Weekend Linkee-poo is finally here

What if people got together to just read together? (Grokked from Tor.com)

That 50K Report from Author Earnings that all the hip kids are talking about.

Amtrak's writers residency. (Grokked from just about everyone)

What happens when the author of an original series is (contractually) barred from writing the continuation of the series, but then that series becomes part of Amazon's Kindle Worlds (fanfic)? (Grokked from Tor.com)

The WikiHouse project.

I'm sure the seismic testing has nothing to do with apparent earthquake damage to his home. Yes, fracking is proven and safe (as the commercials tell us). (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

And you thought it was just hipsters who were in love with vinyl. Some music makers are reviving and old style of recording. They call it the 78 Project.

Wanna see what a real magic book looks like? Here ya go. (Grokked from Elizabeth Bear)

I can neither confirm or deny. Lately, with all the things happening in the former USSR, Olympics in Russia, the struggle over Syria, the saber-rattling over Iran and its nuclear ambitions, the NSA revelations, the rise in public perception over cyber attacks, and a thousand other things, I feel so comfortable. This is the world I grew up in, when the Cold War was in full swing. It's almost like comfort food. And just in time, RadioLab does a show on the famous phrase that was developed around the attempt to raise the Soviet submarine, K-129, and the ship Howard Hughes built to do the job, the Glomar Explorer.

"They found that non-trauma facilities were much more likely to admit patients who had insurance, whether it was private insurance or Medicaid coverage, than to transfer the patients to more skilled facilities." I'm sure that it's all patient choice and not ERs keeping the patients they know can pay.

"I know the right is heavily invested not just in ignoring Obamacare success stories, but in cultivating the very horror stories they then use to attack the law… I’m perfectly willing to believe that the Affordable Care Act has really left some people in categorically horrible situations… But at some point it’s worth asking whether the apparent difficulty conservatives have finding them suggests that maybe the law isn’t wreaking all the devastation they want you to believe it is." GOP ad wankers caught distorting the truth again. Actually I think this person truly believes they are worse off, because the media they consume tells them they are. And there are people out there who are always willing to believe they're about to be screwed, even when everybody else is pulling hard to make sure they aren't. (Grokked from Morgan J Locke)

You might remember that during the whole Obamacare "ZOMG!" episode I talked about how the only way for consumers to help cut down costs was for doctors offices and hospitals to post their prices on a bog menu board (like fast food restaurants do). Because without those, there is no actual open market. The next best thing would be and "all payer claims database." And Colorado is setting one up. However, they're hampered by both the various laws and the opacity of hospital bills and insurance claims forms. But there's another hangup of which people are suddenly noticing (shocked, shocked they are to discover…) that many places have healthcare monopolies. And those places drive up costs. Typically these are rural communities.

After a second dashboard cam video appears a NJ man is acquitted of the charges he was facing and the police were indicted for falsifying reports. Just in case you still think "driving while black" isn't a real thing. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

Well, what conservatives warned looks true, rich people are renouncing their US citizenship to avoid regulations and taxes. Just wait until the first one of them needs help form the embassy.

Hey, remember the right wing freakout over a report on white extremist groups in America becoming a rising danger? Yea, good thing that never happened. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)