- RIP Frank Buckles, the last remaining American WWI vet. [via]
- I’m quite disappointed to learn that The Ethicist is ending, apparently for no particular reason other than that the New York Times thinks any change is good change. I think they’re sadly mistaken.
- PodCastle, “the world’s first fantasy audio magazine,” is looking for readers.
- Ever wonder what happens when you stick your head into a particle accelerator? Better to read this than actual try it. [via]
- And finally, a simply stunning photo of crows — lots and lots of crows. It looks like if Jackson Pollock had done the cover for an H.P. Lovecraft novel. [via]
writing
Sunday is the day after Saturday
Today was a lot like yesterday, only more Sunday-ish. So that meant the New York Times crossword instead of a movie, and it meant watching this week’s episode of Fringe instead of, like yesterday, this week’s episode of Community. I’m watching less television lately, but those two I am compelled by law to watch. (It is so a law. Shut up!)
Anyway, I also did some reading and, with my weekly group, some writing. What I wrote yesterday is more a work in progress, born out of those weekly free-writing exercises but still growing. This, on the other hand…well, I’m not really sure what this is:
[cut]
I dunno. I had fun writing it.
Wednesday various
- What It’s Like to Work for Donald Rumsfeld. You really do expect him to close with, “And has everybody signed Debbie’s birthday card? Invade Iraq and then ice cream cake in the break room at three!”
- Why Nielsen Ratings Are Inaccurate, and Why They’ll Stay That Way. Frankly, it’s amazing any television of quality gets made, ever. [via]
- Tyranny of the Alphabet. All these years, my last name beginning with C, and I was apparently the unknowing beneficiary of reverse-alphabetism. This is sort of similar to something Malcolm Gladwell has suggested, namely that being born after the first three months of the year significantly limits your success in life. Gosh, three letters into the alphabet, only three months into the year — I should be President by now!
Though seriously, those of you with last names further along down the chain of letters than me: did it affect you in school, or your current psychological outlook? [via]
- Speaking of Malcolm Gladwell, the Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator. (Also, this xkcd comic. The rollover text is particularly amusing.) [via]
- And finally, When Should I Visit? It’s the reverse-Foursquare, finding the least busy times to visit museums, galleries, theaters, etc. By the site’s own admission, it’s only somewhat accurate, pulling data only from Foursquare users, and exclusive to London. But I am amused by the idea of “use[ing] Foursquare to learn how to avoid Foursquare users.” [
Sunday part 1
Today was, for all intents and purposes, a Sunday. I can’t say, with all sincerity, that it always felt like a Sunday, but I have it on reasonably good authority that a Sunday is what is was, nevertheless.
Anyway, here’s something that I wrote today:
[sorry, done been deleted]
Some kind of Sunday
Kind of a boring day here, spent mostly just working on the Sunday crossword and joining my weekly writing group. Every week we do a forty-minute free-writing exercise, based off of some kind of prompt. Here’s what I got this week:
The executioner made an embarrassing mistake when he turned on the computer. He hoped that no one had noticed, or that the fear his station and obsidian garb as a rule instilled in the townsfolk would keep the crowd silent and cowed. Yet, he was no neophyte; he should have known better. The procedures for android execution were not significantly different than any other, and yet there were steps that needed to be followed. There was a process, unique and necessary for the dispatching of this mechanical man beside him, without which there was only anarchy, without which there would be only half-death. And the last thing the executioner needed was another major screw-up, another black mark on his record, another town overrun with hordes of bloodthirsty zombie androids.
He had neglected to intone the proper passage as the computer was booting up, the words from the great book that told not just the crowd, but also the computer itself, the program he had been delegated by his guild to run. Already the android man was hooked up to the machine; the executioner could cover for his gaffe by repeating the passage now, plugging a simple patch on to the source code to prevent the flow of any misinformation, bug, or virus, but it was the principle of the thing that troubled him. It was that he had made the mistake at all that was the problem. He had let himself become distracted, lost in memory, and that was a luxury he could not afford.
If it hadn’t been for her, that last android in that border town whose name he was, by guild law, no longer even allowed to remember, none of this would be happening now. If he had never met her, or if she had lost the devil’s book before he had ever arrived, brought there by guild and local judge advocate, the executioner would be back home now in the capital city. He would have risen in the ranks of the guild, or perhaps even attained a position off-world. He would not be here in this equally unimportant, equally nameless town in the middle of nowhere making dumb mistakes that might lead to embarrassing mechanical zombie outbreaks.
When you got right down to it, his wife was to blame for all of this.
It’s okay, I guess, with a potentially interesting story lurking in there somewhere.