Archive for December, 2011
Internet in a Suitcase: A glimpse of how everyone routes around upcoming web censorship…
December 16th 2011 at 1:31 pm
In our story ‘A Militant Peace’ Dave Klecha and I talk about phones that all talk to each other to create an instant dark internet that are manufactured in bulk and then dropped over a nation that outside nations want to have access to the outer world. So here’s the Internet in a Suitcase that [...]
[Personal] The state of the heart
December 15th 2011 at 11:15 pm
Back in November 2008 I was hospitalized for a genetic heart defect I didn’t know I had (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy). Right after that I had a pulmonary embolism. The past three years have involved slow physical recovery from that one-two punch. So once every half year or so I visit a cardiologist and get a checkup. [...]
I’ll be a guest instructor at Shared Worlds 2012
December 15th 2011 at 5:10 pm
Jeff VanderMeer just dropped me a note to let me know the details are all out about Shared Worlds 2012. Shared Worlds 2012 is announcing their full lineup of instructors, including me! (and Julianna Baggott, Will Hindmarch, Karin Lowachee, Naomi Novik, Jeff VanderMeer, and Ann VanderMeer). As the Shared Worlds site says, it’s “A Program [...]
Robots: The Recent AI to reprint A Jar of Goodwill
December 15th 2011 at 3:22 pm
My novelette A Jar of Goodwill will be appearing in a print anthology called Robots: The Recent AI. “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear, Asimov’s “A Jar of Goodwill” by Tobias S. Buckell, Clarkesworld Magazine “Balancing Accounts” by James Cambias, F&SF “The Rising Waters” by Benjamin Crowell, Strange Horizons “The Shipmaker” by Aliette De Bodard, Interzone “I, [...]
New interesting private space venture: Stratolaunch
December 14th 2011 at 4:17 pm
Paul Allen teams up with Rutan/Space Composites again to create a rocket that launches from a giant plane platform to put payloads into orbit (with manned payloads a bit down the road, once it demonstrates reliability). The Space Composites plane launcher is like a giant version of the SpaceShipTwo’s carrier plane. It will launch SpaceX [...]
Boulder votes to go all clean energy
December 7th 2011 at 3:29 pm
Interesting Treehugger article about Boulder voting recently to go to all clean energy for the city: voters approved two ballot measures to allow the city to break away from their investor-owned utility, Xcel Energy, and look to instead create their own progressive municipal utility. and “Xcel is continuing to sink money into coal-fired power plants, [...]
SpaceX ISS docking test delayed
December 7th 2011 at 2:05 pm
For those of us who can’t wait to see if SpaceX can get a delivery to the ISS, the latest news is a bit frustrating. But due to delays from NASA and other ISS partners, the mission has been delayed. Bonus: extra Russian wrangling to delay SpaceX. Wonder why? Could be they’re making good coin [...]
Impostor Syndrome
December 6th 2011 at 2:51 pm
Today I woke up at noon due to staying up a bite late (3:30am) to finish my rewriting of chapter 10 of The Trove (current December project). First cool email was a note that my short story Fish Merchant was going to be translated into Dutch in SF Terra. That is the 16th language my [...]
Super earth found in habitable zone
December 6th 2011 at 2:38 pm
This is pretty epic for me, as a life-long science fiction reader and now writer. And I’ve mentioned it on twitter. But I want to repeat it: A planet has been found in another star system’s habitable zone. Talk about living in a science fictional world right now. Kepler 22B is 600 light years away. [...]
Inbox 0: how do I do it?
December 5th 2011 at 1:16 pm
I mentioned earlier today that I had gotten my email inbox down to 0, prompting some mock hostility from readers. For the past three months, I’ve actually had my inbox at 0 more often than not, and it’s been a source of un-stress to actually feel like this is no longer something that’s bearing down [...]
