Link dump for 20120322

[edit] Links

22 social media recipes to easily cross post your updates (WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, List, Tool, CrossPost, SocialMedia)
With a number of social media platforms available to consumers, we are always searching for ways to minimise our workload, and in order to do so, it often makes sense to want to connect together accounts so a distributed message can be sent out from one place. The following post provides just a few of the recipes available for the interconnection of accounts and with a bit of creative thinking you should be able to chain many of these together to suit your needs and reach a bigger audience.
25 Ways To Unfuck Your Story (Advice, Writing)
5 Tips to Help You Pick Up the Pace | WritersDigest.com (Pace, Advice, Writing)
5 TIPS: How to Survive the Problem Editor! | WritersDigest.com (Advice, Relationship, Editor, Writing, Author)
6 Must-Listen Podcasts For Novelists, Screenwriters & Storytellers (List, PodCast, Advice, Writing)
Are you stuck in a writing slump? Have you ran out of story ideas? Are you puzzled and confused over the publishing industry? Do you need guidance on becoming a professional wordsmith? There are lots of resources – good and bad – out on the web, and they all claim to improve your writing, improve your sales, etc. But who has the time to browse and keep up with dozens, if not hundreds, of writing-related websites, blogs, forums, and workshops? / That’s why I’ve compiled a list of the best creative writing-related podcasts for all you creative writers out there. The beauty of listening to podcasts is that you can listen to them while doing other things, like cleaning your house or doing the dishes. Or writing.
Ansible 296, March 2012 (Author, Fandom, Fan, 2012, AsOthersSeeUs, Genre, Fantasy, SciFi, SF, News)
Apps for Apes: Orangutans using iPads to paint and video chat with other apes | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News (VideoChat, Use, IPad, App, Primate)
Authors: Don’t Pay Money for BEA Book Promotion | Jane Friedman (Advice, Marketing, Writing)
Automate repetitive or frequent tasks with mouse gestures, using StrokesPlus | freewaregenius.com (Review, Gesture, Macro, FreeWare, Ms.Windows)
StrokesPlus is a mouse gesture recognition program that allows you to perform frequently used or repetitive tasks by simply drawing a gesture with your mouse or performing mouse and/or keyboard modifiers to fire off an action sequence. It’s is a great little freeware program that’s loaded with different options, like adding keyboard modifiers and even automating full ‘macro’ sequences. The interface is easy and non-intrusive and there is a masterful ‘help’ page that will lead you through the process of learning how to use StrokesPlus.
Back to Basics: 5 Keys to Online Writing | Jane Friedman (Advice, Online, Writing)
BitTorrent's elite switches from Xvid to x264 - Boing Boing (Video, BoingBoing, Codec, BitTorrent)
A high-level summit of the torrenting world's elite release groups -- the groups responsible for the highest quality, earliest infringing video releases -- has resulted in a consensus on dumping the venerable Xvid codec (a video compression scheme) for x264, requiring the torrent-downloading public to rethink which tools, devices and converters they use. Here's the official consensus.
Checklist for Critiquing a Novel -- Critique My Manuscript (Reading, Writing, CheckList, Critique)
Creating Suspense in Fiction With Backstory | WritersDigest.com (Advice, Suspense, Writing)
Cross-posting tools: Be efficient — but be smart (List, Tool, Twitter, WordPress, Facebook, SocialMedia, CrossPost)
15 apps, plug-ins & dashboards to increase your social media productivity
Divided We Fall | Superhero Novels (Review, Book, Novel, Superhero)
Review: World Divided: Book Two of the Secret World Chronicle / By Mercedes Lackey, Cody Martin, Dennis Lee, Veronica Giguere / First Printing: February 2012 / ISBN: 9781451638011
E-Publishing and the Short Story Writer at SF Novelists (History, Writing, Author, ShortStory, Epublishing)
Echo and the Supermen | Superhero Novels (Review, Book, Novel, Superhero)
Review: Invasion: Book One of the Secret World Chronicle / By Mercedes Lackey, Steve Libbey, Cody Martin, Dennis Lee / First Printing: March 2011 / ISBN: 9781439134191
Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre | Board Game | BoardGameGeek (Fritz.Owns, BoardGameGeek, Humor, Fantasy, Game.Card, Game)
Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre | Cryptozoic Entertainment (Fritz.Owns, Humor, Fantasy, Game.Card, Game)
Epsiode 092 – Howard Andrew Jones and Paul S. Kemp -- Functional Nerds (Howard.J, PodCast, Interview, Author)
Experimental smart outlet brings flexibility, resiliency to grid architecture (MicroGenerator, Watch, Tech, Watch.Tech, Electricity, Power)
Sandia National Laboratories has developed an experimental smart outlet that autonomously measures, monitors and controls electrical loads with no connection to a centralized computer or system. The goal of the smart outlet and similar innovations is to make the power grid more distributed and intelligent, capable of reconfiguring itself as conditions change.
