Luke's Review of Thing-Thing by Cary Fagan and Nicolas Deban (1)
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Stephany Aulenback (2)
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crooked house (2)
8 hours, 50 minutes
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Thing-Thing was waiting for Luke on the kitchen counter when we got home from our road trip. It's been the bedtime story of choice every night since then. As this spot-on review mentions, it is the story of a discarded toy -- in this case "not quite a bunny rabbit, but not quite a dog either, nor a bear, or cat for that matter" -- in the grand tradition of The Velveteen Rabbit, except that ...
Technocritique: Neal Stephenson Explains What's Wrong with Mobile Phones (5)
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Annalee Newitz (240)
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io9 (929)
12 hours, 9 minutes
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Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, is one of the most techno-savvy scifi authors of his generation, and yet his new novel Anathem is strongly critical of mobile phones. Anathem, which hits bookstores Tuesday, is set on an alien world that's very much like Earth — right down to its technologies, which include mobile-esque devices called jeejahs. The main characters in the novel are part of a scientifically-advanced group called the "avout" who ...
The Source (1)
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EclectEcon (2)
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EclectEcon (2)
1 day, 1 hour
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As a result of recommendations from several people, over the past two months I have been reading The Source by James Michener. I finally finished it, but it was slow going. Many years ago, I read Michener's The Bridge at Andau about the Hungarian uprising of 1956, and before going to the University of Hawaii on sabbatical I read Michener's Hawaii. I recall that both of those books provided me with a sense of what ...
"BIM" Handbook; A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers - Revit/BIM Book (1)
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Gregory Arkin (2)
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REVIT3D.COM Join the REVITlution (2)
1 day, 14 hours
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I just got off the phone with a long time Revit user. He said I had to get this book and it made all the difference in his life. I've ordered mine and thought I'd tell the world about it.Buy it now at Amazon for $68Title: "BIM" Handbook; A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, DesignersISBN: 9780470185285From the Publisher;Discover BIM: A better way to build better buildings. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a ...
What is this book/short story from my childhood? (1)
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GaGaLoc (2)
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Ask MetaFilter (46)
1 day, 14 hours
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What is this book/short story from my childhood? A gambler learns to see through playing cards by holding them up to candle light. In the end he ends up throwing all of his winnings off of a balcony. I read this as a kid around 20 years ago but i have no idea how to find it again. I'd love to revisit it since that idea has mesmerized me ever since. I believe it was ...
25 Banned Books That You Should Read Today (1)
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Ellyssa (74)
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iLibrarian (74)
1 day, 15 hours
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The Professor’s Blog at DegreeDirectory suggests a list of controversial banned books, many of which you can read for free online today. Here are their top 10 recommendations: A Day No Pigs Would Die American Psycho And Tango Makes Three Annie on My Mind Bridge to Terabithia Candide Fallen Angels Fanny Hill Forever Frankenstein
Anathem Launch Update: Simulcast Info & Neal Stephenson Video (2)
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mikl-em (11)
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Laughing Squid (352)
1 day, 15 hours
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guest post by mikl-em This Tuesday (Sept. 9) San Francisco will be the site of the book launch event for Anathem the long-awaited new novel by Neal Stephenson. The above video was directed by Brady Hall, a Seattle filmmaker who has done a series of “Book Films” for Harper Collins (publisher of Anathem). The video is intriguing, if a little odd, like a mix between the fight scenes from Romeo & Juliet and Westside Story ...
WWSB: What Would Sarah Ban? (1)
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Christy Hardin Smith (9)
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Firedoglake (68)
1 day, 16 hours
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The whole story about how Sarah Palin wanted to ban books in the Wasilla library gives off a decidedly Dolores Umbridge vibe. McClatchy dug into the rumors a bit more deeply: ...In December 1996, Emmons told her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman, that Palin three times asked her — starting before she was sworn in — about possibly removing objectionable books from the library if the need arose. Emmons told the Frontiersman she flatly refused to ...
Some Friday Reading (1)
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Jesse Singal (2)
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pushback (4)
1 day, 16 hours
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I found this short graphic story via reddit, and it’s wonderful. Definitely worth the five minutes it takes to read. (Oh, and if LiveJournal tells you you’re about to see adult content and asks for your consent, grant it. It must be a mistake, because there’s nothing remotely adult-ish in the story.)
Do Ebooks, Legal or Not, Make You Buy Real Books? [Ask The Readers] (7)
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Kevin Purdy (2209)
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Lifehacker (7864)
1 day, 16 hours
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Popular author Stephenie Meyer put her eagerly-anticipated vampire genre sequel Twilight Sun on indefinite hold after copies of her rough draft showed up on BitTorrent sites. The (obviously somewhat biased) TorrentFreak takes authors to task for not using online leaks as a promotional tool, but I have to ask: Would having access to a digital copy of a nearly-complete book inspire you to purchase the ink-and-paper version? Would having an advanced ebook reader, like the ...
