Morning of Dystopia

Why Augmented Reality Will Work (Hint: It's Already Here)

2009-11-30T22:20:00.000-05:00

A decade ago, no one would have imagined we’d experience real-life events through tiny digital screens.
Yet time and again, we do – preferring these technological surrogates to our own eyeballs and instincts.
We trust our gadgets. And we seem increasingly nonchalant about the idea that technology is assuming a greater and greater role in our daily lives.

An AR Primer

What is augmented reality (AR), anyway?

In simplest terms, AR is an extension of the mobile Internet. AR is the phone in your pocket that you Twitter on. It’s the GPS unit mounted to a windshield that helped you find that fabulous sushi place on 4th and Main. It’s your iPod. Your Blackberry. AR is wireless. It’s untethered.

How are the Internet and AR related?

Very, very closely.

If the information superhighway was all about taking massive amounts of information in, augmented reality is about carrying that data back out and embedding it in our world.

We’re already in the early stages of this transformation. Hand held Devices are getting smarter. Whereas a Google search for a restaurant 2 years ago would have turned up the same results on both your desktop PC and your wireless device, the searches today are radically different. Wireless units traingulate positions and can tailor results based on the information. Your very essence – where you are at a specific time and place – is becoming a part of the algorithm. Your reality is becoming part of the search.

The merger between digital and physical is obviously in it’s very, very early stages, but it is here.

So is reality, as we know it, finished?

No. Well, OK … maybe. At least a little bit.

Here’s a quick explanation. The world today is forested with information. Think about the last time you walked into a Starbucks (or any place with WiFi access). You took out your pocket PC, hit a few buttons and immediately were immersed in a nearly-infinite sea of data. The meta information superhighway is there, at your fingertips, telling you everything from the score of the New Jersey Nets game (they’re losing, darn!) to the status of your FaceBook friend (he’s making rice for dinner, again)

And the natural conclusion from this is the information popping up on your screen is, in its own sense, a reality in and of itself. Your PC is a parallel world of zeroes and ones dutifully documenting countless things going on in our physical world.

But how will that reality blur with our physical reality?

Again, it’s already happening. William Wiles writes:

All these technologies have been around for a while, but only recently have they been combined in a single, portable device – the new generation of smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android.

Now that these phones are in an increasing number of pockets, the first AR applications are appearing. In April Google launched Latitude, a program for the Android that lets you broadcast your location to your friends, and lets you see their location – like Facebook on a map. Since then, two of the first AR “browsers” have appeared, both for the Android – Layar.eu and Wikitude, both of which layer information in real-time over the view through the phone’s camera. If you hold up a phone running Wikitude, for instance, you see the same street in front of you, but overlaid with appropriate links to Wikipedia and Qype, a restaurant and bar review website. Other applications have been announced or demonstrated, such as Twittaround, which shows a live view of what nearby users of the microblogging site Twitter are saying, and Nearest Tube, which will point out the nearest Underground station in London, both of which became available on the iPhone in September.

What will be the result of living in this data-rich environment?

The results will, in many ways, parallel what happened when the mobile phone came into vogue. Relationships and arrangements will get more fluid. Instances of “I’ll call you when I’m in the area,” will continue to rise. And whole fields of human interaction and cognition are likely to change.

But the bottom line is this – despite the cheesy images depicted in Hollywood, augmented reality will work. Because it already is working. We love our technological surrogates. And for better or worse, AR devices are becoming an increasingly vital appendage for day-to-day living.

I've moved ....

2009-11-30T22:18:00.001-05:00

The new address is over at my personal homepage.

I'll probably still update this blog with posts from the other. But I think the format on the new site is way, way better.

So check it out.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T18:20:00.002-05:00

I won't be around tomorrow. Enjoy the day!
And if you're outside the States ... happy Thursday!

Sounds like a promising start to a B-list sci-fi flick ...

2009-11-24T23:13:00.003-05:00

What the heck is down there, anyway?

Shades of midst.

2009-11-24T23:05:00.002-05:00

1.
Four distant men approach. Shrouded in gray. They carry distinctive items. One wears a beard down to his chest. They are running, cutting across a field long abandoned. You stand alone. But you see them. Excitedly you cry out, hoping to get their attention. Silence. The men pass on, through you - around you.
You are abandoned, the four gray men enveloped by a shroud of midst.

Being Love

2009-11-24T22:30:00.005-05:00

Being love is combing the hair of your dying mother.

Being love is taking a risk, regardless of consequence.

Being love is wiping chocolate from a child's cheek.

Being love is understanding how hard it is to care.

Being love is running away.

Being love is trusting everything will work out.

Being love is realizing it won't.

Being love is feeling pain.

Being love is embracing the world - together.

YOMOYA - I Know, Why Not?

2009-11-23T23:11:00.001-05:00

Now with 50 percent more synchronized traffic lights!

In case you're curious about good hiking spots in Connecticut

2009-11-23T19:08:00.003-05:00

We got you covered.
Big thanks to Peter Marteka from the Hartford Courant, Steve Broderick from Goodwin Forest and Eric Hammerling from the Connecticut Forest and Parks Association.

This song is quite depressing.

2009-11-22T23:53:00.006-05:00

And not just for the title reference to the guy who killed himself.
Cool animation trumps all, however, and this video left me surprisingly happy, which -- in case you care -- was far afield from my initial reaction to this song several years back.

These clouds do not carry blessing ...

2009-11-22T23:32:00.000-05:00

They come from the West.

Putting a good word in your pocket.

2009-11-19T23:42:00.005-05:00

I have this odd habit of secretly scrawling random words on paper and carrying them in my pocket.
One word only. Never a phrase. NEVER a quote. Just a word. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad. Sometimes nonsense, sometimes insightful.
It's a powerful exercise. One word is infinitely interpretable. Even the strangest ones can have odd connections to your daily life. The trick is not to let the one word govern the tempo of your day. But to see how the tempo of your day projects onto that word.
Occasionally the connection is obvious. Most of the time, it's not.
Today for example, the dictionary dealt me a curve ball - "perihelion," which is the closest point to the Sun in a planet's orbit.
How does that jive with my life at the moment? I have no idea.
But it's fun to think about. It's fun to interpret.

When you can't think of anything to write about ...

2009-11-19T23:31:00.005-05:00

Just link to a column from Stanley Fish.

GASP 10 p.m. and no updates!

2009-11-18T22:20:00.006-05:00

Hey, you got a freakin' video with mustaches AND the magic pipe.
And you want MORE? I got nothin' ...

Yay mustache. Go mustache!

2009-11-18T22:19:00.001-05:00

In light of me having nothing substantive to say ...

2009-11-17T19:56:00.003-05:00

I give you "All the Deaths in Total Recall," which is ... if you think about it, QUITE substantive.

There's a serious lack of 90s in your musical diet ...

2009-11-17T19:51:00.002-05:00

Rectified HEREIN.

Leonid Meteor Shower - Connecticut

2009-11-16T19:44:00.000-05:00

UPDATE 11.16.09 - Peak viewing hours will be during the wee hours of Tuesday morning (Nov. 17*) from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.

The Clear Sky Chart Homepage will be your best friend during this year's shower.

Check the Connecticut Star Party for specific information and here's a comprehensive list of viewing spots in Conn. (with light pollution data). Check Hartford here. If you're curious about how to read the chart, blue blocks indicate good conditions and white means it will be cloudy.

NASA's Fluxtimator gives good general estimates of anticipated shower rates, but doesn't have a preset Connecticut option. But it's called the 'Fluxtimator,' so I had to link it.

The Leonids generally begin on Nov. 13 and run until Nov. 21, with peak periods on Nov. 17 and Nov. 18. You won't need a telescope or binoculars, just look up.

Weather is supposed to be good, but you can check specific cloud forecasts here.

What do the light pollution levels mean? Check. It.

If you don't see any meteors right away, don't get frustrated. Relax. Get your head in a comfortable position and wait for those really big ones that leave the fading trails. Cool.

Finally, here's an Atomic Age song about Shooting Stars to get you in the mood. (Note if you get a 'forbidden' message, just highlight your address bar and hit enter so the page reloads.)

Enjoy the shower! It's supposed to be one of the best in recent memory.

*For some reason I was thinking the peak morning was Nov. 18. Whoops! It's not. It's the 17th. Although the shower lasts for several days, so you're still likely to see shooting stars Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

SUPERSTAR and his guitar

2009-11-15T21:44:00.009-05:00

The legendary Rajinikanth.
I MUST get that guitar. Only then will my plan, "Take Over the City via Coordinated Dance," come to fruition.

(h/t) EIT. And in case you're wondering, Rajinikanth's core audience is like, really, really dedicated.

Today's cringe-inducing moment courtesy Glenn Beck

2009-11-14T22:33:00.004-05:00

When asked by Katie Couric to explain what he meant by Obama's hatred of "white culture."

Luckily, the Internets are here to provide an answer. 129 answers, actually.

You DO know it's Christmas, right?!

2009-11-14T18:17:00.000-05:00

Do They Know It's Christmas? from Scott Aukerman on Vimeo.

An all-star comedy Christmas Carol
Directed & Edited by Scott Aukerman

Sung by the Comedy Death-Ray Xmas Nativity Choir (feat. Paul F. Tompkins, R.O. Manse, Tig Notaro, Rob Huebel, Patton Oswalt, Mike Phirman, Jimmy Pardo, Brian Posehn & Scott Aukerman, Garfunkel & Oates, Aimee Mann, Chris Hardwick, Paul Scheer & June Diane Raphael, Doug Benson, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Nick Thune, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Cracked Out, Dragon Boy Suede, Natasha Leggero, Thomas Lennon & Ed Helms)

Where the white sharks are ...

2009-11-12T18:56:00.005-05:00

Clique'd.

"Studies of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA sequences show that the populations are distinct, and suggest that the northeastern Pacific population may have been founded by a relatively small number of sharks in the late Pleistocene - within the last 200,000 years or so.

According to Molecular geneticist Carol Reeb, a research associate at Stanford, “Even though we know they travel great distances, their paths are surprisingly constrained to specific routes. This explains how a highly migratory marine species becomes a genetically isolated population.”

Lists ...

2009-11-11T21:47:00.007-05:00

I've been wondering why we love them.

Umberto Eco seems to think it's because none of us want to die.

Others use lists for humor.

One woman thinks lists illustrate untapped dimensions of our psyche.

I just happen to like organizing.

On "beating" life ...

2009-11-10T23:03:00.000-05:00

And allegedly replaying it on easy mode with full-powers:

Ce: An anonymous friend:

thetr****** (10:37:09 PM): so i met this kid with 72 guitars
thetr****** (10:37:17 PM): all strewn around his basement
thetr****** (10:37:55 PM): they're all vintage gibsons, fenders, and a bunch of taylor acoustics
thetr****** (10:38:22 PM): and he has 3 girlfriends and a wife.
thetr****** (10:38:39 PM): life just fell in his fat hands
thetr****** (10:39:00 PM): he's in a multitude of bands and has a stable day job as a programmer
thetr****** (10:39:26 PM): has It Made

Turns out the guy is actually a total slimeball* who loves manipulating people. He's a jerk. And an arrogant one to boot.

