interesting things

Randomness for 3/28

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1) A history of the McFarlane/Gaiman Miracleman lawsuit.

2) Trompe l’oeil graffiti vanishes Egyptian military barrier

3) A working scientific calculator, built from Minecraft blocks.

4) Two words: Explosive. Polymerization. (Video)

5) Eight “forgotten” live-action children’s shows from the eighties. I doubt “Small Wonder” has been forgotten, but “My Secret Identity” is the only other one I remember (but I’m a bit old for this time period)

6) Heroic Goofballs: Aardman takes on DC. Video

7) An infographic showing the last words of executed inmates in Texas.

Brandon Sanderson gets a video game adaptation of his books?

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First of all, I’m glad for him. I don’t know the dude and to be frank I bounced off the first Mistborn book. But his books have been selling very well, and this is a happy thing for him.

But I have the envy, too. The deep, deep envy.

Ah well. It’s not something I can control, but I can go back to my own WIP. Here’s more details:

Mistborn: Birthright announced for XBOX, PS3, and PC — A Dribble of Ink.

Ray Lilly is out of the cage match

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Kelsier defeated him 3 to 1 in the voting, just about, which is perfectly cool by me. I didn’t expect him to get this far in a popularity contest, so thanks to everyone who voted. Thanks also to David Pomerico and the Suvudu staff for all the work they put into it.

Now that he’s out, I wanted to comment on the attitude of a lot of the cage match commenters… but Pat Rothfuss already did it and he did it better.

One thing I’ll add to his comments about the slaying of dragons: I’m a writer. If you ask me “Who would win in a fight, Cthulhu or Godzilla?” to me the only logical answer is “Whichever makes a better story.”

Tallying up super-powers and arguing I don’t know this character but [personal fave] is the most awesome-est! entirely misses the point. Sometimes the “weaker” character has to/must win. That’s part of the fun (and it is supposed to be fun).

If the cage matches are a place where the underdogs can never “win” then it isn’t fun. That’s why I had Ray use his ghost knife on GRRM’s readers. That’s why I had Tyrion taunt him for not being lovable enough. Because Tyrion was the underdog and I love underdogs. (People who’ve read my books will know this).

Even worse, how powerful the characters are is orthogonal to the appeal of the work in question, and when people go all munchkin on their favorite characters they turn off potential readers.

Anyway, read Pat’s post. He’s a smart guy.

(BTW, Godzilla would totally kick Cthulhu’s ass. That’s SCIENCE.)

Randomness for 3/17

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1) The best of the worst of online fashion.

2) Horrible things donated to Goodwill. Absolutely NSFW.

3) Exposed to D&D Early in Life? A flowchart

4) Fan-made “Bella’s womb” made of felt. Of course it has a mutant fetus inside. Of course it does.

5) Japanese skater does parkour with his board. Video. Pretty amazing.

6) Camping tents that look like food. Call me when they make a tent that looks like something a bear wouldn’t want to bite.

7) Eleven tweets that led to legal action.

Why yes, I would like an end to time switching

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One thing the video glosses over: how many lives it takes.

Randomness for 3/10

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1) Deleted for potential malware. Try this instead: Westeros in Minecraft: Video.

2) Motherfucking Bike: Music video for the lol. My wife and I are/have been bike commuters, but we have never done anything like these guys, I swear.

3) My Little Golden Book About ZOGG

4) LED light gives off more energy in photons than it takes in as electrons. I don’t *really* understand this, but I’m pretty sure it means I’ll be getting a lightsaber soon.

5) Toy Shining “Heeeeerrre’s Woody!” via Keith Brunkard

6) 19 Really Bad Family Feud Answers.

7) Hunger Names.

Cage Match follow up

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The cage match is still ongoing, and while yesterday I mentioned that the comments were getting a bit caustic they’ve since become even more so. I don’t much care if people are nasty to me; I see that sort of thing in Amazon.com reviews or blog reviews all the time and I don’t much care. Truth is, you can’t be raised the way I was raised and still be all delicate when someone tells you how much you suck. I have some thick calluses over those spots.

But now it’s started between commenters, and that sorta sucks. The truth is, there are a lot of readers out there who haven’t been exposed to R. Scott Bakker’s books and would like them, but not if his current readers treat them with condescension and contempt.

Here’s a general guideline I would like people to follow: If you like a particular author’s books and someone unfamiliar with them suggests that the description so far makes them sound kind of dull? Please PLEASE do not start the “… displays an ignorance and shallow judgment that frankly says you’re not worth [author]’s time as a reader anyway” stuff.

If you like a book or book series, do not try to drive away readers you consider unworthy.

Jesus.

Anyway, Ray is losing by a narrow margin. Voting ends on Thursday 5pm EST, so if you want to vote for him please do. I’d like to win the match so he faces Tyrion in round 2–I have a couple of fun ideas for that.

If he doesn’t win, no big. That just means I’ll have more time to put into my new book this weekend.

Finally, I turned comments back on as a trial run, but the spam has been piling up in the spam filter. That’s what it’s supposed to do, obviously, but it’s very time-consuming to search through it for ham, and I’m unlikely to leave comments on for long. Sorry.

Randomness for 3/4

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1) United Artists’ Rejection Letter for STAR WARS. via @rodramsey

2) The Internet Justice League

3) Minecraft Middle Earth

4) Finally, a lit contest I can care about: 2011’s Oddest Book Titles of the Year. I’m rooting for the chicken sexer.

5) Why do innocent people confess to crimes they haven’t committed?

6) Against Big Bird, The Gods Themselves Contend in Vain. Big Bird wrests celestial justice from an Egyptian god in a Sesame Street special. For real.

7) A prosecutor and cartoonist creates A Criminal Lawyer’s Illustrated Guide to Crime.

Followup linkage: Pre-Release Day Amazon.com Sales

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Following up on the link to Seanan McGuire’s post of a few days ago, Book Marketer Andrew Wheeler examines the idea that first week sales are incredibly important.

Randomness for

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1) Worst Car Chase Ever, from the movie KHILADI 420. Video. via Bill Martell

2) 52 Films Unfairly Rated Below 6 Stars on IMDB.

3) Real places that look like cgi sets from a fantasy movie.

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