Galactic-scale nature/nurture, the maths of predicting murder, more internet addiction technophobia, why book-stores suck…

• 1 – Murky Depths – new genre fiction mag in the offing
  “Murky Depths is a new magazine with a difference, featuring top quality speculative fiction with sprinklings of horror and fantasy that push the boundaries of science fiction.” Blimey, another one! Let’s hope it does well.
  (tags: launch Depths Murky press small horror fantasy sf scifi science fiction genre magazine new)
• 2 – Galactic ‘nature versus nurture’
  “Charting remote parts of the universe revealed that the distribution of galaxies has considerably evolved with time, depending on an individual galaxy’s immediate surroundings.”
  (tags: distribution evolution neighbourhood properties formation galaxy science cosmology astronomy space)
• 3 – Cyber-addiction growing problem for US online community
  “Spending too much time on the Internet: bad habit or something more serious? A team of researchers [...] has found that for one in eight Americans, excessive Internet use is a growing problem.” ZOMFG! Ban it immediately!
  (tags: reportage sensationalist technophobia dependency psychology research addiction internet)
• 4 – It’s not so easy to predict murder – do the maths
  “It’s great to have a public debate about the ethics of preventive detention (for psychiatric patients and other potential risk groups, perhaps). Before you career off and have that vital conversation, you need to understand the maths of predicting very r
  (tags: maths coverage media safety community policing murder patients psychiatric detection preventative science)
• 5 – Homes Away From Home
  “The journey itself offers up all sorts of magic, not least waking to a moonlit and frozen steppes and gazing up to a constellation filled sky. That hissing sound? Oxygen being piped into the carriage.” A slow train to Lhasa.
  (tags: travelogue images photos tourism journey travel train Lhasa Tibet China)
• 6 – Blindsight by Peter Watts – free CC download
  Watts releases his new much-feted but hard-to-get-hold-of novel as a Creative Commons licensed PDF download. How can you refuse?
  (tags: free ebook download CC book novel hard sf scifi fiction science Blindsight Watts Peter)
• 7 – How do bookstores survive?
  “I was standing there looking at the pitiful collection of science fiction books listening to the Muzak version of Rod Stewart’s ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy’ when I suddenly remember – I hate chain book sellers.” SF Signal brings the snark.
  (tags: fiction genre novels service customer outlets retail marketing books booksellers bookstores chain)
• 8 – The Rise of a Giant
  “…detailed studies for the European Extremely Large Telescope [...] will make it possible to start, in three years time, the construction of an optical/infrared telescope with a diameter around 40m that will revolutionise ground-based astronomy.”
  (tags: astronomy authorisation funding planning design telescope large extremely Observatory Southern European)
• 9 – Wired News: Gadgets Built to Fail
  “Someday, much sooner than you’d like, that shiny new toy you just bought will break. When it happens, you’ll swear, you’ll cry — then you’ll sigh and open your wallet.”
  (tags: replacement malfunction marketing sales quality manufacture technology planned obsolescence gadget)

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