But, you know ... 72 guitars. There's something to that.

*See three girlfriends AND a wife.

On Jerry Oltion ..

2009-11-10T22:03:00.006-05:00

If you've been reading Analog recently, you've probably stumbled across an Oltion story.
Oltion (prn. OL-tee-un) has a prestigious publishing record, with more than 100 stories and 15 novels to his credit over the last 27 years.
I found his two most recent Analog submissions to be delightful. A quick briefing:

"Foreign Exchange" - On Earth, if a person leaves their car doors open with the keys in the ignition, it's a safe bet that vehicle won't be around in the morning. So let's take that idea and extend it. What about all these fully-fueled pods NASA plans to leave on the moon and Mars? Say you're just passing through the Milky Way and your ship breaks down. You're stranded and lost. No communication. Minimal food. Hope seems to be fading until, to your unexpected delight, you spot a spaceship parked on the horizon. Approaching you find it mysterious. You open the door and there's food and water. And and a blinking red "launch" light. Would you push it? And where would the journey really be your salvation?

"The Jolly Old Boyfriend" - Old Saint Nick appears in a "unique" way for this funny holiday tale. Short and sweet with lots of coal and pepper spray. Coal and pepper spray? How ISN'T that a winning combination? Check it out.

Again on meat. Again on guilt.

2009-11-10T21:52:00.002-05:00

Or ignorance. (Ce. Michael Pollan) -

Many of the species have evolved expressly to gratify our desires, in the intricate dance of domestication that has allowed us and them to prosper together as we never could have prospered apart. But our relationships with the wild species we eat -- from the mushroom, we pick in the forests to the yeasts that leaven our bread -- are no less compelling, and far more mysterious. Eating puts us in touch with all that we share with the other animals, and all that sets us apart. It defines us.

What is perhaps most troubling and most sad about industrial eating is how thoroughly it obscures all these relationships and connections. To go from chicken (Gallus Gallus) to the Chicken McNugget is to leave this world in a journey of forgetting that could hardly be more costly, not only in terms of the animal's pain but in our pleasure, too. But forgetting, not knowing in the first place, is what the industrial food chain is all about, the principal reason it is so opaque, for if we could see what lies on the far side of the increasingly high walls of our industrial agriculture, we would surely change the way we eat.

Eating Animals

2009-11-10T00:00:00.012-05:00

I can't remember the last time I was so rattled by one book.
I'm not going to go as far as to say Jonathan Safran Foer is the Upton Sinclair of 2009, but well ... maybe he is.
Eating Animals raises some serious questions with American agriculture. From the excruciating passages on livestock slaughter to the downright nasty descriptions of how animals are kept and fed, JSF does a good job of making you pretty damn depressed.
And you should be depressed. Factory Farms account for 99 percent of all our food. Animals raised on these farms consume somewhere in the range of 17 million tons of antibiotics per year. (By contrast humans consume around 3 million) One river waste spill at a typical factory farm in North Carolina eclipsed the amount of oil spilled during Exxon-Valdez. And there's virtually no infrastructure to handle the massive amounts of shit that these farms produce everyday.
Is ignoring the reality tantamount to accepting it? Does buying meat at the supermarket make me complicit in some sort of meta-social sin?
I don't know. And the question of eating animals can't be painted in starkly moral terms. There's a ton of social aspects to the issue. Am I really willing to redefine my identity and how others view me because I won't eat their food? Can my ego handle that? Am I comfortable rejecting offers of table kinship -- our most ancient ground for social exchange -- simply because I refuse to eat a factory-farmed egg?
I don't know.
But Eating Animals did help me make one choice. I'm giving up chicken. And I'm giving up eggs. Granted, I never really loved either. It's a small step, but since chickens are probably the most oppressed (and most chemically overtreated) animals out there, it's a good start.
Will I give up meat entirely? Only time can tell. But wrestling with the issue is, if nothing else, a beginning.
Right?

After Birth - Updated

2009-11-07T22:13:00.000-05:00

A few fun things as spelled out by Charles Fernyhough:

* Newborns may hear echoes everywhere. As humans get older, our brains get better at filtering out echoes. But that ability takes time to develop, which leads many scientists to believe babies hear echoes off of everything - even in places we wouldn't normally consider - bedrooms, cars, etc.

* Baby brains are a big cognitive stew. Adult brains are split up. Specific areas govern specific functions. Not so in Baby Huey. Show him a picture, for example, and sparks go off in the region of the brain normally reserved for smell. Yes, this could mean Huey "smells" light and "hears" color, but scholars aren't sure.

* Your baby's brain is at war with itself. As newborns develop, two parts of their brains battle for control -- the subcortical region (the lesser developed, primal area) and the cortical region (which is more highly evolved). "Fixations" develop develop between the two and express themselves as prolonged blank stares or periods of silence.

Then there's this whole thing about crying babies, where NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce tells us how the mother's native tongue may influence the distinctive sound of the newborn's first cries. Pretty amazing stuff.

Music: Bill Frisell

2009-11-05T21:58:00.004-05:00

What's been occupying too much of my freetime ...

2009-11-05T20:41:00.005-05:00

THE GREAT KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY - Okay, so it's not the Korean news agency. It's a guy in Austrailia. Whatever. The feed, as far as I can tell, is repeated ala the actual site.

@shhdontellsteve - We've all had that one bad roommate. The one we secretly stewed over. Why not vent the anger on the Internets?

Supermarket club cards

2009-11-02T21:07:00.003-05:00

I like to think of myself as an empathetic person. So when I signed up for a club card at ____ last week I did it more out of guilt than anything else.
The burden of repeatedly telling the same cashier that "I'm not a member, sorry!" was weighing heavily on me.
Was I offending her? Did she have quotas to meet? Could she get fired because I was too lazy to fill out some paperwork?
Maybe, I thought. So I filed the form, doled out $20 (surprise! there's a buy-in fee!) and received a shiny new piece of plastic in return.
Andrew Martin writes a lot about this experience in "How to Get Things Really Flat." He says whether or not you have a card doesn't matter. You're not really saving money. And if you're feeling guilty about hurting the clerk's feelings ... well, don't. Clerks don't care. You're just another annoyance in their day. Having a card isn't going to change that.
I didn't buy it.
My situation was different, I thought. I mean, I saw this clerk almost everyday. They had to recognize me. And they had to wonder why I never signed up.
So, new card in hand, I entered the store with a (admittedly odd) sense of anticipation today. Was this card going to change everything?
I rushed through my shopping, queued to the same line and eagerly waited to find out.
I may have been lightly perspiring. I was nervous. This was weird. But no time to worry, I was next in line and then ... boom! the big moment of truth.
"Are you a ____ member?" the clerk asked.
"Yes!" I proudly replied. (And I might have flourished the card with a dose of self-righteous bravado before slapping it down on the counter.)
The clerk's hand quickly stuck out. There was no eye contact.
A quick scan, a world-shattering beep! and a blind hand-off back.
The card changed nothing. And I actually felt a little indignant about this, which was really weird. I mean, of course the clerk could give two $#%^s about my membership. What the hell was I thinking? I've worked retail. If there's one rule, it's that every customer, member or not, is an idiot.
How prideful of me to think of myself as anything different!
So it was a humbling experience. But whatever. I saved 35 cents.
And that's only $19.65 to go until I walk my way into epic savings!

Moral of the story? If you're thinking of getting a club card out of guilt ... well, don't.

$445 million to go 25 miles up ...

2009-10-28T21:41:00.001-04:00

Quite a price tag, considering two students from MIT did nearly that for about $150.
I'm being facetious, of course. Yes, the launch of Ares I-X was exciting (I quietly turned up the newsroom TV and watched while no one else paid attention). And yes, I'm sure the scientists at NASA will have a ton of data to pour through.
But $445 million? For one flight? On a project whose budget is arguably in even greater jeopardy than it was under former President Bush?
I don't get it. NASA seems content to aimlessly waft along with the Constellation project. There's the vague goal of returning to the moon around 2020, nearly 50 years after Apollo 17. And maybe, just maybe ... I'll see an American on Mars before I turn 60.
But I'm not holding my breadth. It's becoming clearer and clearer NASA can't function in a world without the cold war as a backdrop. As Americans combat terrorism, launching a rocket to the moon doesn't really matter anymore. It's not a symbol of our national unity and strength, it's a symbol of our decadence. And, in my opinion, it's a symbol of our scientific stagnation.
In the coming years where going to see the private sector play a larger and larger role in the American space race. That's a good thing. That's something that lets me look up at the stars and hope. And in a world without the iron curtain, it could be the only thing keeping NASA on their toes.

Today's moment of intense realization courtesy Iris Murdoch

2009-10-27T19:14:00.004-04:00

Perceptions.
It's not surprising that the act of creating something novel so often ends in failure.
It all comes back to the idea of perception. We are a concept driven race. Images exist in our head of what makes good art, but those images are informed by prior experience.
Simply speaking, we visualize before we see. And if the sensual experience of seeing an object falls in breech of our preconceived notion of what should make an object, we're likely to throw it out.

Fortunately, the greatest among us aren't subject to such bounds. The geniuses of art and music are iconoclasts who aggressively question their perceptions. And by questioning what the world tells them something should be, they're able to tap into something greater -- what the world could be. And maybe that's the true root of artistic genius. The ability to question.

Iris Murdoch puts it best when she writes that good art

often seems to us mysterious because it resists the easy patterns of the fantasy, whereas there is nothing mysterious about the forms of bad art since they are recognizable and familiar rat-runs of selfish day-dream. Good art shows us how difficult it is to be objective by showing us how differently the world looks to an objective vision.

Today's moment of INTENSE realization spurred on by Matthew Crawford's wonderful Shop Class as Soulcraft. Check it out. Really. Do it now.

A general word about a bad habit of mine ...

2009-10-26T22:03:00.000-04:00

I've tried to wear hoods and hats to stop it. When I'm watching TV, I'll regularly sit on my hand so as to not do it. Yet for all my efforts, I can't fight the compulsion ...
I can't stop pulling out my own hair.
That's the hair on my head, mind you. It's an unconscious nervous tick I have, not an inclination toward Brazilian wax.
It was a habit I picked up in middle school. I grew my hair long, got nervous, and over the course of several weeks, progressively yanked fistfuls of it out.

My parents were upset. They recommended a buzz cut to fix the situation. No hair, no pull, right?
Well ... yeah. A novel thought. Unfortunately, that didn't solve the problem of the newly-christened bald spot on my noggin. Let's just say it was a tough couple of days for me at the middle school.

You'd think the "bald-spot incident" (BSI) of 1998 (never forget) would have taught me a lesson: Stop yanking out your hair or face social isolation.
But, no. I've been pulling it on and off since then. And the social isolation ... well, there's like 5 million other reasons for that ...

Apparently, there's a really fancy-pants named for the "disorder" -- "Trichotillomaina."
And while I can't object to the first part of that word, since my Greek is ... well, terrible ... I do take issue with the "mania" part.
I mean just because I have a ~~impulse control disorder~~ bad habit, doesn't mean I'm "nuts," right?

