2) Your request to play Devil’s Advocate has been denied.
3) A Captain America motorcycle suit. No turned-down pirate boots, though.
4) Honest Slogans.
6) We’re more creative when we’re tired: ten surprising facts about how brains work.
7) Tips For Improving Street Harassment, in comic form. So. Good.
1) Another drive-through prank, skeleton edition. Video. This one is funny and Halloween is coming up, so… (h/t Nick Kaufmann)
2) Banksy kicks off an art institute on the streets of New York.
3) What your style of beer says about you.
4) Hyperbole and a Half explains power, identity, and changing yourself with costumes.
5) 44 of the Best Scared Bros at Haunted House (2013 pictures). I will confess to enjoying these pictures of absolute terror to an unhealthy degree. Oh, and the body language is instructive for any writer, I guess.
6) Test your color IQ with an online test. My wife, who took the analog version of this test in art school, scored a 26, which is pretty good. Then my son took it and scored a perfect zero. I haven’t tried it myself.
7) The internet is full of “life hacks” but how many of them actually work? 30 Common Life Hacks Debunked. Video.
1) How to clean your ear buds. I had no reason to google this. Nope. No reason at all.
2) Ladies and gentlemen, a cat playing a theremin: video.
3) Classical sculptures dressed as hipsters, and they look great.
4) THE MATRIX as retold by Mom. Video.
5) Hilariously Bad Book Covers.
6) Attention filmmakers: The future is already here. I have been tricked by an April Fools article in September! It even says “April Fools” right there in the tags! Let’s pretend that’s a rare thing, and thank you Rose Fox for catching that.
1) Myths over Miami: Homeless children create an elaborate mythology of the city all on their own. I swear, this is the most amazing thing.
2) Amazon collects the funniest reviews on its site.
3) A convention attendance discussion for authors on reddit.
4) What every New Yorker should know, in .gif form.
5) Gifs of gelatin cubes dropped onto solid surfaces. There’s something strangely healing about this.
6) Take a virtual tour of the world’s largest cave, discovered recently in Vietnam. Video.
7) “Attacks of Opportunity” helpfully explained and demonstrated. Video. This is funny enough that I’m looking up other videos on this channel. h/t Tracy Hurley
Popehat has a great post about a subject that comes up all the time now: freedom of speech and the so-called censorship of public condemnation. Here’s a quote:
Speech has consequences. It ought to.
In America, we have an elaborate set of laws strictly limiting the government’s ability to inflict those consequences. That is right and fit; the First Amendment prevents the government from punishing us for most speech.
Private consequences are something else. Speech is designed to invoke private and social consequences, whether the speech is “venti mocha no whip, please,” or “I love you,” or “fuck off.”1 The private and social consequences of your speech — whether they come from a barista, or your spouse, or people online, or people at whom you shout on the street — represent the free speech and freedom of association of others.
Yes, this, very much. Everyone is fine when speech has consequences that they approve of. Tell a nasty joke that makes your friends laugh, hey, that’s a nice consequence. Tell one that pisses a bunch of people off, to the point that they call you an asshole?
Well, there are certain people who think that’s completely out of bounds.
There’s a culture tug of war going on, in which one side wants to call out racist and sexist statements, and the other wants to call out all criticism of racist and sexist statements. I happen to be on the side of the former but people need to work this out and it’s going to take time.
Still, trying to frame criticism as censorship is ludicrous. Keep the link handy for the next time your Facebook comments turn toward the ridiculous.
(Trigger warning: the blog post at the other end of that link has examples of criticized speech–specifically the Pax Dickinson dudebro bullshit that created a stir recently, so people who can’t handle racist rape jokes or other asshole behavior shouldn’t click.)
1) Darkseid is impressed by Thanos’s coffee.
2) 40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense Of The World. James Nicoll, some of these are relevant to your interests.
4) How to build a cat fountain in Minecraft. Video. Note: that’s not a fountain for cats to drink from. No, it is not.
5) The Most Important Book on Color Theory Is Now an iPad App.
7) A printer with no paper tray. You just set it on top of a stack of paper and let it go. h/t @KeithCalder
1) A really wonderful webcomic. Seriously. Check it out. You might have to scroll down a little.
3) Whale nearly swallows divers. Video
4) Comedian hides funny/absurd messages in hotel rooms.
5) Ten coolest things you can make with a 3D printer. Yeah, it’s a slide show, but this one’s worth it.
6) Copy machine changes numbers when making copies. h/t Making Light.
7) Very interesting: Husband takes photos to convince wife that her hallucinations aren’t real, but wife sees them in photos, too. After being put on a new drug, the hallucinations mostly go away, except in those photos.
It’s my last because I’m done. I wanted to add 40,000 words to my epic fantasy to reach 180,000, which I’d hoped would be the end. I’ve done that. If you pledged, thank you very much. If you haven’t, you still can here. Clarion West. It’s a good thing.
Unfortunately, I wanted to have this book wrapped up by now and I haven’t. That sucks. I have to say that, as the first fantasy writer to ever write long on an epic fantasy, my embarrassment is pretty huge.
Also huge is my desire to be done with this story and on to the next. I did 1600 words today and hope to double that tomorrow and Saturday. There’s a Kickstarter coming, and ebooks, and POD, and so on. Then it’ll be something new.
1) A male comic artist puts out webcomics under a female name and sees things from the other side.
2) Saddled with student loans in the U.S.? There are ways to get rid of them without paying.
3) The best places to build wind and solar power by the map, and it’s not where you think.
4) Best way to out a superhero’s secret identity: UV gun. Superhero tan lines.
5) The Machete Order: How to watch the original Star Wars films and the prequels in a way that doesn’t suck too much. h/t LJ user blackhanddpants
6) William Gibson on the visual and thematic virtues of PACIFIC RIM.
7) Vanishing literature: more evidence that our copyright terms are too long.
1) Weird Ways To Burn 200 Calories. Video.
2) Excaliber, the world’s tallest (121 feet) free-standing climbing wall.
3) First of all, how do the astronauts was their hair in zero G? Awesome! Second of all, female astronaut. Awesome! Last, hair care tips from the woman on board? Hmph. I hope she gets to play guitar or something next time. Video. (Still, zero g hair-washing.)
4) The terrible and wonderful reasons I run long distances, by The Oatmeal.
5) Favorite movies laid out as vintage treasure maps.
6) Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal. This is so simple and absurd. I love it.
7) This is what happens when you try to take video of police in Sweden. Video. (h/t to James Nicoll).