This past weekend was the Dallas Comic Con, which I attended on Saturday. While there, I got glimpses of Patrick Stewart and Stan Lee, and braved the sea of people to explore the expo hall. I saw an excellent Harley Quinn win the comics category in the costume contest, and perused some wares.
Bryan Adams – Summer of ’69: Alternate Lyrics
(Music should be a techno version of the song.)
I was a fiend for scripting
Working in a data mine
Kept me and my family fed
It was the summer of ’69
Continue reading ‘Bryan Adams – Summer of ’69: Alternate Lyrics’ »
A story of publishing and ebooks
J.A. Konrath yesterday posted a story of what is going on in publishing right now. I think it’s a pretty good summary of the situation.
The thing about pure heist movies
Brandon Sanderson has said that one of the two main ideas for the first Mistborn novel was to create a fantasy version of a heist story like Ocean’s Eleven or Sneakers. I probably wasn’t the only one to make the connection before reading that that was his intent, so it did come across. I think the idea of a fantasy caper story is interesting, but as much as I liked Mistborn, it didn’t really satisfy me as a heist story. Maybe that’s because other elements took over more after the first part of the book.
Eventually there’s some stuff about the Authors Guild
In the Guardian piece I linked yesterday Clay Shirky was quoted saying, “Institutions will try to preserve the problem for which they are the solution.” Anecdotal evidence and intuition agree with this observation, but what does it really mean?
Continue reading ‘Eventually there’s some stuff about the Authors Guild’ »
Of interest to writers
Barry Eisler has an article in The Guardian today continuing to point out the problems with the arguments supporting legacy publishers against the Justice Department’s suit. It’s good, but what prompted this post was the great links in the article to some things I hadn’t come across before.
Draw Something gallery added
I’ve added a gallery of drawings I did on Draw Something that I thought were worth sharing. Take a look if you like.
Trust Busting
A lot of people are blogging lately about the civil antitrust suit the US Department of Justice filed against Apple and 5 of the Big 6 publishers. Some authors are saying some pretty ridiculous things to paint Amazon as the bad guy and the Big 6 as the underdogs, and of course the publishers themselves want you to see them this way. I found it kind of disappointing today that John Scalzi recommended people read that drivel by Charlie Stross, especially since Scalzi’s earlier points on the matter were so rational. I found this section of Stross’ diatribe both humorous and galling (emphasis mine): Continue reading ‘Trust Busting’ »
John Cleese on Creativity
I came across this great video today of John Cleese giving a lecture about creativity. Watch:
Science in Assassin’s Creed
I just read an article on Kotaku explaining how the science in Assassin’s Creed is slightly less far-fetched than I had thought. If that sounds interesting, you should check it out. I thought it was pretty cool.
Little Games
On Wednesday the New York Times Magazine published a really interesting article that talks a little about gamification and a lot about specifically the type of games, often found on Facebook and mobile devices, that capitalize on the snippets of “free” time everyone has between doing other things. It’s definitely worth a read; go check it out.
Silly thought
A few weeks ago I was looking at Wikipedia’s list of cognitive biases (one of the more interesting things to read about on Wikipedia. Another is the list of common misconceptions). Yesterday I was thinking about rap. Specifically, the rhyming reminded me of the rhyme-as-reason effect I’d read about, and gave rise to a humorous theory.
More about the motivations of the Authors Guild
I should have mentioned this sooner, but on Friday Barry Eisler put up a nice post on his blog about the motivations of the Authors Guild. It explains the point more thoroughly than the original comment I made on the topic.
More about Draw Something
I mentioned in an earlier post how the developer of Draw Something was purchased by Zynga, but I wanted to talk a little about my experience with the game. I did order a stylus, by the way; it should arrive this week sometime.
First Drafting
There’s been a lot going on lately. I’m writing a novel, which I started a few months (a year?) ago and then let sit. I’ve been continuing to write it intermittently, and I am at a point where I really feel a need to finish it, hopefully this year. It’s been slow going. There are always other things that demand my attention, but this is important to me and I don’t want to let it slide anymore. Honestly I’m only around twenty pages in at this point, but still.
