Links for 09-03-2007
ZOMFG teens <3 books, Amazon leverage tips for authors, water-on-Mars back on (yet again), time travel a scientific no-no…
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1 – Teens buying books at fastest rate in decades
“Credit a bulging teen population, a surge of global talent and perhaps a bit of Harry Potter afterglow as the preteen Muggles of yesteryear carry an ingrained reading habit into later adolescence.” Hmmm. Via SFBC.
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2 – The End of Science Fiction: When Technological Extrapolation Hits A Wall Across the Future
“As our everyday lives become increasingly science fictional — as the stuff of fiction becomes the stuff of mundane reality [...] — what are the dangers we face?” Heavy essay by James John Bell via SF Signal.
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3 – Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com
Leverage that bookseller, folks. There’s a lot of promotional tools on there.
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“…there is a big problem with this nascent industry [space tourism] that most of its supporters are glossing over: Safety.”
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5 – Scientists Find A Solar-powered Asteroid
“For the very first time, astronomers have witnessed the speeding up of an asteroid’s rotation, and have shown that it is due to a theoretical effect predicted but never seen before.”
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6 – Early Mars Had Underground Water System
“Opportunity found sulphate-rich sediments that some experts claimed were the remains of seas that once washed over the planet.” Seems the ‘Martian water’ switch is set to ‘on’ this month.
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7 – Scribd “YouTube for Documents” Gets $300K
“Scribd is most easily described as a text version of YouTube. It is a social network that lets you tag, share, and comment on uploaded documents.” Interesting development. Via Jeremy Tolbert.
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“Greg Egan has sold a new science fiction novel, Incandescence, to Gollancz. The book will be published in May 2008.” That’s damn fine news from where I’m sitting.
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9 – You Can’t Travel Back in Time, Scientists Say
“However, some scientists believe that travelling to the past is, in fact, theoretically possible, though impractical.” I wish they could all agree on this, or let the sf writers sort it out.
