Weekly Links 20081130

Science (Fiction)

Gizomodo has an article on the size of the Space Station: We are so used to the International Space Station that we don’t give its massive scale a second thought. I, for one, took it for granted until a newly-released NASA photograph reminded me that this thing is huge.

Speaking of the International Space Station, apparently they now have equipment in place to convert urine into drinking water.  Here’s a video showing the developmental testing of the product.

Misc

You know how some people just seem to have too much time on their hands?

These are some of the coolest t-shirts I’ve seen in awhile.

Already a lot of fun to drive and environmentally efficient, the popular MINI Cooper will soon gain even more favor with environmentally conscious drivers as the electric-powered MINI E debuted at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show.

There’s been this thing called ‘Rick Rolling‘, where Rick Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give you Up” is overlayed on exiting videos and stuff like that.  Well, looks like Rick Astley did his own Rick Rolling, and I found it absolutely hilarious.

Writing

Writing fiction, whether short or long, can be a very trying experience indeed.  So many writers of fiction have different processes for achieving their writing goals that it’s hard to sift through what works and what doesn’t.

In 1980, science fiction writer and editor Ben Bova told a group of women writers, “Neither as writers nor as readers have you raised the level of science fiction a notch. Women have written a lot of books about dragons and unicorns, but damned few about future worlds in which adult problems are addressed.” It’s no wonder that female science fiction authors have disguised their gender in order to have their work taken seriously. We have a list of women who used male and androgynous pseudonyms to compete in the male-dominated field of speculative fiction.