I equate mania with white walls and pills in little Dixie cups, not the perpetual cowlick and occasional bald spot that have been the only lasting effects of this habit. And I like my cowlick, thank you very much ...

Anyway, that's a general word about a neurotic habit I've been unsuccessfully trying to combat for years.

What about you Internets? Any bad habits you've been fighting off? Why not share them below.

In the meantime, I'll just sit here yanking out more hair ... settling into, you know, a deeper and deeper state of mania.

Maybe ducks do stand-up comedy too ...

2009-10-23T19:58:00.000-04:00

I stumbled upon a flock of ducks today. Rather oddly arranged ...
One duck was front and center, aligned evenly between what appeared to be an enraptured audience of about 12-15 mallards.
They'd formed a striking half crescent around the head duck. It was quite pretty.
So I stopped, to, you know, observe this.
Anyway, the boss duck was quacking, in what I now assume to be the set up for some kind of duck joke, which I (not being able to decode the varying cadences and pitches of quacks) could not understand.
But the duck is really selling this thing. It's like 15 seconds of solo quacking. And no other mallards are making a peep. They're all really focused.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it seemed like Mr. Speaker Duck was building his volume as he spoke. Some sort of fiery quacking-crescendo. Building, building, building ...
Until he stopped cold.
And there was silence.
The audience looked on for a fraction of a second and I noticed what could only have been a shared flicker of recognition settle upon the duckies.
And then ... incredible quacking! All of them at once!
Duck applause? Duck laughter?
Well, sure ... why not, right?
Of course, maybe I'm misinterpreting things. For all I know, this could have been a mallard hate rally aimed at taking the reservoir back from the encroaching Canadian geese.
Whatever. I still think it was a stand-up routine.
I just hope they weren't making fun of me ...

But, weird, whatever it was, yeah Internets?

Will women rule men of the future?

2009-10-22T20:46:00.004-04:00

Well, yeah.
It's already happening. And, like, some 1950s writer totally predicted this, man. Just check the comic ...

What I've been thinking about all day ... YES, it concerns you.

2009-10-22T20:43:00.003-04:00

It also concerns bugs. Namely - if you were given the opportunity to capture any bug and enlarge it so you could ride it around town, which would you choose?
I should note the insect would be tamed, completely under your control and willing to do your bidding (for good or evil).
I still haven't decided, but I'm leaning toward one of two options:
1. Hercules Beetle (Can support 850 times its weight, wow!)
2. Grasshopper (Jumping is the new flying! And when you leap a football field in a single bound ... well, that's just like really intense, man.)

What would you pick, Internets?

This is old but ...

2009-10-13T20:16:00.002-04:00

It's cool editing and the song is pretty. No more reasons are needed.

600 words a day ... or something

2009-10-13T19:56:00.003-04:00

Presenting a partly edited rendition of yesterday's copy, which (not surprisingly) sucks just as bad. Also a few musings on what it's like to go running in shorts with no drawstring, because, you know, why not?

Let's address the shorts question first.
I should level and say that I don't particularly even enjoy running. I do it to stay in shape. And during the fall, especially on days like today, when the air is crisp and there's a slight rain ... it's actually kind of fun.
Let's also level about one other thing -- I'm not the type of dude who goes all out and buys all sorts of running gear. Never have been. I wish I was one of those guys, but I don't have the money to put together a decent wardrobe for when I'm not exercising, so, you know, priorities.

I've been running in the same pair of shorts for about eight years now. I have many others that I wear, but I'll come back to Corporal Blackbottom (yup, named them a while ago. Shut up.) about once a week.
Back in high school I ~~stole~~ borrowed the shorts from the lost and found and never put them back.
Hey, the kid who had them obviously didn't care enough about them. And I've worn these damn things for 8 years now. I'm sure the shorts are happy.

Anyway, Corporal Blackbottom really isn't much for running. The shorts are more like pantaloons and whenever I'm running down a hill the sides will balloon out and nearly fall off.

They never really fit right. But I always had the drawstring. Until I lost it about 2 weeks ago. So now running with Corporal Blackbottom is more a test of how well I can hold the damn things up. And it's a challenge. I was running by a minivan today and the pair nearly fell off. The mother shot me a dirty look. But she just doesn't get it. I'm not ready to retire Corporal Blackbottom just yet.

I have a plan. I'll stop running. Fill out a bit. And then we'll be back in business.

-1-

“How do you feel about turning into a crow for a few hours?” asked Deputy Minster Anderson.
President Gorman paused and sat back in his chair. “There’s something about this my rivals are just going to love.”
“I know,” Anderson replied. “But look. We need this. Besides, it’s a short time. We’ll run cover on it.”
“And how exactly are you going to do that?” Gorman asked. “Remember Prime Minster Bilken? The Shawnee turned him into a whale two years ago. ‘Bilken Goes Beluga’ was in the headlines for weeks. And the cartoons …”
“Were unflattering.” Anderson said. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Look, if you don’t turn into a crow, someone else will,” Anderson adjusted his tie and sat forward. “This is an arms race Mr. President, pure and simple. If we want to deal with the Shawnee those are the terms. And believe me, we want to deal with the Shawnee.”

-2-

Alexander Blu didn’t want to go camping with his son.
For starters, Jason asked too many questions. A camping expedition with him was like fielding press queries at a congressional hearing. And it was only slightly less scary.
Because when it came to camping, Alex didn’t know anything.
“The fire won’t start,” Jason said.
“There’s no kindling,” Alex said.
“What’s kindling?”
“What you need to start the fire.”
“Where do I get it?”
“The woods.”
“Why didn’t we just bring it with us?”
“Because then it wouldn’t be …
“Dad, what’s that light?”
“Huh?”
“Over there, didn’t you see that?”
“Son I have no idea what you’re talking …”
Then Alex heard the boom.

-3-

The pair waited until morning to explore the wreckage.
Only there was no wreckage to explore, just four carriages and about half a dozen men and women dressed in carnival gear.
Three women set awnings over open carriages while two men fussed over a copper cylinder situated in the middle of the circular wagon train. The carriages looked altogether unremarkable, except for the strange series of glyphs pasted above what appeared to be several white sheep lounging in a pen.
“Heck of a place for the carnies to shack up,” Alex said. “Figures them making all that noise. They were probably shooting off fireworks all …
“What’s a carny?” Jason interrupted.
Alex sighed. “Never mind. Just follow me.”
The pair started toward the wagons. The carnies took no notice of them. The women continued to hang the awnings. As the women worked the men coalesced around the copper tube. One man knelt near the device, extending his hand while an other held up a gray stone. A bolt of blue streaked from the kneeling man’s head, sounding a loud crack as it contacted the device. The tube vanished.
“Dad … how?” Jason said.
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly one of the men looked up.
Alexander Blu just made first contact with the Shawnee.

-4-
Luckily, he was wearing his wool hat.

The Shawnee who looked remarkably human and spoke English in an accent Alex would later classify as slightly “Wisconsin” briefly glanced around the wagon train. “We could turn you into … that.”
“A deer?” Alexander asked.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“It’s … uh … complicated.” “But we’ll change you back. You just have to give us that.”
Alexander followed the Shawnee’s finger. It was pointing right above his head.
The horrifying revelation settled in. “You want to steal my brain?!?”
“Uh … no. That.”
Alexander grabbed his wool hat. “You want my hat?”
The alien nodded vigorously.

-5-
Alexander Blu would later describe the “deer experience” in his book Sharing with the Shawnee thusly:
It was an altogether incorporeal journey – the center of which I have no recollection. My human consciousness ebbed away as the reality of the deer’s mind pranced forward. My arms lengthened into legs as my feet kicked back, slamming my face into the ground before reoritneing my self in my new quadrapedal manner …”
Alexander wasn’t the world’s greatest writer. But he was the first human to experience a Shawnee transformation and that made him and expert.

-6-

GET HIGH NOW

2009-10-13T19:10:00.004-04:00

Don't worry ... it's totally drug free.
My favorite is the section on lucid dreaming, which used to be an obsession of mine.
But that's only in the book. If you're looking for a quick audio or visual fix, this Web site has all the answers.
From Shepherd Tones to Hermann's Sparkling Grid, you'll find it all.

600 words a day ...

2009-10-12T21:48:00.004-04:00

I'm starting this crappy experiment again.
Why?
Well, mainly because it feels like I'm trying to cut through a steak with a crayon every time I sit down to write.
The wheels just aren't turning. And the prose? Yeah ... totally lame.
This being the Internet, however, I feel inclined to share my lameness with the ~~whole world~~ five readers here.
Enjoy. Remember: be abusive in the comments.

Note ... all this is unedited, stream of consciousness drivel. But the mental head trips are fun, kids. Write! Don't do drugs.

-1-

“How do you feel about turning into a clownfish for a few hours?” asked Deputy Minster Anderson.

President Gorman paused and sat back in his chair. “There’s something about this my rivals are just going to love.”

“It would only be for a few hours,” Anderson replied. “We could probably run cover on it. Besides, there are thousands of scientists out there who’d kill for the chance.”

“Too bad I’m not one of them.” Gorman said. “And how exactly are you going to run cover on it? Remember Prime Minster Brown? The tabloids are still all over the 'minister goes monkey' debacle. How do you live down eating your own feces, Anderson? Explain that to me.”

“Look, I get it. You're concerned. But we'll cover this. And if you want to deal with the Shawnee those are the terms.” Anderson said. “And believe me, we want to deal with the Shawnee.”

-2-

Alexander Blu didn’t want to go camping with his son.

It wasn’t that he was a bad Dad, he was just busy. And Jason asked a lot of questions.

“You’re a journalist Alex,” Mariana would say. “He asks questions because he’s trying to imitate you.”

After four days Alex was just about questioned out. And as the pair doused the fire and settled in for their last night camping Alex nearly ignored his son’s query.”

“What’s that light?”

Then Alex heard the boom.

-3-

Alex and Jason waited until dawn to leave their campsite to investigate the disturbance of the preceding night.

Three miles later they were at the crash site. It looked as if nothing had been disturbed. And for an instant, Alex wondered if maybe Jason had somehow tricked him into investigating the crash as a way to lengthen their trip.

Then he spotted the carriages. There were four of them, all wooden and adorned with cheesy advertisements similar to the magazine ads Alex’s dad used to collect back in the 1950s. Three women were setting awnings over the open carriages as two men focused on a copper cylinder in the middle of the wagon train.

“Heck of a place for the carnies to shack up,” Alex said.

“What’s a carny?” Jason asked.

Alex sighed. “Nevermind. Just follow me.”

The pair walked toward the wagons. The women hanging the awnings didn’t seem to notice them. The two men with the copper tube knelt near the device, one extending his hand as the other held up a gray stone. A bolt of blue suddenly streaked out of the man’s hand, connecting with the tube. It vanished. The air filling with a crack into the previously occupied space.

“Dad … how?” Jason said.

-4-

Alexander Blu was lucky to wearing his wool hat.

The Shawnee briefly glanced around the wagon train. “We could turn you into … that.”

“A deer?” Alexander asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“It’s … uh … complicated.” “But we’ll change you back. You just have to give us that.”

Alexander followed the Shawnee’s finger. It was pointing right above his head.

