The TurboNerd

Recommended: "Shepherds Whistle While They Work And Brains Process Sounds As Language," at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050106112603.htm .

The always thoughtful lmarley is teaching a writing workshops for teens next week, and she posted her thoughts about National Novel Writing Month.  She asked, "How does this exercise teach you how to 'learn and master' style and craft and pacing? If you don't revise, rewrite, edit, and examine, what improves?" 

Her questions got me thinking about the value of sprinting through a 50,000 word month:

I don't think the NaNoWriMo helps much at all with craft and pacing, but I do think there is some value in discovering voice. One of the big problems I see with wannabe writers is that they just haven't produced much, and what they do produce is overthought. Where I see this most clearly is in my creative writing classes where I have them keep 1,000-word-a-week journals. The stories they turn in can be tortured, stilted and mechanical, but their journals often have passages (sometimes very long passages) of smooth, readable, interesting and even compelling language.

I think the difference comes from their mindset and the process. When they are writing for me, they are thinking about all they know about writing and about me as a critical reader. They seize up, write slowly, and kill their voice. But when they write in their journals (especially after we've been doing them for a couple of weeks), they are writing quickly and for themselves.

NaNoWriMo puts writers more into that journal writing mindset. It's okay if it's bad. It just has to be done, and in the midst of trying to get it done, passages with real voice emerge. What they learn from the process is not only to get words on the page, but also to write from a more direct place in themselves--not the heavily filtered place where they normally wring their sentences.

The editing that comes later will be about picking out the good, adjusting the not so good, and tossing away the bad, but they can't do the editing if they don't produce something to edit first.

The cartoon is from the very funny writer and artist, Debbie Ridpath Ohi.  She has lots of other insightful writing illustrations at her site.

As I know from experience, my focus tends to narrow when I close in on a major milestone in my cancer journey. This illness induces all sorts of pathologies in me which I never enjoy in the course of my normal life — anxiety, panic attacks, crying, etc. It also invokes an old, old specter of depression, which I struggled with to severe clinical extremes in my teen years and young adulthood.

Walking this morning, I found myself turning over my surgery fears. I don't actually have much of a negative reaction to the idea of the surgical procedures. In fact, they tend to fascinate me. But anesthesia... I have both a reasonable and an unreasoning fear of anesthesia. My true terror in surgery is that I simply will never wake up.

And boy did that terror dog me this morning.

Yesterday was a perfectly fine day. Day Jobbery, lunch with kenscholes, got my hair done in the afternoon while Mark Ferrari kibitzed, then dinner with Mark, then a quiet evening at home. But the whole day I was very bundled up, like Randy in A Christmas Story. I cannot afford to come down with a respiratory infection in the next week or two, not going into lung surgery, so keeping my core temperature high has become a significant priority.

And that depressed me, for reasons it took me a while to unravel. What I finally realized was that exaggerated protection from being chilled is also part of the chemo experience, at least for the chemo I'm most likely to be on. Being ridiculously bundled up was like a pre-echo of that extended state of medical fragility into which I will be entering all too soon.

The petulant part of me keeps crying that I don't want to do this, again, or ever. The stubborn part of me says fuck cancer, we will survive.

Still, the focus narrows.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

As previously noted, I am flying to Philadelphia on Wednesday, 11/11. I will be hosting an open dinner at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott at 7 pm that evening.

If my plane is delayed, I will do my best to update here, but I will also notify klingonguy, so double check his blog before setting out. RSVPs appreciated but not required.

Your Tuesday moment of zen.



© 2009 by Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

The Dragon Page reviews Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | Borders ] — (Thanks to brent_kellmer.)

A reader reacts to Madness of Flowers [ Powell's | Amazon ]

Jay Lake, Religion and a Benediction — Shlomi, on my cancer.

TWA Mechanics from Outer Space — Hilarious photo, ca. 1941.

Saturn After the Equinox — Another APOD image that will take your breath away.

1962 textbook, When You Marry — Check out the excerpted material on class differences in child rearing and sex. It's creepy.

SMBC on the perils of evolutionists — Heh.