Farmer, Burroughs and Doc - Making Connections -- Dusk Before the Dawn (Reading, DocSavage, EdgarRiceBurroughs, PhilipJoseFarmer)
GRAPH: Republicans Responsible For Hyper-Polarization Of Congress | ThinkProgress (Trend, History, Graph, Congress, Partisanship, USA, Politics, Watch)
Graphyne May Be Better than Graphene (Graphyne, Graphene)
Sheets of single-layer carbon with a variety of bonding patterns may have properties similar to the wonder material graphene, according to new computer simulations. / Super-strong, highly conducting graphene is the hottest ticket in physics, but new computer simulations suggest that materials called graphynes could be just as impressive. Graphynes are one-atom-thick sheets of carbon that resemble graphene, except in the type of atomic bonds. Only small pieces of graphyne have so far been fabricated, but the new simulations, described in Physical Review Letters, may inspire fresh efforts to construct larger samples. The authors show that three different graphynes have a graphenelike electronic structure, which results in effectively massless electrons. The unique symmetry in one of these graphynes may potentially lead to new uses in electronic devices, beyond those of graphene.
I dumped my iPhone 4 for the Android Galaxy Nexus - Computerworld (Swtich, IPhone, Apple)
If Alcubierre warp drive was feasible there would be big radiation problems (Theory, WarpDrive)
In a Superhero Story, How Could I Keep the Police From Getting Involved? -- Superhero Nation (Plot, Police, Advice, Writing, Fiction, Superhero)
Indie Publishing - What Not To Do & What To Do -- Cobwebs Of The Mind (Author, Publishing, Publishing.Self, Advice, SelfPublishing)
ISBW #235 – Step 1- be a pro / Howard Andrew Jones Interview | I Should Be Writing (PodCast, Howard.J, Interview)
With all of the angst going on with new writers not knowing what to do, you wonder why they don’t use the web more often. After I grump for a bit, I talk to Howard Andrew Jones, and then later, off mic, I discover I used my internal mic, not my good mic, so I swear loudly at how bad it sounds. You don’t have to hear that, though. Sorry Howard!
James Burke (science historian) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (TV.Connections, British, Tech, JamesBurke, Wikipedia, Science, History)
James Burke (born 22 December 1936) is a British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer, who is known, among other things, for his documentary television series Connections (1978), and for its more philosophically oriented companion series, The Day the Universe Changed (1985), which is about the history of science and technology. The Washington Post called him "one of the most intriguing minds in the Western world".
Japanese Construction firm talks about a space elevator in 2050 (SpaceElevator, Japan, BeanStalk)
Yomiuri Shimbun - It may be possible to travel to space in an elevator as early as 2050, a major construction company has announced. Obayashi Corp., headquartered in Tokyo, on Monday unveiled a project to build a gigantic elevator that would transport passengers to a station 36,000 kilometers above the Earth. / In Obayashi's project, a cable would be stretched up to 96,000 kilometers, or about one-fourth of the distance between the Earth and the moon. One end of the cable would be anchored at a spaceport on the ground, while the other would be fitted with a counterweight. / The terminal station would house laboratories and living space. The car could carry up to 30 people to the station at 200 kilometers per hour, which would mean a 7-1/2 day trip to reach the station. Magnetic linear motors are one possible means of propulsion for the car, according to Obayashi. / Whether carbon nanotubes can be mass-produced economically enough and whether various organizations from around ...
Modern Era Brings Death To Words - Science News (Word.Variation, Variation, Editing, Computer, Spelling, Analysis, History, Words)
Analysis of books identifies lexical victims of shifting social, technological influences
My Awful Reviews (Review, Book, Fantasy, SciFi, SF)
New Treasures: SPI’s Swords and Sorcery -- Black Gate (Fantasy, Fritz.Owns, Review, BlackGate, SPI, BoardGame, Game.Board, Game)
Notes From The Geek Show: Ten Rules for a New Writer (Advice, Writing)
OMG! I Really Have To Do All This To Publish A Book? -- Cobwebs Of The Mind (Publishing.Self, List, Guide, HowTo, Advice, SelfPublishing, Publishing)
Patricia O’Brien (as Kate Alcott) Sells ‘The Dressmaker’ - NYTimes.com (Writing, NYT, Publishing.Traditional, Publishing)
Possible 100,000 Nomad planets per star could have atmospheres and carry life (Planet.Nomad, Nomad, Life, Planet, ExtraSolarPlanet)
Our galaxy may be awash in homeless planets, wandering through space instead of orbiting a star. There may be 100,000 times more "nomad planets" in the Milky Way than stars, according to a new study by researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), a joint institute of Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
