Linkee-poo may be mad, may be blind, may be viciously unkind, but can still read what you're thinking

Elizabeth Bear on the writer's favorite pastime, waxing the cat. She gives the professional aspect to it. For me, setting up the clean room is a little too much. (Grokked from matociquala, which is kinda pointing in a circle, but I couldn't resist the joke, it's my own form of cat waxing)

Jennifer Crusie with with juice, glasses, and tables in Word. While I'm tempted to make jelly glass jokes, it's something of a serious matter. Look, you can be all full of piss and vinegar and then spill that out onto the page, but unless there is some structure there, nobody is going to get it. I'm a panster for most things. I'll pick a topic and run it to the ground. Most times. And if you are also a panster, go ahead and write the book that way. But you shouldn't rewrite that way. Or to carry her metaphor, one you squeeze the juice out, you better have it in a glass, because if you don't it's just liquid on the table top with no form. (Grokked from Jason Sanford)

Just for fun, if you're a fan of Neil Gaiman's Stardust (while the movie was entertaining, the book was way, way better), and who isn't, there's a site selling Tristan's sword (replicas). And by "selling" I mean they're on fire sale. It's a nice sword (and in case you didn't know, I loves me my sharp pointy things). If it had a basket hilt I would be hitting the buy button right now. With a basket hilt it would be very close to the schiavona, a type of sword that would have been carried by my ancestors. The schiavona is a mercenary's weapon. It is basically a basket hilted broadsword. Much of what you can find in reproductions are the Venetian version. That version was lighter, and thinner (and later) than the northern slavic style (the sword on sale goes in the opposite direction and is much wider). This wasn't a sword carried by dandies or for protection, it was a sword meant to slice through armor and kill, quickly. (Grokked from Neil Gaiman)

A cartoon explanation of the conservative position about gas prices. Reminds me when I hear the people here at work complain about gas prices when they drive the honkinest, biggest trucks (and never use them to haul anything). (Grokked from Morgan J Locke)

Chuck Wendig is enjoying Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon (which, BTW, has been generating a lot of buzz). And he's looking for more fantasy that breaks from the Tolkein/Celtic/Scandinavian realms of fantasy. If you know where he could get more of that same flavor, go tell him about it. Speaking of which, if you've already got your mitts on a copy, and you also need more of that same drug, Saladin is running a review contest and when book 2 comes out next year, you might win a copy before release date. Sure, it's a whole year between hits, but there might be Chuck is trying to find you some literary methadone to tide you over.

A UK view of the Limbaugh affair. I have to admit that I thought he went over the line with the "slut" comment, but that was the only part of his show that I heard about. Now that I've seen more of his comments, of which "slut" was the tip of the iceberg, an apology is not enough. Dear Rush Limburger (it's not clever, but it'll have to do for now), well, sirah, I would guess you would know about prostitutes. You know, having traveled to the islands with over 100 viagra pills and no female companionship traveling with you. No, you're not "just an entertainer," that much is sure. Entertainers are not the keynote speakers at political conventions, they're the warm up. And your time of pond scum politics has come to an end. Please don't let the door smack you in your sorry ass on the way out. We'd hate to give you one more jolly. Dear Conservatives, do you get it now? Or, conversely, how many times to we need to do this fire-drill before you all get it? (Grokked from Jay Lake)

I'm not sure this poll of Gov. Kasich's approval ratings shows what they think it does. Sure, his disapproval numbers are above 50, but follow the curve. It's amazing what happens when conservatives shut their yaps as Kasich has done since his ass was handed to him last November. It doesn't mean he's changed or see the errors of his ways, it's just he realizes that he needs to build the platform first before he wants to hang anybody out to dry.

Alligator Quotient: Approaching the neck. Anybody got water wings I can borrow?

Linkee-poo shifts into Sunday gear

How to think like an editor.

Neil Gaiman make my heart ache to get back into a writing routine. Well, at least I can live the "writer's life" vicariously through him and my writer friends.