The horrifying revelation settled in. “You want to steal my brain?!?”

“Uh … no. That.”

Alexander grabbed his wool hat. “You want my hat?”

The alien nodded vigorously.

-5-

Alexander Blu would later describe the “deer experience” in his book Sharing with the Shawnee thusly:

It was an altogether incorporeal journey – the center of which I have no recollection. My human consciousness ebbed away as the reality of the deer’s mind pranced forward. My arms lengthened into legs as my feet kicked back, slamming my face into the ground before reoritneing my self in my new quadrapedal manner …”

Alexander wasn’t the world’s greatest writer. But he was the first human to experience a Shawnee transformation and that made him and expert.

Uh ... that's about 600 words, right????

Books: Tuesday Toofer

2009-10-06T20:45:00.005-04:00

In light of me having anything interesting to say, here's two short fiction previews:

"In the Autumn of the Empire," Jerry Oltion. Analog: Science Fiction and Fact (Oct. 2009) - We all know that world leaders can be pretty stupid. But what if they had absolute power to correct all of their blunders? Oltion spells out a fun story chronicling an emperor who can't wrap his head around that axial tilt thing, and goes to extreme means to cover up his ignorance.

"The Hanged Man," William Gleason. Analog: Science Fiction and Fact (Oct. 2009) - Moral of the story: don't leave a friend behind on a planet with sketchy natives and a propensity for revenge. They might convince your pal to, you know, hunt you down and kill you. Or something. Worth checking out, but I'm still not 100 percent sure what Gleanson was going for with this one ...

Music: A dose of Sunday weirdness ...

2009-10-04T13:24:00.003-04:00

Courtesy of my favorite guitar player.
Come for the choppy killswitch intro, stay for the pretty Eddie Hazel-like solo.

Because we've all been creeped out by at least one of these ...

2009-10-02T21:48:00.002-04:00

Some life lessons i09 would like to share courtesy The Twilight Zone.

The Do It Yourself Universe

2009-10-01T22:24:00.011-04:00

I've been reading a lot about multiple universe theories lately.
Mainly out of a sense of wonder at what it would be like to meet my doppelganger, but also out of a fascination with the oddity of it all.
I tried to explain it before, but basically the theory says this: our universe isn't everything. In fact, it is next to a fraction of nothing. There's a whole bubble bath of universes out there in the cosmic stew -- each one unique and separate. We're a lonely bubble in an infinite tub.

So that begs the question -- if there are so many universes out there, something must be creating them. And if something is creating them, there must be a formula. And if there's a formula, well, I should be able to just slap one together in my kitchen ... right?

Surprisingly, yes. But only if you have the right ingredients.

The first thing we'll need is a universe seed. We'll make it really tiny. Physicists speculate our universe was roughly 10 to the -26 centimeters across prior to the Big Bang, so shoot for something around that. And you'll have to cram a lot of stuff in there - about 10 lbs. of material. Come on, work those pecs! Pack it in! Good job!

Next, we'll need a healthy dose of gravity.

But not the gravity we are familiar with. We'll want to utilize gravity's mean cousin - repulsive gravity. Or to demonize him a little further, let's call him DARK ENERGY. He likes to push everything apart. There's a lot of math involved, but suffice it to say that dark energy is what physicists believe to be the engine driving the expansion of our universe.

So we've impregnated our universe seedling with some dark energy. Hurrah! This little universe is really coming along! It's got all the stuff and energy it's ever going to need. Exciting! But why is our seedling is still sitting on the table inert?

Let's check our universe cookbook again ... we must be missing something.

A-ha! A trigger! Something to make our universe grow!

Here's where it gets really tricky. And, to be honest, I still understand only like 40 percent of this. We're going to have to compress our seedling a little more. Good. Now a little more. Wash rinse and repeat until it's so compressed it drops into its own black hole. And that's our tipping point. The black hole is our trigger.

And when the seed transforms into a black hole, it drops out of our reality and BOOM! a universe springs out on the other side.

Your universe. All made within the confines of your kitchen.

But isn't that like, totally dangerous?

Apparently, not. According to the math, (which again flies over my head) the universe would blow out the opposite side of the black hole, creating its own reality in space that never existed before. It would be like blowing another bubble into that cosmic bathtub we talked about. And all we'd have to do to observe it would be jump into the bubble.

There's just one catch. Once you've plunged into the new bubble (by traveling through the black hole conduit), there's no going back. To check out how surprisingly awesome your universe is -- you'll have to forsake your universe and every single bit of reality you've come to know.

But what a curious prospect! What would it be like in the other universe? Would there be carbon? Would stars develop? Would they do strong and weak forces? Would life evolve?

I'd be game to check it out. Sure, there would no longer be a monkey to run this blog, but that'd be letting down, what ... like 10 people?

They'll deal. See you in my new universe! (It's located behind the kitchen sink).

Science: After Birth ...

2009-10-01T19:31:00.007-04:00

You'll have to pardon the pun, but this Aug. 24 Radio Lab podcast is worth checking out.

I don't want to spoil too much, but a few fun things as spelled out by Charles Fernyhough:

Newborns may hear echoes everywhere - While the human auditory system is adept at filtering out echoes, it takes some time for that ability to develop. So babies very well may hear echoes from all around the room when you speak to them. In fact, everything around them may echo. The world is their silo. And the reverb's at 10.
Baby brains are extremely amalgamated - Scientists have used harmless brain caps to document this phenomenon, which basically says it takes a long time time for a baby's brain to appropriate cognitive functions. Show a baby a picture, for example, and sparks go off in the region of the brain normally reserved for smell. Does that mean babies might smell light? And hear color? Scientists aren't sure. But it does mean they are processing the world in a radically different way than adults.
Your baby isn't staring at you in rapturous devotion - You know those moments when your child stares at you and simply can't look away? A parent might be tempted to think their child is embracing their creators, but in reality, Junior is just really confused. Scientists call this "sticky fixation" and it's nothing more than a brain glitch. As newborns develop, two parts of their brains are battling for control -- the subcortical region (which is the lesser developed, primal area) and the cortical region (which is more highly evolved). Fixations develop when the baby's brain is locked between the two. The baby can't look away because his brain is pulling in two different directions. Depressing for parents, but I'm sure the little tyke loves you anyway.

Music: Just for the record ...

2009-09-30T18:24:00.005-04:00

I liked these guys before it was cool.
/indiestreetcred.

Music: Didn't see this one coming ...

2009-09-29T21:25:00.002-04:00

But I'm pretty darned psyched about it.

TV: Some quick thoughts on the new season

2009-09-29T20:43:00.014-04:00

Here's the thing about TV right now - Lost hasn't started and Battlestar Galactica is a distant memory.
And that is really harshing my television buzz, man.

Otherwise, am I liking the new season? Well ... yeah, I guess.
I'm vaguely intrigued by FlashForward, but I can't get past how they are repackaging Lost's mosaic storytelling into an urban environment with more guns (and star tattoos).
Still, the premise seems pretty tight. I'll stay tuned. And I'm hopeful that this time around, the writers have a solid endgame. Please write to that. Nobody wants a million "Hatch Tangents" like Darlton & Co. did in Lost season two.
Dollhouse's season two pilot was fun (and satisfied by fanboism by featuring two former BSG cast members - Jamie Bamber & Tahmoh Penikett). How was the story? Well, it dragged a bit and and hinged way too much on Bamber's obscenely sluggish trigger finger, but the ending set up what I hope is going to be a great second season. Too bad it looked like the ratings were some of the worst ever.
Fringe is also back. And yes, John Noble remains the only reason to watch.
The Office also returned recently and remains one of my favorite shows on television. Dwight continued his streak of manly superiority in the premiere (parkour!) and after much deliberation I've decided I'm starting to warm up to the whole Pam/Jim thing.
Hey, it only took me 3 seasons ...

Other shows to check out: ABC's Modern Family (It's got Ed O'Neill, which is reason enough). And maybe Community on NBC, although I'm still kind of neutral on that one.

Music: Cause = Time

2009-09-29T20:40:00.001-04:00

Not entirely sure why this video has always intrigued me.
Probably something to do with the fact that I can only perform live music well while wearing a mask.

Horses: That's Your Big Boy ...

2009-09-29T17:55:00.004-04:00

Canadian Clydesdale Poe stands 10 feet tall with his head upright.
Yikes.
Two things -
1. Can anyone ride something so large? If so ... kudos. You've officially earned the title of beastmaster. And I'm intimidated by you.
2. Someone slap a 5'1'' jockey on that thing ASAP. Because, you know, the contrast would be golden.

Music: How can you NOT be excited these guys are on tour?

2009-09-28T21:48:00.004-04:00

Books: Monday Musings

2009-09-28T21:22:00.008-04:00

I know, "Monday Musings" doesn't have the same cowboy vibe as "Friday Roundup."
But go with me here ... I'm performing a public service, after all.

"To Climb A Flat Mountain," G. David Nordley - Analog, November 2009 - Starts off as your typical crash survivor on a mysterious world story, before changing into your typical crash survivor on a really mysterious world story.
It's a decent (if overplayed) premise, but Nordley does a commendable job at building a freaky world that's pretty darn engaging. And the mystery for the first few chapters is really well parsed out. It's a page turner.
Then Nordley introduces our hero to a bunch of other survivors and it gets ... well ... I'll let you be the judge.
Give the story a try. It's the first section of a two part serial, the conclusion to be released in December.

"Joan," John G. Henry - Analog, November 2009 - Ever looked up to someone in history? Wondered what it would be like to meet with them? Would you make a new BFF or just another frenemy?
Being a history nerd, I think a lot about this stuff.
In "Joan" we get to live out that fantasy, traveling back in time as Kate, a young woman obsessed with the legend of Joan of Arc.
The story goes something like this: girl meets girl. Girl saves girl from death at the stake by tossing a few flashbangs. Girl takes girl on ride through countryside whilst killing the British.
You know, it's your basic medieval romance.
Bottom line: It's a bit long, but the ending (kinda) makes it all worth it. The conclusion of "Joan" was one of those "well I feel pretty good for having read all of this" kind of moments.
And that's never a bad thing. Check it out.

A mea culpa ...

2009-09-28T21:14:00.004-04:00

I was doing really well for a couple months.
Consistent posts, decent content and even a fair amount of unique hits.
But I like destroying everything good in my life, so (in typical fashion) I managed to pitch it all down the river with nary a goodbye by taking the last several weeks off.
Sorry about that.
And thanks if you've actually been visiting here daily in the hopes that I'd actually post something.
I ... you know ... appreciate it.
Anyway, I'm pretty much back on a normal schedule now. Don't expect great things, but I should at least get the short fiction reviews coming more or less consistently.
And as always ... I'm open for story submissions and review suggestions.

Your Daily Dose of Aw Shucks ...

2009-09-28T21:01:00.008-04:00

Courtesy of Finn the wonderdog.
In case you're wondering a bit about the context behind the cute ...

Finn is a bit of an obsessive puppy. He enjoys digging and like any young pup, destroying.

So I took this shot right after Finn totally obliterated some moss clung to one lucky tree.

That one clump on his paw?