Project Icarus: Laying the Plans for Interstellar Travel - Ross Andersen - Technology - The Atlantic (SubLight, Interview, Project, Travel, Interstellar)
Andreas Tziolas is drafting a bluePRINT for a mission to a nearby star. Here, he discusses how we ll get there - and why we try.
quotations (BackReference, List, Quote)
Removing black sheep could make Internet run more efficiently (Optimization, Traffic, Efficiency, Communication, Network)
Whether dealing with Internet traffic or vehicle traffic, congestion can slow everything down. One team of researchers working on improving network transmission efficiency has developed a strategy that identifies certain links or edges that can be removed to decrease the overall congestion. Somewhat counterintuitively, these links - which the researchers call black sheep - are those that connect the busiest hubs. In a sense, the strategy is similar to closing some of the busiest roads during rush hour, and finding that vehicles reach their destinations faster than before.
SciFi Ideas (Writing, Idea, Story, SciFi, SF)
Sherlock Holmes - Wikiquote (SherlockHolmes, Wiki, Wikiquote, List, Quote)
Silicene - Wikipedia (Wikipedia, Silicene)
Silicene is a two-dimensional allotrope of silicon, similar to graphene.
SNL's Real Housewives of Disney goes inside a drunken princess dinner party (Video, io9, SNL, TV, Satire, Disney)
Last night's Saturday Night Live took us past happily ever after and into the not-so-magical realm of sham marriages, bankruptcy, and alcoholism, all with a confessional camera. It's as filled with cat fights and eye-rolling as you'd expect, but with some inspired moments. Dwarven high-fives for all!
So I just finished the new book -- Backstage at the Théâtre Illuminata (LiveJournal, Humor, Writing)
And I was going to explain ALL THE FEELINGS, but there is too much. Let me sum up.
Taser’s latest police weapon: the tiny camera and the cloud | KurzweilAI (Monitor, Cloud, Camera, Video, LittleBrother, Police, Watch, Tech, Watch.Tech)
TASER International has announced new kind of camera called AXON flex, to be worn by police officers. / The half-ounce unit is about the size of a cigar stub and clips on to a collar or sunglasses of an officer. It can record two hours of video during a shift. The information is transferred by a docking station to a local machine, and eventually stored in a cloud-computing system that uses Taser’s online evidence management system. / In Taser’s cloud evidence system, which resides on Amazon.com’s cloud storage service, the videos can be tagged and labeled for record-keeping. The software has editing capabilities to protect the identities of some people captured on the video, like victims of child sex crimes or undercover officers. / The new cameras sell for $1,000, including a battery that lasts 14 hours.
The 5 Steps to Writing a Novel that Sells | WritersDigest.com (Advice, Writing)
The Business Rusch: Competition | Kristine Kathryn Rusch (NonCompeteClause, Beware, Contract, Advice, Publishing.Traditional, Publishing.Self, SelfPublishing, Publishing, Competition, Business, Writing, BussinessRusch)
The Business Rusch: You Asked For My Opinion… | Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Business, Censorship.Not, Censorship, Publishing, BussinessRusch)
my opinion is simple one: If you don’t like the way someone else does business, don’t do business with them.
The Dirty Little Secret to “Imaginative” Worldbuilding (Writing, WorldBuilding)
The Last of the Mohicans: The Romantic Structure of Drama…It’s Just Compelling « The Philandrist (Analysis, Structure, Novel)
Understanding the scale of the ripoff in the Robosigning Settlement - Boing Boing (BoingBoing, Fail, Banking)
Upper class people more likely to cheat: study (Greed, ClassWar, Class, Ethics, Psychology, Wealth, Results, Study)
The upper class has a higher prOPENsity for unethical behavior, being more likely to believe – as did Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street – that greed is good, according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley.
Various reports claim a faulty fiber optic wire was the source fo the FTL neutrino measurements (FTL, Neutrino)
Telegraph UK - researchers at the CERN lab near Geneva claimed they had recorded neutrinos, a type of tiny particle, travelling faster than the barrier of 186,282 miles (299,792 kilometers) per second. Now it seems Einstein's reputation has been restored after a source close to the experiment told the US journal Science Insider that "A bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer may be to blame."
What did Velociraptor have for dinner? Raptor skeleton discovered with bones in its gut (io9, Archeology, Dinosaur)
What it's like to wear a brain-stimulating "thinking cap" - Boing Boing (BoingBoing, Tech, Watch, Watch.Tech, Enhancement, Brain)
