Links for 11-02-2008
Stoddard on optimistic sf; skiffy movie clichés; housing blimps; the fluoride flim-flam …
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1 – Strange and Happy – Jason Stoddard
“Some of today’s writing is so dark that it makes me want to slit my wrists and slip into a warm tub. It might be technically excellent, and the characters may be fully rendered and real, but man oh man, it’s not what I want to read.”
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2 – The Top 10 modern sci-fi movie clichés
“That’s why near-future scenarios are best: People will recognise the things you expect them to buy. If you get it right audiences will leave the cinema unsure whether they want to shoot a zombie or buy an Audi.”
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3 – Richard Dawkins: Why Darwin matters
“As Darwin himself was at pains to point out, natural selection is all about differential survival within species, not between them.”
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4 – We will migrate into the sky
“The homes can be rapidly deployed with minimal site preparation. They are intended to ‘plug in’ to existing utility services, and can be deployed by a team of four workers in roughly an hour.”
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5 – WordPress as a Contact Manager
“Design Canopy has released a theme/set of instructions for WordPress that would allow you to run a WordPress install as a taggable, searchable contact manager that can be made into a Members Only system and display related contacts.”
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6 – Extending Wordpress Beyond the Blog
“Custom fields allow you to take Wordpress far beyond the blog.” Troo dat. Needs a bit of PHP skilz0rz in my experience, though.
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7 – How to Make Money From Your Blog
“Your greatest risk isn’t that you’ll make mistakes that will cost you. Your greatest risk is that you’ll miss opportunities.”
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8 – Bad science: Fluoride, teeth, and an argument that’s full of holes
“… the big idea with fluoride in water is that it can reduce social inequalities in dental health since everyone drinks it. But there isn’t much evidence on that either.”