The sole survivor of the great moss holocaust of Sept. 26. Never forget.

I need to practice guitar.

2009-09-17T22:45:00.002-04:00

It's been over 4 days. This is not healthy.
My hands actually feel weak, man. Eeeeek!

An aside about 'Stichpunk' ...

2009-09-14T21:01:00.009-04:00

So we did the whole Steampunk thing on WNPR today.
It went really well. But several of our listeners raised an interesting point - just what the heck is it with all this "-punk" stuff lately?
Steampunk, well, I mean that's okay. They've been around since the 1980s, after all. As far as these memes go, that's like ancient, man.
And Steampunk's pretty well established in both literature and art. So that's cool. Cyberpunk? Same deal, I'll let it slide. They actually predated the whole Steampunk thing and kind of inspired the name. Good job, cyberpunk dudes.
But Stitchpunk? Really?
And I didn't even know Dieselpunk existed, but apparently it totally does.
I guess my big question is this -- Should we be taking all this stuff seriously? Will anyone actually point to 2009 as the year "Stitchpunk" came into vogue? Or is this stuff all going to be forgotten in a few months?
9 is sorta under performing, after all ...
Sound off in the comments.

I feel like I should say something more substantive ...

2009-09-13T23:34:00.006-04:00

But this is it: Gmail just keeps getting better and better.
I've now centralized all my e-mail (for three accounts), my AIM contacts and all of my text messages into one window.
This is multitasking in overdrive, man. And I'm loving every second of it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a text (and an AIM) to answer.
I'd say I wish it included Twitter, but well ...
1. I'm caring less and less about Twitter.
2. Having that on there ... dude, that would just be too much.

Radio: Steampunk!

2009-09-13T22:38:00.001-04:00

I'm still surprised at how quickly my boss jumped at this idea.
We'll be covering everything Steampunk tomorrow, so be sure to tune in.

Radio: Living off the Grid & ZOMBIES!

2009-09-09T22:05:00.005-04:00

Mark Perry and Doug Fine joined us on the show today.
We had some good discussions about what it takes to unplug electronics and live off the grid. Sure, it's a scary prospect, but not as complicated as you might think.
Heck, you can even have Internet!
At any rate, Mark's a really well spoken guy (who happens to be a genius with all things electric) and he had some great stories to tell about his homemade geodesic dome and his on-again, off-again 80 foot windmill. Long story short - it falls over. A lot.
Doug's a regular NPR contributor and is probably most famous for living out on the Funky Butte Ranch in New Mexico. He's a farmer and raises goats, chickens, ducks and mellow fisher cats, among other things. Okay I lied about the fisher cats, but if one environmentalist could raise them, I'd probably be him. He's that awesome.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow. We're christening it zombie day! Hooray!

We'll (hopefully) have two experts on Haitian Vodou joining us by phone.
And yeah, we'll be talking undead, but it's not all fun and games! This is going to be serious. Let's get to the truth about zombies. Does the puffer fish poison really work? Or is all that Wade Davis mumbo jumbo a whole lotta hoodoo? We'll find out!

SPACE: The Multiverse

2009-09-04T23:46:00.008-04:00

Okay so let me try to explain this in a sentence.
Basically, there's an infinite number of yous and they're all reading this right now.
A shame, isn't it?
But take heart, there's also an infinite number of yous reading a blog that's doesn't suck, so all is not lost.
Anyway, that's pretty much string theory and the mutliverse in a nutshell.
It all boils down to this -- on a canvas with infinite space and a finite number of atoms, there's bound to be some repetition. In fact, there's bound to be a whole lotta of repetition.
And this repetition has spawned an army of doppelganger yous -- an infinite legion armed with every single one of your memories, experiences, thoughts and dreams. Then, of course, there's the infinite number of variations on you. (So take heart lovesick friends, in one universe you actually do get that dream girl or guy. Just not here, sorry.)
I'd encourage you all to go check out the radio lab podcast. Brain Greene, as always, is very lucid and clear in his explanation of this far out concept. It's a broadcast I've listened to at least a dozen times since downloading it over a year ago. And it's one I keep coming back to and learning from.
Next on the list of heady scientific topics to tackle: dark matter. It's basically the "air" pushing the balloon of the universe apart. Beyond that, I have no clue.

Muppets: Simon Soundman

2009-09-04T23:11:00.002-04:00

I'm jealous of Simon Soundman's tourettes.

Radio: Big Discussion on Handwriting Today

2009-09-03T18:05:00.009-04:00

And I'm still not entirely sure what to think.
I mean yeah, having good penmanship is important, but I don't think the fact that we type more and more and write less and less will herald the four horsemen from the fiery depths of hell.
Or maybe it will, I dunno. It's a shame we don't have the nuns with rulers anymore. They could probably fight them off.
Anyway, let's face reality. Handwriting's not going anywhere any time soon. Kitty Burns Florey made some excellent points about that and Leigh Zeitz, who happens to run a blog all about this kind of stuff, summed up my feelings when he said it really all comes down to personal preference.
You like ink bleeding onto a crumbled piece of paper? Cool. Prefer the manic flow of ideas clipping along at 70wpm? Well, that's cool too, bud.
Personally, I'll stick with my computer.
Oh, and by the way, doesn't anyone call it "typing," anymore? What's with all this "keyboarding" business?

Radio: A New Adventure

2009-09-02T20:08:00.007-04:00

I like to keep this blog anonymous.
I don't link it on my Facebook page, and my Twitter account is devoid of any connection with other user names I may brandish around on these here Internets. Heck, my real name isn't even P.T. Hill, but I'm assuming you've figured that out by now. It does change monthly, after all.
Anyway, there is an explanation for why I haven't been online much in the past couple of weeks -- I've started a new radio show.
So yes, I'm linking to it. And, yes, you probably can figure out a few things about who or what exactly I am. Heck, you can even show up to my house and scream at me for stealing that Lost photo several months back. You know, the one that scored my site virtually all of its hits.
But I'm hoping you won't. I'm hoping you'll tune into the show. I think you'll enjoy it. It's certainly different than anything else I've ever heard on NPR. And I'm pretty confident that's a good thing.
Oh, and it also helps that I'm working with some of the most brilliant people in Connecticut's media.
The last couple weeks have been a blast. I'm learning a ton and I'm really enjoying the ride. Do I feel a bit like a kid tossed in the adult end of the swimming pool?
Well, yeah, you could say that.
But you know what? I couldn't be happier.

Ah, so that's how you dial ...

2009-08-26T22:04:00.001-04:00

... the number to heaven.

Of course they're Irish ...

2009-08-11T21:17:00.005-04:00

Thanks for the stereotypes 1930s!

Ever Wondered How Differential Gear Works?

2009-08-10T22:48:00.003-04:00

Yeah, me neither.
But if you want to find out ... this might be one of the best tutorials out there. Thanks 1930s!

Writing Non-Fiction and Fiction - Some Thoughts

2009-08-10T17:57:00.012-04:00

I'm not a professional fiction writer. Let me say that up front.
The non-fiction stuff I can handle -- newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, whatever -- but plot lines, deep characters and complex dialogue? A totally foreign concept.
Luckily, I think non-fiction writers have it a lot easier than our fiction-writing counterparts. Here's two quick reasons why:

1. Non-fiction writers aren't emotionally invested in their work. It's a lot easier to tell yourself "no one's going to read this" when you're writing up a $50 spot on hospital respirators for a medical newsletter than it is when you're composing a 6,500 word short story on space travel for Asimov's.
Sure, people are going to read both, but the writer's soul isn't really invested in the non-fiction piece. He will (or should) absolutely do his best job to make the hospital respirators the most goddamn interesting thing on the planet, but if the editor wants to make some tweaks, you work with her to fix it. It's no skin off your back. And if the piece is rejected, you move onto another one because ...

2. There's a ton of low-hanging fruit for non-fiction writers. Let's not kid ourselves here. Virtually anyone with a computer and a brain can write a passable piece on hospital respirators and get a quick check for it. The writer is reporting information. And while it's crucial he conducts good interviews, does sound research and presents the material in a compelling way, things like presentation (word choice, flow and readability) often take a back seat to the facts. The target audience is usually pretty specialized (doctors, lawyers, actuaries, etc.) and doesn't care about masterful turns of phrase. They care about information. And virtually anyone can string information together into passable prose if they are relying on sound research.
Not so much for fiction writers.
In fiction it's all about presentation, baby.
The story better be great or odds are it won't be published.
And if there's poor word choice, wooden dialogue and lousy characters, there's no way any editor is going to "work with you" to make the story good. They'll reject it and move on. It's a bloated market with tons of writers. Not many people want to write about hospital respirators, but many want to be the next Arthur C. Clarke.

So what's the point??

Be well-versed in both styles. If you want to write fiction, that's great, but don't make it a singular project. At least not at the start. Take some non-fiction gigs. Get paid. Eat. Grab the low-hanging fruit. Those $50 checks will start to mount up. And don't worry, you're not "selling out." It's called paying the rent. And if you want to make a living as a writer you kinda do have to write after all, right?
As for all you non-fiction writers ... try writing some fiction!
While I'm not a professional fiction writer, I have a lot of fun writing it and it's certainly made my non-fiction prose more compelling. Don't be scared by all the deep characters and intricate plots inhabiting your favorite novels. No one expects you to write like that out of the gate. Just get your feet wet.
It will pay off.

Books: 2009 Hugo Award Winners

2009-08-09T23:38:00.011-04:00

In case you missed it on Twitter ...

Winners are in BOLD.

