1) How a web designer got revenge on a company that wouldn’t pay its bills.
2) Okc_ebooks: Pick-up artists trying to chat up a robot horse.
3) Finding optimal marriage pairings using the assignment problem.
4) Forbes posts an infographic showing the effects of vaccines on morbidity.
5) “Invisible Man” artist has himself painted to camouflage himself into his environment.
Over the weekend I posted the cover art to my next novel. Here you can see it without the text, here you can see the preliminary pencil sketch.
Hey you guys, it’s the artist’s web site. Check out the other work he’s done. Every link in the page opens in a new tab, which is a little bit something but check it out.
On my Facebook page, there are currently 140 people who “like” me. Basically, they’re there to keep up with what I’m doing.
Unfortunately, the link to the post about that cover art was only seen by 62 of those people. Less than half. If these folks who are interested in hearing about my books want to actually hear about them, I’m gonna have to pay.
I’m not the first to say this, but this is stupid. If you want to put in a “promote” button, promote beyond the people who are already on my “like” list. Not to the people who have already signed up.
More and more I’m thinking that I should disconnect from FB (as a writer, at least) so that people won’t think they’re getting the latest news when they’re not. I’m becoming increasing convinced that it’s better to have nothing to do with a social media company than to make do with defective service.
I mentioned in the blog post that KING KHAN will be “upbeat and family-friendly,” and right away someone asked me if that meant they could hand it to their seven-year-old.
That was a bit of a stumper. There’s nothing in the book I wouldn’t show to my 11yo, but seven? There are hopping vampires, dirty cops, and period-appropriate (I hope) racism. At one point the action goes to a Sunset Strip nightclub taking part in the Pansy Craze. There are a handful of lechers, an island populated with beautiful women where men are kept in cages, and one mostly-elided sex scene. There is punching. There is shooting. There is stabbing.
I don’t think there’s anything in the book a kid can’t read, but a seven-year-old kid? The only way to know would be for a parent or guardian to read the book first to judge for themselves. Maybe I’ll do what my friends at Jet City Improv do, and change “family-friendly” to “TV-clean.”
This is a cool thing:
Reddit is doing a book exchange for its members. Check out the details here.
Note: I’m not posting this because I’m hoping folks will spread Ray Lilly books around. I mean, you can if you want to, but it’s not exactly going to change things for me. The series is cancelled and it’s never going to earn out.
So go get some books, and share your favorites.
1) Dr. Seuss books retitled according to their subtexts.
3) 25 words that don’t exist in English.
4) Most popular dog names in New York, by neighborhood.
5) Ten of the most unusual houses in the world. These are absurd and/or gorgeous.
6) REM’s Losing My Religion digitally remastered to turn all the minor scales into major scales. Video. They’ve given the same treatment to “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors.
Blastr has posted a (slightly tongue-in-cheek) list demonstrating how much it would cost to buy yourself a Hugo nomination and/or a Hugo Award.
Now, I’m not going to replicate their numbers here, you’ll have to click through to see them. They’re based on last year’s numbers. Since folks can nominate and vote just by paying for a membership in the convention, how many memberships would you have to buy (for friends, ‘natch) to put yourself into consideration. It seems like the cheapest options would be $850 to be nominated and $8800 to win for short fiction.
That’s 17 pals to make the bottom of the list, assuming this year’s numbers are like last year’s. You might want to round up to an even grand just to make sure. My question would be this: Would it be worth it?
Never mind the bragging rights to having the statue, or to putting “Hugo-nominated author” into your email sig file. Would it get you better contracts, more sales, more reviews, or anything at all? Would it ever pay off?
From everything I’ve heard, it never would.
Wing-it Productions makes a habit of helping at-risk, homeless, and incarcerated youth, and now they’re asking for help. To stay afloat and continue their weekly teaching sessions for kids inside the King County Juvenile Detention Facility and also homeless kids–not to mention their performances at kids burn centers and cancer society camps, plus their regular theater shows–they’re holding a fund drive.
They need $5,500 in donations by Jan 31st to collect their money, at which point their board will put up matching funds. They’re at 76% as I write this.
Their company, which includes Jet City Improv, is over twenty years old, but things have been tough for theater groups over the last couple, and it would be a shame if they were unable to continue their work. And yeah, the founders are friends of mine.
So please, even if you’re not a Seattle local, consider making a small donation.
1) The Macroeconomic effects of Smaug on Middle Earth. h/t James Nicoll
3) Real astronaut tweets with Star Trek actors.
4) Visualizations of mass transit in major cities. This one is for Seattle.
5) Father hires in-game “hit squad” to kill his son’s PC.
6) Only sexy women in stylish boots can protect society from the threat of sharpened scissors.
1) A motorcycle with a track instead of wheels, from 1939.
2) Do people gain weight during the holidays? Science says no, not usually.
3) A six-year-old tries to guess the plots of classic novels by their covers.
4) How much we care about Star Wars, graphed over time.
5) Look at this Instagram (Nickelback parody) Video. Not only have I never knowingly heard Nickelback once, but I have never been to Instagram. I still laughed at this.
6) Why is ‘w’ pronounced ‘double u’ rather than ‘double v’?
7) Author Christopher Priest shares his opinion of Robert McCrum, an associate editor of the Observer.
And the scandal is this: He’s a decent guy giving readers a chance to win great books and other swag while helping charity.
I have nothing to donate this year, so you won’t have a chance to win anything of mine, but there’s a massive pile of books over there you could win.
It’s pretty interesting, but I wish they showed the technique in more detail.