{"id":3424,"date":"2009-04-27T18:36:42","date_gmt":"2009-04-27T22:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3424"},"modified":"2009-04-27T20:49:18","modified_gmt":"2009-04-28T00:49:18","slug":"monday-various-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3424","title":{"rendered":"Monday various"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"> <\/font><\/p>\n<ul>   <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/rhettdashwood.com.au\/#16575\">Google Maps Typography<\/a>. I&#8217;m reminded of <a href=\"http:\/\/textism.com\/photos\/?s=14\">Textism&#8217;s Found Alphabet<\/a>. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.waxy.org\/links\" title=\"Waxy.org Links\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<p><\/font> <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>John Scalzi on why it&#8217;s a <em>good<\/em> thing that <a href=\"http:\/\/whatever.scalzi.com\/2009\/04\/27\/really-the-only-thing-that-has-to-be-said-about-the-ya-thing\/\">YA novels have been winning major genre awards<\/a> lately:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\">Yes, how <em>horrible<\/em> it is that some of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being hailed as the best science fiction and fantasy written today is in a literary category designed to encourage millions of young people to read for <em>the rest of their natural lives<\/em>. Because God knows the last thing science fiction and fantasy publishing needs right now is whole generation of new and enthusiastic readers who might actually get hooked into the genre until they die. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a goddamn <em>tragedy<\/em>, it is.<\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\">I wasn&#8217;t aware the recent wins had &#8220;caused some consternation and grumbling in certain quarters,&#8221; but maybe that&#8217;s just because I don&#8217;t hang out in those quarters. (I just finished reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottwesterfeld.com\/midnighters\/index.htm\">Scott Westerfeld&#8217;s <em>Midnighters<\/em> series<\/a>, and it was easily some of the best storytelling I&#8217;ve read recently.) Personally, I think the only thing that matters is that a book be <em>good<\/em> when it wins an award. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/li>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/gerrycanavan.blogspot.com\/\">Gerry Canavan<\/a> offers two examples of how &#8220;our brains don&#8217;t work.&#8221; First, the suggestion that the &#8220;health aura&#8221; of things like salads, etc., actually <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foodpolitics.com\/2009\/04\/choosing-foods-salads-french-fries-and-supplements\/\">encourages us to eat unhealthy foods instead<\/a>. And second, an optical illusion you can&#8217;t <em>help<\/em> but see &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/2009\/04\/schizoillusion\">unless, of course, you&#8217;re a schizophrenic<\/a>. (They&#8217;re apparently not fooled.) While on the one hand it&#8217;s nice to have evidence to suggest that I&#8217;m <em>not<\/em> schizophrenic, seeing that optical illusion at work was starting to freak me out a little.<\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>&#8220;Was there anything in your childhood that led you to want to destroy civilization as we know it?&#8221; How do you even respond to a question like that? The founders of Twitter <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/04\/22\/opinion\/22dowd.html?ref=opinion\">do a decent enough job<\/a>, but Maureen &#8220;I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account&#8221; Dowd&#8217;s &#8220;interview&#8221; is just ridiculous. I think you can make an argument that Twitter is an annoyance or a time-waster, but most people making that argument would be content to, I dunno, simply not use it. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.waxy.org\/links\" title=\"Waxy.org Links\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>I was totally captivated by this short documentary, <em>Carts of Darkness<\/em>, which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.murraysiple.com\/\">Showcase.ca describes thusly<\/a>:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t one of those homeless-guys-are-just-like-us exercises in upper-middle class guilt trips. As it turns out, these guys are nothing like us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><embed src=\"http:\/\/media1.nfb.ca\/medias\/flash\/ONFflvplayer-gama.swf\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" autostart=\"false\" flashvars=\"mID=IDOBJ1351&amp;image=http:\/\/media1.nfb.ca\/medias\/nfb_tube\/thumbs_large\/2009\/cod-tv-big.jpg&amp;width=516&amp;height=337&amp;autostart=false&amp;showWarningMessages=false&amp;streamNotFoundDelay=15&amp;lang=en&amp;getPlaylistOnEnd=true&amp;embeddedMode=true\" width=\"516\" height=\"337\"><\/embed><a href=\"http:\/\/media1.nfb.ca\/medias\/flash\/ONFflvplayer-gama.swf\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\">It&#8217;s not always easy to watch, but I found it fascinating. [<a href=\"http:\/\/maureenmcq.blogspot.com\/\" title=\"Maureen F. McHugh\">via<\/a>] <\/font><\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/ul>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google Maps Typography. I&#8217;m reminded of Textism&#8217;s Found Alphabet. [via] John Scalzi on why it&#8217;s a good thing that YA novels have been winning major genre awards lately: Yes, how horrible it is that some of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being hailed as the best science fiction and fantasy written today is in a literary category designed to &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3424\">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":[],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-3424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-various"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3424"}],"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=3424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}