{"id":5706,"date":"2011-01-03T18:30:40","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T23:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=5706"},"modified":"2011-01-03T16:15:17","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T21:15:17","slug":"monday-various-69","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=5706","title":{"rendered":"Monday various"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Caitlin R. Kiernan <a href=\"http:\/\/greygirlbeast.livejournal.com\/714236.html\">on coincidence<\/a>:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p><i>Coincidence<\/i> is a constantly occurring phenomenon with a bad rap. Lots of people treat it&#8217;s like a dirty word, or something rationalists invoke simply to dispel so-called supernatural events. And yet, an almost infinite number of events coincide during any every nanosecond of the cosmos&#8217; existence. We only get freaked out and belligerent over the one&#8217;s we notice, the ones we need (for whatever reason) to invest with some special significance. Co-occurrence should not be taken for correlation any more than correlation should be mistaken for causation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<p>Although you have to admit, with all the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upi.com\/Science_News\/2010\/12\/24\/Clues-sought-in-Arkansas-earthquake-swarm\/UPI-16101293217985\/\">weird news<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2011\/US\/01\/02\/arkansas.falling.birds\/index.html?hpt=T2'>coming out<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2011\/US\/01\/02\/arkansas.fish.kill\/index.html?hpt=T2\">of Arkansas<\/a> recently, it&#8217;s tempting to look for correlations and common causes.<\/li>\n<li>Theodora Goss <a href=\"http:\/\/theodoragoss.com\/2010\/12\/22\/writers-and-copyeditors\/\">raises an interesting question<\/a> &#8212; namely, does fantasy writing, with its made-up languages and grammars, present unique challenges for copyeditors?<\/li>\n<li>Peter David <a href=\"http:\/\/www.peterdavid.net\/index.php\/2010\/12\/20\/et-tu-big-bang-theory\/\">on why Aquaman is actually cool<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>David Forbes <a href=\"http:\/\/coilhouse.net\/2010\/12\/all-tomorrows-fear-is-the-mind-killer\/\">re-examines Frank Herbert&#8217;s <i>Dune<\/i><\/a>. It&#8217;s fascinating, not least of all for its glimpse at the original edition&#8217;s semi-ridiculous back cover copy:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>A page of medieval history? Not quite. Duke Leto Atreides is moving from a planet, which he owns, to another planet, which he has been given in exchange. The Emperor, Shaddam IV, is Emperor of the known Universe, not a country. And Duke Leto\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s son, Paul, is not a normal noble heir. In fact, he is so little normal in any way that he happens to be possible key to all human rule, power and indeed knowledge! [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsignal.com\" title=\"SF Signal\">via<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>And finally, a fascinating look at <i>Yogi Bear<\/i> &#8212; and <i>there&#8217;s<\/i> a phrase I never thought I&#8217;d write &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/io9.com\/5714801\/\">as <i>District 9<\/i><\/a>:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p><i>Yogi Bear<\/i> is not a kids&#8217; movie. It is a bleak futurist parable about humanity&#8217;s inability to accept a non-human sapience. It is also about a bear who wears a hat. [<a href=\"http:\/\/gerrycanavan.wordpress.com\/\" title=\"Gerry Canavan\">via<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caitlin R. Kiernan on coincidence: Coincidence is a constantly occurring phenomenon with a bad rap. Lots of people treat it&#8217;s like a dirty word, or something rationalists invoke simply to dispel so-called supernatural events. And yet, an almost infinite number of events coincide during any every nanosecond of the cosmos&#8217; existence. We only get freaked &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=5706\">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":[16,20,14,37,38,143,10,39],"class_list":["post-5706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-books","tag-comics","tag-movies","tag-news","tag-science","tag-science-fiction","tag-various","tag-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706"}],"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=5706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}