Linkee-poo, here am I, your special island! Come to me, come to me!

Since, obviously from today's news, Skynet has awoken. It's time to move to Bali Hai.

Rejections for Writers! (I've gotta make that t-shirt) (Grokked from Steven Gould)

The Orbit Fantasy Writing Workshop. (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)

Jim Hines with a depression update.

The Codex Gigas, otherwise known as "The Devil's Bible". I just never get tired of reading about objects like this. (Grokked from Neil Gaiman)

DARPA develops a search engine to glom the dark and deep web. What it sounds like is marrying Big Data with Search Engine. And I'd love to have those tools on Google (not to look for what they're looking for, but imagine how that would change shopping and news websites).

What disturbs the dust cloud around Beta Pictoris? Although now my head is writing "The Doom that Came to Beta Pictoris", well, because my brain is just like that. (Grokked from Mrs. Tadd)

"The women proved something in their months of tough (Marine) training, says Pineda… They're ready to serve in ground combat." They already have, but now they meet the "official" requirements.

Transparent aluminum apparently is an actual thing now. Living in the future. (Grokked from Robert J Bennett)

They have waged cruel warfare… Eric on Trolling Woodrow Wilson, how much of our history is racists, and why that's not a mitigating factor in removing the Stars and Bars and Confederate Hero names from public institutions.

Dear NJ Democrats, don't be stupid. Although there's a lot in that short article that will allow a person not familiar with NJ politics understand all they need.

There's a lot to be said for the President raising the salaried-exempt floor to $50,000. Here's another benefit. "But a long-awaited proposal that would increase the number of employees eligible for overtime pay could mean more companies curtailing the use of work email after hours." Also noted for the common refrain of "if you're salaried, you're expected to work 50-60 hours." No. Not really. This is a business law like "you must maximize shareholder value." There is no law like that. It's just the legacy of long held, poor management practices (I wanted something stronger there, but if I say "legacy of sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies in upper management" a lot of people would have turned off before finishing).

"'Additionally, our Legislature has signaled its support for pursuing changes to our state Constitution that will make it clear the Ten Commandments monument is legally permissible. If legislative efforts are successful, the people of Oklahoma will get to vote on this issue.'" Conservatives just don't know when to give up.

I guess the Stormfront was "visited by the FBI in connection with last month's shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina." And now they're doing their own fund raiser to a legal defense fund. If they're able to connect Dylan Roof to Stormfront, that's a game changer. And about time.

"Arctic air temperatures are increasing at twice the rate of the rest of the world—a study by the U. S. Navy says that the Arctic could lose its summer sea ice by next year, eighty-four years ahead of the models—and evidence little more than a year old suggests the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is doomed, which will add between twenty and twenty-five feet to ocean levels. The one hundred million people in Bangladesh will need another place to live and coastal cities globally will be forced to relocate, a task complicated by economic crisis and famine—with continental interiors drying out… and for their pains the scientists themselves—the cruelest blow of all—have been the targets of an unrelenting and well-organized attack that includes death threats, summonses from a hostile Congress, attempts to get them fired, legal harassment, and intrusive discovery demands so severe they had to start their own legal-defense fund, all amplified by a relentless propaganda campaign nakedly financed by the fossil-fuel companies." We're boned. "'I don't agree. I don't think we're fucked. There is time to build sustainable solutions to a lot of these things. You don't have to close down all the coal-powered stations tomorrow. You can transition. It sounds cute to say, 'Oh, we're fucked and there's nothing we can do,' but it's a bit of a nihilistic attitude. We always have the choice. We can continue to make worse decisions, or we can try to make ever better decisions.'" Some optimists. After all, when there is life, there is hope. I say we're boned because the other side, the denier side, is so damn entrenched and well funded (and successful in their disinformation campaigns they aren't even trying hard anymore, snowballs in the Senate anyone?) that the change necessary to avoid some of the worst of it won't come soon enough, except for bloody revolution. Given then coming displacement of people, that might not be avoidable either. (Grokked from Robert J Bennett)