...and humans are short-sighted idiots.

What happens when you take away the feral cats?While I'm sure the population of feral cats caused its own problems (not least of which was surely "cats excrete"), I do love when people get practical demonstrations of how an ecosystem works ( Read more... )

There has been some attempt to distract from the issue of racism in the current Rejectiongate kerfuffle. The question has arisen: Is outing someone's personal correspondence online legal? Does it violate copyright?

In a word: NO.

Well, not if presented under Fair Use. Miss Snark answered this one two and a half years ago, and referenced PubLaw ( Read more... )

If you think that the contents of an email you send to anyone are likely to stay private, you are naive indeed. If the recipient is not your best friend, spouse, doctor, or lawyer, and yet you are shocked--shocked, I say!--when it becomes public, you are thick as a whale omelet ( Read more... )

Gakked from the Smart Bitches: An article from the New York Times rehashing the genre vs literary thing again ( Read more... )

Dear Google,

I applaud your recognition of the international community, and your desire to recognize that your service is used worldwide.

However, when I go looking at GoogleMaps of Russia, I need them to be labled in English. Shit, I would settle for them to be the local names transliterated to Roman alphabet. What I DO NOT WANT is for the ( Read more... )

"Fuck fuck fuckety fuck." --Eric Cartman

This post argues against the use of foul language in most settings. I feel a juvenile need to rip it apart. ( I will try to make a more reasoned discussion of its major points. )

There’s been some argument over the interpretation of the essay I linked to over at malkatsheva’s journal the other day. I’m going to go through the "Invisible Moms" essay paragraph-by-paragraph (and occasionally line-by-line) to make clear what I’m reading there ( Read more... )

My dear, dear friend malkatsheva had a rant yesterday that, well, pretty much everyone needs to read ( Read more... )

Via Writer Beware, the tale of Chronicle Books endorsing a vanity publisher for kickbacks.

The original Newsweek article demonstrates that the writer of that article has not the slightest fucking idea how real publishing works. Tony Dokoupil may be a professional journalist, but he's just as ignorant as any deluded self-publisher who doesn't ( Read more... )

The topic came up recently on the OWW about being on panels at conventions. I had this to say (I've edited a bit ( Read more... )