Antihealthcare Reform Idiocy — Oh, wow. Money shot: "When I need health care, I pay for it out of pocket," he said, adding that he did not fear the possibility that an accident or illness would leave him with unaffordable bills. "I'm a Christian, so I'm not afraid of death," he said. Good luck with that.

?otD: How thick are you?

---

11/10/2009
Body movement: 90 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 6.0
This morning's weigh-in: 234.0
Currently reading: The Jade Man's Skin by Daniel Fox

Today is the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. Here is how cool they are: They make me like Elmo and Adam Sandler... together, even. If you want to link up to any particular favorite video clips, go for it; I'll start with "Rubber Duckie, "Bein' Green", and "Batty Bat".

The big video release today is Pixar's Up (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition + Digital Copy and 4 Disc Combo Pack with Digital Copy and DVD [Blu-ray] Anti-Planned-Obsolescence Edition). There's also Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days and, if you haven't got a version already, Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut (integrating Tales from the Black Freighter, Under the Hood, and possibly some other live-action footage). Anything else just released we need to know about?

Happy Birthday, Neil Gaiman!

My Friday concert at WindyCon was going to be TomBoat, i.e., me and Toyboat. Reasons of time and practicality deep-sixed that for this weekend, although we really, really want to do it soon (I hope CapriCon, possibly not till DucKon). So, I was gonna drag out a bunch of stuff I don't usually do. Any requests? ("Heat of the Blood" is excluded from this offer.)

Dragon Age: Origins rocks really hard. It's funny: the forums are filled with people who can't get it to load, patch, work, nothin' (I've had no problems, apart from a single crash to Desktop); they complain because it's too hard, too easy, too old-school, too innovative, they hate that it's party-based, they want multiplayer and MMO; they say that the graphics are dated, and point to the game being in development for years. But BioWare did what they wanted to -- they created a new game world, which I think looks very good, with a superb, detailed story filled with rich characters and cool plot twists and astonishing detail. It's not a loot-fest, a click-fest, a FPS with orcs, or anything besides what it is. It's tough, at least to a duffer gamer like me; I set it to Easy, and I'm still getting slaughtered in some fights, the first or second time through. But dang is it rewarding, shocking, and fun. If you're interested, I think you will like it a lot. If not, no big.

What's goin' on in your quadrant?

Watched the first five episodes of Stargate Universe ...

( SGU SPOILERS (such as they are) ... )

In better news, did tonight's House rawk, or what?

I'd been thinking about having some of my friends attending OryCon visit me in the hospital, but I'm told they're being extremely vigilant about visitation due to risks from H1N1 and seasonal flu. I may have trouble even getting my immediate circle of family and friends in.

So the fallback plan is to have interested folks visit Nuevo Rancho Lake on Sunday. I should be discharged from the hospital on Saturday to continue post-op recovery at home.

However, that presents several potential issues. First, we have no idea what state of mind or body I'll be in. Visitors may be impractical unless it's a tour of Jay snoring in an opiate-induced haze, for example. Second, because this is lung surgery, I'll be incredibly vulnerable to respiratory infections, including common colds, flu and pneumonia. And if someone brings me Con Crud, that would be a wretched gift indeed.

Yet at the same time, I know me. If I'm not toxically wretched, visits from my people are immensely uplifting for me.

So we're talking about face masks and contingency plans and whatnot. At the moment, it's utterly unclear. Watch this space, and the blog of calendula_witch for details as they emerge.

However, if you are interested in seeing me that OryCon Sunday, please let me know in comments here, or by email. That might help in planning.

... this might help to put things in perspective.

Friends are good.

I had a weekend largely away from the computer (as the sharp-eyed of you have undoubtedly noticed…), and I needed it.

On Saturday, Mark arrived around noon, full of ideas and stories and good cheer. We shopped and he cooked, and also talked and talked to me about cancer and life and death and hope and faith and friendship and just all sorts of wise things. He fed me some of the best salmon I’ve ever had in my entire life.

Sunday morning, he came along and we met Corry for breakfast, before she headed back up to wet, wet Seattle. She told us all about Mile High Con and other adventures as we ate far too much food at Boogaloos.

