Thursday various

  • Roger Ebert on trivia:

    The fatal flaw in the concept of trivia is that it mistakes information for knowledge. There is no end to information. Some say the entire universe is made from it, when you get right down to the bottom, under the turtles. There is, alas, quite a shortage of knowledge. I think I will recite this paragraph the next time I’m asked a trivia question.

  • In all the talk about whether or not Google should be allowed to scan massive numbers of books and make them available in electronic form — a matter that’s still not yet resolved, due to pending litigation — there’s one question I haven’t seen raised a lot: can Google even do this well? There’s some evidence here to suggest not. Certainly, even if Google Book Search goes ahead, it may need some significant work. [via]
  • Mad Max fan builds replica Interceptor, moves to Outback. I’d make a Thunderdome joke, but I think we’re all trying to get beyond Thunderdome.
  • Police baffled as dozens of “suicidal” cows throw themselves off cliff in the Alps. Warning, there are some images (not terribly graphic or close-up, but potentially distressing) of the dead cows. [via]
  • And finally, given that I’m taking tomorrow off, I find it pretty easy to sing the praises of the four-day workweek. I wonder if I could broach the idea of my telecommuting one day a week. Most everything I do is via e-mail, and working on manuscripts that are delivered via e-mail, and there are even some things — most recently checking if a video was on our YouTube channel, which ironically is blocked at the office — that I can only do at home. I don’t have any serious expectations that it could happen, but it’s an interesting thought. [via]

I’ve got issues — 7 in fact!

Wondering about the contents of Kaleidotrope #7? Then wonder no more…

Fiction
“Remember” by Lindsey Duncan
“Albatross Ghosts” by Joanne Anderton
“How Antkind Lost its Soul” by Bill Ward
“The Beekeepers” by J. Alan Pierce
“Fortune” by Alberto Chimal
“The Vigilant” by Jason Hinchcliffe
“Please Share My Umbrella” by Jean Huets
“The Clay Men” by C.L. Holland
“Lock and Key” by Alyssa Fowers
“Chamberlain McLaverty” by Sean Ruane
“Duma of the Valley Kifaru” by A. Kiwi Courters
“Intuo” by Dale Carothers
“What Bear Skull Holder Taught Me” by Jeffrey Meyer
“To Put Away Childish Things” by Aaron A. Polson
“Star Over Babylon” by John Walters
“Horseshoe” by Stacy Sinclair
Poetry
“Marbles” by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Two Poems by klipshutz
“My Friend, the Sculptor” by Terrie Leigh Relf
“Sligo” by Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa
“Flickering She” by Berrien C. Henderson
“Cower” by Aurelio Rico Lopez III
“Speaking to Socrates” by Rhian Waller
“Nostalgia” by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

With cover art by Kurt Kirchmeier, and short comic art by Erica Hildebrand and Tom Powers & Amanda Banaszewski. That’s 70+ pages of great writing and art, coming October 2009!