Maybe Romney could say he voted for it before he voted against it? The it in this case being the individual mandate. Seems he wrote a USA Today editorial basically outlining the individual mandate and telling President Obama that it worked in MA, so it should work for everybody. You got some 'splainin to do, Lucy. Maybe Romney will also finally tell the conservatives that the individual mandate was the brain child of the Heritage Institute. But then that would have to acknowledge that accurate history isn't what the conservatives have been telling themselves. Might as well also tell the conservatives that Ronnie Reagan raised taxes 11 times after he realized his tax cuts were killing the economy and reduced tax receipts. You can say it all you want, and point out the actual history, but they'll never believe you.

Because I'm tired of the conservative mantra, "We get death threats for speaking the 'truth'." Yeah, well, so does everybody. And considering that there are conservative attorneys general who have been pursuing climate change witch hunts, I'm not all that sympathetic. And if you're a union organizer, well it's even worse. (Grokked from Paolo Bacigalupi)

(It's possible that) One out of every ten Wall Street employees is a psychopath. Knock me over with a feather. Having dealt directly with top management in companies, especially financial companies, their claim of 4% of executives are psychopaths might be a little low. Also, I'll note here that the clinical view of psychopaths differs from the popular view. It's too bad that executives and Wall Streeters are going to sully the popular opinion of psychopaths even more. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Alligator Quotient: They're waiting at work. I can feel their breath form here.

Linkee-poo is blowing in the wind

Tobias Buckell's latest novel, Artic Rising is reviewed by Alan Cheuse on NPR's All Things Considered. Well done, Tobias. Congrats.

Ezra Klien on the submerged welfare state. A social study that most people who benefit from a government program don't realize they have benefited from the government largess. With how those programs reach to the top income levels. Lot of good statistics to show just where the problem lies. Tax expenditures. (Grokked from Patrick Nielsen Hayden on Making Light)

Well, that didn't take long. Yep, we wouldn't have these school shootings only if we had a prayer first. What is incredibly sad is there are many who will nod their heads at this non sequitur argument as if it wasn't the deep pile of horse shit that it is. (Grokked from Vince)

Here's an editorial on CNN about why evangelicals love Ricky Santorum and hated JFK. But I was struck by this quote from JFK's famous speech. "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote, where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him." So, how do we stand on that? Let's see, we now have ministers violating their tax-free status to advocate for political candidates (and even more so for party votes) from the pulpit. Check. We now have wide spread voucher programs than funnel public money to private religious schools. And we've removed the barriers for churches to get public funds for their (what used to be called ministerial) outreach programs and to help rebuild "historic" churches. Check. And do I need to remind anybody of Mitt Romney and his Mormonism (or the "ZOMG, Obama attends a 'radical' church)? Check. So, for four basic precepts we now have gone past incorporating 3 of them into public life. Only that first one, that a Catholic prelate would tell a President how to act, is left to be broken. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Linkee-poo knows that smoking ain't allowed in school

Still up to my tuckus in alligators, so not a lot today. However, I do have a question. Some people's blogs have various through themes like, "How I feel today", "What music is on the iPod", "What's on my screen right now", or "What my cat left on the doorstep today." I'd like to do the "Tweet of my heart" everyday, but sometimes I can't read my twitter feed all that much. And frankly, sometimes you all aren't the most witty, or the comment doesn't translate without lots of context. You're letting me down. I meant to mention this earlier, during our annual review, but I was distracted by what my cat left on my doorstep. So, I was thinking about "Alligator Quotient:" with various levels. I mean we have so many words for "ass" that even just that level could be exciting. Alligator Quotient: It's up to my Santorum. See, I can always do something with that. Sound interesting? Boring as crap, just give us the links? My auntie was et' by an alligator, so not for me?

Random House raises their library ebook prices. I believe most of the headlines I've seen state that librarians are "in a state of shock." It's sure to reignite the whole, "ebooks should cost zip" vs "it's a fucking business with overhead" debate.

