World in the Satin Bag

World in the Satin Bag

Amazon Bestsellers in Scifi & Fantasy

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So, here are your top ten bestsellers on Amazon as of tonight. It’s an interesting bunch I think. 10. The Children of Hurin by J. R. R. Tolkien9. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger8. Confessor by Terry Goodkind7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury6. Spook Country by William Gibson5. Dark Possession by Christine Feehan4. The Elves of Cintra by Terry Brooks3. Making Money by Terry Pratchett2. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy See what I said about being an interesting bunch? Some oldies, some new stuff, and some fantastic works in there. If you want to see beyond 10, go to the link here. Enjoy!(Don’t click the read more, there is no more)

World in the Satin Bag

The Power of Data

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I was using StumbleUpon’s lovely ‘stumble’ feature again, and came across something that got me really thinking not only about our preconceived notions of the world as it sits today, but also about what the world might become in the future. The link is here. Don’t watch it yet. Read on first. I want to do a little test at the end of the post.The ending was especially interesting, showing all the countries as they popped up on the chart as the use of the Internet spread from place to place. So, according to statistical data we are all somewhat misguided in what we think about the third world. It’s apparently not as bad as it’s made out to be. Obviously that doesn’t refer to places like Africa where AIDS is wreaking havoc, and this shows in the data, but a lot of countries that I thought were exceedingly poor and unhealthy are actually somewhat the opposite. What does this say about the way our media or even our educational system teaches us about the rest of the world? Are we really all that better off than a lot of places? The data suggests that we’re not. Yes, of course we have a lot more things that most countries, but on average we’re not that far off from a lot of countries that I and apparently a lot of Swedish undergrad students once thought were near the bottom of the barrel.What does this say for the state of the world in the future? There seems to be a trend in countries moving up the ladder. Families get smaller, people live longer, income increases, and the gap between the rich and the poor adjusts significantly. In the future a lot of countries that we see as somewhat below us on an economic and health scale, may in fact match us in their productivity and survival rates. Many countries already have, according to the data. Obviously the U.S. brings in a lot more income than most nations, but it’s not looking at how much the nation brings in as a whole, but at how that income branches out to the people.So, let’s do a little test here.Which countries do you think have the highest infant mortality rate? Don’t look it up. Just guess three and post it in a comment, along with the other answers.Which countries do you think today have a shorter lifespan and large families?Which countries are the opposite?Which countries do you think currently match, or are at least near enough to us, economically (by percentage, not gross income) and medically? Post your answers or write them down and then watch the video. Maybe you’ll be surprised! Tell me what you thought on there. I’d like to know what choices you made!

World in the Satin Bag

Art is Awesome!

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This is topical because it’s Scifi art! I was over at Astrona today and there were a series of videos of this spraypaint artist that does things with spraypaint I didn’t think were possible. You need to to check it out. The first video is totally amazing! I especially liked the part when he started using fire to make what I assume was the gloss. Also it seems that Michael Capobianco of SFWA has issued a statement regarding basically how SFWA intends to continue to protect author’s rights here. I pretty much agree. One blunder should not change how SFWA intends to protect its authors. Of course they messed up, but that surely doesn’t mean we should condemn the organization entirely. They’ve been around forever. Couldn’t hurt to be nice to them a bit.Now for some really bizarre news thanks to this Universe Today article. Sometimes stars eat up comets, asteroids, and planets, and sometimes stars get eaten up. Apparently, and I’m no expert here, scientists have discovered an instance of a star literally being eaten alive. Well, perhaps not literally, since a star isn’t a live, but you catch my drift. Usually when you hear about stars being destroyed, it’s either because they’re at the end of their life or a lovely black hole or bigger star has taken care of them. Well, in this case, it’s something a little smaller at work–a pulsar. The irony in this situation is that a pulsar is actually the remains of a star, rapidly spinning and emitting large amounts of electromagnetic radiation let off in pulses of radio waves. That’s a pretty simple version. In any case, this particular pulsar has been sucking the life out of this other star. Initially astronomers were puzzled as to why the pulsar was speeding up. Generally they accelerate and then dwindle down. But astronomers knew that something had to be feeding the pulsar. Further study proved there was a object, and when they really looked, they realized that it was another star, rather what they initially thought was a planet. They believe that the star was already quite old, probably at the end of its lifespan anyway in the white dwarf stage, but the little pulsar sucking away all the leftover material is truly wreaking havoc. Today they’re so close that the pulsar produces a tidal bulge on the surface of the dead star, siphoning material away. Sometimes there’s so much mass accumulated that it piles up and explodes as the outburst that led astronomers to the discovery in the first place.Don’t think of the companion as the planet. “Despite its extremely low mass, the companion isn’t considered a planet because of its formation,” says researcher Christopher Deloye of Northwestern University. “It’s essentially a white dwarf that has been whittled down to a planetary mass.” Now how is that for a rude neighbor?

