Linkee-poo is the joker at your gate

Mary Robinette Kowal shares tips for reading your work in front of people.

Even in the age of online gaming, D&D is still the best. Because it is an actual engagement of the mind, is a collaboration, and is social. Sort of like the beginning of video gaming when peopled parties (and then network parties) to play them. (Grokked from Cat Rambo)

How exactly does one gird one's loins? And an update. Because you wanted to know. (Grokked from Dr. Doyle)

One of the most interesting, recently confirmed atmospheric phenomenon, and sprites, or "giant jets." This is lighting that reaches upward from a cloud to the upper limits of the atmosphere. And here's a video of sprites caught over Hurricane Hilda as it passed Hawaii. (Grokked from Spaceweather.com)

Okay, so, this is how I was taught to do graphic design. Before desktop computers, before WYSIWYG, before all of that. Paste-up. There were production classes that we as students would be a little high afterward because of the use of rubber cement (and not having adequate ventilation). And cutting ruby, OMG that takes me back. I graduated just at the cusp of the digital revolution, so most of my professional experience has been using the computer. I think as a professional I've completed projects as outlined in that video maybe two handfuls of times. I have cut ruby for projects. I have done color breaks. Sometimes I miss that (it was much more creative, and much more a process than it is now). But I am glad we have desktop computers and all the cool tools. Even just for the often repeated refrain about what we had to do to get type.

"And in Florida, you can be fired (from being a cop) when people find that out (you're a member of the KKK), but still squeeze through background checks and get hired to work at an elementary school."

"'Gov. Jindal opposes the tearing down of these historical statues and has instructed his staff to look into the Heritage Act to determine the legal authority he has as governor to stop it,' Jindal spokesman Doug Cain said… But… no such 'Heritage Act' exists in Louisiana." Reality bites.

And so begins the season of fact checking. In this case, NPR fact checking Dr. Carson's (echoed) statements against Planned Parenthood extending the myth that they're just there to kill black babies. Turns out, not really. But then did you really expect the truth to be told by political candidates trying to make a point about a controversial issue? Especially when it's conservatives and anything to do with sex, birth control, or abortion?

Some veterans speak out about Ferguson, a year later.