December 2008
28 posts
Lazy Dystopias →
Recently, I’ve been buried in a bumper crop of lazy dystopias. Now, I’m not against dystopian fiction as a means of social critique. Not at all. I think showing how present intentions may come to…
The Street as Platform →
I realize now that I’ve been delinquent in recommending Dan Hill’s truly excellent speculative essay The Street as Platform, which explores a cross-section of all the ways that urban…
Why are SF and fantasy novels the length they are? →
It’s a question that comes up quite often — back in the 1960s a typical SF novel ran to 60,000 words (130-150 pages); one that topped 80,000 words was considered lengthy. But today, I’m more or less…
Clive Thompson on How YouTube Changes the Way We... →
Two years ago, a YouTube member named MadV—who silently performs magic tricks while wearing a Guy Fawkes mask—put up a short, cryptic video. He held his hand up to the camera, showing what he’d…
networking 2.0 - social media how-to tips and... →
How To Do Almost Anything With Social Media from Mashable. All kinds of practical tips and tons of useful link resources for personal or business uses. At the bottom of the page are additional…
First Designer Baby to Be Born in UK [Mad Science] →
This week, the first truly designer baby will be born in Britain. She’s the offspring of a woman whose family had an incredibly high incidence of early breast cancer - all traceable back to…
The Lit-SF Debate Has Become A Trope In Its Own... →
Yet another literary boffin has said science fiction novels can’t be literary, and it’s (not surprisingly) sparked some controversy. Benjamin Kunkel in Dissent Magazine wrote a long exegesis on…
Doctor finds foot growing in brain of infant →
A pediatric brain surgeon Colorado Springs, Colorado was operating on a 3-day-old baby and found a foot growing in his brain.
“The foot literally popped out of the brain,” Grabb told…
Xinhua Version of Kashgar Attack Addresses NYT... →
This is the second sentencing we’ve covered at The New Dominion (the other being the sentencing of conspiracists captured in January 2007) and both have been quite informative because sentencing…
Larry Niven's Iron-Clad Rules For Predicting... →
How can you predict future technologies? You can’t, according to five great science fiction authors quoted in the new CIO Magazine. But at least you can predict what types of problems will…
Internet Porn for the Blind →
Porn for the Blind is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to producing audio descriptions of sample movie clips from adult web sites. This service is provided free of charge.
There won't ever be a singularity. Ever. →
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Again for the 3dWorlder file
I think about all the fat kids eating this shit up - “Don’t worry, one day we’ll replace your asthmatic saggy-tittied walking corpse with a shiny metal…
Life after Deng →
Despite the saturation coverage that China gets, what I hear from most first-time visitors is “I had no idea.” That normally refers to China’s pockets of affluence, its stunning infrastructure and…
Fancy Kidney Stones →
Chinese "poem" on the cover a scholarly journal is... →
The prestigious MaxPlanckForschung journal needed some Chinese text for the cover, so they printed a “classical poem” that turned out to be a menu of erotic services from a brothel in Macau.
…
Why in-game advertisements should be limited to... →
There’s reason to distrust in-game advertisement. For one, it does not noticeably reduce the cost of a game on the consumer end, which is the way the advertising model works in most other…
Ex-Missionary Faces Sex Charges →
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A whole bunch of people are glad right now that he wasn’t in China as part of our organization.
Accused Of Videotaping EMU Students Having Sex HARRISONBURG - A grand jury has…
Wondermark » In which Melanie disappoints her... →
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And that is the writing process.
xkcd - Friends →
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I swear I’m not doing this, female friends o’ mine. ‘Tis not my master creepy plan.
GMO Square Trees Are Ready to Become Lumber [Mad... →
If we can make square tomatoes, why not square trees that are ready to chop into lumber? That’s why the concept designers at Draw Me a Sheep have created this “square tree” sculpture - to…
Yay Hentai! →
A private comics collector is being charged with possession of manga depicting underage sex deemed “obscene” by the United States government.
On his blog, Neil Gaiman succinctly argues even…
China Internet cafes switching to Chinese OS →
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“China Internet cafes” in this case referring to cafes in one city, not the whole country. The thing western media gets wrong about the internet in China is how locally enforced and…
Journalism 1, Life 0 →
One day you wake up and discover you’ve become a journalist. It’s happened to me — an artist, do you hear! — and I’m wondering how to make it un-happen again. It’s bloody hard work. Take this…
Playful Revolution: Caroline Woolard’s Subway... →
After 9-11, that sick, sinking feeling many weary commuters experienced stepping onto a crowded NYC subway car was magnified by the MTA’s stentorian banner campaign, “If You See Something, Say…
Planet Found Orbiting Puffed-Up Star →
While redgiants vaporize those planets closest to them, they could thaw more distantworlds in their systems, creating new havens for life.
This couldhappen in our own solar system when our sun…