{"id":3206,"date":"2008-10-26T21:22:59","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T01:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3206"},"modified":"2008-10-26T21:22:27","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T01:22:27","slug":"various-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3206","title":{"rendered":"Various"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"> <\/font><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><lli><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\">I&#8217;m really not sure how <a href=\"http:\/\/turnyournameintoaface.com\/\">this<\/a> works, but it supposedly turns any name into a face. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/images\/fred.png\">Here&#8217;s mine<\/a>.  <\/font><\/lli><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul><lli><\/lli>   <font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<li><em>Fringe<\/em>&#8216;s science consultants <a href=\"http:\/\/www.livescience.com\/strangenews\/081022-fringe-television.html\">don&#8217;t have a background in science<\/a>. Yeah, it shows.<\/li>\n<p><\/font> <font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tor.com\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=blog&amp;id=7457\">Tor is offering<\/a> Brian Francis Slattery&#8217;s terrific first novel <em>Spaceman Blues<\/em> as a free e-book.<\/li>\n<p><\/font> <font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<li>I think I&#8217;ve mentioned before how I use Facebook mainly as a Scrabble delivery system. (If you&#8217;re online, why not let&#8217;s play?) So I found <a href=\"http:\/\/xkcd.com\/492\/\">this xkcd cartoon<\/a> especially funny. But is it wrong that the first thing I thought of was <em>Red Dwarf<\/em>&#8216;s Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society?<\/li>\n<p><\/font> <font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<li>Speaking of xkcd &#8212; which seems like a prerequisite for any internet conversation nowadays &#8212; here&#8217;s creator Randall Munroe&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/cartoonlounge\/2008\/10\/cartoonoff-xkcd.html\">Cartoon-Off with <em>The New Yorker<\/em><\/a>. I don&#8217;t know about you, but I think he won pretty handily.<\/li>\n<p><\/font> <font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<li>So <a href=\"http:\/\/pixish.com\/news\/21\">Pixish is closing<\/a>. I got some really great artwork out of the one assignment I ran there for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kaleidotrope.net\/\">Kaleidotrope<\/a>, but I appreciate the concerns over &#8220;spec work&#8221; &#8212; even if I think my assignment steered well clear of that. I agree that soliciting design from several artists for a specific product, which the artists will not be able sell elsewhere if it&#8217;s not accepted, is a pretty crummy thing to do. But I&#8217;m not convinced that &#8220;design contests,&#8221; in which artists submit work they think might be a good fit for a product or publication, are equally underhanded. After all, it&#8217;s not considered spec work when a <em>writer<\/em> submits to a contest, loses, and doesn&#8217;t get paid.<\/li>\n<p><\/font> <font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<li>It&#8217;s not entirely surprising that the architect of the most virulent Obama smears is sort of a scumbag. It&#8217;s just sort of  amazing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/10\/13\/us\/politics\/13martin.html?_r=1&amp;oref=slogin\">how big of one he is<\/a>.<\/li>\n<p><\/font> <font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/storms.typepad.com\/booklust\/2008\/09\/its-a-steady-job-but-he-wants-to-be-a-paperback-lounger.html\">This paperback book lounger<\/a> looks really cool, but also fairly uncomfortable.<\/li>\n<p><\/font> <font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<li>Neil Patrick Harris <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ew.com\/ew\/article\/0,,20213067_20213068_20214910,00.html\">read for the part of Simon Tam on <em>Firefly<\/em><\/a>?<\/li>\n<p><\/font><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<li><em>Criminal Minds<\/em> is &#8220;an Arthurian romance and a meditation on the existence and evolution of God&#8221;? Wow, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tor.com\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=blog&amp;id=6625\">That<\/a> almost makes me want to watch it!<\/li>\n<p><\/font> <font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<li>H.P. Lovecraft: stand-up-comedian? Well, <a href=\"http:\/\/scififantasyfiction.suite101.com\/article.cfm\/hp_lovecraft_had_a_sense_of_humor\">not quite<\/a>.<\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m really not sure how this works, but it supposedly turns any name into a face. Here&#8217;s mine. Fringe&#8216;s science consultants don&#8217;t have a background in science. Yeah, it shows. Tor is offering Brian Francis Slattery&#8217;s terrific first novel Spaceman Blues as a free e-book. I think I&#8217;ve mentioned before how I use Facebook mainly &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3206\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-3206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}