Kameron Hurley with some inside baseball on the publishing industry, and on almost quitting.
Jim Hine's annual report on his writing income.
John Cleese on creativity. Oh man, those last 2 minutes, that's exactly where I work the day job. It's a long video (the second one), but entirely worth it. (Grokked from David Farland)
Don't have enough time wasting distractions? Okay, the Internet Archive just released 2,400 MS-DOS games to play for free (through your web browser). Time sink, ahoy! Enjoy. (Grokked from John)
An NPR interview with Neil Peart. You can see him, 'cause he's a blur (as we used to say). Seriously, I know Rush takes a lot of heat, but they really are excellent musicians who do things with their instruments that no other rock band has been able to touch. Example? Show me another rock group who writes songs in 7/8 (or even 8/8) time. Listen to Neil's fills. Just fucking amazing. I'll stop gushing on the music, but if you're working in the arts (say, like writing), read the interview. It's that level of dedication you'll need if you want to be good. If you want to be great, you'll need Neil's drive and love of the craft.
The medieval origin of the logo. Speaking professionally, logos actually began much earlier. One of the more notable examples is the Egyptian cartouche, but really it can go back as far as an early hominid holding their hand to a rock and blowing pain through a straw to create its outline. The logo, humankind's X in the place of a signature. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)
"Yes, I’m blonde. And yes, I attend MIT." Sure, we don't live in a society with a prejudicial problem. Hint, she's also what society says is "cute". My wife has a PhD in Ethnobotany, and she's blonde (and cute). Yea, I've seen this first hand.
"'You don’t need to think about the energy that makes our lives possible,' (the Exxon-Mobil ad voiceover) says. You don’t need to think. Trust us. Don’t think. Don’t ask questions. We’ll do all the thinking for you." The Slactivist on this ad. You might have seen a lot of energy ads in your nighttime programing shows (instead of just the Sunday Talk Shows). There's a reason for this. Rarely does the intimation rise to the obvious in advertising. You'll also notice how in a lot of these energy ads (for Exxon, BP, the American Gas Alliance) you'll see snow and ice (no reason to worry about global warming, we've still got snow and ice, see, right were we produce energy). And then there's the "you probably own an energy company in your 401k program" ads with the not-subtle warning of "regulate us, and we'll tank your retirement." And finally, you'll notice how many times they mention "jobs". Jobs, we've got 'em. We help make 'em. Jobs. You want 'em and if you mess with us, we'll make them all go away. Think about it. Yes, that's what their ads are threatening, this "think about it" is delivered in the same way John Goodman delivers the line, "I will kill your entire bloodline." Nothing personal, but unless we get our money, we'll pull the plug on you all.
Where the wild things are. Or, in this case, where our techno-garbage goes. It's the bottom of the ocean, where everything goes so we won't have to look at it. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)
Dear Councilman Delauter, you're obviously an idiot. Seriously, you're an elected official (or at least hold an elected official's place even if you were appointed). The press doesn't need your permission to use you name or quotes because you are a "public" person. Once you raised your hand and took that oath (actually, if you ran for office the moment you signed that paper of intent) you relinquished rights to privacy. We can argue where that line should be (hint: in modern life, there is no line anymore, everything is up for grabs), but if the article is about what you did or said (even if it's not connected to your office), fair game. Welcome to the club, dude. We have jackets (in case you're bright enough to have google alerts on your name and see this, I'm a former councilman, 9 years, so yea, I know what I'm talking about).
Sure you can trust the police. As I've said before, there isn't this miracle that happens in the Academy where everybody who applies is automagically transformed into a wonderful person.
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