- Jonathan Coulton remembers Benoit Mandelbrot, who died last Thursday at 85:
I can remember stumbling across his book “The Fractal Geometry of Nature†in my high school library, reading it and not really understanding it, but finding it mind blowing nonetheless. To me, that particular brand of hazy understanding feels like the correct way to think about a lot of things – fractals, electron clouds, cats in boxes waiting to be poisoned – the natural world is really too complicated and beautiful for any of us to fully understand, and that’s OK. That’s in fact what makes it so beautiful.
- I don’t even watch Mythbusters and I still find the idea that Barrack Obama will appear on an episode pretty cool. [via]
- The Sunburst Awards need your help:
We’re looking for short (30 second to 2 minutes) videos that say what you think about Canadian speculative fiction. These should be interview-style videos in the vein of Speaker’s Corner and can be recorded as simply as with a web camera. Prior interviews or footage can be submitted provided that you have permission to do so. We will host these individually on a YouTube channel (sunburstaward), but will also edit them in order to create a series of short videos to promote awareness of the fundraising campaign. A longer video will be shown at the opening remarks to the Toronto SpecFic Colloquium.
- Seven Authors Who Wrote While Nude thankfully includes no photographs. [via]
- And finally, I really liked this Paolo Bacigalupi interview, not least of all for the pronunciation guide to his last name (“BATCH-i-ga-LOOP-ee”) and the idea that it translates to “kiss of the wolf.” But he also some interesting writing advice:
But mostly I sat down and said, I’m not going to write a boring story. And that actually, surprisingly, solves most of your problems. Don’t dick around too much in the weeds of, oh, gee, this character’s deep interiority or anything like that. Get it done and make this character do some stuff and make stuff explode. That seems to work pretty well. [via]
tv
Thursday various
- Just what is a documentary these days?
So the salient question might not be, “What is a documentary?†— an abstract, theoretical approach to a form that is grounded in the concrete facts of life. Instead it might make sense to ask what (or whom) a given documentary is for? Is it a goad to awareness, an incitement to action, a spur to further thought? A window? A mirror? The more you think about it, the less obvious the truth appears to be.
- I think somewhere, in the back of my brain, I knew that Eric Stoltz had originally been cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future — had, in fact, filmed for several weeks — but it’s still weird and kind of amazing to see the footage.
- The Wire Monopoly? Sometimes parody edges up right up against the things we wish were real. [via]
- Children’s picture books are apparently a dying art, thanks to parents starting kids on chapter books earlier and earlier:
Picture books are so unpopular these days at the Children’s Book Shop in Brookline, Mass., that employees there are used to placing new copies on the shelves, watching them languish and then returning them to the publisher. [via]
- And finally, The Doctor is now immortal. Or always was. Or whatever. I’m still a Doctor Who neophyte compared to some, but even I know “continuity” is a very slippery slope in that universe.
Tuesday various
- I feel totally vindicated now: Study: Doodling Helps You Pay Attention. [via]
- Professional wrestler Mick Foley — who I know mostly as Mankind, mostly because a friend of mine once dressed up as him for Halloween — talks about how Tori Amos changed his life. [via]
- Stan Lee won’t rest until he’s created a comic book character for every last man, woman, and child on the planet, and then some. Excelsior! [via]
- Ever wonder how ink is made?
- And finally, John Seavey on Pokemon:
It’s a show about a little boy who runs around capturing wild animals, locking them up in a tiny cage, and then pitting them against other wild animals in brutal gladiatorial contests. Really, I don’t think there’s anything you could do to make this one darker if you tried.
Monday various
- Today is the first day of the online raffle in support of the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series. There are lot of excellent prizes, from signed first drafts and story critiques to used keyboards (Neil Gaiman’s) and Tuckerizations galore, all for the cost of $1 each. I’ve not yet actually made it to a KGB reading myself — they’ve either conflicted with my schedule or I’ve been a little intimidated about going to one by myself — but I understand they put together a really great series. The raffle runs until October 25.
- Today is also Columbus Day. (In America. Some people insist on claiming it’s Thanksgiving elsewhere.) After reading this article about the real Columbus, you may be wishing it wasn’t.
- You know, there may very well be lots of edible mushrooms in NYC, but I think I’ll pass.
- I was sure this was an Onion headline when I first saw it: Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic. But no, not in the least:
The self-driving car initiative is an example of Google’s willingness to gamble on technology that may not pay off for years, Dr. Thrun said. Even the most optimistic predictions put the deployment of the technology more than eight years away. [via]
- And finally, I find the final word in today’s Writer’s Almanac just a little odd:
It was on this day in 1975 that Saturday Night Live premiered….There was a fake advertisement for triple-blade razors, a product obviously considered ridiculous by comedians in 1975, just after the two-blade razor came out—the faux commercial ended, “Because you’ll believe anything.” These days, there are many more blades on razors—in 2006, Schickette announced plans for a nine-bladed razor—and Saturday Night Live is now in its 35th season.
Lazy Sunday: actual footage
A quiet Sunday, largely spent watching episodes of Sports Night and Fringe. I was woken up early this morning — well, around nine — by the dog who cried wolf. Our dog, Tucker, has gotten into the habit lately of barking in the morning to be let out…even when he doesn’t actually need to go out. Part of that’s due, I’m sure, to his increasingly early breakfasts — last night I think my father actually took him out and fed him before 1 a.m. — but partly it’s just insane. I pulled on a pair of jeans and sneakers over my pajamas and took Tucker outside, only to discover he was apparently just bored. I tried, but largely failed to get back to sleep when we came back inside.
I did manage to finish the Sunday New York Times crossword again, though, so my brain wasn’t too addled with sleep deprivation, I guess.
Otherwise, my day wasn’t too exciting. I went for a walk. I helped my father repair a bench. I hung around the house. I don’t have off tomorrow for Columbus Day (or Canadian Thanksgiving), but I’m taking Friday as a vacation day…mostly so I can go to my spine doctor. Fun week ahead, huh?