Archive for August, 2009

Looking for something to read?

 For the next month or so, Scott Westerfield and his publisher, Simon & Schuster, are releasing his hit book “Uglies” for free as an ebook.

In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is ugly.

Free Words!

I’ve never read it, so I can’t tell you if it’s good. What I do know is that it has a large female fanbase, it’s science fiction, it normally get shelved in the YA section, and John Scalzi likes it. I’ve already downloaded the PDF, and maybe you should, too.

 I’ll let you know what I think.

ZOMBIE BRAINS IN A JAR WANT YOUR BLOOD!

That is all.

Atomic Robo in the flesh! Er, so to speak.

 Atomic Robo

Dude, clean up the building site before taking the picture.

(via Atomic Robo, naturally)

Looking for an article on all the ways the States could fall apart in the year 3000? Why every alien culture in television and the movies speaks excellent English? And what does the Rule of Cool have to do with the Suspension of Disbelief?

Get to tvtropes.org, a wiki about television, movie, and video game story techniques that doesn’t take itself anywhere near as serious as Wikipedia does. It’s a great way to waste hours of your life. You can even tell yourself you’re learning something.

Dude, even his regular speaking is wonderful and odd.

(via Scalzi)

In response to a poll on Facebook about if children should be forced to say the pledge of allegiance in school, I wrote the following.

I cheerfully offer my allegiance every time it comes up in my presence, but I’d vote no if I cared enough to vote in a Facebook poll.

 It’s bad enough the government rounds up millions of U.S. citizens every weekday and forces them into government buildings where it can lecture them for hours at a time. Giving the government employees the authority to force those citizens to pledge their eternal loyalty to that government is really too much. Especially when someone’s legitimate excuse is often a stupid excuse is someone else’s eyes. Since the determination of legitimate would be made by one government employee or another that means that all too often the government will make the determination that gives itself more power. As a tool for human interaction, law is a sledgehammer, not a scalpel.

 Better to leave the issue to the pledgers and their parents rather that the teachers or the courts.

4th Letter lets Marvel’s favorite Canadian superhero weigh in on the healthcare debate.

Wolverine on Canadian Health Care

A piece of his mind.

More of the 4th Letter crews thoughts on the latest issue of Ultimatum here.

Wolf Loves Pork

 

Neat bit of photographic animation. (via Tor)
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