After putting her on BART, I continued to torture the poor Pacific Northwesterner with our stunning weather by taking him for a walk up Buena Vista Park. Then he was off in his car for wet, wet Seattle (though I’ve just received reliable intelligence that he has been spotted in Portland).

Got caught up on a few things, then the_ogre came by, with more friend-encouragement and good cheer.

Honestly, jaylake has the best friends, and I am so pleased to be welcomed into their midst. Truly.

__________

So, as all the details continue to unfold and organize, my own plans have been coming clear. My last “official” day at work will still be December 1, but my last actual day will be November 20th. I will leave on the 22nd to drive to Portland. jaylake’s surgery is the 25th; he’ll be in the hospital into the weekend, most likely. A whole gang of us will camp out at Nuevo Rancho Lake and rotate in and out of the hospital, as much as the authorities will let us. Then I’ll stick around through the following week, doing what is needed for the convalescent.

Monday the 7th is the appointment with the oncologist, to discuss what was found in the surgery and the (probable) chemo plan.

After that, I will likely drive home on the 8th, though that’s flexible, if things change.

So: this is my last two weeks of work! (again…) And I’ve got a ton of things to do, to get ready for all of this. Car things–change oil, get chains, etc. Home things, though I do have helper elves lined up for the orchids already. Work things–stuff to finish up, stuff to hand over to the bosses (yeah there’s no replacement for me yet), bringing home all my personal stuff (art on the walls, etc), destroying evidence leaving the place nice and tidy for the next person. Just general life things, large and small.

I probably don’t need to mention that not a lot of writing is getting done. Though I did eke out another few hundred words on the Golden Spider Beetles story on Friday, and, far more importantly, totally found the voice of the story. I think the next writing session will take it to the end…then it’ll just need some spit and polish, and I can send it around to first readers. As for when that writing session will be, I simply do not know…

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Your Monday moment of zen.



Maureen McHugh with bram111's baby, at Rio Hondo. © 2006, 2009 by Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Foob on writers — And our "temper mental" selves.

Lucy Knisley on memories of childhood sexuality — Oi. Quite something.

Another fabulous WPA poster on Vintagraph

Dieselpunk Bomber — Mmm.

Martian Landscapes — Boston.com's "The Big Picture" with a roundup of some of the recent, stunning Mars photography. (Via Bad Astronomy.)

A Tiny Revolution on Reagan and the Pakistani bomb — Yep, those Republicans, always looking out for national security. And principled, too! Nothing to see here, citizen, move along.

Unclear on the concept of separation of church and state — Several Democrats, including Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pennsylvania, said they are in touch with their Catholic bishops back home. Altmire said he must have the approval of his bishop in Pittsburgh before he can vote yes. Nice to know that there are some Democrats who hold Constitutional principles in as high regard as their GOP colleagues.

Paranoia Strikes Deep — Paul Krugman on the American Right. He says something I've been saying for years, albeit far more elegantly, in the money shot: ...the G.O.P. has been taken over by the people it used to exploit.

?otD: How many writers does it take to change a light bulb?

---

11/9/2009
Body movement: 15 minutes of stretching and meditation, 30 minutes on stationary bike
Hours slept: 5.25
This morning's weigh-in: 233.0
Currently reading: The Jade Man's Skin by Daniel Fox

I'm responsible for creating content and discussion starters at our district's web site.  Here's this week's blog topic.  (this is teacher-centric stuff, if you want to skip it, but I think parents, writers and concerned folks might find something of interest in it).

Part of our work this year in the English department includes a study of Kelly Gallagher's provocative book, Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It.  His thesis is that "rather than helping students, many of the reading practices found in today's classrooms are actually contributing to the death of reading.  In an earnest attempt to instill reading, teachers and administrators push practices that kill many students' last chance to develop into lifelong readers."

