May 31st, 2015:
- Let me recommend a thoughtful blog on the issues of writing and publishing, which is remarkable for having one of the most civil and intelligent comment sections I’ve ever run across. (In recent years I’m reading blog comments less and less, because they’re mostly content-free tribal hatred.)
- Maybe the Ralpha Dogs had a hand in this: Making tunable microwave antennas from columns of liquid metal. (Somebody sent me this link, but I don’t remember who. Feel free to take credit in the comments.)
- Tom Roderick sent me this link to a video showing the guldurndest steampunk corkscrew ever. I like wine, but maybe not quite that much.
- And while we’re watching movies, here’s the craziest damned thing I’ve seen in awhile: A jet-powered go-kart. His name is Colin Furze. He’s done other crazy things too, and I envy not only his craziness but his youth, energy, and good looks. Here’s hoping he doesn’t wrap himself around a tree at 200 MPH before he lives long enough to go bald. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the link.)
- Sarah Hoyt’s reflection on the Golden Age of SFF, and how we writers can bring about the second coming of the Golden Age, if we only choose to. It relates to her concept of Human Wave SF & fantasy, which I did a series on some time back.
- Hurricane season opens tomorrow, and NOAA itself is forcasting below-normal hurricane activity this year.
- We’re finally admitting that open offices (that is, sitting at a table in a field of fifty or a hundred tables without any cube walls between them) are a stupid, self-defeating idea. Productivity requires concentration, and concentration requires privacy and quiet.
- Jim Strickland pointed me to FontSquirrel, a source of free and almost-free fonts. (Nearly all are free for personal use; some require payment for commercial use.)
- I think most of us figured this out years ago: Ideological echo-chambers are self-defeating. I would also add that they are creepy. Pod-people creepy…because what they do is create pod people.
- Stone yourself skinny? No wonder Colorado people are the thinnest in the country!
- Nuts & Volts Magazine (to which I bought a lifetime subscription in 1980!) is posting some of their more interesting back articles. This one, which explains how the Edison storage cell works and how to build one at home, is one of my favorites.
- The coordinator of Sad Puppies 4 lays out her theory of what makes a story Hugo-worthy. To Kate’s list I would add that contenders have something in the way of world-building, which is big part of what I read SF for.
- Ever wanted a Bigfoot blanket? I know where you can get one.