Some good charts

Rob Hopkins: Transition to a world without oil

"Rob Hopkins reminds us that the oil our world depends on is steadily running out. He proposes a unique solution to this problem -- the Transition response, where we prepare ourselves for life without oil and sacrifice our luxuries to build systems and communities that are completely independent of fossil fuels." LINK

Where I'd like to be...

via

I think I will finish NaNoWriMo up tomorrow or Thursday. Maybe then I will stop mentioning it here and make some better posts.

Until then, check out Obama's must read blog about healthcare.

Also, Kottke has a good summary of how the H1N1 vaccines are created. Everyone should read it.


I love these videos.

40,000 and a drawing of Shakespeare

Just passed the 40,000 word mark and feeling pretty good. I would like to finish this up soon so I can enjoy my time out at the lake this weekend and then get started on something else next Monday. And though I hesitate to reblog anything from BoingBoing (because everyone reads it not because I have anything against them), I have to put this video up. It's great.

MILTON GLASER DRAWS & LECTURES from C. Coy on Vimeo.

The Crow relaunch

The Crow Relaunch Moves Forward with Casting

Oh, man. I will not hope for anything as good as the original but it would be nice if this one does not suck as harshly as the sequels.

advice to writers

Because I am a bit behind on my word count and I just ate a huge tofu burrito that has put me in a bit of a food coma, here is Augusten Burroughs giving some advice to writers. (There is a video below for those viewing through Reader.)


If you have not noticed, I have been posting author interviews every few days recently. Most of these come from Big Think, which has taken a lot of my internet video-watching time away from TED and Hulu. (Read THIS)

Read excellent books and write. Sounds awesome to me.

Clyde is dancing for charity!

If you can, support him with a donation. It's for a good cause.

Collected Links

I like when other blogs make a lists of links because it's a great way to find new stuff to read. So, I thought I would collect 10 links to articles that I found interesting but did not mention in any posts this week.

- Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish: Here’s What Happened from Wired.com

- Bellying up to environmentalism from Washington Post

- New School: How the Web Liberalized Liberal Arts Education from Good.is

- Revenue reality of a bestseller from StraightGoods.ca

- The Singularity Is Coming—Now What? from Popular Mechanics

- Don’t fall in the poverty trap – you might never get out… from True Slant

- The 10 weirdest physics facts, from relativity to quantum physics from Telegraph

- Inventor's 2020 vision: to help 1bn of the world's poorest see better from Guardian

- Half a Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste from Newsweek

- Philip Rosedale: The web needs to be more lifelike from New Scientist

I have had a righteous headache the last two days. Still ahead on NaNoWriMo though I only ran 12 miles this week because I pulled a calf muscle.

Watch Jihad Milkshakes:

Mongolia

I had an interesting conversation with my friends Ben and Faye about Mongolia, it's economic problems and fear of forced "progress" from the outside world. Ben has an unique perspective on this issue that comes from having lived and traveled in Mongolia and also growing up in Alaska where he could see first-hand how small rural villages can be negatively impacted by well-intentioned but poorly thought-out and implemented plans by outsiders.

This was my room in Sant, Mongolia for a month. It looks just about as nice as anything I can think of right now.

A Writing Revolution

International concern for the minority who can’t read may soon extend to those who can’t publish. Reading—a defining characteristic of civilization as far back as ancient Greece when all Athenian citizens were expected to know how to read—is now taken for granted in industrialized democracies. Publishing by the few Athenian authors brought us drama, philosophy, science, mathematics, literature, and history. As readers, we consume. As authors, we create. Our society is changing from consumers to creators.

-Seed Magazine

Tom Perrotta's advice to writers

I am going to start Little Children later today or tomorrow. I am almost done with A Field Guide to Getting Lost.

We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and sensation of desire, though often it is the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing. I wonder sometimes whether with a slight adjustment of perspective it could be cherished as sensation on its own terms, since it is as inherent to the human condition as blue is to distance.

-Rebecca Solnit A Field Guide to Getting Lost

anxiety

Study: Depression as deadly as smoking, but anxiety may be good for you.

I've been thinking a lot about anxiety as it relates to ethics lately. I think that the more anxiety you show towards certain situations, the more ethical you probably act. If I worry about whether or not my choice to do x is the right one, I am thinking about it and coming to a conclusion as opposed to those who just think they are doing the right thing. Maybe the anxious person does not have a clear conscience - but isn't the one with a clear conscience kind of lazy? A good example I heard of this is about someone who executes a murderer because he thinks it is right. He has a clear conscience about it but that will never lead to any reflection. Anyway, this doesn't make much sense to me yet. Maybe there is nothing here.

A good video I found:

Why I enjoy being friends with Warren Ellis on facebook.

transhumanists and meat-eating, also some POD

And to transhumanists who still eat meat from highly intelligent animals like pigs, I ask — why do you consume and cage animals who are obviously aware of their pain and suffering and yet still expect superintelligences or superhumans to treat you with respect? The human/not-human simplistic dichotomy of morality is not going to work as a moral structure in the long term. We’re going to need more precise technical definitions of what we value, even if those definitions disagree.

-Michael Anissimov from his Accelerating Future blog. This is the article from h+ that sparked his thoughts on the issue.

And though it seems wrong to only mention this quickly, Teh g33ki3st one L Wil has a great post about Warren Ellis and Ariana's recent ventures into POD along with his own attempts at creative risks. Get Excited and Make Things!

I have to walk the dogs before dark. Then I can enjoy the new books that arrived in the USPS today.

Stone River: The Passion of Jon Piasecki

Lovely video from Orion. Makes me want to get out into the woods or maybe even make a trip up to Wolfe Park.

Stone River: The Passion of Jon Piasecki from Orion Magazine on Vimeo.

Stargate

Finally a good episode from Stargate: Universe last week. Nothing like a nice time travel paradox to get things going.

Also, Hulu just put up SG-1 season 9, which is exactly where I left off last year. Since I have been having a productive few weeks lately, I allowed myself to start watching it today. Just a few episodes though...

Publicly, a whole new lewdness (feat. Snow White)

"On a recent cross-country trip from Los Angeles, Jana Matthews thought she'd lucked out when her friendly seatmate cued up a cartoon on his laptop. Her four children were enthralled; she hoped listening in might keep them occupied. Then the cartoon characters started doing things that cartoon characters should not be doing. Naked things. Naked, noisy things, unfettered by the restraints of human anatomy because the participants were, after all, hand-drawn." LINK

I can only assume he was watching some geile zwerge. I think that is German for dirty Snow White sex.

P.S. I've been waiting 5 months for a reason to link that cartoon. Finally! I just wish there was an embed feature for it.