Pengiun releases the artist's way app. And it's free. Might have to check that out (read that book many, many moons ago, and mostly from a visual designer re-energizing my creativity aspect).

Tor.com reviews The Dresden Files. I agree with most of what they say. It was a great little show, based in a loose way on the books by Jim Butcher. There were some significant changes, but I saw most of them necessary to translate to the small screen (plus, I liked the hockey stick wizard's staff). The dumbed down a lot of the baddies, which I think made for a world that had much less depth than the books. I didn't see this when it was on, but after falling in love with the books (which I listened to while finishing up Bladesman) I got the DVDs. My wife loved them, btw. And it was good to see a full-on alternative reality show that got most of the parts right.

Chuck Wendig on 25 ways to unfuckify your story. As usual with Chuck, don't read if easily offended by profanity and strange porn references. Might have to reread this whenever I get to editing things again. And I think I have a new phrase, "25. Go all Dalek on their asses."

In the US, antiauthoritarianism is often diagnosed as a mental disease and medicated. And then there's the study that stock traders are more reckless than psychopaths. "Instead of taking a sober and businesslike approach to reaching the highest profit, 'it was most important to the traders to get more than their opponents,' (the research leader) explained." Note yesterday's comment about not being rich because someone else always has more money. (Grokked from Tobias Buckell)

Story Bones

Because the Muse demands I share it, but I really like where it takes me. Sigh, not enough time in the world.

"The word is difficult," he said with that accent John had never been able to place. "In your language, it is very flexible and fluid. Where you would take 6 or 8 words in context to convey all of an emotion, sight, or quality, in most cases we have one word. Ours is a precise language."

I see it as a lot of "lost in translation" story of cultural clashes. Sometimes it's the silences that speak louder than any megaphone could. And sometimes, someone can be showing you the clue, and you can completely miss it.

Linkee-poo is thinking of lamb stew

Since there was an advertising link the other day, I thought I'd point out this NPR story on the Power of Habit and how the most successful advertising affects your habits.

Hal Duncan on how to write a sentence of narrative. Rewriting a line from the Eye of Argon. It's a fairly detailed dissection of how to write effectively, clearly and purposefully. Food for thought (I'll need to go back and reread this one). (Grokked from Elizabeth Shack)

Freakonomics with bad news for people with hard-to-pronounce names. At one of my first conventions I was having a conversation that included David Hartwell. The part of that event that remains with me is his oblique reference to, "some authors should use pseudonyms." To quote Bender, "We're boned." (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Follow your bliss. I need to keep remembering that. (Grokked from Joe Hill)

"7. If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely. This is one of the darkest of all psychological secrets." Teller, of Penn and Teller, shares some of his secrets. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Sure, you can trust the government. Just ask the closest Indian. (And the joke relates to Native Americans, not people from the Indian Sub-continent)

The rich are different. Or, at least, they're more unethical. At least that's what socio-economic research shows. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

"'People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,' said Alan Dlugash, a partner at (an) accounting firm… who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. 'Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?'" That's right, people who don't have money can't relate to the loss of privilege and "status markers" because their too busy trying to figure out how they'll feed those kids next week. And let's be honest, it's not like you're going to send your kids to public school, they just won't be going to the most prestigious private school. Aw, bonuses are "down" (for certain values of "down") and the privileged just are sure how they're going to keep it in caviar and champaign. Well, as I put on a funny poster for work, "Brighten up, Sunshine. At least you've got a job." Oh yes, brother, we're all feeling the pinch. (Also note the recurring line of, "I'm not rich because other people have more money than I do," I've been hearing that a lot lately) How much have bonuses shrunk? About 14%, taking them to "almost pre-2008 levels." My heart bleeds, man. (Grokked from Jason Sanford)

In regards to that story, this week Marketplace has been running stories about the lower class mobility, where exactly is the "middle class" (since everyone, from those making $20k to $500k say they're middle class), they're new wealth and poverty news tracker, and they've also had some radio diaries of people grouped into those categories (working poor, middle class, better than most). It's always interesting to see how people view themselves in relation to society at large.

