Linkee-poo is too busy for a fancy headline

"What follows is the quickest, dirtiest, most simple route to writing a novel and getting it published by a traditional publisher, which I accomplished from my own couch in Atlanta while nursing a baby and having neither an MFA nor any previous contacts in publishing." Delilah Dawson takes over Chuck Wendig's blog and posts 25 steps to being traditionally published.

A video game about a novelist's life. I guess the game about watching paint dry was copyrighted or something. I also sincerely hope the game is more complex than what is portrayed in this article. As a young designer at one of the jobs I had I was told that I would need to "sacrifice" for "the art." In this case all the designers were divorced at least once and they all seemed hell-bent-on-leather to brake up my relationship. While chasing a dream can certainly strain connections when both people don't share that dream, there are other ways to run than to keep your head down and charge through the barriers. (Grokked from Tor.com)

And infographic on the SF predictions of Ray Bradbury that have come true. I think I need to do a post about this sort of thing.

Don Harmon, could you explain your story breaking process? something about thoughts, ideas, and drawing circles and lines. Best part? "Please note that at this point, people around you will start to express confusion and frustration, because they thought the idea was fine already. Depending on your mood and standing, these people are called hacks, traitors, parasites, scabs or successful colleagues." (Grokked from Tor.com)

"This is why Ursula Le Guin novels don't become movies." A meditation on the lamentable state of SF in film. Or why does every movie come down to "two guys in super-powered suits hitting each other."(Grokked from Tor.com)

The Waitomo Glowworm Caves in New Zealand. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

First paleontological digs in the US. Apparently S. American tribes ascribed the bones to giants. Where as in Greece, they chalked them up to titans and cyclopses. Totally different things. (Grokked from the Slactivist)

"Go here, go to Street View, and click on the double white arrows in the street beside the police call box. Once inside, you can travel around by using the arrows in the white circle in the top left hand corner." You're welcome. (Grokked Jennifer Crusie)

"If dirt is not purposeful and evil, then the bad faith must lie on the other side." Fred Clark on the grand conspiracy that is global climate change. Apparently, the bugs and the dirt are in on the conspiracy as well. For some reason, Christ's answer to the pharisees in the song "Hosanna" in Jesus Christ Superstar is going through my head.

Tobias Buckell talks about raising the minimum wage. In there he argues, "If conservatives argue against a minimum wage, to me it seems an admission that they don’t really believe in capitalism…". Actually, this is a thought that has been forming in the back of my mind. Conservatives, in their overwhelming zeal to by anti-Obama on anything are abandoning their classic position of being pro-capitalism (for the basic fact that many of Obama's policies are very capitalism oriented). Including passing a law that forbids Florida's Insurance Commissioner from negotiating prices for the health care exchange. And Florida isn't the only state. IIRC, Ohio's commissioner doesn't have her hands tied, but she refused to do the actual negotiations (and listening to an interview of her position, doesn't actually seem to understand health insurance at even a basic level). Medicare is prohibited from negotiating drug prices for Part D, the VA has also had their hands tied recently (the VA was an actual model of government efficiency on this end until hamstrung by conservative policies). And in many states conservative administrations and legislatures are enacting laws that will increase their overall costs while simultaneously reducing services to their citizens. I believe it's North Carolina (again) that passed a law that all cars must be sold through the dealership model (in an attempt to keep Tesla Motors, which sells direct, out of the state). This is not smart business. This isn't really any kind of business. So I'm also coming to the conclusions that many conservatives keep using the word "capitalism", but don't actually know what that means (okay, what they really want it to mean is, "I do what I want how I want and you don't get to do anything").

Another reminder of just how crazy the Cold War was, there was a plan to launch millions of copper fibers into orbit to create and artificial ring around the Earth that would insure against those Ruskies jamming our radio signals. Oh, and it would also help with solar interference. (Pointed to by Dan)

An atheist pro-life supporter tries to help the cause and gets the door slammed in her face. As Fred Clark (whom this is grokked from) says, "It didn’t matter that she fully shared their ideas about what they said was the central purpose of their groups. She didn’t understand the larger, unspoken cultural agenda that they consider far more important than that." (Grokked from the Slactivist)

Tobias Buckell is on a economic roll lately. This time it's about what is really wrong with this recover, quarterly shareholder value. "Executives at publicly traded companies are paid to generate higher share prices, which is done by hitting quarterly earnings targets. This leads to underinvestment relative to the behavior of managers of privately held firms. Not because managers of private firms are indifferent to the interests of shareholders, but because there’s less need for creating the shareholder value link via a simplistic relationship between compensation, share price, and quarterly earnings."