He attributes some of the decline in reading for pleasure in our students to a variety of factors, many that are driven by high stakes testing.  His thesis, though, isn't particularly new and has been a concern for decades.  When I was taking education classes in the 70s, we discussed a bitterly satirical essay by Jerry Farber entitled, "Teaching Johnny to Walk."  In it he parodied a popular series of articles in education at the time that broke down any skill into a series of distinct teachable and measurable units ("Teaching Johnny to Read," "Teaching Johnny to Swim," etc.).

In a comment, maeveenroute asked two questions. First, this one:
"What feature would (or did, in your story) make rests qualitatively different?"

Here's an edited excerpt from "Honor Is Golden" [Analog, May 2004] where Oka -- one of the two USCOL linguists sent to analyze the Goldens' language -- is explaining things to the U.S. Senate, in a hearing:

=====
The Senator closest to her frowned, and rubbed at his forehead with the palm of his hand.
“I don’t get it, Professor,” he said, sounding cross. “All those sounds you’re talking about -- dishes breaking, cats meowing, and so on -- we have those sounds on Earth, right? But we know they’re just noises. How come it doesn’t work that way in -- what did you call it? Oh, yeah -- in Moth. How come it doesn’t work that way in Moth? How could it not work that way? I can’t imagine such a thing!”
“That’s exactly the point,” Oka said. “Human beings are hard-wired for human languages. We’re designed neurologically to recognize only certain things and combinations of things as languages, and we’re not able to imagine anything else qualifying. We have a whole universe of sounds around us, just as you say. The first thing we do, faced with all that data, is divide sounds into language and non-language. The next thing we do is divide the sounds that are language into vowels and consonants, and we can’t imagine there being something else that would be part of language. For the Goldens there is something else... that’s part of language in the same way that vowels and consonants are. There may be only one of those alien language-parts or there may be more than one; we have no way of knowing. ... Whatever they are, our brains are able to make the right division between language and nonlanguage -- presumably the reason we can do that much is because Moth is humanoid -- but that’s as far as we can go. Faced with all the sounds that are language on Golden, we can identify the vowels and the consonants, but we’re hopelessly lost with the others. Our brains keep trying, but they can’t do it, they just flounder around. Fortunately, I finally realized that that didn’t matter.”
A Senator leaned forward and opened his mouth to speak, but Oka raised her hand to stop him.
“Hang on just one minute, please, Senator,” she said. “I’m almost finished. ... You know how in music, when part of the melody is a silence of a certain size and shape, you use a symbol called a ‘rest’ to write that down? I was looking at a piece of music all full of rests, and I suddenly realized that we could handle the sequences of Moth that way. The other parts of the words are unquestionably stable, it’s only those non-vowel/non-consonant segments that human beings perceive as sometimes one thing, sometimes another. So I had the computer replace every last damned one of the mystery sounds with a pound sign -- there wasn’t a rest symbol on my keyboard -- and transcribe all the rest. ...”
“But if you do it that way,” asked the Senator she had put on hold before, “then how can you pronounce the words?”
“We can’t,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. We’ll never be able to speak Moth -- it has sounds in it that aren’t possible as part of language for human beings, and we’ll never be able to learn them. But we can use the language to communicate, all the same. You wear your computer, you see, in the usual way, and the computer transcribes Moth as it’s spoken and prints it out for you. ... The same way native speakers of English can easily read written English that has misspellings in it or has coffee spilled on it, native speakers of Moth can read their own language even when it’s full of rests -- full of pound signs. It’s not elegant, and it’s not perfect, but it works.”
=====

The second question from maeveenroute was:
"What was the reviewer's problem with your rest phoneme? I mean, I just raised a point of clarification, but I can't think of anything serious enough to merit mention in a review, much less any kind of slamming."

I don't know the answer to that question because what the reviewer said was just "And Elgin's solution is rests! Well..... duh!" I'm an old lady, but I do know what that means. I'm sorry I can't give you a link to the review; it didn't strike me as something I needed to keep track of.

It's been running around the 'Net all weekend, but here's the convenient YouTube version:

I admit it. I think she's sexy as hell. Sometimes she goes overboard on the perky, and sometimes her voice grates; she's freakin' ubiquitous in the book and magazine sections of the grocery store, and damn near it on food packages.