Tweet of my heart:
@msagara: @pnh Almost no one works in any aspect of publishing because they want to get rich. It starts from what books mean to them…

Linkee-poo takes a flying leap

Still trying to catch up with things. So much to do and only so many hours to do it in.

For every action, there is an opposite and equal(?) reaction. In response to Amazon throwing an 800lb gorilla tantrum removing ebooks distributed by IPG, SFWA is redirecting their "buy this book" links to other vendors when possible. Wasn't it about this time a year or two ago that we did this with Houghton Mifflin books? Not to mention I missed where B&N dissed Amazon Publishing titles.

In case you missed the Monday Night Daily Show, here's the best part. Although the Neil DeGrasse Tyson interview was also a hoot.

Well, that didn't work out so well, did it? Lots of establishment GOPers are crying in their beers over how their revamped primary process has been going. I guess they forgot that their own party played by different rules than the progressives do. See, the Obama/Clinton primary was also played against a GOP primary. But you might remember that while the primary was contentious and had some hard hitting ads, it wasn't a content to see who could be the most bat-shit insane on social issues, or whom was the most pure. IIRC, it was mostly about who can you trust to run the country. There was an exchange of ideas. The GOP thought, "Hey, we can do that, too," but now they begin to realize that conservative politics in this day and age ain't about ideas. It's about who can run the farthest to the right. This is the bed you made, conservatives. Now you need to lay in it. If you think things are bad now, just wait until the contested nomination convention when even more people will be watching.

The slactivist on the evolution of what the Bible says on conception and abortion. So what's the difference between 1971 and 2012? Well, all those women got liberated during the 70s, 'natch. But there's the drumbeat of "We have always been at war with Eastasia." Also, let's not forget that in the early 80's, after accomplishing their goal of making sure Bob Jones University didn't lose its tax exempt status (with the election of Ronald Reagan) the evangelical leaders, fearful of losing their newly gained political power as the faithful went back to their lives, chose abortion as the next great crusade. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Everybody is a conservative, shouting, "Drill, baby, drill" with the best of them. until it's your land they're doing it on. When I loaded that article, the ads were from the Oil & Natural Gas Industry about how it'll be the safest pipeline EVAR! and that jobs can't wait. You got that right. You get a month to accept their offer or they're just going to take you land. And the last two paragraphs are priceless.

A somewhat interesting squibb on advertising. I'm not sure all that that Banksy is railing about, but I suggest they first research Fair Use, specifically for parody and commentary. That doesn't mean you can steal from advertising (it's protected under the various copyright and trademark laws), but you can appropriate images to create a parody, or something that can be defined as "social commentary." You can also incorporate items into "art" (as long as it isn't "commercial art"). Then they need to look up Public Square, or shared spaces. Sorry, no one person controls all the public space, and people do own walls and other surfaces. There's been some specious commercial victories lately that have removed some of the "public" from "public space." But it's not as bad as what has been done to Commercial Speech (which advertising used to fall under). Every time I hear of an advertiser (or more than likely, corporation) suing under Free Speech I just cringe. No, fucktards, it's Commercial Speech and it isn't protected speech (or at least that's the way it was, now a days, I don't even know where the line is because of all the court cases decided by activist conservative judges - see Citizens United for an example). Actually, while I agree with the sentiment of Bansky (Christ on a pogo-stick, do we really need to cover every surface with advertising? And can we stop with the "My girlfriend is better" crap already?), I disagree with the sense of entitlement that pervades the rant. (Grokked from Paolo Bacigalupi)

Santorum is wrong about religion and college? Well slather me in honey and call me biscuits. Actually, what he's really upset is as people learn more about the world, they tend not to be conservative in their outlook. So his brand of politics, where he makes his money, is in jeopardy. But he'll never admit to that in public. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

