July 2008

World in the Satin Bag

The Geek Commandments

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I absolutely love StumbleUpon. It’s one of the most fascinating browsing tools you can have. The things I find using the random Stumble! button are really awesome, especially since I can choose my preferences (i.e. I can select what sorts of things I Stumble! for).Well, here is something rather funny and worthy of a little commentary:The Geek Commandments (Computer Geeks especially)I agree with almost all of these except for a few, but here is my one-by-one discussion of the options. Goodness, this definitely should be the first one. Always backup your files. Especially important stuff like writing! (Realizes he hasn’t backed up his writing folder in a while…) Duh! Do people still do this? I’d also recommend not making your password your birthday, your child’s birthday, or anything that someone might look up and try to use for your password. It’s good to have passwords that aren’t directly related to yourself, because if you piss off a friend, they’ll know what it is. Well, see, I don’t know if I agree with this one. Yes, on principle this is good advice, but at the same time you have to download the new version, because somebody has to catch the bugs, right? I agree though, avoid it, but don’t tell people to avoid it, like I’m doing now, because you want some idiot like me to download the new version so when you download it down the line it’ll be fixed up. Duh. Same goes for anti-virus (even if you’re on a Mac, because what’s going to happen to your lovely little piece of crap Mac when some loser with Mountain Dew and potato chips coursing through his veins decides to create a super virus that melts your hard drive? Yeah, exactly.) Well, I guess one shouldn’t steal the neighbor’s bandwidth. Honestly, unless the neighbor is really anal and spends his or her day calculating the fluctuations in his/her bandwidth you probably won’t get caught unless you’re doing something that really slows down the net. Agreed. I don’t have an iPod. I have something better, so ha! (Well, I think it’s better.) Duh. I delete such things quick. No. Sorry. I don’t agree. Slacking is bad. I know, I’ve been doing it lately and it’s not helping with the writing. Umm, excuse me? You know what comes to mind when I play Day of Defeat and play the sniper and completely own everyone from a distance? “Mwahahahahahahaha”. That’s right, I do an evil laugh, because it’s funny. Sorry, it’s always the computer’s fault. Never the user. Yup, that’s what I have to say about all that. Cool list though

World in the Satin Bag

World Mapping (the other side of things)

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This is an interesting little article. It’s a short journey into the world of maps for fictional worlds, except not your usual fictional worlds. These are maps for non-speculative fiction worlds, which I find rather interesting. I guess it makes sense to have such maps (especially if you’re using a rather obscure location, or at least a location that you are very intimate with because you live there, but others might have problems understanding the ins and outs.I wonder what other fiction works have maps to them. Can you guys think of any? (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

World in the Satin Bag

The “Sheet Head” Fiasco

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Before anyone throws a fit and thinks I’m going to go on an anti-Muslim rant: I’m not. This is in regards to the heated discussion that has sprung up around the posting of a rejection letter sent by William Sanders of Helix Magazine. The link in that sentence is not to the original post, but a different post where the whole letter appears. The original poster recanted and pulled the letter off after Sanders threw a fit and a half over what he considered private correspondence.Now Tobias S. Buckell has rung in here on the issue and it seems like things are getting even more heated after he posted this about some things said in the Asimov’s Magazine forums. It should be said at this point that any mention of the wrongs of Mr. Sanders has very little to do with being “P.C.” and a lot to do with the nature of being a bigoted idiot. Mr. Sanders clearly used language that is inappropriate. At this point it is irrelevant whether it was right or wrong to post the rejection notice (I think it was wrong to post it, just to weigh in on that). Sanders has said things that are essentially racial slurs, or at least akin to them. “Sheet head” is not some friendly nickname given to Muslim people and while Sanders claims he was speaking about fundamentalist Muslims (namely terrorists), his use of such language indicates not only a bias but a clear injection of personal bigotry on his part.Tobias S. Buckell has already weighed in on using phrases like “sheet head” and “those people” and even on the nature of the rather psychotic discussions in the forums that seem to center on this idea that pointing out bigotry and claiming it as unacceptable is akin to being a Nazi or some bra-burning hippy/America-hater. Certainly there will always be an aspect of the “P.C.” discussion, but here the focus is more on Sanders’ integrity as an editor and human being than on trying not to step on someone’s toes. No matter how you look at this, this is not good. And for those that think I’m just another liberal nutjob who wants to step on your freedom of speech, well, you’re wrong. I’m a moderate. I sit in the middle because I don’t subscribe to either heavy-handed approach to things. You have ever right to babble your nonsense, but guess what, I have every right to call you out on your bigoted, idiotic statements. That’s right. Free speech applies to everyone. Mr. Buckell can say you’re all a bunch of right-wing bigoted morons all he wants. Why? Because he has freedom of speech. I can say the same thing. So, if you don’t like it that you’re being called out for your transgressions, that’s just too bad. We’re not trying to stifle free speech. You can say that all you want, but screaming something at the top of your lungs doesn’t make it true. If that were the case then we could all just scream and pretend that oil isn’t disappearing…and it would be true real fast (or scream about something more important if you want). The argument that folks who are pointing out the wrongs of Mr. Sanders are stomping on civil rights by being P.C. liberal Nazis holds little water here. If you want to read more about this, there’s some here, here, here, here, and here. Yeah…

World in the Satin Bag

Post A Rejection Day

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That’s apparently what today has been declared. Several folks have already done it (Tobias Buckell, Justine Larbalesteir, Willow Fagan, and likely many others.). So, throwing aside personal integrity, I thought I’d do the same thing. So I decided I’d post two of them. No mentions of the stories or which markets, for obvious reasons. Here is the first one: Shaun, Thanks, but it’s not for us. We look for the new, so we tend to stay away from the suite of elements like AI, wetware, near-future dystopias and so on which have become as ubiquitous in SF as wizards, fairies and monarchies are in fantasy. These ideas have been strip mined for more than twenty years now, and there’s very little life left in them which doesn’t depend on significant renovation from the familiar. We didn’t find that here; instead, moments like this: [redacted] could have been lifted from any number of cyberhappy SF literature, movies and TV we’ve all seen before. That all roughly translated to “don’t write crap from the 80s”, which totally makes sense now. And for something happier: Dear Shaun, Thank you for submitting [redacted] to [redacted]. It was well receivedhere, but after some thought we have decided not to accept it forpublication. I hope you’ll consider us again, and I wish you the best success inplacing this story elsewhere. So, yeah! Good stuff. Hope you all enjoy it.

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