Best Novel

Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK)
Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi (Tor)

Best Novella

“The Erdmann Nexus” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
“The Political Prisoner” by Charles Coleman Finlay (F&SF Aug 2008)
“The Tear” by Ian McDonald (Galactic Empires)
“True Names” by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow (Fast Forward 2)
“Truth” by Robert Reed (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)

Best Novelette

“Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s Jan 2008)
“The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi (Fast Forward 2)
“Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel (F&SF Jan 2008)
“The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s Feb 2008)
“Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s Mar 2008)

Best Short Story

“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Jul 2008)
“Article of Faith” by Mike Resnick (Baen’s Universe Oct 2008)
“Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two)
“Exhalation” by Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)
“From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled” by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s Feb 2008)

Best Related Book

Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn (Wesleyan University Press)
Spectrum 15: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art by Cathy & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood Books)
The Vorkosigan Companion: The Universe of Lois McMaster Bujold by Lillian Stewart Carl & John Helfers, eds. (Baen)
What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid (Beccon Publications)
Your Hate Mail Will be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008 by John Scalzi (Subterranean Press)

Best Graphic Story

The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle Written by Jim Butcher, art by Ardian Syaf (Del Rey/Dabel Brothers Publishing)
Girl Genius, Volume 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones Written by Kaja & Phil Foglio, art by Phil Foglio, colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
Fables: War and Pieces Written by Bill Willingham, pencilled by Mark Buckingham, art by Steve Leialoha and Andrew Pepoy, color by Lee Loughridge, letters by Todd Klein (DC/Vertigo Comics)
Schlock Mercenary: The Body Politic Story and art by Howard Tayler (The Tayler Corporation)
Serenity: Better Days Written by Joss Whedon & Brett Matthews, art by Will Conrad, color by Michelle Madsen, cover by Jo Chen (Dark Horse Comics)
Y: The Last Man, Volume 10: Whys and Wherefores Written/created by Brian K. Vaughan, penciled/created by Pia Guerra, inked by Jose Marzan, Jr. (DC/Vertigo Comics)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

The Dark Knight Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer, story; Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, screenplay; based on characters created by Bob Kane; Christopher Nolan, director (Warner Brothers)
Hellboy II: The Golden Army Guillermo del Toro & Mike Mignola, story; Guillermo del Toro, screenplay; based on the comic by Mike Mignola; Guillermo del Toro, director (Dark Horse, Universal)
Iron Man Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway, screenplay; based on characters created by Stan Lee & Don Heck & Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby; Jon Favreau, director (Paramount, Marvel Studios)
METAtropolis by John Scalzi, ed. Written by: Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell and Karl Schroeder (Audible Inc)
WALL-E Andrew Stanton & Pete Docter, story; Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon, screenplay; Andrew Stanton, director (Pixar/Walt Disney)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

“The Constant” (Lost) Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof, writers; Jack Bender, director (Bad Robot, ABC studios)
Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Joss Whedon, & Zack Whedon, & Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen , writers; Joss Whedon, director (Mutant Enemy)
“Revelations” (Battlestar Galactica) Bradley Thompson & David Weddle, writers; Michael Rymer, director (NBC Universal)
“Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” (Doctor Who) Steven Moffat, writer; Euros Lyn, director (BBC Wales)
“Turn Left” (Doctor Who) Russell T. Davies, writer; Graeme Harper, director (BBC Wales)

Best Editor, Short Form

Ellen Datlow
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Gordon Van Gelder
Sheila Williams

Best Editor, Long Form

Lou Anders
Ginjer Buchanan
David G. Hartwell
Beth Meacham
Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Best Professional Artist

Daniel Dos Santos
Bob Eggleton
Donato Giancola
John Picacio
Shaun Tan

Best Semiprozine

Clarkesworld Magazine edited by Neil Clarke, Nick Mamatas & Sean Wallace
Interzone edited by Andy Cox
Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, & Liza Groen Trombi
The New York Review of Science Fiction edited by Kathryn Cramer, Kris Dikeman, David G. Hartwell, & Kevin J. Maroney
Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal

Best Fanzine

Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
Challenger edited by Guy H. Lillian III
The Drink Tank edited by Chris Garcia
Electric Velocipede edited by John Klima
File 770 edited by Mike Glyer

Best Fan Writer

Chris Garcia
John Hertz
Dave Langford
Cheryl Morgan
Steven H Silver

Best Fan Artist

Alan F. Beck
Brad W. Foster
Sue Mason
Taral Wayne
Frank Wu

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Aliette de Bodard*
David Anthony Durham*
Felix Gilman
Tony Pi*
Gord Sellar*

*(Second year of eligibility)

Congrats to all the winners. How did you folks feel about the results? Pretty much what you expected? Any surprises? Let's hear it in the comments ...

Whatever: Is Mormonism America's most promising legacy?

2009-08-09T21:14:00.005-04:00

Slate seems to think so.
At least from a religious standpoint.
Americans will leave a legacy of basketball and Jazz long after our schools and buildings crumble, but what about a religion?
The Romans had Catholicism, which still carries strong Roman traditions to this day.
Surprisingly, Mormons, with their apocalyptic mentality and unceasing work ethic, might be the best prepared.

Levin writes:

The Latter-day Saints' oscillation between contemporary society and their pioneer days makes them the perfect time capsule: They will always retain a piece of the American character, yet they have enough of a toehold in the past—and enough grain in the silo—to resume their pre-modern ways.

If the Mormon Church does someday become a proxy for the United States, what parts of American civilization will survive? "Things that used to be American—motherhood and apple pie—would be restored to primacy," Orson Scott Card says. Perhaps the wholesome Osmond family will come to represent the pinnacle of American entertainment, and Stephen Covey—the Mormon writer behind The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People—will be hailed as our society's leading philosopher. Long sideburns will forever recede from memory. More seriously, a Mormon society would continue to speak English, to spread the gospel of capitalism, and to put forward the idea that America was and is a sacred place, a nation worth remembering and preserving.

Books: Good Reads ...

2009-08-05T13:59:00.006-04:00

Well it's not Friday, but here's some quick recommends for ya anyway.
And now if you'll please excuse me, I swore I'd go for a jog today. Oh exercise! How I love to hate thee ...

"Snowfall," Jessie Thompson - Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug./Sept. 2009 - You'll be hard pressed to find a better short story anywhere. First published in F&SF in 1988, Harlan Ellison selected this story for a reprint from among nearly 1,800 submissions spanning 60 years. It's a winner. And it's definitely one of, if not the best, piece of short fiction I've ever read.
Ellison writes: "It is a small, perfect, as burning-bright wee piece, that (for me) towers over all the tsunamis and skyscrapers and Everests F&SF has raised ... When it was published in 1988 I wrote Ms. Thompson an unsolicited note that read, in part, ' ... having read ... a vast amount of the words available on this planet, it is not often one suffers the joy of having read a 'first published' story that can bring tears of pleasure. Ed Ferman spoke conservatively when he called it a 'superior story.' It is more than that. It is a jewel."

"Hunchster," by Matthew Hughes - Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug./Sept. 2009 - You've been through several jobs and can't hold one down. It's not really your fault -- just when you settle in there's a new technology that pops up and renders your skill set obsolete. You're outdated and, once again, unemployed. Sound familiar anyone?
Hughes explores the topic in "Hunchster" asking the question to what lengths would you go to protect your livelihood? And your family? It's a dark tale framed in a lighthearted fantasy and it's one I enjoyed. Check it out.

"The Bones of Giants," Yoon Ha Lee - Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug./Sept. 2009 - Giants. Zombies. Necromancy. Wizards. Yeah, it's a fantasy. And it's a pretty darn good one. Lee's novelette explores several themes, but focuses heavily on ideals of death and immortality. It's a quick, clean and elegant story that ends with a fun little twist. Worth checking out.

What are your thoughts? Have any recommendations for the good reads column? E-mail me, or sound off in the comments.

Viral Flashback: Shatner of the Mount

2009-08-04T17:47:00.005-04:00

Captain Kirk is climbing a mountain, but for the love of God, why?!?
William Shatner tells all ...

TV: Robot Chicken Star Wars Episode II

2009-08-03T18:34:00.005-04:00

Buy it.
I don't know any clearer way to say it. Buy it now, maybe?
There's over 15 minutes of extra footage spliced into the original broadcast, which all looks phenomenal. Plus, we've got more Conan O'Brien voice work (Zuckuss) a ton of extra Boba Fett footage (including hilarious outtakes from the Sarlacc skit) and even more Ewok carnage. Pretty rockin', if I do say so myself. There's some other gems, but I won't spoil them for you ...
Oh and did I mention the 90 minutes of bonus features? Video blogs, behind the scenes, a visit from the 501st Stormtrooper Legion, alternate audios ... the list goes on.
Get it or you're making a big mistakey!

Viral Flashback: Shatner Remixes

2009-08-03T15:17:00.001-04:00

Because, really, why not?

Whatever: You can read 3,000 words per minute!

2009-07-31T15:51:00.003-04:00

If that really matters to you.
To me at least, one of the biggest appeals of reading is turning over every word. Actually spending some time with the text. Having fun with it. I mean reading is supposed to be fun after all, isn't it?
So I'm a little put off by this guy's implication that slow readers are somehow missing the boat. But there are definitely times when I've wanted to get some slab of deathless prose a lot quicker.
And this guy's advice is actually pretty interesting. Basically, you want to read in jumps, not straight lines. Track the jumps through focus points and, ultimately, synthesize all those focus points into a coherent take away thought for the paragraph.
But don't the details make the paragraph? Well, sure. They can. But there's lots of writing where the details really don't mean jack squat. So for that next TPS report ... I'm so doing this, man.

TV: In the 'how hasn't this happened yet' category ...

2009-07-30T16:04:00.005-04:00

Nickelodeon announced plans today to unveil a new logo this fall, the company's first re-branding in 25 years.
The move comes in advance of the network's 30th anniversary (Really? 30? Jeez, I'm old ...) and will replace the iconic "splat" logo with a yet-to-be unveiled trademark.
Apparently the discussion was pretty serious business, as Variety reports:

"In asking ourselves if everything could live under the splat, we decided that the splat was dated," she said. "It just couldn't be done in a streamlined way."

"Living under the splat." Interesting. Well re-brand away guys, it's about time. But I do have one request ... please don't can the slime. Thanks.

TV: In case you were wondering ...

2009-07-29T12:38:00.005-04:00

The trailer for season four of Heroes is out. And it looks decent.
Unfortunately, it seems like the pseudo-deaths are going to be just as high this season as they were in seasons 2 and 3. But you know what? I really. Don't. Care.
HRG is (still) kicking ass and I'm pretty confident the story line with Sylar and Nathan (Sythan) is going to be good.

Scary: We're all walking blind ...

2009-07-29T12:08:00.007-04:00

... No really.
According to an article published in New Scientist, the average human loses about 6 seconds of information per minute due to blinking.
That's pretty amazing considering how the numbers add up. Take, for example, a typical person with a waking time of about 16 hours. Using the 6 second rule, they're missing out on a staggering 96 minutes of visual information every day. Math nerds, feel free to check me on this, but I think I did the equation right.
So what's going on when your waking brain is on a visual holiday? Well, I'd like to think it's the special time when elves from the parallel 11th dimension visit our world, steal our shoes and Slim Jims and roast bratwurst sausages on our grills, but ... unfortunately it seems the actual answer is a bit simpler. Your brain's just trying to process all that visual data it's taking in.
And most humans process this visual data in remarkably similar ways. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Tokyo, discovered that, in groups, people tend to unconsciously adapt collective blinking patterns.
Researchers studied subjects during movies and found they tended to blink nearly in unison. They would hold back their eyelids during intense action sequences so as not to miss a moment, but when the drama died down, they'd nearly all breathe (or blink, in this case) a collective sigh of relief.
Oh and on a sidenote, if you feel scandalized about the rising price of movie tickets - here's some more salt to rub in the wound. You know that 150-minute film you paid $10.50 for? Well you're going to miss about 15 minutes of it due to blinking. Sorry.

Journal Reference: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/

Viral Flashback: Magic gets ya the ladies ...

2009-07-23T20:44:00.000-04:00

But only from the late 1980s.

Space: A few things you may not have known about the Apollo 11 Mission

2009-07-23T20:39:00.003-04:00

...Or may not have wanted to know.

Neil Armstrong may have been the first man to walk on the Moon, but Buzz Aldrin was the first man to urinate there. While millions watched on live television, Aldrin relieved himself a tube fitted inside his space suit.
After returning to the landing module, Aldrin accidentally broke the switch used to activate the ascent engines. After initial concern they managed to activate the switch using a ball-point pen.
One of President Nixon’s speechwriters had prepared an address entitled: “In Event of Moon Disaster”. It began: “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay to rest in peace.” If the launch from the Moon had failed, Houston was to close down communications and leave Armstrong and Aldrin to their death.
When the astronauts took off their helmets after their moonwalk, they noticed a strong smell, which Armstrong described as “wet ashes in a fireplace” and Aldrin as “spent gunpowder”. It was the smell of moondust brought in on their boots.

