Monthly Archives: December 2012

Quick Numbers Note

Today, Whatever passed 24 million recorded views since October, 2008 (i.e., when it switched hosting to WordPress’ VIP service). Also, if current traffic trends hold, by Christmas the site will pass eight million recorded views for the year, which would mean recorded traffic is up nearly 50% since last year. Not bad for a site […]

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A Window to Winter

As I noted on Twitter this morning, at pretty close to the exact moment of the solstice, we got an automated call from my daughter’s school telling us that classes were cancelled due to snow. This means that Athena’s winter break starts a day early; she’s got until January 7th to hang about. It also […]

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The Existential Exasperation of Being John Boehner

You might think I would have a little bit of schadenfreude at John Boehner doing a faceplant yesterday when his “Plan B” scheme for the fiscal cliff couldn’t even be brought to a vote, thanks to the intransigence of Boehner’s backbenchers in the House — and you’d be right! I do! But mostly what I […]

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The Big Idea: Ramez Naam

A mind is a terrible thing to waste — but might it also be a terrible thing to improve, if those improvements came from an outside source or technology? Or would it in fact be potentially amazing? It’s an interesting question to pose, which is probably why Ramez Naam poses it in his near-future novel […]

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The Whatever Geographic Default Entry

This is one of those “post now for later reference” posts. Folks, I live in the United States and the bulk of my personal, political and economic life, including book sales, is tied into it. Also, while I am happy to see that almost 30% of my traffic to Whatever comes from other countries, over […]

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Old Man’s War eBook $2.99 Today Only

The SEO-like headline says it all! My first published novel — which was sold to Tor ten years ago this month, more on that on the actual day — is available for just under three bucks. If for some unfathomable reason you as a reader of this blog have not read it, now’s your chance […]

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Writer or Spambot?

Got spammed by a writer this morning on Twitter. The fellow isn’t someone I follow, so he made sure it popped up into my queue by putting “@scalzi” at the front, followed by a generic plug for his book and a link to the page he made for the book. Given that the vast majority […]

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Tobias Buckell Goes Deep and Comes Back With Data

Toby Buckell did a Kickstarter for his novel The Apocalypse Ocean, and being Toby Buckell, now that he’s done with it, he’s written up an extensive (i.e., 5,000 word) post-mortem on the project, which includes context for the Kickstarter, the choices he made before, during and after the Kickstarter, and the lessons he’s learned from […]

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And Now a Thought From Justice Scalia

From the 2008 DC v. Heller ruling, written by Scalia, and one of the very few Supreme Court cases to touch on the Second Amendment at all: Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for […]

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