APRIL WHAT?
It's still April 1st on the Left Coast for another two hours and five minutes (when I started this post; an hour and ten minutes when I finished), no matter what date you read above this post.
Some foolish links are in order!
So, out of order!
Japan is on everyone's mind, but we need to remember than it's not all doom and gloom, and yet in the spirit of helping:
The Tactical Philanthropy Haiku Contest:
Some past winners I like include:
Did I say "geeks"? Not yet! Let's read Henry Jenkins talk about gender and game design with James Paul Gee!
There's nothing bloggers like better than catching out the New York Times in embarrassing goofs!
I'm sorry I missed that press conference.
And srsly, nothing could be better news for bloggers than the NY Times digital subscriptions! Why?
Meanwhile if you haven't heard of self-published fiction writerJacqueline Howett, here is how not to become a world famous author!
This set of classically badly written defensive responses from a writer of classic slush went immediately viral, and was linked by approximately one third of everyone connected to publishing or professional writing, on Twitter, with a blog, on Facebook, and every other online social medium on the planet, but maybe you haven't read her string of comments in the comment thread at Big Al's yet!
Stand back!
Kids, wannabe writers, don't try this at home! Or anywhere! This is how to kill your writing career for a long time. Not that the poor woman stood a chance of having one: the signs of classic slush, including the responses from her, are familiar to anyone who has ever read slush.
(But before another food fight breaks out, let me state clearly that I think self-publishing is also absolutely crucial to unlocking the world of publishing for many fine writers who fail to navigate their thread of superb writing through the eye of the needle of mass market publishing; crowd-sourced promotion will work to out quality; there will be gate-keepers, but e-publishing is a key to unlock a door you previously had to jigger at for a long time, or be very lucky with.)
Blog commenters, and fellow human beings, and any other life who might comprehend, might consider that we're all trapped in here.
Radiation or not.
For better or worse, xkcd is no longer 3D. Pshew!
You won't need De-3D Cinema Glasses. But today's ThinkGeek goodies were as awesome as ever.
Guess which of this year's will, due to demand, turn into a real product? For some value of "real."
This is what blogs are made of!
Which is your favorite dictator's mustache?
Who doesn't love infographics?
Ward Shelley did an amazing history of science fiction.
An interview with Shelley about it.
Not an April Fool! The Forecasting World Events Project comes from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA).
For realz. @GaryFarberKnows.
Let's close with a movie. The Top 5 Viral Pictures of 1911.
But, wait, there's more! Libyan Jews and their recipes! Really!
And THE .DOC FILE OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK, by copperbadge, via the thoughtful Stef Maruch.
More April 1st roundup.
ADDENDUM, April 4th,, 7:18 a.m., PST:
David Pogue's compilation of April Fool's links.
From here:
And Abi, this is absolutely wonderful, and I intend to, ah, appropriate it, in some, um, appropriate way.
Cross-posted at Obsidian Wings.
Go to next post, WHAT IS BEST IN ACADEMIC FREEDOM, CRONON? NOT TO CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES.It's still April 1st on the Left Coast for another two hours and five minutes (when I started this post; an hour and ten minutes when I finished), no matter what date you read above this post.
Some foolish links are in order!
So, out of order!
Japan is on everyone's mind, but we need to remember than it's not all doom and gloom, and yet in the spirit of helping:
The Tactical Philanthropy Haiku Contest:
Donors want dataHai, ku! Can you write techie Haiku? Win $50!
Nonprofits measure impact
Experts watch and smile
Some past winners I like include:
Chekov in the bay
searching hard for some space fuel
Nuclear wessels
-- Jay in Murfreesboro, Tennessee
I bit a zombie.
it was ironic but the
taste was terrible.
-- Blake in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Learn from the Jedi.
Discipline, control, respect.
Dangerous muppet.
-- Patrick in Anaheim, California
Packets of photons
Streaming by our planet's sky
their address divine
-- Michaline in Chicago Illinois
Eat Theobromine.
Drink methyltheobromine.
Heliophobe, I.
--Zach in Tyler, Texas
Why kill Wash and Book?Advice for commenters arguing with bloggers:
Are they thinking what I am?
Firefly Zombies!
--Barak from East Brunswick, New Jersey
Don't argue with aLet there be peace:
Mobius strip because it
Will be one-sided
--Jimmy from Poughquag, New York
Take me to the blackAnd this speaks to, for, and sometimes it seems to be me:
I am a leaf on the wind
My Serenity
--Jennifer in Dallas, Texas
I am all around,Read the rest! Funny!
Yet some can't seem to find me.
I am Internet.
--Terry in San Francisco, California
Did I say "geeks"? Not yet! Let's read Henry Jenkins talk about gender and game design with James Paul Gee!
There's nothing bloggers like better than catching out the New York Times in embarrassing goofs!
I'm sorry I missed that press conference.
And srsly, nothing could be better news for bloggers than the NY Times digital subscriptions! Why?
Can I still access NYTimes.com articles through Facebook, Twitter, search engines or my blog?
Yes. We encourage links from Facebook, Twitter, search engines, blogs and social media. When you visit NYTimes.com through a link from one of these channels, that article (or video, slide show, etc.) will count toward your monthly limit of 20 free articles, but you will still be able to view it even if you've already read your 20 free articles.So just read a blog to get your New York Times fix! How hard is that?