Whatever: Random Blatherations

2009-07-22T17:36:00.009-04:00

In light of me having nothing coherent to say I've decided to spell out some things that have been cycling around in my head the past few weeks. And I'll do it all using the magic of bullet points!

East of Eden is one of the greatest American books ever written. Hands down. And yeah, it's better than Grapes of Wrath. Shut up, it is. Now don't get me wrong, Grapes of Wrath is certainly an outstanding book. And if we're talking road novels here, it just might just be one of the best American books ever written. That being said, however, Grapes of Wrath is a bit overrated, especially when viewed in in light of the full spectrum of Steinbeck's later work. Steinbeck billed East of Eden as his epic masterpiece. The capstone of his career, and, well, it is people. It's his best writing. It's his best story. And the dialogue and characters are simply unforgettable. Thou mayest want to check it out, I think you'll enjoy it.
Battlestar Galactica's ending didn't suck. (Spoilers ahead.) This statement is mainly prompted by Brad Templeton's ranting essay in which he makes the case that BSG's conclusion was, in fact, "the worst ending in the history of on-screen science fiction." I'm assuming Templeton said that just to incite tempers, and that's fine. But I mean really Brad? Really? The worst ever? Did you see Transformers? (To be fair, I didn't.) What about Hancock? Newsflash: They sucked hard. A lot harder than BSG. I'll even put my neck on the block and say BSG's ending was, in fact, pretty damn good. Yeah, you have to block a few things from your memory -- namely, the "150,000 years later" bit and the closeup cameo of Ron Moore's head. But here's some advice to all the haters: erase those scenes from your memory (I know it's tough). I'll always remember the show as ending with the panoramic shot of Adama atop the mountain surveying his new home and finally getting that much sought after rest. If you remember it there you'll have fond memories of the ending as well. Heck, you might even tear up a bit.
Another TV thought -- season three of Heroes isn't as bad as everyone says. Let's get some perspective here. It's a show about people flying, shooting fire from their hands and sawing open heads using telekinesis. Stop taking it so seriously. Sure, some of the dialogue is cheesy. And the whole "But wait! (S)he's not really dead!" trope is annoying. But I'm still pretty interested in most of the characters. Well, okay, I really only care about Hiro, Sylar and HRG, but whatever. It's still a cool show. I'm glad it got renewed and I'm (sorta) excited about what's in store for season four.
This month's edition of Fantasy and Science Fiction is one of the best I've read in years. I won't spoil any of the stories (I've posted a few blurbs about them here), but there's a lot of good writing this issue. Check it out.
Summarizing random ideas in bullet points is a lot easier than trying to graft out a coherent narrative. I will remember this. Because I am lazy.

Mustache: John Oates & J-Stache

2009-07-21T18:00:00.007-04:00

John Oates' mustache is a total douche. But it also happens to be the genius behind one of the greatest singing duos of our time.
Ride the mustache in this incredible trailer for Oates' upcoming cartoon, "J-Stache." (Yes folks, this cartoon is real. Incredible, right?)

J-Stache - Official Trailer - watch more funny videos

Viral Flashback: It's Magic!

2009-07-20T18:44:00.006-04:00

No, we're not talking Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I'm still yet to see any of those movies, as it were. Shame on me.
Anyway, this week's Viral Flashback will focus on sorcery of a stranger breed -- cheap magic-inspired VHS videos! And where do we get them from? Why Internets of course!

Viral Flashback: Math Rap, Y'all

2009-07-16T18:36:00.002-04:00

Courtesy our friends over at Everything is Terrible.

Heroes: Thoughts on season 2

2009-07-15T20:03:00.004-04:00

So yeah, I'm still watching Heroes. And yeah, it's getting worse.
Like, it's not bad or anything, don't get me wrong. But I walked away from the Season 2 finale, which I just finished a few hours ago, and I'm still not really sure what the heck happened.

*Spoilers ahead*

Here's my first big problem. Season One had a really clear cut tension. Peter was going nuclear and he was going to take New York City with him. That's bad, man. Like really bad. We need to fix that. And that's what the heroes did. All of them, even the bad guys were motivated in some respects by that one single goal. It made for dramatic, easy-to-follow television. And it made for a great finale.

Season Two, in my opinion, anyway, didn't have that singular tension. Yeah, there's something about a "virus" (it's basically a nuke on steroids, threatening to take out the world, not just NYC), but it never really felt like this catastrophic pressing event. I mean really, couldn't Hiro just have just teleported into the storage safe in episode one, stolen the virus and the problem would have been solved? Yeah, he totally could have. And that bugged the hell out of me.
Then there was the whole thing with people dropping dead and rising and dying and rising etc. etc. It was cool with Claire and all, but now it's just getting out of hand. Nathan gets plugged in the finale and it's supposed to be all dramatic, but I'm just sitting there thinking, 'Oh neat so he'll be back like 10 minutes into the season 3 premiere, right?' (He totally is, by the way ...). Don't get me wrong, I love zombies and all, but dead is dead. Or at least it should be. (P.S. If you're going to bring people back, why not D.L.? I'm not holding my breath ...)
And what the heck was going on with Noah? The guy gets shot by Suresh for virtually no reason - other than to stage an epic slow-mo shooting scene - then rises from the dead (shocking, right?) and goes back to his family only to tell them he's alive but they'll never see him again. Uh, okay.
Why the heck would he do that? I thought his whole thing was protecting his family. Not putting them through unnecessary torture. Wouldn't he want to not, you know, completely screw with their heads and put them all in harm's way again?
And don't give me that Bob was manipulating him crap. Bob sucks. Plain and simple.

Anyway, there were plenty of things I liked about Season 2. The story with Hiro and Kensai Takezo was fantastic. And I liked how Sylar was still a huge dick (now with 50% more Mommy issues!) even without his powers to back him up. I'm excited to see how he develops into season 3.
And the Maya girl was pretty. Like really pretty. Show more of her, please.

Books: Good reads ...

2009-07-14T18:44:00.002-04:00

Why I've just noticed something terribly amiss! I forgot (i.e. willfully neglected) last week's Friday roundup!

So sorry! Here we go!

"The Art of the Dragon," Sean McMullen - Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug/Sept 2009 - What begins with one of the best leads I've ever read: "I was there when the dragon appeared - and ate the Effiel Tower" just gets better as the story progresses. McMullen puts forth a remarkably original fantasy that manages to squeeze in a ton of insightful commentary about the nature of art and humanity. But it's never hard-hitting, in fact, it's remarkably clever and, at times, downright fun. I wasn't huge on McMullen's last story in F&SF, "The Spiral Briar," but "The Art of the Dragon" is a keeper. Definitely earned it's place as the lead off story in this month's issue.

"Icarus Saved from the Skies," Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud - Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug/Sept 2009 - Ever wonder what you do if you sprouted wings? I know I did, at least as a kid. Châteaureynaud's fable cleverly deals with the question and rises at a surprising conclusion. Translated from the original French by Edward Gauvin. Recommended. For more Châteaureynaud, check out his collection, Le kiosque et le tilleul, The Pavilion and the Linden.

"The Others," Lawrence C. Connolly - Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug/Sept 2009 - At first I didn't really know what to make of this story, but after a few days I've more or less come around. It's good. And I liked it. For those not in the know, "The Others" continues the journey of the many incarnations of Cara Randall who this time is exploring a strange planet with intelligent life. The story is a direct sequel to "Daughters of Prime," which first ran in July 2007 and can be viewed here.

Ascended Fanboys: Characters Who Say What the Audience Is Thinking

2009-07-13T19:12:00.005-04:00

There's a great piece on this over at io9. Touches on several great sci-fi shows from Lost to Battlestar Galactica and Firefly. Check it out above, but here's a taste:

Viral Flashback: The most INTENSE video you'll ever see

2009-07-13T19:02:00.003-04:00

No more explanation is needed. From 1994's Scanner Cop.

TV: Why I've been gone for three days ...

2009-07-11T11:53:00.008-04:00

The short answer? I've been watching Heroes. And I can't stop.
It's taken me roughly a week to tear through season one and I'm loving every minute of it.
While I've never really followed the show in the TV press, some of my friends who are fans tell me it takes a bit of a nosedive in season three, but I'm not too worried. Even if the show was only 10 percent as good as season one, I think I'd still be entertained.
Anyway, before I get back to watching Hiro travel through time and Peter kick everyone's ass let me drop one quick short story recommendation:

"Three Leaves of Aloe" Rand B. Lee Fantasy and Science Fiction (Aug/Sept 2009) - Fun read about an Indian computer technician with a daughter who can't stop getting in fights at school. The Vice Principal's solution? Outfit the girl with an emotion inhibiting chip, but the simple task proves to be more dangerous than it seems when a relative recalls her troubled past with the technology ...
The story touches on a lot of stuff - from Buddhist ideals of supernal recognition of nonexistence
to bullying - and does it all it a fun sci-fi package. Very enjoyable.

And now, I return to the television. I promise I'll be back in better form next week!

Nerdgasm: Spock, Bilbo and one mind-blowing LP

2009-07-07T17:43:00.002-04:00

From the Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy LP. Insanity. Utter insanity.

TV: Sci-Fi network to become "Syfy" tomorrow ...

2009-07-06T10:33:00.008-04:00

And after thinking about it, I've concluded it's a good move for the network.
Yeah, it's a PR grab, we get it. But that's not really a bad thing, is it?
Currently, the Sci-Fi network is commonly known for two things - Battlestar Galactica and B-rate monster flicks. And of the two, only one still stands. Hint: it's not Battlestar. And the misconception that the network airs nothing but crap (can't anyone remember their good shows? Taken, Mystery Science Theater, etc.) isn't really good for business.
Enter the "Syfy" brand. Billed as the hip, more-accessible side of science fiction, SyFy execs say the new station will now put more emphasis on well-written original programming filled with heavy doses of quirky humor.
Warehouse 13, a show about two Secret Service agents assigned to a fantastical factory in South Dakota, will be a perfect example of this, execs say. The series premiers tomorrow at 9/8c.
So let's hope there's something to this re-branding. With Caprica on the horizon and Stargate still running strong the network certainly has the tools to live up to their hipper billing.
Just one thing, don't cancel all the B-movies, guys. I need something to watch at 3 a.m. on Fridays.

What are your hopes for the new station?

VACATION: Be Back on Sunday ...

2009-07-03T13:07:00.003-04:00

Hopefully you'll make it through the weekend without losing a hand to an errant M-80. Sparklers only, kids. Have a happy Fourth everyone.

Billy Mays: Discovery Channel Marathon

2009-07-01T20:29:00.003-04:00

Did you know Discovery is running an all day marathon tribute to Billy Mays? No? Well they are. And you should be watching. Why? Because, it's Billy Mays, man.
The marathon culminates at 10 p.m. EST with the series finale of PITCHMEN. Be there. Wear blue.

Pitchmen co-host Anthony "Sully" Sullivan had the following to say:

There are no words to describe how I feel about the passing of my great friend and fellow Pitchman Billy Mays. I have a massive hole in my heart. My thoughts go out to his wife, Deborah, son Billy III, and his beautiful daughter, Elizabeth, his mom and dad and his whole family.

Billy and I have known each other for 15 years. We are the greatest of friends. He was the best at what he did -- his uncompromising style coupled with his black beard, blue shirt and khaki pants will be embedded in my memory for all time. His uniqueness created an industry that I am proud to be a part of. We were literally joined at the hip for the past six months.

Discovery Channel's "Pitchmen" was not only a wonderful experience, but also a great opportunity for Billy and I to let people into our world and see what an awesome guy he was in front of the cameras and show our friendship to the world.

There was a lot more to Billy as a person than Billy the Pitchman -- he was a loving, caring family man with the heart and roar of a lion. He loved what he did and loved his fans. The overwhelming outpouring of support shows what an amazing individual Billy was.

I'm proud to have had him as a friend. I'll miss him greatly and I'll miss hearing him saying, "Hi Billy Mays here... Here's how to order!"

RIP BILLY.

Billy Mays: "At the Office"

2009-06-30T20:44:00.003-04:00

Today we take a look back at a classic Billy Mays viral, his trip to the office.
RIP BILLY.

Flash Fiction: Jane likes guitar

2009-06-30T20:12:00.003-04:00

It had to be raining for Jane to play her guitar.
Otherwise, she'd say, it just didn't feel right.
It was a funny thing, her always playing in the rain. Especially since Jane would write some of the happiest songs you ever heard. Her fallbacks were major chords, upbeat and vibrant, and some of her best songs - "Valerye Man," "Garnished Pages" "Total" - all used them.
But don't get me wrong, Jane's songs were never simple. In fact, they were some of the most beautifully complex things I'd ever heard.
Jane played the guitar like a piano. The chords were always just a backing. And as she gently caressed the frets of her worn twelve-string her fingers always managed to pluck out some sort of melody. Sometimes you'd expect what she'd play. Sometimes you wouldn't. Sometimes it be light and slow and sometime the music would be so hard and fast it really did sound like rain. And Jane liked that.
She was a musical genius. But of course you've never heard of her. That's OK, don't feel bad. No one outside of King River has. But here she's something of a legend, that's for sure. Go ahread, say the name "Jane Simmons" down at the Coffee Bean and I gaurentee some latte-sipping music nerd will chime up with a story about how Jane almost scored that life-changing contract with Virgin Records for "Baby, Shake Your Band." Or about how she almost opened for Crosby Stills and Nash on their world tour of '83. Or how she almost joined Bob Dylan's backing band. Or how she almost ...

Tonight Jane took the stage without any fuss. Quiet and reserved, as always. Her twelve string sat next to a birch bench and she uttered not a word before flying into "Darker Coils," one of the Coffee Bean's crowd favorites.
Jane never spoke in between songs. She never spoke at all on stage, in fact. It was part of her persona. Disembodied.
And you never saw her face on stage either. Sure you'd see it when she walked out. Those glinting green eyes looking equally bored and thrilled as she walked out on the stage to thunderous applause. But after the music started, her face disappeared. Auburn hair cascaded wildly over all her features, wrapping itself around her head and neck and forming a makeshift mask. Jane on stage. Disembodied.
And playing some of the best damn stuff you ever heard.
"Garnished Pages." "Total." "Valerye Man." And she ended with what we always assumed was her favorite, since she always ended with it - "Nigel's Rain."
The piece started out slowly, ethereal melodies layered over tapped bass notes. She made it seem easy, but it was some of the toughest stuff she played all night. As the song picked up so did her fingers, flying wildly over all stretches of the fretboard and coaxing a universe of sounds. You got transfixed. You got transported. Her hands were mesmerizing and the music a thing of enchantment. The melodies flew and flew and by the end, it really did seem like it was raining. And maybe that was why Jane was so damn good. She had to simulate the beauty of nature to play. She had to make it rain.
How else could she play?

Billy Mays: Trip to McDonalds

2009-06-29T18:58:00.000-04:00

This week Morning remembers the late, great Billy Mays. Billy died Sunday at his Tampa home. He was 50.
I'll post funny clips and interviews all week long. Feel free to leave suggestions and links in the comments.

Books: 2009 Locus Award Winners

2009-06-29T18:24:00.000-04:00

Here are the 2009 Locus Award winners for best science fiction/related books published in 2008. (On a related note, these lists make for a great starting point if you're new to the genre.)

Science Fiction Novel: Anathem, Neal Stephenson (Atlantic UK, Morrow)

Fantasy Novel: Lavinia, Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt)

First Novel: Singularity's Ring, Paul Melko (Tor)

Young-Adult Book: The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins, Bloomsbury)

Novella: "Pretty Monsters", Kelly Link (Pretty Monsters)

Novelette: "Pump Six", Paolo Bacigalupi (Pump Six and Other Stories)

Short Story: "Exhalation", Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)

Anthology: The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin's)

Collection: Pump Six and Other Stories, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books)

Non-Fiction/Art Book: P. Craig Russell, Coraline: The Graphic Novel, Neil Gaiman, adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell (HarperCollins)

Editor: Ellen Datlow

Artist: Michael Whelan

Magazine: F&SF

Publisher: Tor

Flash Fiction: Shady Brook

2009-06-29T18:18:00.006-04:00

I'm getting a little self-conscious about posting all this writing on here, but hey, a promise is a promise. If nothing else, this flash fiction experiment is teaching me the value of free writing.
I just hope the stories (which are all unplanned at the beginning, by the way) are at least comprehensible. Anyway, enough bickering. Here's today's entry. Enjoy!

The two boys crept through the dense thicket of ferns, paused for a moment and let their arrow fly.

“Whop! A direct hit! Nice shot Marcus!”

Marcus adjusted the crow feather he’d found earlier and plunked into his ear to block out the sun.

“Thanks Nick. I wonder what we hit. Let’s go check it, huh?”

Nick nodded enthusiastically and the pair pushed their way through the ferns. The forest was thick, but their prey had fallen in an easy clearing. As the boys stepped into it they were surrounded by rays of golden sunlight, piercing down in near-parallel rays from above the high tree canopy. It was noon, or thereabouts.

The pair scanned the ground and their eyes fell to the struggling form pinned to the side of a tree by a vicious looking arrow. The legs were still kicking and a small pool of crimson blood was forming underneath.

“A rabbit! Whop! Right through the heart, I’d say. You hit a rabbit Marcus! Nice shot!”

“Thanks. Makes me feel like one of them folks Father’s been talking to. They shoot the rabbits, you know. Use every part of them too. The fur for gloves and the legs for meat. Probably even find some use for the bones and teeth, but I don’t know.”

“What do you think Father will say when he sees it?”

“I don’t know. It’s supper at least. That will make him happy.”

While the boys were talking the rabbit stopped its struggle. The pool of crimson had filled out nicely. Nick reached for the rabbit, picked it up and plucked the arrow out from the creature’s still heart. A squirt of blood shot onto Marcus’ face and he smeared it into three slashes, pantomiming a native dance he’d observed back at the Indian’s camp one night.

Whop! Whop! He screamed.

“Come out of it now, Nick. We need to get back to camp.”

The boys began their march back through the fern bush, carefully navigating around a cluster of rocks before hopping on the old log and crossing over the Shady Brook stream.

“Father says this place wasn’t always called Shady Brook,” Marcus said. “He says it used to have another name. Its true name before the White Man came and changed it. What do you think of that?”

“What do I think of what?”

“Of the name. Of us changing it. Do you think it changes things any?”

Nick’s eyes crunched up, squeezing the blood war paint into a frightening pattern of intricate lines dancing on his cheeks. He seemed to be thinking. “I don’t know, it does, I suppose. But things always change. That’s the way. Just look at what Father’s doing, he’s trying to change the Indians, isn’t he? Give them religion? Who says they want it?”

The boys walked back in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

It was near dusk by the time they reached the camp. Father was sitting with one of the Indians when the boys walked into the camp, the rabbit proudly slung over Nick’s bloodied shoulders.

“Father! Father!” Nick exclaimed. “Look what we killed out there today! All by ourselves! Can we cook it?”

The conversation with the Indian broke of and the boys’s father made his way over to the two youngsters.

Nick thought he noticed a flicker of momentary disgust pass over the Indian’s eyes before he turned his head to the ground and walked quietly back toward the burning fire at the center of the camp.

Nick’s Father knelt down in front of the boy and sternly asked, “Why did you bring this here?”

Puzzled, Nick answered “We brought it for you.”

“Well, I don’t want it. Can’t you see you’ve insulted Chakotay? I’m surprised he didn’t walk over here and tell you off himself. It’s not good what you are doing, bringing a dead animal in here and asking if we can cook it when there’s already plenty of food.”

Marcus, feeling pity for his brother chimed in. “We thought you’d be proud of us. You always say a man needs to make it for himself. He needs to stand on his own two feet and get his own food.”

“That might be true, but not here. Can’t you boys see? These here Indians, they see us as takers. Takers who consume all that’s around them. We’re like blight to them. That’s why they need religion. That’s why they need us here. We’re not takers, but we’ve got to show them that. Now get rid of that rabbit Nick. And for the love of God, loose the war paint and the feather!”

Confused, the boys scampered off into the woods, depositing the rabbit into Shady Brook.

“I just don’t get it,” Nick said, after a long silence.

“Get what?”

“How we’re the takers.”

Marcus couldn’t answer. “Come on, let’s go back and ask Chakotay what they used to call Shady Brook. I think he’d like that.”

GOODNIGHT SWEET PRINCE: Billy Mays Found Dead at 50

2009-06-28T12:41:00.009-04:00

Mays was found dead in his Tampa, Fla. home this morning.
For more info check @YoungBillyMays and FoxNews.
Billy's Twitter says he was involved in a bumpy landing on a U.S. Airways flight on Saturday. Authorities are investigating whether the crash and Billy's death are related. He was scheduled for hip surgery tomorrow.

***UPDATED Monday, June 29 4:28 P.M.***
The Hillsborough County medical examiner Dr. Vernard Adams said Monday that Mays had heart disease.

Mays' wife, Deborah Mays, released this statement Monday: "While it provides some closure to learn that heart disease took Billy from us, it certainly doesn't ease the enormous void that his death has created in our lives."

RIP Billy, Pitchmen was one of my favorite shows this summer.

Books: Friday Roundup

2009-06-26T19:33:00.004-04:00

Not much to report this week.
But here's one quick recommend and then I'm off to watch The Godfather. I've never seen it. I know, I know...

Peter Carlson, "Nikita in Hollywood." Smithsonian July 2009 - Humorous recap of Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschchev's strange visit to tinsel town in 1959. Some of Khruschchev's conclusions? Can-Can is pornographic, our pigs are too fat and our turkeys too small. Oh and he never got to see Disneyland. Sad, really.

Viral Flashback: Vanity Plates

2009-06-26T17:58:00.000-04:00

Thank God for Pat Tomasulo.