- I wish my company had letterhead this cool. [via]
- An in-depth interview with Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos about their recent deal with Warner Bros. I think this goes a long way to explaining the deal and why it’s ultimately a boon to Netflix subscribers. (As such, the interview is maybe only of interest to subscribers.) There’s been a lot of anger over the planned 28-day window between when DVDs go on sale and when they’ll be available for rent at Netflix. But I really don’t have a problem with it — not if it means more, and better streaming content and a greater likelihood that when a new release is available, there will actually be enough stock for me to get a copy.
- An interest Catch-22 of science fiction translations revealed:
Because it takes so long for English-language science fiction to get translated, people in non-English speaking countries are often reading books that are several years behind the current fashion in English speaking countries. They then write books in response to what they have read, but when those books are offered for translation into English the big publishers reject them as “old fashionedâ€. [via]
- For most authors, breaking 1,000 words wouldn’t seem like much. For Bruce Holland Rogers (who contributed to Kaleidotrope #3, by the way), it’s practically a novel!
- And finally, some truly beautiful papercraft [via]
Month: January 2010
There once was a day called Tuesday
I woke up this morning at 7, surprised it wasn’t an hour earlier — until I discovered I’d accidentally set my alarm for 6 PM. If I’d been smart, I would have stayed up and caught the 7:37 train into Manhattan. I don’t actually get up at 6 AM anyway; I just wake up briefly, reset my alarm for 7, and then go back to sleep. I read somewhere once that you can trick your body into feeling refreshed with an hour-long nap — sometimes even more refreshed than if you’d slept the whole seven or eight hours straight, and it does usually seems to work for me. Except, of course, this morning I wasn’t smart. I guess I decided I still needed that nap and I went back to sleep until about twenty to eight. As I’ve noted before, there’s an 8:15 train I can also catch if I decide to sleep in.
Except the train was painfully slow and late into Penn Station, and I’d have been a lot better off if I’d just forgotten about that nap altogether.
Then again, my train being about 15 minutes late is probably the most exciting thing that happened all day. Still, there’s always the consolation that, although felt very much like a Monday, it was in fact a Tuesday, and the work week is already almost half over. That’s something right?
Tuesday various
- Mother Jones on the death of literary magazines. To which my short answer is: same as it ever was, same as it ever was. I think there’s an argument to made that readership is down, but I don’t think that’s reflected in the number of different venues for writers. Some literary magazines will die off, or will be forced to adopt new business models — pay even less, change what they publish — but it seems like not a day goes by when another new magazine or journal doesn’t open up. [via]
- How to make a Michael Cera movie [via]
- Are there oceans of liquid diamond on Uranus and Neptune? [via]
- I’m amused that somebody thinks “man listens to loud music and neighbors complain” is somehow more newsworthy because the loud music was John Denver.
- And finally, I like this mashup of 2009’s top songs a whole lot more than the individual songs it’s made up of.
Monday (or, rather, Sunday Redux)
I’m back to work tomorrow after a three-day weekend. I haven’t done a whole lot since Saturday, besides go for a couple of walks, watch some television, potter around on the internet, and make practically no progress on this short story I’ve been writing for the longest time. Sometimes, three-day weekends are like that, and they seem to fly past even quicker than a normal two-day variety. I’m actually looking forward to getting back to the daily routine tomorrow.
Although I am very glad that tomorrow’s already Tuesday.
Monday various
- Did James Cameron plagiarize a series of Russian novels for Avatar? Well, just throw it on the pile with Pocahonatas and FernGully. I mean, Cameron does sort of have a track record with this sort of thing… [via]
- Will Kiefer Sutherland still be doing 24 when he’s sixty? Well, he’d like to think so.
- Meanwhile, from someone who maybe knows when it’s time to retire, David Tennant’s foreword to the Doctor Who specials. [via]
- Happy families are all alike. Presumably because they’re built that way in the robot factory. Android Karenina.
I still haven’t read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and I am sort of waiting for this trend to die out, but at least Quirk handles their own entries with some degree of humor and style. [via]
- And finally, a long post from Mark Evanier on the whole Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien situation.
I think he makes a lot of valid points, including about why Leno probably isn’t the big villain he’s being portrayed as in some circles. I still think Peter David is right, that Leno “can’t be the deposed king returning to power and court jester at the same time.” And I’m still a little saddened that NBC is pinning its hopes and future of late-night on the man who’s greatest contribution to comedy in decades has been the Dancing Itos.
But at least Evanier does a decent job of explaining how and why this all happened.