Interesting discussion by John C. Wright: It is a meaningful sentence to say that the chance of a balanced coin landing headsup is fifty times out of a hundred because and only because the shape of the coin (it has only two sides) is known, and the factors that determine the fall of the coin… Read More The Meaninglessness of Probability
Step 1: Make money as an established genre fiction author, which is “not a real author” according to sad bastards who write lit fic about their feelings. Step 2: Buy a tank. Step 3: NOTHING. There is no third thing. You win at life. Plus, think about it. You would win every argument after that for the… Read More Larry Correia Discovers the Secret to Life
Imagine your grandfather parsing that title. Anyhoo, Matt Inman, hilarious scribbler of The Oatmeal, has ribbingly touted the virtues of cat-ownership vis-a-vis human reproduction. Inman’s antipathy to babies are known, so this is not suprising. Nor am I going to pretend that it is not funny. But in this day and age, we breeders deserve… Read More Actual Having a Baby vs. Having a Cat: A Riposte to The Oatmeal
Why not both? A discussion of the Great Unsurprise of the New Year – the unfinishing of The Winds of Winter – has prompted Joe Vasicek to point out that for indie authors, it may be more the latter: In the traditional system, writers were paid an advance on royalties by their publishers. The contract also… Read More Is Writing Art, or Commerce?
A Song of Ice and Fire, Hold the Ice If you’re on Reddit, you probably noticed or took part in the New Year’s Night vigil of watching George R.R. Martin’s livejournal for the update on The Winds of Winter. I myself did, and it was an instructive lesson in group emotions: first excitement, then frustration,… Read More Content Creation Blues
In an otherwise blandly professorial discussion of “girl squads” for the Hollywood Reporter, Camille Paglia sent some shade at Taylor Swift: In our wide-open modern era of independent careers, girl squads can help women advance if they avoid presenting a silly, regressive public image — as in the tittering, tongues-out mugging of Swift’s bear-hugging posse.… Read More Why Can’t You Idiots Read? Camille Paglia and Taylor Swift
Stacey McCain is nothing if not fair-minded. He will lambaste someone six ways to Sunday, but then he will offer, dispassionately, praise. And not even backhanded praise. Damn his atheist soul, but Barrett Brown is an excellent writer. This links to Brown’s recent prison-penned review of Jonathan Franzen’s Purity, posted on The Intercept_ (the underline… Read More Caring About Jonathan Franzen
I read two of these yesterday. It’s that bad. Read for yourself if you doubt me. David Burkehead was somewhat laconic in his fisking, but he hit the theme of “the modern man does not give a moldy dog dropping about half of this nonsense. None of these things define manhood.” Over at Monster Hunter… Read More The New York Times Attempts a Lame “Modern Man” Listicle, Gets Righteously Fisked
The Stranger is a slim read, but I found it confusing. Supposedly, Sartre thought it a profoundly silly book, the equivalent of reporting on a soccer match with the words “I saw adults in shorts fighting and throwing themselves on the ground in order to send a leather ball between two wooden posts.” I feel similarly,… Read More The Stranger is the Stranger….
I consider myself an author at least 20% of the time (and therein lies the problem, of course). But I can’t find myself giving a moldy dog dropping about the Hugos. I don’t even imagine, in my wildest fantasies, winning one. I think of industry/creative awards in much the same way I think of government: something… Read More Are We Still Screaming About the Hugos?
Content Blues 