Monthly Archives: October 2012

NaNoWriMo Coming ‘Round

I’ve been asked again, as I frequently am at this time of year, whether I plan to participate in NaNoWriMo, or, for those who like things uncompressed, the National Novel Writing Month. The answer, as it pretty much always is, is no. One, I just finished writing a 130,000-word episodic novel two weeks ago. I’m […]

Read More

If I Ran the Presidential Elections

As I’ve been talking about the upcoming presidential election here this week, I was asked by a pal of mine: If I were given Constitutional leave to remake the presidential election system here in the United States, how would I do it? Well, there are lots of different ways to do it, all of which […]

Read More

Quick Thoughts on Disney Buying LucasFilm

Bluntly: Best thing that could happen, especially if you’re a Star Wars fan. George Lucas is the most influential filmmaker of the last half century and we all owe him a debt in terms of how he’s advanced the technical aspects of cinema. But the dude can’t write or direct his way out of a […]

Read More

The Big Idea: Robert St. Amant

I’ve written popular science articles and books, and one of my personal philosophies is that about 80% of any subject can be understood by any ordinary person — if you can manage to explain it correctly. Robert St. Amant has written a book to explain computer science to everyday folks — appropriately entitled Computing for […]

Read More

The Whatever Presidential Endorsements: Add Yours Here

I’ve made my endorsement for president this year, and I know many of you would be interested in making endorsements of your own. So, here: Have a comment thread to endorse your own favorite: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Gary Johnson, or anyone else you have a mind to endorse to Whatever’s 50,000 or so daily […]

Read More

The Scalzi Endorsement: Obama For President

This should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone anywhere, but to make it official: I will be voting for Barack Obama to have a second term as President of the United States, and I think you should too. There are, generally speaking, two reasons to give your vote to someone as president. The first […]

Read More

The Big Idea: Zach Weinersmith

Zach Weinersmith has fond memories of a certain sort of book — a kind of book, it seems, that had disappeared from the common consciousness. Rather than lament its passing, Weindersmith took it as a challenge to revive. And thus: Trial of the Clone, an interactive adventure cleverly disguised as a paperback. Here’s Weinersmith to walk […]

Read More

A Few Process Notes on “Fan Letter”

I’ve had a few questions about how I came to write “A Fan Letter to Certain Conservative Politicians,” so for those of you who are interested, here are some process notes. * The predicate cause, I think clearly to most people who are following politics these days, was Indiana senatorial candidate Richard Mourdoch opening his […]

Read More

A Small But Shining Example of How to Be Wrong

Blogger Joé McKen catches one of my regular detractors making a spectacularly dumb move, and then watches him flail about, trying to rationalize his unintentional comedy gold. No, I’m not going to link to the detractor’s site directly, because among other things the site is full of racism, sexism and general ick; McKen’s got the […]

Read More

A Fan Letter to Certain Conservative Politicians

WARNING: this post is going to be oh-so-very-triggery for victims of rape and sexual assault. I am not kidding. Dear certain conservative politicians: Hi! I’m a rapist. I’m one of those men who likes to force myself on women without their consent or desire and then batter them sexually. The details of how I do this […]

Read More

%d bloggers like this: