Timing Error

TRENDING ORGANIC

Dark Roasted Blend posts a series of concept buildings that just melt into the landscape.

FLASH FICTION FRIDAY

ED NOTE:Okay, first story out the tube in my attempts at one weekly flash fiction story. I had a lot of fun in the writing and editing process. The story builds on a couple, two, three posts from this week. I hesitated on the title, but what the hell. Hope you enjoy.

The Battle of Shitter Number One

Officially, the fight took place at the Sedna Composite Waste Management and Reclamation Facility Number One. Officially, they footnoted the whole mess as the Agreed Framework, Earth v. Autonomous Anarchy, Sedna, Case Number 30,001.2.b in the Imperial District Court, Southern District of New York.

But for the boys, girls, androgs, freaks and biobots who were there, well, we had our own name for the thing: The Battle of Shitter Number One.

BRING ON THE COMBAT LASER POINTERS

Popular Mechanics:

In addition to pumping out a blinding 4100 lumens (just about every other commercial flashlight clocks in at well under 100), the Torch is supposed to be able to set fire to paper, melt plastic and even scramble eggs. We gave it a try with toilet paper (unused, thank you), and it only took seconds to bring the first whiffs of smoke.

Also from wicked lasers:

Powerpoint presentations can be fun again.

ARTIFICIAL NERVOUS SYSTEMS: BIOBOTS

Soldiers will control battlesuits using their own nerve impulses, thanks to artificially grown human nervous systems. Cybering lovers could control sex toys over the net and "feel" when they're touched, using the same biotechnology

io9

Look, eventually technology will catch up with the biology it unintentionally mirrors. When that happens, it is fun for all.

(The fusion of military applications makes sense when you consider we're outnumbered.)

NEXT UP: PX PRIVILEGES

Iraqi Army moving to M-16s.

ORION PUSHERS

Great little piece on might have beens: Orion Nuclear Spaceship presentation by George Dyson over on io9.

I read Dyson's book on the subject awhile back and definitely walked away with a sense of "coulda, shoulda, woulda, didn't."

FLASH FICTION

Digging around on wiki, trying to get smart. Stumbled on Flash Fiction, which seems a great way to flesh out some ideas. An entire story arc in 2,000 words.

UPDATE: I'm setting myself a new task. Upload a piece of Flash Fiction (2,000 words or less) every Friday. Goal: practice writing, editing and story structure. And editing. Oh lord yes, editing.

STRUCTURE AND THE SFWA

I laugh whenever someone says something like this:

"We will need structural changes to accomplish this. For example, we may need more staff. These changes won't be haphazard or sudden: we will have in-depth discussion, we'll implement only the best ideas, and only with a sound plan."

Structure is like filling the pool on the Titanic. Bad idea.

Some dude named Burt is running for the President of the SFWA and Scalzi is righteously pissed. Cats and dogs at the link.

TIMESMACHINE

NYTIMES from the 1850s to the 1920s. Awesome.

THE BEAUTY OF RSS

I read a post in Neatorama on "patient stacking" in the British NHS, scan down and get what I think is the perfect (but unrelated) visual metaphor.

My brain makes the oddest linkages.

CHARACTER DESIGNS

Character Designs: Nifty website with plenty of (some nude) reference models for drawing.

.

Free. Good stuff

CURRENT KILLBOTS

Stars and Stripes.

Makes sense the US would look towards killbots. We are not numerous, in the grand scale of things.

I'LL PROBABLY BREAK MY LEG AGAIN

But I should like a pair:

HEGEMON RISING...AND RISING...AND..

Daniel Drezner has a good peace in Newsweek on "American Declinism". Personally, I've never understood "declinism". It is like being on the Titanic and cheering for the iceberg.

Bottom line, the American container wins because it has fewer rule sets than any potential competitor. The rest is window dressing.

FROM A THOUSAND ISLANDS TO A THOUSAND WORLDS

Dug up some good information on all those dwarf planets in the Opik-Ooort Cloud.

Dwarf planets rock for three reasons:

1. Less gravity (easier to watch your wieght)
2. Less crowding (people don't like the cold)
3. Less property taxes (until we figure out how to collect them)

I want one for christmas.

QOTD

A Twofer:

"Ignorance in the defense of stupidity is no excuse."

"Why are they so upset the dudes a martyr? I thought that's what he wanted. Instead of shooting at us, they should be sending flowers.

Been one of those weeks.

COMBAT CARTOONING

Interesting.

ALL THESE (THOUSAND) WORLDS...

From IO9:

It turns out that there may be many other dirt-and-water planets lurking at the edges of our solar system in places like the Oort Cloud. These planets, which could be roughly the size of our own, would contain all the elements we need for life. They're just sitting in a cold, dimly-lit part of the solar system, waiting to be defrosted and colonized.

To paraphrase 2010, "ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS...ONCE YOU CLICK YES ON THE EULA."

LIFE WITHOUT THE MOON?

Over a Damn Interesting:

If the unlikely set of circumstances which brought forth our moon are as rare as they seem, perhaps ours is the only such planetary system in the entire, vast galaxy; or perhaps in our unfashionable limb of the universe. But every once in a great while, when the time is right, two protoplanets who love each other very much can touch each other in a special way, and make life together. Without that magic, astronomical ritual, we certainly would not be here.

To which XKCD answers:

PROCESS JUNKIE

Great stuff. An eclectic collection of art books published by Mr. Ruiz:

Just hit the link and scroll. Good stuff.

THE NEWLY INDEPENDENT DEPENDENCY OF KOSOVO

Kosovo, a protectorate of the EU/UN, is declaring 'independence'. Fascinating to watch a nation state, albeit a rump one like Serbia, dismembered. Man, there's going to be a ton of unintended consequences from this, within the next decade or so.

Don't get me wrong, the Serbs were dicks, last decade or so; it is the process of supra/transnational instruments making decisions over sovereign states that fascinates me. Plenty of precendents being set here.

That said, last time I was in Kosovo, they were dead broke. I don't think much has changed.

Welcome the newly Dependent Kosovo Thingy.

De Pin Toons

Another keeper:

Du Beau Toons

Damn impressive (and moderately NSFW) line art from Du Beau.

CRAP!

OK, I knew mars edit didn't resize the pictures on this blog. What I didn't realize was that it didn't but up thumbnails, or that the pics were unclickable. Dealbreaker.

You can control-click and view image or go to the source.

Alas, back into the typepad engine.

STEAMPUNK STAR WARS

Yes, I'm late to the fight; but I love the concept. CGSociety link The Steampunk Deathstar the started me looking: :

NOTE TO ALIEN OVERLORD: KILL THE FLASH

If you can stand the inordinately bad flash, here's a great collection of art over at alien1452:

Kind of a sci-fi, fantasy and deliciously-cartoonish-proportions mashup.

(head straight for the gallery. mac users: ctrl click works in opening the pictures into another tab)

Thanks bibi

BERKEY

Work over at Dalley Illustration gallery:

Looks like every cover from Fred Saberhagen's Berzerker series.

(ignore the pinups link at the top. rot your brain, it will)

WHERE ARE THE SNOWDENS OF YESTERYEAR...

Noted: several articles in the past week about Europe's lack of fighting soldiers. I think it all spun out of SECDEF Gates criticisms of NATO.

Latest: "Where Have All the Soldiers Gone"

They are there. And we'll see them in time.

Look, structurally, Europe is very liberal. Actually liberal? Not so much. The problem with structure is that the adjectives (one minute nationalists, then fascists, now liberal) are interchangeable. The structure remains.

Europe discharged liberalism to the Americas and unfortunately never looked back.

Which is a shame. Europe is the best open air museum I ever lived in.

THE REAL REASON THEY SHUT DOWN POLAROID

No one 'respects mah national securi-teh' anymore:

All conceivable kinds of data - concerning men, supplies, needs - will flash at bullet speed from film cabinets such as those lately installed by Kodak at the Pentagon.

More at Paleofuture.

We're simply surrendering to the International Digital Camerati.

LEATHER BOUND FLAT BED SCANNER

This is a flatbed scanner that was built into a custom fabricated leather-bound tome. Link

(I was dumb enough to buy a non mac osx compatible printer, so I'm in the market for a new one)

BARBARELLA

To young (actually not even born) to see. Love the retro-fturism. Thanks to DRB for the reminder in pics: I need to find a copy and watch.

SLIMSUITS

Hermetically sealing, sexy and appealing. The future. Travelodge jobby. Sport and activity type.

JUST BADASS

Customizable retro rockets. This is how rockets should look, not the junk we have now. I blame American style physics. /iO9

ELECTORAL INTERLUDE

Fascinating Presidential cycle, as befits the Liberal Hegemon. McCain in a lock... ...until Huckabee steals a few more delegates (and Romney refuses to release his). Clinton using the CORBOMITE GIULIANI MANEUVER, where in she forfeits the Feb States and coasts on to March; Texas and Ohio. Worked well for Rudy. ...and Obama, the youngest, least experienced and least bought off most likable. In my view, let us have Conventions instead of Coronations. Everyone could benefit from a little vigor.

LIKE FLIES CAUGHT IN AMBER

Abu Dhabi plans to build a 22 billion dollar "carbon neutral" city: "We will monetise all carbon emission reductions... Such innovative financing has never been applied to the scale of an entire city." ...and one day the world. How angelic.

RIGHT BRAINED NIRVANA

Almost forgot this TPMB thing on Alphachimp. From what I gather, Alphachimp is a group of toonpunks who visualize concepts for the big left brains. Pretty awesome niche. Remember the Schlieffen Plan? Germany's plan to conquer the west Eurasian Pennisula? Didn't work so well in WWI; worked a hell of a lot better in WWII. It started out looking like this: The anwsers are easy; it is the questions that are overly complex. R.S. Vitae.

