Mon/Tue Downtime

August 31st 2005 at 4:11 pm

Yeah, so I went missing the first two days of this week. I’ve been asked to teach another class, Technology 101. It’s a general intro to computers type course with an emphasis on Word and PowerPoint, and I spent time making sure I was happy with the new syllabus I created and getting ready for […]

Crystal Rain Webdesign Contest Note

August 31st 2005 at 9:09 am

The Crystal Rain Webdesign contest will run out tonight at midnight and I will announce the winner tomorrow morning. Just an FYI.

No More Fat Antagonists

August 31st 2005 at 9:03 am

Over at Emerald City it’s reported that:
Jed Hartman has issued a plea to potential Strange Horizons writers to stop using fatness as a short-hand for denoting that a character is Evil.
Not only is that a sad trend to have to note, but *boggles* that’s just lazy writing.
And anyway, I always thought Evil people were thin, […]

Young Writers

August 31st 2005 at 8:55 am

Sartorias and Justine Larbalestier dish out the smack on young writers. Justine:
Recently I’ve had a number of letters from teenagers wanting advice on how to get their novel published and wondering whether their age will make it harder for them to get it into print. Specifically, would they be discriminated against because they were only […]

Agent List/Author List

August 28th 2005 at 4:37 pm

Arcaedia (Jennifer Jackson, agent), asked authors to send her bullet points and created a list of items that make the perfect agent, then turned around and also posted those as well as items that would make the ideal client (author):
*makes best efforts to sell their work, by concentrating on improving the craft of their writing […]

Hurricane

August 28th 2005 at 3:10 pm

Making Light has one of the best hurricane round ups on Katrina I’ve seen around. As someone who has been made homeless by a hurricane before, Marilyn in ‘95, a compact steady 120 mph with 210 mph gusts, I can only say my hopes are that this turns slightly from New Orleans.
As noted, the weather […]

Dustdevils on Mars

August 28th 2005 at 3:05 pm

This is totally cool, an animated GIF of dust devils on Mars, captured by the intrepid Spirit rover, which is still at it!

Windsurfing

August 28th 2005 at 2:11 pm

Yesterday I headed out at lunch to go windsurfing. Last week the base that connects the mast to the board was missing, my stedpad got a new one and we got the whole thing set up and got in the water. The wind gusted some 15 knots or so.
It became quickly clear to me that […]

Podio Books

August 27th 2005 at 12:55 pm

Boing Boing links to a piece about more and more authors podcasting their books or selections from their books.
major media outlets have started releasing some of their broadcasts via podcast; and even cult favorite Neil Gaiman has posted the first few chapters of the audio version of his Anansi Boys on his blog. Sigler’s podcasting […]

Cradle to Cradle Home

August 27th 2005 at 12:46 pm

A self sustaining home (link via Jeremy).

…a home that ends the process of taking and begins the process of giving.
Interesting concept. We’ve seen a lot of it in SF with bio domes and what not, but it’s always interesting to see current designs and attempts to realize an individual scale visualizations like this.