Links for 12-01-2007
Doctorow on author website management, Jorge Luis Borges speech snippets, hallucinogens as weapons…
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“You don’t have to use a blog to blog, in other words. But you can. Using a blog as a back-end for your website is a gun on the mantelpiece — it’s going to go off before the Singularity.” Doctorow’s Author CMS 101.
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“Subterranean Press is putting the finishing touches on [David Marusek's] collection to be released in April. Here’s what the cover is looking like at this stage.” Can’t wait for my limited edition copy to arrive!
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“The list also could be called, “10 COMMON PROBLEMS THAT DISMISS YOU AS AN AMATEUR,” because these mistakes are obvious to literary agents and editors, who may start wording their decline letter by page 5.” Useful.
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“Here are excerpts from two of the six Norton Lectures that Jorge Luis Borges delivered at Harvard University in the fall of 1967 and spring of 1968.” Only snippets here, sadly – gotta buy the CD for the whole lot.
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“Meth’s super- caffeinated beans are amplified by the addition of yerba mate, a powerful natural stimulant and antioxidant used by shamans of the Amazon for boosting stamina and mental clarity.” Credit cards only, dammit.
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“As we discover more and more examples of high-tech surveillance devices, it’s increasingly clear that existing law as well as our notions of proper privacy boundaries are becoming inadequate.”
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To sum up: it helps to make an effort and avoid the obvious clichés, but if someone wants your data badly enough, they’ll get it with time.
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“When people see something they want to purchase, a portion of the brain called the nucleus accumbens “lights up” on a brain scan.” I can hear Bill Hicks spinning in his grave.
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“Dr. Ketchum and his team were looking, primarily, for non-lethal incapacitating agents, and he was central to many of the experiments with these compounds that took place during that time.” Interviewed by R. U. Sirius.
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“…the chemical compound capsaicin — which is responsible for the burning sensation when we eat chillies — can kill cells by directly targeting their energy source.” Not that I needed an excuse, but it’s nice to have one.
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11 – Fast Track to 200 AU“Getting a probe to 200 AU from the Sun ‘as fast as possible’ is what Innovative Interstellar Explorer is all about.”
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“My worry is that users will drift into gated communities defined by their hardware or their network. They’ll switch to information appliances that are great at what they do … because they’re so tightly controlled by their makers.”
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13 – RAW Essence“Robert Anton Wilson Defies Medical Experts and leaves his body @4:50 AM on binary date 01/11. All Hail Eris!” Another dead hero.
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