others.

Dr. Doyle discusses how to set a plot in motion. Okay, well, one way. Strangely enough, this is exactly the main plot of the WIP. The problem is, well, how do I do that?

Understanding book publishing paths.

"Half the world is full of women, but it’s rare to hear a narrative that doesn’t speak of women as the people who have things done to them instead of the people who do things. More often, women are talked about as a man’s daughter. A man’s wife." On the dearth of the knowledge of role models writing women into positions of power. A lot on the power of narrative and the stories we tell ourselves. To paraphrase the title, women have alway fought. Here's something Kameron Hurley doesn't bring up in her story. When the West was Wild, the Americans pushing into "virgin territory" (as Eddie Izzard says, "Thank you God for these empty lands… wait, who are all these people here") we had a progrom to integrate and defeat the American Indian and it involved killing almost all the men. What the Eurocentric and masochistic minds missed was that it was the women who carried the culture. So by killing all the men we did nothing but kill lots of guys. And this struggle to finally bring women out of the shadows of our history isn't exactly a new thing either.

The comprehensive guide to the references in Good Omens.

Think you had a big box of Lego blocks when you were a kid? How about having enough to build the 23 ton X-Wing model? Yea, didn't think so. (Pointed to by Dan)

Jim Hines looks at the claim of how "being gay" violates Scout Law. As he says, bullshit.

An unarmed Minuteman III missile creates an expanding halo of light in the darkening skies over the Pacific. The things we do. (Pointed to by Dan)

Scott Westerfield has a great posts on how you can't trust photographs. Especially beauty shots. Especially model head shots.

Tesla Motors pays their government loan back early, story gets ignored by the press. Of course, their story doesn't fit into the narrative of "ZOMG, Obama bad President, loses all our money on crony capitalism" (while also being a socialist). Also noted, our government stands to make a nice profit on our support of GM, but you're not hearing about that either. Your liberal medial at work.

Patent trolls beware. Now if we could only get cyber squatters and spammers. (Pointed to by Dan)

"Now they're just messing with us… experimenters in Israel have shown that they can entangle two photons that don't even exist at the same time." Wrap your head around that one. (Pointed to by Dan)

Just when you thought push-polling was a thing of the past. Well, obviously South Carolina is the past. (Grokked from the Slactivist)

"But, y'know, I'm not in favor of gun control because of an irrational prejudice against firearms. I have a wholly rational prejudice against firearms, matter-of-fact." Eric is smart on gun control and the latest attempts of the gun-lobby to tell us how wholesome and friendly firearms are.

I made the comment the other day about conservatives having to twist history and reality around to make it work for their mind set. I forgot to mention they also need to fabricate the present. Seriously, photoshopping images for your political position is just ignorant of the world we live in where someone will find it out. (Grokked from the Slactivist)

"Oklahoma’s senators, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn, voted against relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy in New York… They don’t care about people like you, living through the aftermath of a natural disaster…Inhofe’s special pleading that Oklahoma’s disaster is ‘not like Sandy’ strikes the rest of the country as disgusting… You do understand that the rest of us have to support Federal relief aid for you in order for you to get it. We won’t hold you hostage to Inhofe’s small-mindedness, but we don’t appreciate your voting for him when you want our help." (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Be a dick and get handed your ass. Ron Paul loses his appeal to the WIPO to get ronpaul.com and panel finds him guilty of reverse domain name hijacking for filing a complaints to get ronpaul.org after owner offers it to him for free. (Pointed to by Dan)

For the most part, austerity programs haven't helped the countries they were supposed to help. This drives even bigger budget deficits which fuels more cuts which drives… which in turns causes suffering for everybody. Want to know why many companies are keeping their funds abroad, sure, tax avoidance but also converting those funds to US$ cuts their effectiveness and value (because of the strong dollar). Also makes exports from the US that much harder. (Grokked from the Slactivist)

"In other words, the guy raising the specter of Obama using 'weather weapons' to kill Oklahomans is the same guy helping influence several Republican policymakers in 2013." I was writing a sarcastic post on how I'm sure the conservatives were going to start blaming Obama for the tornadoes in Oklahoma. You know, because reasons, I guess. Now that it's actually happening, it kinda takes the wind out of the joke. Freeze-dried whackaloon quotient goes up again. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

5 comments:

Janiece said...

Just finished "Code Name Verity," a YA novel with not one, but TWO lead female characters. And it was the best novel I've read this year.

Steve Buchheit said...

Janiece, sounds like a great book. I'll have to put it on the list. What's not to like, it's got spies, Nazis, the Scherhazade structure. Plus, it was short listed for the Carnegie Medal. Thanks for the recommendation.

Steve Buchheit said...

Oh, and to all my other readers who don't know Janiece, 1) she makes a hell of a jam and 2) one of those women who helped protect your freedoms. So, yea, they have always fought. Not to mention her current job and the way she lives her life.

randy said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Steve Buchheit said...

Hey Randy, thanks for stopping by. Out of your six blogs, it looks like you're only developing two. There's a blog for product reviews and dog videos. I do occasionally point to both (funny videos and some product reviews), but they need to be germane to the topics I develop links for (writing/publishing, general world/sociological weirdness/commentary, or politics). Also, I generally post links to specific articles, not top level blog sites.

Also, as a general rule, I don't allow link farming. So I deleted your comment. If you would like to repost without a link, or a direct link to an article that relates to one of the topics discussed on this post, those I allow.