Motivational Posters

Make your own!

This is what the internet is all about. It occurs to me that this would be an excellent way to design the decor for my evil lair/rebel hideout. Can you imagine how much better the Empire's Stormtroopers would have performed if they'd had a giant poster on the wall of Luke's head with the words "Don't Miss" underneath it?

So much awesome . . .

Google!

Behold the awesome that is Google.

I discovered this excellent feature through Unixjunkie Blog. It was the only thing on there that I could even come close to understanding. But this -- this was worth the trip.

Thanks to Unixjunkie, I've now discovered that Google has all kinds of awesome functions, like Definitions.

Truly, Google is God.

DeepGenre

DeepGenre is a cool blog. Discusses speculative fiction, from a variety angles. Craft, analysis, different media, the publishing process.

A few particularly good articles:

What Does Story Do? -- Why we read fiction, particularly speculative fiction.

6 More Things I Could do Without in Fantastic Literature & I don’t plan to use except to make fun of and its companion article, 11 Things in Fantasy/SF That I Don't Promise Not to Use (or Keep Using) in My Writing -- The bit about stew in the second one are particularly good.

If you read science fiction, check it out. If you write science fiction, check it out. If you don't read science fiction, you're missing out.

Wikipedia Down

It says "Wikipedia has a problem." First time I've ever gotten an error message from the Wiki; something about not being able to contact the database server, because they're all busy. I took a picture, but I can't get the picture function on Blogger to work.

Edit November 28, 2006 at 7:56 PM:
Picture added. Wooh.

The Watchmaker

If you've ever heard of the watchmaker objection to Darwinian evolution (if there is a watch, there must be a watchmaker; by analogy, creatures must have designers) and Darwin's response (the blind watchmaker) then check this out.

The article points out that even a watch doesn't have to have a single maker. A number of people are involved in its construction, none of whom would be able to make a watch from scratch. Even its designer depends on a number of other people's knowledge of watchmaking, accumulated over the centuries.

Boredom! 3: Electric Boogalee

Yep. I've got papers to write, computer games to play, Thanksgiving dinner to help with, and instead I'm going through my bookmarks and dishing out asinine commentary. Aren't I awesome?

Without further ado: A rough semi-fortnight's worth of random sites.

Spore! Well, Spore news, anyway. Sort of a repository of everything currently known by the internet about the game. If you don't know what Spore is, leave now, and don't come back. Seriously, though, it looks like it's going to be an awesome game. You're going to be able to control an entire intergalactic empire -- and perform genetic experiments on your subjects! "Awesome" seems rather inadequate.

Speaking of evil overlords . . . This is an excellent page, both funny and insightful. Tons of information about evil, science, and evil science. Great for any world domination hobbyist.

Gadsby. A story of over 50,000 words without using the letter "E." 'Nuff said.

A fairly good general reference site on colored gemstones. I found this when I was researching gems for some sort of creative, world-building type project, either a novel or a campaign world. I like gemstones, and whenever I do fantasy they tend to creep in. Not that I write much fantasy.

The Commons

Dave Johnson's comments on Capitalism 3.0, A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons are pretty interesting.

I'm not so sure that having everything be "owned" by someone (or someones) is the right way to go, though. It's certainly better than the current system, where you pretend the atmosphere (or whatever) isn't owned by anyone but a handful of powerful people/corporations/countries get to act like they own it. But it doesn't address the deeper problem, which is the idea that it's okay to do whatever you want unless someone (with more power than you) tells you otherwise.

In the future . . .

Wireless recharging.

This is cool.

Pessimist

Prediction: The U.S will never do anything serious about global climate change. No significant carbon tax, no mass voluntary energy use reduction.

Even if sea levels rise and storms destroy Florida, we're not going to stop using oil and coal.