Armor For the Fight Against Terror

Ready to lay the smackdown on those e-vile terrorists, but not sure what you should wear? Cory Doctorow has the answer: this spiffy tee! Note: be sure to click on the image so you can read the small print around the image of the eagle. ZOMG!

When I went to the web page, they were already sold out, but, true to his share-the-love and fuck-copyrights ethos, the image on the shirt is licensed under a creative-commons-share-and-remix-as-you-will license. So have fun with this one, kids!

The Bionic Man Is Also an Iraq War Veteran

Really and truly. This man’s computerized hand and arm read the electrical impulses coming from the muscles in his arm that would have moved his biological hand, and duplicates the action. In other words: his mind makes the robot hand work.

Watch the video, courtesy of AP.

The One-Sentence, No-Spoiler Review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

First half — meh; second half — yes!

(I am going to wait a little while longer before I post a longer review; don’t want to risk spoiling the book for anyone. But c’mon slowpokes, get reading. My love and I finished it in less than two days, and we were reading aloud to each other!)

Even Zombies Need a Balanced Diet

I found this on 7 Deadly Sinners, which in turn got it from Threadless. I had no idea lungs were so important to the zombie diet.

The Best Use Yet for Second Life

This little piece of machinima by artist Robbie Dingo is literally one of the most moving things I’ve seen published on the InterWebs. And, on a different note, it also displays Second Life at its best. I was frustrated by Second Life because I tried to use it in my Comp. II class in the Spring, but it was too fussy and temperamental for me to make it work. (I know, other professors have had smashing success with Second Life in the classroom, but look, I’ll bet you a can of Diet Sprite that every last one of them has his/her own favorite “I couldn’t get Second Life to work” stories. But I digress.) Watching this video, however, makes me believe again in Second Life’s possibilities.

One of the commentators on the YouTube site called this “achingly beautiful.” Couldn’t agree more. Especially in the end, when he frames himself and his art … but enough: go see for yourself! And once you’ve done that, you can go to this page and get a behind-the-scenes look at how it was made.

Let Us All Go Run With the Bulls

Thank you, Reuters. Never again going to think to myself “Wouldn’t it be fun to run with the bulls?”

The Green Revolution’s Guru

The gentleman on the right is Norman Borlaug, and he has just been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for being one of the principle architects of the “Green Revolution.” It’s not exactly the kind of “Green” you’re thinking; it specifically has to do with fighting hunger, not generic environmentalism. His work on improving wheat yields in the 40s and 50s has literally saved hundreds of millions of people from hunger. Here is a quote from The DesMoines Register that speaks volumes:

Borlaug noted in a statement he wrote for the gold medal ceremony that in 1960 perhaps 60 percent of the world’s people felt hunger during some portion of the year. By the year 2000, that had dropped to 14 percent.

Wow. If ever someone deserved a medal, it’s this guy. And this time, the world has gotten it right: besides the Congressional Gold Medal, Borlaug has won the Nobel Prize and The Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Read the whole story here.

How Conservatives on Both Sides of the Pond Escalate Ill-Will and Precipitate Culture Wars (and Sometimes Real Wars)

The good folks who brought the world the “World Without Zionism” conference in 2005 have now released a video game called (according to the AP’s crack translators) “Rescue the Nuke Scientist.” In the game, the evil Americans capture a pair of married nuclear scientists (?!), and it’s the job of the good guys (i.e. the Iranian military) to rescue them. Rescuing them, of course, means killing a lot of American and Israelis along the way. You can read the full AP article here.

But lest you think that these are simply the actions of Muslim extremists propagating hatred through whatever means they can, allow me to point your attention to a couple of key paragraphs in the article:

“This is our defense against the enemy’s cultural onslaught,” Mohammad Taqi Fakhrian, a leader of the student group, told reporters Monday….

This game follows the free “Assault on Iran” online series from New York-based Kuma Reality Games. That game simulates U.S. Special Forces destroying the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.

Why exactly is Kuma Reality Games simulating attacks on Iranian sovereignty by creating a game like this? Because they want another war? I would link to Kuma Games and let you see for yourself the kind of conservative agenda they have going on there, but I just don’t want to encourage them any more by giving their web site more hits. Their banner, which prominently features both a real and an in-game image of Saddam Hussein, pretty much says it all. Yeah, Saddam Hussein. Remember him? All those storehouses of biological and chemical weapons he was stockpiling to use against American kittens and puppies? Good thing we got him.

This story illustrates perfectly to me something that’s been bothering me for a long time: it’s the radical conservatives on both sides of the war who are dictating the conversation in the post-9/11 world. The most dangerous clash anyone can engineer is the one created when the most conservative elements of two different ideologies collide. Think about it. What would radical liberals from each country do: free love each other to death? What would the moderates do? Oh, that’s right, act moderately: with restraint, respect and decorum. But it’s not the liberals nor the moderates who are doing the talking right now. It’s the people with the most xenophobic agendas advocating for the most extreme solution there is: war.

The end result is that we have on the American side Kuma creating video games which have players commiting acts of war against Iran. That, in turn, incites the most radically conservative student group in Iran to create a game where players win by killing Americans and Israelis. Want to know what’s wrong with the world? Take a look at the games we play — at the things we do “for fun” — and you’ll get more of an answer than you bargained for.

Strange Horizons: The Best Online Sci-Fi Magazine?

I haven’t checked every online sci-fi mag in existence, so I suppose I can’t answer this question with absolute scientific certainty. But I am guessing yes. Strange Horizons is an Internet success story: the work they publish gets nominated for the biggest awards in speculative fiction (Hugo, Nebula, etc.); they have built a lively community of readers; for Pete’s sake, they publish new work weekly. Easily one of the best markets out there for spec-fic writers: a high end market that, due to its rigorous publishing schedule, needs a lot of new work. Yay!

Two New Literary Market Clearinghouses

Hey gang, updating with two good (and very different) places on the web to help you find markets for your writing.

#1 — Mary Anne Mohanraj’s Collection of Literary Markets. This is a personal and very helpful assemblage of markets from a very busy writer. You may not agree with every single rating she has given her markets, but there’s no doubting that this is an immensely helpful link for writers looking to place work. Especially good for writers with a few publications under their kilts.

#2 — Duotrope’s Digest. While Ms. Mohanraj’s clearinghouse is personal, qualitative, and idiosyncratic, Duotrope’s directory of literary markets is huge, well-organized and, best of all, searchable. A great place to browse and find new markets for short stories, poetry and novels.

And remember, keep sending out!