Aw, man.  It's that time of year again - that festive semi-annual holiday where I get to be stared at like my favorite accessory is a tinfoil hat.  But history will bear me up:  You may think it's weird that I boycott following the Olympics, but in another couple (years? decades? generations? who knows) I'll get to be one of The Few that, even ( Read more... )

So one time this culture discovered that a readily-available plant had a really tasty component, and they began harvesting, and then cultivating and later, processing and refining and making all kinds of analogs and variations on the tasty stuff. Everyone loved it, and it sold like gangbusters, and the refineries and plantations and products ( Read more... )

I saw myself in the subway today.  Twenty-five or so and Asian and wearing lipstick, but otherwise, me.

She was stimming like crazy.

People seemed to both avoid and ignore her, giving her twice the personal space of anyone else, but also never really watching or noticing her.  I watched her intently, at first in surprise - because I've ( Read more... )

We make a lot of fuss about when a commenter or blogger is violating some spoken or unspoken rule of conduct, but MAN do we let companies off the hook for some obvious things that are just terribly rude and inconsiderate!  Here are some of the worst, IMO:

• If you take an order / allow sign up online, you must allow canceling an order or ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

I'm so grateful to my father for teaching me to not only be polite, but to get more polite when confronted with rudeness.

(Note:  I do this much more consistently in person than in writing.  When writing I love to inject color and a little lightning where I can; it's like enjoying spicy food I guess.  Personally and professionally, though, I' ( Read more... )

As a big ol' sci-fi nut and occasional producer of it myself, I felt I ought to weigh in on the Orson Scott Card kerfuffle.  (There are many links on this; here's one.)

I don't have clear answers, actually; but I'm good at questions and I'd love to hear others' input.

Let's start with the basic (and, I think, obvious and/or easily argued) ( Read more... )

Luke McKinney's new article - a follow-up to his infamous piece on "straight white male" being sexuality's lowest difficulty setting (you may remember John Scalzi's still-famous article expanding that idea) - on 5 Gamer Comments That Give Straight White Guys a Bad Name had me screaming and clapping while simultaneously laughing coffee out my nose ( Read more... )

I'm moving this week, so pardon my invisibility (I'm actually getting a TON done - like the final edits for the Second Edition; finished! …which means that if you'd like to preorder and get the discount, now is a great time, ahem…but most of it isn't visible, unless you happen to be peeking in my windows looking for an accumulation of boxes).

( Read more... )

Lulu Blog » Living in a DRM-Free World.

Count me among the authors who feel that DRM did nothing to benefit us, and who're frankly relieved that it's on the way out.

Has the book been torrented?  Yup.  Does this upset me?  HELL no.

Think of it this way:  The Internet is the biggest communications medium in the world.  If you were an ( Read more... )