But.

This is just being a good human being. Even if they're getting TV footage out of it.

Today's a really good day to kick in something to your local food bank. If you don't know where it is, visit your grocery or supermarket -- they should have some information at least, if not a full-blown donation program. Or visit Feeding America. Or some other place, which I'm sure you'll mention in comments. ;)

'Cause that's really what the abortion issue comes down to.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

52 Icons:
01-19: Girl Number 9 (Spoilers)
20-32: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
33-52: Misc, mostly Icontest entries (Torchwood, Amanda Seyfried, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Eliza Dushku, Fashion, Stock)

Preview:


Here@realmofsilence

Entry will remain public for about two weeks.

I've been a bit distracted lately, oddly enough by healthcare, or I'd have had more to say about the HCR process in the House. There's lots to say now, much of it complaint. What the hell ever did happen to single payer, given that the Dems negotiated that away all by themselves? Why was the dreadful, pathetic Stupak-Pitts amendment even allowed to enter the process? Is the Senate serious about the six-month waiting period for the Public Option, which protects insurance companies while (sometimes fatally) victimizing voters?

But you know what? A few years ago we were debating whether to privatize Social Security. Now we're complaining that the proposed Public Option is flawed.

Guess which argument I'd rather have. Victory in politics is ever transient, but I think, for now at least, that sanity, goodwill and reason have prevailed. A hell of a change after all those years of Republican governance.

I am guilty of having done a post here that could only have been understood by cybertelepaths. I had all the backstory for my new novel in my head, I had all my linguistics-stuff in my head, so I just went blithely along with that post as if you [youall] were similarly encumbered. I am greatly blessed that houseboatonstyx came to my rescue with a comment, and -- with that resource in hand -- I am going to do my best to straighten up the mess I made. Here's the first paragraph of the comment:

"If we're looking for sounds that would be PERCEIVED as something other than vowels or consonsonants or something along that continuum -- that's an issue about the perceivers, isn't it? If they've been trained that to be meaningful, a sound must be classified as v, c, or in between -- then won't anything that might be meaningful be stuck into one of those categories, whether it physiologically fits the physiological definition or not?"

Yes. Terran linguists listening to the speech of native speakers of an ET language are going to expect to hear vowels and consonants because that's what they've been trained to hear, and are going to sort the sounds they hear into those two categories for that reason. Only after the U.S. Corps of Linguists (USCOL) had accumulated a large database of ET sound-based languages that included vowels, consonants, and "something else" would it be possible to train them to identify and analyze that "something else." And my conviction is that that would take a very long time to happen.

And here's the next paragraph of the comment:

"Are we looking for sounds from the vocal tract that would be so different physiologically/phonetically that they COULD NOT be fitted into those v-c categories, even by a sort of legal fiction? But would somehow be clearly meaningful so that they COULD NOT simply be disregarded or somehow marginalized?"

Yes again. My Brethandi ETs -- because their anatomy is very different from the anatomy of the Terran cattle they so closely resemble to the casual eye -- are able to speak in a fashion comparable to Terran speech, although they of course have distinctive accents. [I knew that. So I did a cognitive SHAZAM-leap and took it for granted that you would know it too. Sheesh.] And my question was serious. Supposing one or more of the Brethandi languages was composed of three meaningful classes of sounds -- vowels, consonants, and something else -- then what, I wanted to know, could that something else possibly be?

One possibility turned up in a comment from kelsied:
"Consonants, vowels, and rests. As in music. The rhythmic and intentional interruption of consonants and vowels to modify their meaning."

That option -- musical rests -- is the one I used in my USCOL story "Honor Is Golden," published in Analog. [Not online anywhere, so far as I know.] It worked, to my satisfaction and my editor's, although I got slammed for it in a review. My linguists weren't able to isolate the rest-phonemes or work with them, but they were able to establish communication. Which was their primary goal.

I hope this clarifies things just a tad. If it doesn't, let me know and I'll try again.

Your Sunday moment of zen.