The lunatic fringe is now after Toy-R-Us because they're selling the Life with Archie comic that features a gay couple on the front. Yes, if kids see this image, they might grow up with the wrong ideas that gay people are human, deserve to be as happy as the rest of us, oh and serve in the military. Can't have that in their impressionable little minds before we instill their parent's hatred and fears. Because even if they're our heros who save our lives we need to kick their gay asses out of our company once we know they're gay. Because if they're not around we can stick our fingers in our ears and "Lalalala" all the way to happiness in Mother's Little Helper. (Grokked from Tobias Buckell)

Um, do it again

Dear God, it's me, Steve again. Say, since you were so obliging with the South Carolina vote, may I make another request? Could you make it that Santorum wins Michigan and Romney wins Pennsylvania? That would be bitchin'. Thanks for listening. Me.

Linkee-poo is boggled

Spent last night catching up with reading instead of studying. It was that bad of a day that I felt sabotaging my courses was the wiser form of action. Sometimes I'm not entirely rational.

SF/F authors writing about the climate and what response they've gotten. (Grokked from Tobias Buckell)

And speaking of Tobias, happy book day, dude. Arctic Rising is now available for sale. Get a copy before it comes true. Which may be in a few years.

(said in fanboy squee voice) ZOMG, Jim Hines talks about fame and fanboy fails. Having seen that from both ends of the stick (but not as the object of fanboyism - yet), yeah, that. I think it's affected me in another way. When running into people who are "famous" I no longer get all squee about it. I don't go and introduce myself to all of them, only the ones that I am a very big fan of. Now, if I ever happen to be in the same room as Neil Gaiman and there's a break in the goth girl contingent, I can't guarantee that I also wouldn't pee myself a little, because, you know, it's Neil Frickin' Gaiman.

Andrew Wheeler with some more inside baseball on the publishing industry. I'm also not sure that the pre-orders wouldn't count as first week sales as Amazon neither charges your account or (obviously) ships the book until they have it (which would be when it would go live on their site anyway). So I would think that the sales wouldn't be registered until you're actually charged for the book. Now, how it would appear on Amazon's ranking lists is another ball of wax. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Chuck Wendig talks about the funny and asks for comments and recommendations. Oh, yeah, we're going to be checking that out. Because, you know with the you know, you know?

Jeff VanderMeer talks about the obsession with word count and staying in contact with your writing.

Lynda Williams on writing what you know, but is really about how to instill verisimilitude.

We always knew R2D2 was saying something they didn't want us to know. He was a precurser of Bender, only more vulgar. (Grokked from George Takei)

And now tilt-shift comes to video (the music is a bit much, but I've seen a few commercials that use this technique in a limited way. I wonder if this look will translate to generations in the future who won't have grown up watching cheaply produced stop animation and puppet shows? Wait a sec, are those storm trooper marching down the road for Carnival? (Pointed to by John)

Vince brings us the end of the slippery Santorum slope, the anti-Copernican, Big Bang, Evolution mouth breathers rise. I'm pointing to Vince's blog, he has the video, because I don't want to give any more link love to those people.

Do you know you Rick Santorum from a Dave Mustaine (former head of Megadeth and Metallica guitarist)? (Pointed to by John)

Just how biased is your media? I need to download the podcast to get all the info there. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

NPR release their new ethics handbook. "At all times, we report for our readers and listeners, not our sources. So our primary consideration when presenting the news is that we are fair to the truth. If our sources try to mislead us or put a false spin on the information they give us, we tell our audience. If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side, we acknowledge it in our reports. We strive to give our audience confidence that all sides have been considered and represented fairly." Good luck with that, NPR. Given the well know liberal bias of reality, I expect the mud slinging and "defund NPR" shouting to begin in 3… 2… 1… (Grokked from Tobias Buckell, I think)

With all the various tax plans of the GOP candidate, having a handy dandy chart would be nice. Oh look at where all the divergence from current policy happens. Why, it all seems to be above the $100-200,000 mark with most of the divergence coming above the $500,000 level.

And last, but certainly not least, God weighs in on the political campaign and shows us part of his plan. (Pointed to by Sheila)

And so it goes

For those of you watch the news, you know that Chardon is in a state of shock today from the shootings. So begins the search for reasons, people lining up on sides, the anger, the sympathy and the insanity that insanity breeds. Cry havoc and let slip the asinine comments of the blowhards.

But I have a few thoughts. One, metal detectors wouldn't help. More guns in schools wouldn't help. Anti-bullying laws wouldn't help (just research Columbine, now more than a decade behind us). Gun controls wouldn't help.

On the cold rational side of things, I want to find everybody who ever told me a .22 couldn't be a "killing weapon" and rub their face in this.

What will happen is everybody's life will be changed. Angry kids will be angrier, disenfranchised kids will be even farther out, scared kids will be even more scared, the in-clique will be tighter and more insular, and everybody will lie about how that won't happen. Not in this town. Not after what happened.

Chardon isn't my local school district, but I worked in Chardon for almost 8 years. I did work for Chardon High School. I know the parents of some of the kids who would be attending high school now. I know the reporters who were first on the scene.

These things don't always happen in someone else's town. Who ever said they'd stay away and not come close? If someone told you that, even if they spoke in your voice, the lied.

Linkee-poo wonders were all the flowers have gone

Ferrett Steinmetz on editing his Nebula nominated story, Sauerkraut Station.

Cat Valente on publishing's many faces (over at Boing Boing).

As a friend of mine once said, Logic, you're doing it wrong. That's a link to several videos about logic and argument and some of the problems that come along with it. (Grokked from Joe Hill)

You know, people like to talk about the sensible mid-west, with our mid-western values, etc (see the PBS special about The Amish). But what is masks the East Coast from is from a little West of the Mississippi to the Rockies, there are pockets of bat-shit insane people. Take for instance the Wyoming Legislature. (Pointed to by John)

And on the bat-shit insane craziness, there are, of course, the absurdist conclusions of certain trains of thought. Are YOU a pawn of the Orgasm Lobby? (Grokked from Paolo Bacigalupi)

Curiosity Counts with a video about the fight for minds in schools. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

God-moding Windows 7. In case you use that system. (Pointed to by John)

I would say Maureen Dowd is going a bit over the top except that what she's saying is basically becoming apparent to most sentient, politically aware adults in this country (other countries got hip to it a long time ago). The Republican Party is the party of the past. The long distant, hazy remembrance of a past that never actually existed, but had the good virtue of making sure the people in power were never really bothered with the concerns of the other casts… until the villagers were at the gates with pitch and feathers. And, again, the fears they project are reasonable to them because, given the power, they would invoke such horrible decision making processes that most of the rest of us could never imagine (see Conservative Legislative "victories" and proposals since 2010). (Grokked from Jay Lake)

And because the world isn't all doom and gloom (no matter what the conservatives want you to believe), have a video of a baby elephant playing in the snow. (Pointed to by John)

Linkee-poo is still studying

Over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, they have an article about a plagiarist being flushed out. I point to the content not so much for the full story, but the opening about Amazon and their epublishing enabling more and more plagiarism to occur. I'm not sure I'd buy their indemnification about how their only responsibility is to take down offending material. Not when much of their sales point is "let us sell your stuff." IMHO, at some point they're going to have to own the process, or the market will self-implode under the bad publicity and junk being peddled. (Grokked from Camille Alexa)

James Alan Gardner on word choice and word space. A lot of advanced writing stuff in there. Maybe not in the information, but in practice of how it's applied. the only thing I would add is that people carry their own vocabulary with them. It colors their thoughts and speech. And while it's fairly easy to keep dialog within character, it's devilishly hard to keep the narration voice in character.

A NYTimes editorial on the specious religious freedom argument regarding birth control insurance requirements. (Grokked from Morgan J Locke)

How to remove your YouTube viewing and search history before Google becomes SkyNet combines all your demographic information and all your base belong to them we find out just how far their transgress their motto, "Do no evil." (Grokked from Paolo Bacigalupi)