FREE SCHWAG

In honor of his blog's birthday, Neil Gaiman is hostong a contest to see which book we'd like to see online, for free, for a month. I voted "American Gods"

GOOGLING AND GUESSING WITH BARNETT

Inside the sausage post by Thomas P.M. Barnett on the progress of his third book. Geek that I am, I laser in on this line: ...leather-bound manuscript container... Using leather manuscript folder as my search string, I come up with these: Sweetness. I want one.

THE AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC OF BERKLEY

All this talk of the problems the Marines are having with the those lovably loopy Berkleyites reminded me of this map from Strangemaps: No city council member is an island, entire unto himself...at least not with $2.3 million on the line.

SKELEWEG: AWESOME

Bouncing around teh innernets, I found this post by Chewie. Great artwork; graffiti done right. I particularly like his use of black, white and grays. Lot to learn from him. Pictures to big for me to post; do check it out. UPDATE: Connectivity issued solved

I ENVY MY GRANDKIDS

Gallery for Space Settlement 2009 Calendar Art Contest:

ODD LITTLE FLICKR POOL

Five 'semi-glamour shots' of Elizabeth Kucinich on flickr.

I'm probably an ass for saying this, but I keep thinking the phrase "Dennis and I have a deep affection for one another and we'll always be the best of friends..." is wafting out there somewhere in the future. S'okay...my wife is probably rehearsing those same lines.

GENERAL DISARRAY

Dowd: There will be blood.

Noonan: A Rebellion and an Awkward Embrace

Me: Sweet. Not in a pox on both their houses type way; both parties are experiencing some much needed frisson. Hope it helps, guys.

SIMPLICITY

Good quotes: The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unecessary so that the necessary may speak. Here.

THE SIZE OF THE TOME: PERSPECTIVES

Adam Greenfield's Speedbird awhile back. He's into his second book and posts about word count. I feel him; I'm a word count junkie also. This line struck me: (Everyware, admittedly a slim volume, is only 70,000-odd words.) Now, Everyware*, available at amazon, is about 272 pages. Granted, title pages, indexes et al. But a slim book? Conceptually, I like small and fast; I prefer pocket battleships to dreadnoughts in most regards. So I'm always asking, can I write in 30,000 words in what normally takes a 100,000? Does the seriousness of the subject increase with the word count? Do words bury reason? Maybe that's why I like the phampletguys and this new cambridge based arthouse. The market's far from there, but it's trending... *This is not a critique of Greenfield or Everyware.

LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC

France's new First Lady, Carla Bruni:

France's new Foreign Policy

Like Sarkozy, Kouchner speaks of returning France to the heart of Europe and Europe to the heart of the Western alliance; but on Iraq he hasn’t made much headway among his fellow foreign ministers, or even his own colleagues. “They believe that I am an unguided missile,” he fumed. “They believe that I’m a foolish guy. ‘Why is this stupid Kouchner going to Iraq? We don’t care about Iraq!’ They are stupid. They don’t know that the core of the danger is there, in between Iraq and Iran, in between Lebanon and Syria. This is the common enemy, not only for Americans but for all democracies. And the common enemy is extremism.”

MARSEDIT

Trying marsedit as a posting tool. Down to between 'ecto and 'marsedit.' UPDATE: --Nice, smooth flow. But the pictures need to update to the server before loading. I need to figure out how that works offline. --Easier to adjust 'categories' --accepts trackbacks. Something I could not get 'ecto' to do.

BRABAZON

She was beautiful. Full story at Damnintersting.

Of course, this line made me laugh: "...wealthy industrialists, super-rich tourists, or civil servants on urgent government business demanding high levels of comfort."

Hey, the more things change...

MCYAHOO

So Microsoft makes a play for Yahoo, shades of AOL-Time Warner.

Google's customer is the enterprise. They monetize eyeballs to attract corporations for advertising and eventually cloud computing. Microsoft's customer is the individual and the enterprise; their model requires selling soft (hard)ware/licenses.

Google aims for ubiquitous, Microsoft wants to hold onto specific. Google is attacking and Microsoft defends; bad mojo for the boys of Redmond.

So Microsoft's solution (attack) is to buy a bunch of eyeballs (the 44 billion dollar domain name) and junk online software apps, weld it to there soft (hard) ware and compete with google. Good luck with that.

I guess Steve and Bill know what the hell they are doing.

CONTROLLING AUTOREGENERATION

The human body regenerates every seven odd years (with the exception of the nervous tissue). By the time you're twenty-one, you've been through three copies.

Now controlling the process, that's money:

A 65-year-old Finnish man received a new upper jaw that was grown in his abdomen using his own stem cel

Sweet. Via Boing Boing.