"From October 1st, 2013 to December 31st, 2013, The Jim Henson Company and Grosset & Dunlap of the Penguin Young Readers Group will be accepting writing submissions to find the author for a new novel set in the world of Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. This author search is open to all professional and aspiring professional writers." Just in case you wanted to try for it, or if you just wanted to see what it's like to write in a media-tie-in world. (Grokked from Kelly Swails)
Just because your world isn't weird enough (I can tell from here), have eight real life vampire related crimes. When I was but a young pup running wild through the western marches of the NJ Pine Barrens in a little town called Gibbsboro, we had a vampire. He assaulted something like 6 people, biting them on the neck. The local gossip was he also wore a cape (can't be a vampire without the cape I guess). IIRC, they had cornered the bastard twice, but never actually did catch him (not like our local police were much above Barney Fife level anyway). We also had a high degree of environmental pollution with heavy metals from the Sherwin-Williams plant. These two things might be connected. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)
"(N)ew research suggests that it’s possible you weren’t even able to taste that fatty goodness, which may be why you just kept on eating. A paper published last week in PLoS ONE suggests that there is a complex relationship between emotional arousal, symptoms of depression, and taste perception, and that this phenomenon could have links to emotional overeating." Why stress eating is a double whammy. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
Yup, good government can't do anything. You know, like institute public heath programs that help eliminate destructive diseases like leprosy. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
A recently discovered NPR show, Ask Me Another. Because who doesn't like word games? Also the podcast is free, unlike Says You which is also great fun, but I never seem to catch it on the radio and I'm too cheap to buy.
"If someone combined the fierceness of a wolf and the adorableness of a corgi…" The Viking Dog, like a wolf mixed with dachshund and thrown into a drier wet. And now I have an image in my head of the fierce Viking sailing the North Sea in their dragon boats carrying these little dogs in their man purses. (Grokked from Tor.com)
The question isn't who, who wrote the book of love, but who invented the computer mouse. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
In the public's mind the most noticeable product of the marker culture is printable guns. But printing out prosthetic hands is more what the community is about. I think I linked to this story before, but here is a recent incarnation. Material costs? $5. And the new version snaps together. (Pointed to by Dan)
Uploadable brains by 2045? I wonder if the Singularity and it's dream of digital immortality (doesn't seem like a dream to me) will be the next generation's "I want my jet pack"? (Grokked from Matt Staggs)
Apparently Antonin Scalia could be bothered to upgrade his education when it comes to molecular biology. :: shakes head in disbelief :: (Grokked from Jay lake)
"But helium has a trick. When cooled below about two degrees kelvin, it becomes a superfluid, which has the odd property that it crawls up and over the walls of containers by capillary forces… It crawls along at about 20 centimeters per second, so it would take the liquid helium less than 30 seconds to start collecting in the bottom of your boat… If it's any consolation, as you lay dying, you would be able to observe an odd phenomenon…" XKCD on floating a boat on mercury, bromine, liquid gallium/tungsten/nitrogen/helium. So at the next party when someone says, "Science is boring," you can say "Pshaw! Let me tell you about rowing across liquid helium…". And yes, I expect you to actually say "pshaw!". (Pointed to by Dan)
Rapid correction of severe acute hypernatremia caused by soy sauce ingestion." Sometimes I wonder if we aren't inventing our own methods of evolutionary pressures. (Grokked from Kelly Swails)
"Most Americans say they want to die at home, but 75 percent die in hospitals or nursing homes. Hospitalization often means aggressive, high-cost treatment at the expense of quality of life. And life-prolonging care accounts for 30 percent of total Medicare spending. Now, two Harvard doctors are making movies that visually depict common forms of end-of life care in hospitals. The short films show real patients receiving treatment such as emergency CPR and feeding tubes. Clinical studies show that patients who view these movies overwhelmingly opt out of costly, life-prolonging treatment." The Diane Rehm Show on making better end-of-life decisions. I didn't get to listen to the whole thing, yet. But what I did hear sounded very interesting. Did you know that when you're put on a vent(ilator), they have to bind your hands so you don't accidentally rip it out?
Tobias Buckell points to an article on hyperdensity. And I have to mirror some of his comments. Having lived most of my adulthood in cities, when I moved out to "the country" I was astounded at how little the people valued green/open space out their. I would think it was a matter of perspective, but I think it really boils down to lack of vision.
"Congressional critics must abandon their futile efforts to repeal Obamacare and focus instead on improving it. Their core premise — that greater government involvement in health care provision spells disaster — lacks support in the wealth of evidence from around the world that bears on it… The truth appears closer to the reverse: Because of pervasive market failures in private health care markets, this may be the sector that benefits most from collective action." Reality once again shows its liberal bias with things like "facts", "studies", and "data." (Grokked from Jay Lake)
Tweet of my heart: @MykeCole: All writing advice encapsulated: Work constantly and don't be a dick on the Internet.
Double dip: @camillealexa: Then I'm a hybrid mutant:"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work"-Stephen King
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