Meanwhile if you haven't heard of self-published fiction writerJacqueline Howett, here is how not to become a world famous author!
This set of classically badly written defensive responses from a writer of classic slush went immediately viral, and was linked by approximately one third of everyone connected to publishing or professional writing, on Twitter, with a blog, on Facebook, and every other online social medium on the planet, but maybe you haven't read her string of comments in the comment thread at Big Al's yet!
Stand back!
Kids, wannabe writers, don't try this at home! Or anywhere! This is how to kill your writing career for a long time. Not that the poor woman stood a chance of having one: the signs of classic slush, including the responses from her, are familiar to anyone who has ever read slush.
(But before another food fight breaks out, let me state clearly that I think self-publishing is also absolutely crucial to unlocking the world of publishing for many fine writers who fail to navigate their thread of superb writing through the eye of the needle of mass market publishing; crowd-sourced promotion will work to out quality; there will be gate-keepers, but e-publishing is a key to unlock a door you previously had to jigger at for a long time, or be very lucky with.)
Blog commenters, and fellow human beings, and any other life who might comprehend, might consider that we're all trapped in here.
Radiation or not.
For better or worse, xkcd is no longer 3D. Pshew!
You won't need De-3D Cinema Glasses. But today's ThinkGeek goodies were as awesome as ever.
Guess which of this year's will, due to demand, turn into a real product? For some value of "real."
This is what blogs are made of!
But you can still wish for a pony, thanks to Belle Waring!
Which is your favorite dictator's mustache?
Who doesn't love infographics?
Ward Shelley did an amazing history of science fiction.
An interview with Shelley about it.
Not an April Fool! The Forecasting World Events Project comes from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA).
For realz. @GaryFarberKnows.
Let's close with a movie. The Top 5 Viral Pictures of 1911.
But, wait, there's more! Libyan Jews and their recipes! Really!
And THE .DOC FILE OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK, by copperbadge, via the thoughtful Stef Maruch.
More April 1st roundup.
ADDENDUM, April 4th,, 7:18 a.m., PST:
Press Release
Edinburgh, UK, April 1, 2011 — Cheezburger (www.cheezburger.com), the Internet publisher best known for popularizing LOLcats, FAILS, and other Internet memes, today announced it has acquired Charlie's Diary, the authoritative and amusing weblog of science fiction author Charles Stross.
Created by Hugo-winning SF author Charles Stross, Charlie's Diary is dedicated to giving people an overdose of the florid imagination of a science fiction writer who gets bored easily and has too much time on his hands.
Over the past decade Charlie's Diary has trolled the internet for lulz at the expense of space enthusiasts, trekkies, sad-faced clowns, and proletarian chew-toys, in the process delivering a spectacular Google pagerank and accreting a vibrant community of snarky nerds, general-purpose pedants and drive-by spammers.
"I'm excited to see the Charlie's Diary community joining the Cheezburger community," said Ben Huh, CEO and founder of Cheezburger. "Since Cheezburger is the playground of choice for millions of Internet culture fans, the addition of regular commenters such as Jonathon Vos Post and Heteromeles is a natural complement for our community.
Now, in addition to delivering 5 minutes of happiness through I Can Has Cheezburger?, FAIL Blog, Memebase, and The Daily What, we can host interminable flame wars about whether ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny and the prospects for saving the environment by installing a molten thorium salt reactor in every basement."
"Thanks to the amazing community, Charlie's Diary has become one of the Internet's top five science fiction weblogs," said Stross. "It's taken a decade and I'm all burned up, so I've finally decided to monetize you bitches and cash out."
To aid in this process Stross intends to throw the gates open for guest bloggers to contribute their content for a small consideration.
"Ben Huh is enthusiastic about providing user analytics and behavioural advertising for Charlie's Diary, and we expect this will enable us to recoup some of the investment in time and energy the blog has cost me during the ten year bootstrap process."
Charlie will continue to market his science fiction under the brand name Charles Stross™ for the next five years, at which point the Charles Stross™ brand will be wholly transfered to the Cheezburger Network intellectual property portfolio and the author formerly known as Stross will rebrand and launch under a non-conflicting identity.More.
David Pogue's compilation of April Fool's links.
From here:
Posted by: Firecat
Hollywood's allegedly funniest tweets, which include two from Nathan Fillion.
It's again clear why we have writers for actors.
Toshiro Mifune as Obi-Wan.
Abi Sutherland has a new blog! http://noise2sig.nl.
Allochthonia: Numen, Faith, Religion, and Lack Thereof is fine stuff, Abi, as I'd expect. Also: I agree!
It's again clear why we have writers for actors.
Toshiro Mifune as Obi-Wan.
Abi Sutherland has a new blog! http://noise2sig.nl.
Allochthonia: Numen, Faith, Religion, and Lack Thereof is fine stuff, Abi, as I'd expect. Also: I agree!
And Abi, this is absolutely wonderful, and I intend to, ah, appropriate it, in some, um, appropriate way.
Cross-posted at Obsidian Wings.
(Via Arthur D. Hlavaty)