Jeff VanderMeer, photographed at the Portland Japanese garden. © 2009 by Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Mitchell Hooks’ Fabulous 50’s Paperback Covers — Very nice stuff linked through from this post on Drawn!

Little but fierce — Ah, Criggo, thy clippings make me laugh until my bladder threatens.

A Common Nomenclature for Lego Families — An interesting article about how children name things. (Via Language Log.)

You Sir, Have Offended My Honor — Ta-Nehisi Coates on bigotry, with sourcing from Brian Chase.

64 Democrats on the Wrong Side of Stupak-Pitts — I expect Republicans to vote in favor of forced pregnancy and government intrusion in private life. Those are among the most cherished conservative principles. But Democrats? I'm sure you guys are proud of yourselves, and that just makes me even more ashamed.

?otD: Who will stop the rain?

---

11/8/2009
Body movement: 2 hour, 30 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 6.0
This morning's weigh-in: 232.4
Currently reading: The Jade Man's Skin by Daniel Fox

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

So I ease toward the surgery date. Plans are being made, logistics being logisted, visitors and loved ones to be accommodated, and I can already see my life narrowing in those things I now have to refuse or reconsider. Really, it's been a great day, but the truth of what comes next hangs over me like a 900 pound parakeet. The Fear is gone, but man, are there a lot of pieces.

And this is the calm before the storm.

(Thanks also to jaborwhalky for the icon.)

the_child and I visited the Portland Japanese Garden today in the pouring rain with jeffvandermeer. ( She and I both took a few photos )

As usual, more at the Flickr set.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I was kinda sick in the middle of the night. Likely reflux; I'm a lot better now, if not perfect. But it's scary.

Today is such a pretty day, though: mid-60s, sunshine, and the smell of wood from someone's grill coming through the window. Tomorrow is supposed to be just as nice; there will be barbecue. Oh yes, there will.

And Prilosec.

How's your weekend?

The second batch of your comments I want to tackle -- about a possible "third class of meaningful sounds" in an ET language -- is those that propose various kinds of noises. The noises described in your comments included percussives [sounds that could be made with drums, rattles, and the like]; crackling; clicks; whistles; burps and belches; teeth-clicks; farts; squeaks; squeals; and more.

Those of you who've complained that I didn't define my terms -- neither "vowel" nor "consonant" -- are absolutely right, and I apologize. For me, vowels are speech sounds that are produced without any obstruction of the flow of air through the vocal tract; consonants are speech sounds for which that flow of air is obstructed in some fashion. That of course means that the vowel/consonant distinction has to be a continuum, not an either/or binary split. As pgdudda has pointed out, the English liquids [L and R] and the English glides [Y and W and H] are neither strictly vowels nor strictly consonants; they fall in between the two, somewhere on the continuum.

My opinion -- and it's only that, an opinion, since I've never encountered an ET language -- is that all of the varieties of noises proposed in your comments would be perceived by Terrans, and by Terran linguists, as falling somewhere on the vowel/consonant continuum; that is, as either vowel-like or consonant-like. I don't believe they would perceive the noises as a separate, third class of meaningful speech sounds.

I could be wrong about this. For sure.

Fox Digital Studios puts focus on brands

"As an aspirational model, Mr. Levinsohn pointed to Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog"

the_child and I are leaving shortly to spend the middle of the day with jeffvandermeer. I think the Japanese Garden may be in the offing, which would be splendid. After his reading tonight, I have a dinner with ginastonge. All in all, a grand day out in some glorious weather.

The rest of you get out, too.

Photographed by me near Taos Ski Valley, NM. © 2006, 2009 by Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

A reader reacts to Escapement [ Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders ]

RULES OF SEDUCTION: writing the opposite sex — Justine Musk on character.

English, Jack — A blog for you really high end grammar geeks.

Articulated Railroad Car: 1935 — Another quite cool patent drawing.

The Fairey Rotodyne — This looks to me like some crazed Soviet project. Would you fly in it?

APOD with an image of Stickney Crater on Phobos

The Gravitational Lens and Communications — Some serious Big Idea science from Centauri Dreams.

?otD: What age is this the dawning of, anyway?

