Real Live Preacher (original) is a brilliant new weblog from a Texas preacher. Oddly, it reminds me of True Porn Clerk Stories, in that it’s very honest writing about a profession that most of us know little about. At least, from the inside. Very much worth reading. (By way of Electrolite.)
Notes from the Velvet Crypt is a cool little weblog about eroticism, science fiction, horror, and stuff like that. In other words, stuff I like when I’m not thinking about politics. If she ever says anything nice about Laurell Hamilton, though, I will be saddened.
When I mentioned imagination in skyscrapers earlier, I was thinking in particular of the skyscrapers of Dubai. Then I realized I’d never linked to those. So: here’s a page of drawings of Dubai skyscrapers (original), which will give you an idea of how inventively wacky and big they are. This page (original) also has drawings. The drawings there aren’t as good, but they link to photos of the buildings, which are incredible.
So, yeah. Communication. This arises from some comments Mike made on my previous entry, which I very much appreciated. Most relevant: “… it just seems sometimes that both sides are longer even speaking the same language anymore. And that’s not a good thing.” I think that’s a really good summary of the problem. You can’t point fingers and say it’s the fault of any particular group of partisans. I can easily find left-wing blogs who are as shrill as anyone on the right. I can find blogs at any end of the political spectrum that are rational, calm, and very sensible even though I may disagree with some of the things they say. Wanted to get that out of the way first, although one suspects it’s no insulation against irate screeds. ...
The Creative Commons licenses went public today. I’ve been looking forward to this. Essentially, they’ve created a boilerplate method of licensing your creative works into the commons. You retain copyright, and you choose from a menu of possible restrictions on the use of your work, and they provide you with an appropriate and reliable legal document. It makes giving away your creative efforts easy. Not only does this tickle my interest in donating intellectual effort to the world, it satisfies one of my instincts. It minimizes the effort needed to take a particular action, which in my book is the best way to get people to take that action. You’ve got to cut down on friction if you want people to do things. Creative Commons makes the licensing process gut simple. ...
It is not entirely clear to me that this experiment had the desired effect. “It felt weird,” said Nicole Squires, a student juror. “I felt like I had a life that I could totally ruin or just keep it the same. It was really odd, but it felt really nice to get that feeling and see how I could change a life.” ...
Why aren’t any US publishers publishing lines like this (original)? Or this (original), from the fantasy perspective. Wow. (No insult meant to Tor, whose reprint line is delightful; mild snide perhaps for Baen, since I’m still mournful about the Telzey edits (original).)
Bartleby.com is the best Web resource I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a solid, fast, all-in-one-place site with quality reference books ranging from the Columbia Encyclopedia through Strunk and White’s Elements of Style past Bulfinch’s Age of Fable to Gray’s Anatomy. Sweet. If that’s not enough, there’s also an extensive collection of verse, an equally extensive collection of fiction, and a big fat bunch of essays. Yeah, it’s all free.
William Shatner. Not likely to rival Wil Wheaton in the epic contest for coolest post-Star Trek life. Still making a valiant showing on slashdot. “It seems to me that you need to get a life.” Shatner! Master of dry humor!
True Porn Clerk Stories has ended. If you never read this, it’s worth reading. There’s nothing spectacular there; it’s just a literate intelligent writer working at a video store that does a lot of porn business, talking about her experiences. “Just,” in this case, encompasses a lot of good writing and some quietly sad stories and some really funny stories. I admire her willingness to talk about taboo issues head-on without resorting to the easy outs of mockery or condemnation.