Writing Excuses (an excellent podcast that focuses on the nuts and bolts of writing, as well as other topics) is running a survey for Season 12. (Grokked from Mary Robinette Kowal)
A tweet storm of writing advice to the new people. Unfortunately we see the authors we look up to telling us all about their stories and we believe we also need to share like that. Guilty. This doesn't mean you can't share it with some people. Sometimes being able to talk about the story helps work out early problems, and you can get feedback that brings new dimensions to the story. But I'm also someone who gets bored with a story quickly, especially once I know everything about it. So working in private can be a great boon. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)
"Today, Entertainment Weekly revealed an extensive set of details about the film. Notably… Coco will have an all-Latino voice cast." As well as being the only non-sequel Pixar is working on at the moment. So, double benefit. (Grokked from John)
NPR's story with tips to see if a site if publishing fake news or is a real news site. There is also a battle going on over lists of fake news sites, with the fake news sites saying there are fake lists out there. It's pretty meta.
The Planet Money podcast on tracking down that fake news promoter that (I think) I linked to a shorter NPR story earlier. Much longer story with more on the interview.
"Facebook has a big problem with fake news stories that are spread on the social network, and now it’s hoping users can help. People are reporting that Facebook is asking them survey questions to help determine whether news headlines are accurate." Note, Facebook is still getting ad revenue from these fake news sites, and are prompting users for even more clickthroughs. (Grokked from John)
There's a long history of relocating American Indians from one plot of desirable land to plots of "stinking wastelands." Until those wastelands prove to have something white people wanted; gold, coal, uranium. And then there would be another "war" and they would be relocated again (or their reservations trimmed in size). "Native American reservations cover just 2 percent of the United States, but they may contain about a fifth of the nation’s oil and gas, along with vast coal reserves." Welcome to the new Indian Wars. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
The evil that men do. "The Ohio Legislature has passed one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the United States. The House and Senate yesterday both approved a ban on abortion at the point at which a fetal heartbeat can be detected – which can be in as little as six weeks into pregnancy." It was added last minute to a bipartisan bill concerning child abuse while in the Senate, and past the House in a bill reconciliation motion. Most certainly our idiot governor will sign it. Most certainly it'll be challenged and stayed… and will go to SCOTUS probably sometime in 2018-2019, when Trump has stacked the court with the judges which he said he would chose judge ideologically opposed to abortion (or, as the right would call them, judicial activists). "The heartbeat bill won’t likely be the only abortion restriction passed during this lame duck Session." People are going to die because of this.
"Ohio has the nation's second highest concentration of truck drivers – over 70,000 (ed. note: seriously this is where a lot of people who had manufacturing jobs found work - "Driver Wanted" sections of classified in Ohio were pages long) – and long-haul jobs are widely seen to be on the chopping block as autonomous vehicles emerge… Last week, Ohio Governor John Kasich announced a $15 million investment to turn a 35-mile stretch of a state highway into a testing ground for autonomous vehicles. Taxpayer dollars will fund research that threatens one of the five most common jobs in the state." Oh fuck. As for the "people aren't ready so it won't happen" argument. Total bullshit. Automated trucks can keep on the roads 24/7 (except for maintenance and fuel stops). That fact, right there, could reduce most trucking fleets by at least a fifth. The cost savings are too much for industry to ignore. And, please, can we stop with the "all or nothing" mentality (they'll never replace all of us!).
"Though this is the time the Arctic is supposed to be refreezing, scientists say sea ice there hit record low levels for November. In the crucial Barents Sea, floating ice decreased when it would be expected to grow." I'm sure it's fine. We're all fine here.
"The hospital groups said they would suffer another $289.5 billion in losses if Obamacare was repealed but the cuts that the Affordable Care Act imposed on Medicare and Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital payments remained. Those payments were reduced under the Affordable Care Act on the assumption that the increases in coverage the law would bring would reduce cost of uncompensated care that hospitals offered to uninsured people in the pre-ACA world." Oh, and you're premiums are going to skyrocket for those who still will have health insurance. As someone who works in a hospital, we aren't exactly overbooked with staff as it is.
"The world is gray and nuanced, and so often my friends got the benefit of being composite people: Floridian, Catholic, scientist… But often when voters saw me, all they saw was Muslim. They didn't see Hoosier, tennis fiend, fashion-obsessed journey." On covering the Trump election while being Muslim. (Grokked from Elizabeth Bear)
"'We found out today that more jobs are leaving (Carrier's plants in Indiana) than what we originally thought,' (union communications representative T.J.) Bray said. 'It seemed like since Thursday, it was 1,100 then it was maybe 900 and then now we're at 700. So I'm hoping it doesn't go any lower than that.'… All 700 workers at Carrier's Huntington plant will also lose their jobs… So how did the president-elect get to that 1,100 number last week?… 'It's the R&D jobs that were already slated to stay,' Bray explained." Trump lied? Shocked, shocked I am… And now you know why he did the plant tour before details were announced. It was good TV, wasn't it? (Grokked from Justine Larbalestier)
"Again, this is pure inference. We have no proof that the (Boeing) speech or the write up triggered the tweet. We don't know that Trump or anyone close to him was aware of the speech at all. But I think it is reasonable to say that this is an odd thing to tweet about out of the blue, especially with numbers that appear to be fictitious. Something must have prompted this. This seems like a good candidate for what that 'something' was." Step out of line, the man comes to take you away. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
"McGehee notes that the United States has often held itself up as a paradigm of clean government, lecturing other countries about the need for strong bribery laws and an independent legal system. Even the appearance of conflict of interest by the Trump administration threatens to undermine that, she says." Whelp, so much for that.
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