World in the Satin Bag

Six Years: NYC Remembered

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There’s not much to say here. What can you say about something like this? We are fortunate and unfortunate to have been alive to witness, even from a distance, one of the most frightening moments in the history of this country. Are there words to truly describe what many of us felt then and feel now? I still can’t watch the videos or look at the pictures for more than a few moments. I didn’t know anybody in NYC, but for whatever reason just seeing it even in still form brings me to tears. So, for this day and this day only, let’s all forget the war inIraq and everything else going on in this country. Let’s forget who’s running for election, what new laws are coming in, etc.All we should do at this moment is remember. Remember all the men and women in the trade center and at ground zero, alive and dead, who saw it happen.Remember the fire fighters who risked their lives doing what they volunteered to do.Remember. That’s the only thing we as a people can do. Most of us weren’t there. We feel something that we might not be entirely able to explain. So we do what we can. We remember.To those who lost loved ones who are forced to relive this day over and over as a historical marker for this country, my heard goes to you and your family. My heart goes to the fire fighters who still live in NYC and everywhere. Thank you so much for everything you do for us. You do what most of us are no brave enough to do. For that there is no true repayment.Remember.

World in the Satin Bag

SFWA: My Thoughts

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Alright, so it’s probably somewhat old news, but so be it. I feel like putting my thoughts out there. I’m sure some of you have already heard about SFWA’s little blunder in regards to www.scribd.com. For those that haven’t, here is a very brief run down of what happened: Some members of SFWA reported finding their material posted on Scribd and other similar sites to the SFWA e-Piracy Commitee and complained about the infringement. SFWA responded and sent a notice to the sites responsible and requested they take the material off else legal action be taken. The sites responded by doing exactly that (at least in the instance of Scribd, since this is where it all explodes from). Cory Doctorow had a fit, here, because his work was taken off even though he never gave SFWA authorization to remove it (because he had not authorized SFWA to act as his copyright agent, to put it simply), and apparently this has happened to several other authors. SFWA publicly apologized, here, for the incident. Of course the good Mr. Scalzi has already discussed the topic here. But, we’re not here about what Scalzi thinks, we’re here about… My thoughts:No offense to Scalzi. It’s a genius, but yeah.So what do I think about it?Well, to be honest, SFWA should be thankful that really bad legal action hasn’t been taken against them. Maybe there has and it’s behind the scenes, but they clearly made a mistake that no organization with that much respect should have.I do think the apology says a lot about the state of things, though. The organization was quick to acknowledge their mistakes, something that certain politicians might never have done, and issued apologies not only to the public but to the individual authors. SFWA has ever right to protect authors they are authorized to represent, obviously, and they did do exactly what they should have done when they received the notice by removing many works that never should have been on Scribd and other sites to begin with. This is not Scribd’s fault. If you look all over the net you can find pretty much anything anyway, so it’s no surprise that a site like Scribd unintentionally let some stuff slip under the radar.So SFWA really handled the issue poorly. They went ballistic when they should have looked at it rationally. Would it have been hard for the SFWA people to sit down and look at the list of alleged infringements to figure out which authors they were authorized protect? Nope. Probably would have taken 5 minutes with today’s database technology. And in that instant they could have looked at all the other names and perhaps made a judgment call and sent emails instead of running out and demanding things be pulled down.SFWA didn’t do that, unfortunately. So, poor judgment call on their part, but thankfully they acknowledged their stupid mistake and made efforts to fix things. That takes some balls, in my opinion.

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