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Todd Albertson said:
I keep hearing that the new trend is for authors to give away their books in electronic format for free and that somehow causes the reader to buy a hard-copy version. As a reader, the opposite is true for me. If I have an ecopy of the book, I would NOT buy a hard copy.
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Sam Harrelson said:
idiotic in my opinion. cory doctorow has a much better perspective on this.
Institutions vs. Collaboration (1)
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Brother Maynard (4)
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Subversive Influence (4)
1 day, 20 hours
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I read Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody not long ago, and I’ve mentioned it here a few times already. The subtitle of the book is, “The Power of Organizing Without Organizations,” and I must say that it provides some excellent food for thought on the future of the institution contrasted with the power of loosely-affiliated mass collaborative efforts. The word “organization” might be used, but in some contexts it creates an expectation of more formality ...
Shelved Muhammad novel to get UK release (1)
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joe (85)
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The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log (6)
1 day, 22 hours
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This isn’t directly related to our normal topics of comics or science fiction, but really I think part of the background stems from the climate of fear created in the often ludicrous and frenzied reactions which the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad provoked, so I hope you’ll indulge me if I seem a little off our normal topic area. In the US Random House were all set to publish the Jewel of Median, a ...
T-shirt of the week: Electric sheep (1)
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Jay Garmon (2)
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Geekend (2)
1 day, 23 hours
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What is it that androids dream of? This shirt from Diesel Sweeties will help remind you, all whilst stealthily declaring your affinity for science fiction in general, Philip K. Dick specifically, and Blade Runner very obliquely. Now that’s some densely packed dork subtext.
Anathem: Neal Stephenson's Tale of Two Planets (14)
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Annalee Newitz (240)
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io9 (929)
2 days, 9 hours
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Neal Stephenson's new novel Anathem comes out next week, and there's something very timely about his tale of aliens on a parallel Earth whose inhabitants are locked into an occasionally-catastrophic conflict between scientific and religious institutions. The planet Arbre, which is very much like Earth in some ways, differs from our world one major respect. Its religious and scientific institutions are essentially reversed. Monks called the avout live ascetic lives studying science in gracious, ancient ...
The Israelis Are On To Something Here (1)
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Jim (88)
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Dr Jim West (4)
2 days, 11 hours
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The idea of translating the Bible into simple contemporary language is “scandalous,” Drora Halevy, the ministry’s National Supervisor for Bible Studies, told Haaretz. The booklets present the text in “skimpy slang” that cheapens the Bible, she added. “It’s a purely marketing initiative intended for the below-average; it’s a disaster,” says Professor Yaira Amit, a Bible instruction expert. What’s this about? Ha’aretz reports The Education Ministry is to ban Bible aid booklets that help elementary and ...
Guillermo del Toro Brings Back the Days of Classic Universal Monsters [Monsters] (2)
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Annalee Newitz (240)
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io9 (929)
2 days, 14 hours
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Guillermo del Toro, who raised the bar on monster-making in Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth, is now set to helm two more classic monster movies — as well as adapt a classic Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. novel. Though del Toro's next project is a two-movie version of The Hobbit, he's also apparently cut a deal with Universal to remake two of its oldest monster franchises: Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. These stories, along with Dracula, ...
Meryl's Notes at meryl.net (3) permalink
Content on writing, tech, business, marketing, web design.Shared by Courtney (26) Mark Havenner (26)Swaroop C H, The Dreamer (5) permalink
After a gap of 3.5 years, I’ve finally updated the ‘A Byte of Python’ book. The interesting news is that it is updated for the upcoming Python 3.0 language making it probably the first book to be released for Python 3.0. The book is now a wiki too at www.swaroopch.com... which means you can contribute too! The book and wiki are now under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The Non-Commercial clause present ...Shared by hutuworm (41) Rk (13)Contribute commentLolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? (1596) permalink
NOM sawyer i personally liek readin garfield. picture: Katie. lol caption: jriedel » Recaption ThisShared by alice (8) Andrew Boardman (69) Anthony (12) cisellis (25) d1g1t (332) darkeye11547 (247) Han (30) Jaemi kehoe (21) Jiscilla (87) Marianne (11) Peter (19) Shoshannah F (40) Soulhuntre (114) Stephanie (12) Tim (25) Yada (82)Contribute commentSex Geek (2) permalink
A few months back, I got an earnest comment on this blog from a guy I’d never met, named John Baku. He invited me to take a look at the new site he’d created, and post a review here if I liked it. That site was FetLife.com. Now, I get a lot of people sending me requests to review sex toys, porn sites and the like, and it’s generally not my particular bent – I’m ...Shared by sinclair (30)Contribute comment