Science writer Sally Adee provides some background on her New Scientist article describing her experience with a DARPA program that uses targeted electrical stimulation of the brain during training exercises to induce "flow states" and enhance learning. The "thinking cap" is something like the tasp of science fiction, and the experimental evidence for it as a learning enhancement tool is pretty good thus far -- and the experimental subjects report that the experience feels wonderful (Adee: "the thing I wanted most acutely for the weeks following my experience was to go back and strap on those electrodes.")
What s the Difference Between a Developmental Edit and Feedback From a Critique Group? -- Chrysalis (Advice, Writing, CritiqueGroup, Feedback, Editor, Critique)
When continents collide: A new twist to a 50 million-year-old tale (Geology, PlateTectonics)
Fifty million years ago, India slammed into Eurasia, a collision that gave rise to the tallest landforms on the planet, the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau.
Why Giving Away Thousands Of Free Books Is A Good Thing | David Gaughran (Advice, Free, Marketing, Book)
While on the surface the following may seem to be a KDP Select success story, it’s actually something a little more important than that: a testament to the power of determination, and proof that even the most niche of books can be a self-publishing success story, a book that every agent in the UK said there was no market for.
Wizard World : Chicago Comic Con 2012 : August 9-10-11-12, 2012 THUR-FRI-SAT-SUN (Convention, 2012, ComicCon, Chicago)
Work Is Never Over: On Publishing and Its Many Faces by Cat Valente - Charlie's Diary (Tech, Economics, Writing, Publishing)
A couple of commenters indicated interest in hearing my thoughts on the blistering array of publishing options currently fighting it out Pon Farr style in the contemporary world of letters. Before my time here comes to a close, I'll try to address it in some way I haven't before. I sometimes feel that with every post on self-publishing we draw closer to some millionth-customer trumpeting confetti-strewn alarum announcing THE INTERNET HAS HAD ENOUGH, NO FURTHER COMMENTARY IS NECESSARY. KEEP CALM AND PUBLISH HOWEVER YOU WANT./ Wishful thinking. / But it's true that I've published with the Big Six and I've published on my own damn website, I started out in the small and micro press world and I've experimented with all the methods of getting my words into people's heads that seemed to make sense to me, so I do have A Perspective. I've talked before about my thoughts on the writing life in this age of uncertainty, innovation, and hyperbole--for never was there a post on why traditional ...
Write Tip: How To Get The Most Out Of Your Book Sell Sheets | Bryan Thomas Schmidt (Advice, Marketing, Writing)
Write Tips: Cat Rambo’s Developmental Editing Checklist | Bryan Thomas Schmidt (Editing, Advice, Writing)
One way to be sure your manuscript is ready to submit is to make sure you get a good developmental edit. Now unless you’re making a lot of money already, paying someone may be out of the question. Most submissions editors will reject anything that’s not at least ninety percent there. They do line edits, proofing and fact checks, not developmental edits. So the onus is on you. If you’re like me, being close to your work, can prevent you from not only knowing what questions to ask but having the objectivity needed to view your work well. Some sort of guide would make a big difference.
Writing Groups and Writers, a Match Made in Heaven or Hell? -- BOOK VIEW CAFE BLOG (Writing, Critique, WritingGroup)
That was the provocative topic for a panel recently. The description went like this: Many consider critiques from their writers’ group a valuable part of their submission process. Others tend to believe that writers’ groups tend to dilute individual style, tending toward “groupthink.”
Writing in the Digital Age: Pulling Aside the Curtain Reveals Some Nasty Dustbunnies -- BOOK VIEW CAFE BLOG (Epublishing, Watch, Publishing)
» Story Idea: Oort Cloud Civilizations -- SciFi Ideas (Story, Idea, SF, SciFi, OortCloud)
Story idea by John H. Reiher Jr. about a civilization that lives in the Oort cloud that surrounds the solar system. They use huge solar sail ships to mine the cloud.

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Ansible 296, March 2012

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Automate repetitive or frequent tasks with mouse gestures, using StrokesPlus | freewaregenius.com

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New Treasures: SPI’s Swords and Sorcery -- Black Gate

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Ansible 296, March 2012

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In a Superhero Story, How Could I Keep the Police From Getting Involved? -- Superhero Nation

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SNL's Real Housewives of Disney goes inside a drunken princess dinner party

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Modern Era Brings Death To Words - Science News

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The Dirty Little Secret to “Imaginative” Worldbuilding

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2012/03/22