Misc

- This is an old story now, but it still makes me laugh.  Hypocrisy tends to do that.

- Well, it had to happen.  A solar powered motorcycle.

- I happened to stumble upon an absolutely beautiful picture to the Space Shuttle ‘Enterprise’.

Writing

- It goes almost without saying that the earliest forms of storytelling involved a storyteller. Without the devices of a stage, props, actors, or effects, all you’re left with is a storyteller to explain things in words, either orally or in a written record. Homer’s Iliad is an oral epic that describes the Trojan War, not as a history or a collection of facts from reliable sources, but from the point of view of an omniscient narrator who’s able to tell us about the thoughts and motivations of the characters, and the dealings of the gods.  Narrative in games.

- Keycon, Winnipeg’s fan driven Science Fiction and Fantasy convention was held during the May long weekend.  The convention doesn’t usually have what I would call a ’strong writers track’, but they’re getting better every year.  One attendee this year, and a past guest I believe, was Robert J. Sawyer.  He sat on some panels, did a reading from his latest book Wake, and basically just mingled with the Con people.  I’ve had an opportunity to meet him 3 or 4 times now, and he has proven to be an extremely approachable and friendly guy.  Thanks for coming to Winnipeg Rob.

- A police officer that writes talks about the hows and whys of a police officers body language.  Good stuff.

- I was led to a web site the other that has detailed documentation on Psychology, all aimed at writers.

Posts have slowed down a little, but I have a Weekly Links ready to go.

Before I get there though, my friend Heston just sent me this little link:

Fall in love again with the no-holds-barred, edge-of-your-seat science fiction, featuring inexhaustible flow of ideas, rich language, and skillfully-plotted adventure. Even though the following two novels were published back in the 1980s, there are highly recommended for those who can not stand run-of-the-mill bland SF fare and wants to feel excitement about reading SF again.

Go see Two of the most entertaining SF novels of the 1980’s, posted at www.scifi.darkroastedblend.com.

Writing

- Hal Duncan gets into the Prologue vs No Prologue fray.

- Charlie Stross blogged on tor.com: One of the questions that every SF author gets asked sooner or later is “where do you get your ideas?” For better or worse, I seem to get a double dose of it; ideas are my particular speciality, or so it said in the last fortune cookie I opened. So I thought I’d give the game away by explaining just where they come from.

- I had a chance to talk to Eric Flint at the Canvention Aurora awards in 2008.  He’s undergoing bypass surgery, and I wish him the best of luck.

Miscellaneous

- There’s a photograph of a rock on Mars that some people are saying is an alien skull.  I guess people will believe what they want.

- Apparently, tennis really is a sport for sissies

I’m a bit late on these today.  I’m in one of those periods when I have so much to do, I don’t know what to do first, and invariably, something isn’t done at all.

Writing

- Marie Brennan talks about how she writes female characters.

- John Scalzi was a on a panel recently, discussing how to maintain an online presence.

- For all of the uncertainty surrounding the future of the publishing industry—from the poor economy to the painful layoffs and restructurings in the wake of the digital transformation—to understand what’s really hurting us, all you have to do is visit your neighborhood bookstore.

- Author Nancy Kress talks about the whole ‘SF is dead‘ thing.

- Pete Tzinksi guest blogged over at The Commune about Deadlines for Writers, and Language.

Misc

- Probably nothing inspires quite like the view from the top a cliff because the often long and steep hike is forgotten as soon as we glimpse the world from atop where we rest, birdlike, drinking in the scenery and ready to spread our wings. Join us on a tour of some of the most incredible cliffs around the world.

Another slow week for links.  Either the world is getting more boring, or I’m getting less interested!

Misc

- the 10 coolest ‘multi functional furniture‘ designs.

Science

- Usually, we think of spacetime as being four-dimensional, with three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. However, this Euclidean perspective is just one of many possible multi-dimensional varieties of spacetime. For instance, string theory predicts the existence of extra dimensions – six, seven, even 20 or more. As physicists often explain, it’s impossible to visualize these extra dimensions; they exist primarily to satisfy mathematical equations.

The Prisoner

- Nestled away on the coastline of Wales is Portmeirion, the town where they shot The Prisoner in the 1960s. It looks much the same as it did back then with its quaint architecture and beautiful scenery. And for the umpteenth time, Portmeirion plays host to PortmeiriCon this weekend — a convention devoted to the classic series. Hosted by The Prisoner Appreciation Society, also known as the website Six of One, the event offers both indoor and outdoor activities

I’ve a whole grab-bag if stuff for you today.  Enjoy.

Misc

- Kurt Vonnegut Motivational Posters

Science

- Fermilab has made some amazing discoveries lately.  This is just one of them.

Humour

- The Onion just seems to be getting better and better.  This one is great.

Writing

- Guy Gavriel Kay talks about the exposure writers get when they Blog, and the effect it can have.

Programming

- This ones old, 2001 I think.  It’s a rebuttal against the ‘Learn xxx in 21 days’ books.

Misc

- I saw this picture and just bust a gut laughing.  Maybe I was in a weird mood.

- There was a huge racket this week about people finding the Lost City of Atlantis using Google Earth.  Google denied the fact, and even came up with an alternate explanantion.

- And the United States people wonder why they are in financial trouble.

- And now for a YouTube video link.  This is a parody on ‘No matter how much things change, they always stay the same.’

- I sent this link on a business card to a Designer friend of mine, Robert L. Peters from Circle [edit: at the time of this post, both sites seem to be down for some reason].  I thought this was a cool idea, and Rob pointed out that the environmental impact of the business card was quite high.  What do you think?

-  I found this video of a pretty cool climb, but I had some issues with it.  First is the camera motion.  Sure, technically I’d say they did pretty well: smooth motion, clean arc.  But it didn’t take me long to get nauseous.  The next thing I had a problem was the climber went off route on a red point.  She went so off route on the second clip in the video that she had to clip below her feet.  I’d really like to know what the person who set the bolts thought the route should have been.

Natalija Gros from Jure Breceljnik on Vimeo.

Writing

- I wasn’t quite sure where to put this, but since I didn’t have any links for writing this week, I figured this was a good spot as any for the Grammer Nazis.