Hasbro has sent letters to Facebook asking it to remove Scrabulous, the popular online version of Scrabble. SOS! Save our Scrabulous!
Happy birthday, Robert Silverberg!
Robert Silverberg is 74 today. His children’s book Revolt on Alpha C is one of the first science fiction books I can remember reading (it was his first novel, published in 1955, four years before I was born). Much, much later, I learned quite a bit about sex I didn’t previously know by reading his …
The first sentence I wrote yesterday…
After what seemed both an eternity and all-too-brief an instant, Emily disentangled herself from Richard and stood back, grinning at him.Words yesterday (more or less): 2,164Total words: 59,102Percentage complete: 49.3
Don D’Ammassa reviews Marseguro
The indefatigable Don D’Ammassa reviews Marseguro and isn’t entirely happy with it: Although this was well enough written, I found myself uncomfortable with elements of the story. The fanaticism of the theocrats seemed a bit forced, even though current events should have convinced me that their excesses are entirely plausible. I think my problem is …
Nature Number 1 revisited
Just over 138 years ago, on Thursday, November 4, 1869, the prestigious science journal Nature published its first issue. Now Nature’s entire archives have been digitized and made available online. (Not for free, alas: although you can browse the contents, you have to pay for complete articles.) Back in 1991, when I was communications officer …
The first sentence I wrote over the weekend…
Why didn’t Victor Hansen just remove our violent tendenices, while he was at it? she thought.Words over the weekend: 3,279Total words: 56,925Percentage complete: 47.4
Nature puts its archives online!
This is cool: the great science magazine Nature is putting its entire archives, all the way back to issue one, number one in 1869 (which I wrote a column about years ago when I came across a facsimile copy at the Saskatchewan Science Centre) online. You can browse it to see what’s in each issue, …
The first sentence I wrote today…
The motley fleet of ships and boats carrying The Avatar’s remnant force of Holy Warriors reached the mainland at first light.Words today: 3,232Total thus far: 53,633Percentage complete: 44.7 (for 120,000 words), 53.6 (for 100,000) It’s beginning to feel like the book will come in closer to 100,000 than 120,000 words, which is fine. It’ll probably …
The first sentence I wrote today…
“We’ve got to rescue him,” she said. Words today: 2,984Total thus far: 50,405Percentage complete: 42 A pretty good day: past the 50,000-word mark, and thus 42 percent of the way to 120,000 words (but remember, I’m only contracted for 100,000, and if that’s what my total ends up being, I’m past halfway!). I hope to …
Blogging!
Today’s Web column for CBC’s Afternoon Edition… *** Over the past few years the growing use of computers and the Internet has contributed a lot of weird new words to our language. People talk about ROM and RAM and “megs of memory,” Googling and websurfing and more. But one of the weirdest words of all …
The first sentence I wrote today…
Sarah’s eyes widened.Words today: 1,892Total words: 47,421Percentage complete: 39.5Under 2,000 today. More tomorrow! (By the way, the “percentage complete” up there is based on 120,000 words. The contract only specifies 100,000, so technically I’m 47.4 percent complete. But Marseguro also started at 100,000 and ended up at 120,000 after rewrites, and anyway it’s more interesting …
My recent posts over at Futurismic
I haven’t posted as many science items here as usual in part because I’m very busy, but also in part because I try to post something every day over at Futurismic. Here are some recent posts of mine over there you might want to check out: The debate over “Active SETI” Building blocks of life …
My latest live walk and vlog
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