---

11/7/2009
Body movement: 2 hour, 15 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 5.5
This morning's weigh-in: 231.2
Currently reading: The Jade Man's Skin by Daniel Fox

The first batch of your comments on my ET phonology question that I want to tackle is the batch that doesn't try to answer my question. I don't know whether it's because I didn't make myself clear, or because the question was perhaps read too quickly, or because the commenters just preferred not to color inside the lines. In any case...

My question was narrow and specific:
Suppose the ET language we're dealing with has three classes of meaningful sounds: vowels; consonants; and something else. What could the something else be?

Comments proposing that the something else could be colors, or smells, or the position of the speaker's face/ears/tail/fur -- something other than a class of meaningful sounds -- are answering a different question. It's an interesting question, and I thank you for the comments, but it's not the question that I asked.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

.

So this is what happens when I don't pay attention. 

Blackstone Audio releases the second Vampire Files audiobook, LIFEBLOOD!

Check out the nifty/cool cover!



Listen to samples on the page!


There is a chunk of irony here.  I found out about this one via a pirate download site.

Yup. Before I have even gotten my author's copy from Blackstone, some pin-headed thieving MORON uploaded the book so he could either spread a computer virus or get points so he can download more porn into his useless, how-dare-you-breathe-my-air existence.

He sure wasn't doing me any favors.  Whoever you are, I hate you. Seriously, I do. You stink and your mommy dresses you strangely.



But back to the audio release....!

This is a cool thing to have TWO books in the series in audio.  That makes a total of four and a half for me.

I, Strahd, was recorded in the 90s by the legendary Roddy McDowell, and Keeper of the King by my most excellent co-writer Nigel Bennett. They're both so worth a listen!

If I'm dreaming NO ONE pinch me, I don't wanna wake up.

The "and a half?"  That would be a single cassette tape called The Living Dead, where my story You'll Catch Your Death was paired up with Robert Bloch's title story. Wowsers!

Copies are available for cheap so check around if you'd like to round out your Elrod audio collection.

The open dinner next Monday in Philadelphia has moved to next Wednesday evening, 11/11, due to a change in my travel plans. 7 pm, probably at the house restaurant in the airport Marriott, but I'll confirm location. Let me know if you can make it.

Here's what I twittered about today:

• 14:23 KKXT 91.7 is testing today with snipits of every possible format and a disclaimer "this is does not reflect our format that starts Monday" #
• 15:21 Gentleman's wager offered to Robert Philpot: how many days will KKXT be on the air before there is a pledge drive? #

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...that may (or may not) happen in Sargasso Soul:

1. We actually see Lenore as a mermaid in her natural habitat.


2. Serena transforms into a mermaid


3. The rest of the story of Daphnis and Thyrsis gets told.


4. Lenore and Chris have sex.


5. Betrayal by one of the characters.


6. A cameo by Jenny Everywhere.


7. More nudity of both female and male characters.


8. More experimenting with perspective and background.


9. More ninjas!


10. Zombie Pirates


11. Ninjas vs. Zombie Pirates!


12. Crossovers with other webcomics


13. Stick in random characters and references to webcomics I've done in the past (many of which are no longer online)


14. More Classical mythology references


15. Use Public Domain Golden Age comic book characters in the story.

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"Star Dipwads," which used Yamato/Star Blazers visuals with home-dubbed sound. At one point the Klondike bar jingle (WHAT would you DO for a KLONdike Bar?) was appearing in all kinds of special effects sounds; when the main character complained, his sidekick admitted sheepishly that he'd sold the product placement.
At one point one of my friends had this on the same tape (for this was back in the VCR era) as a fake movie trailer "Speedy Days of Racing Thunder" which was apparently about the car-racing rivalry of Tom Cruise and Speed Racer. Pretty cleverly done too.
I can't find either on youtube. Anybody got an idea?

The new public radio AAA station doing transmitter testing today. They are playing 30 second bursts of music with a disclaimer that "the music was selected to test the audio quality of our signal and does not reflect KXT's actual format that begins Monday. This is KKXT, Dallas-Fort Worth-Denton.

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