pepysdiary

http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1669/05/28/

To St. James's, where the King's being with the Duke of York prevented a meeting of the Tangier Commission. But, Lord! what a deal of sorry discourse did I hear between the King and several Lords about him here! but very mean methought. So with Creed to the Excise Office, and back to White Hall, where, in the Park, Sir G. Carteret did give me an account of his discourse lately, with the Commissioners of Accounts, who except against many things, but none that I find considerable; among others, that of the Officers of the Navy selling of the King's goods, and particularly my providing him with calico flags, which having been by order, and but once, when necessity, and the King's apparent profit, justified it, as conformable to my particular duty, it will prove to my advantage that it be enquired into. Nevertheless, having this morning received from them a demand of an account of all monies within their cognizance, received and issued by me, I was willing, upon this hint, to give myself rest, by knowing whether their meaning therein might reach only to my Treasurership for Tangier, or the monies employed on this occasion. I went, therefore, to them this afternoon, to understand what monies they meant, where they answered me, by saying, "The eleven months' tax, customs, and prizemoney," without mentioning, any more than I demanding, the service they respected therein; and so, without further discourse, we parted, upon very good terms of respect, and with few words, but my mind not fully satisfied about the monies they mean. At noon Mr. Gibson and I dined at the Swan, and thence doing this at Brook house, and thence calling at the Excise Office for an account of payment of my tallies for Tangier, I home, and thence with my wife and brother spent the evening on the water, carrying our supper with us, as high as Chelsea; so home, making sport with the Westerne bargees, and my wife and I singing, to my great content.

warrenelliscom

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=14107

Some Arctic ambient from Russia to close with, complete with sparkling ice winds and strange digging machinery excavating graves in the snowfields.  G’night, folks.

warrenelliscom

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=14117

And then, before I get insane enough to do it, something wonderful usually happens to stop me.

Poor Charlie Stross.

Much as any artefact exposed to the maw of a small child eventually becomes soggy and turns brown (after it stops working, if moving parts are involved), I am coming to the conclusion that any comment thread on this blog will, between 100 and 200 comments in, circle around to become a discussion of:

* Space colonization

* Automotive technology

* Things that go fast and explode (rockets, military aircraft)

* Alternative energy (from solar through wind/wave to nuclear)

* Libertarianism (and everything is worse with libertarians)

And then he asks his audience – which is a fair bit larger than mine, these days – if he’s doing anything wrong, and wonders aloud how to develop a new audience of commenters.

283 comments (and counting) later, he’s got people ranting about libertarianism, cheap energy (the second comment!) and whores.  Oh, and “secular modern civilisation.”  I get mentioned a couple of times, in regard to the old Warren Ellis Forum and the Whitechapel board (although the poster missed that I turned the latter over to Si Spurrier last year and neither read nor write there).

Charlie’s been writing at his site for a year more than WEF operated, and four years into WEF we’d pretty much mapped out the memetic genome of the self-selected participants.  There comes a time when a hardcore regular attendance dismays new arrivals – as an American put it to me once, “it’s a bit like, ‘really? High school again?’”  And so, even when Charlie says something there that breaks into mainstream consciousness, his commentariat is unlikely to change much.  Also, they are defending that piece of virtual dirt, because they have made it into a place that is comfortable to them.  Charlie’s place is where they come to talk about rockets and whores, damnit.

Which brings up another thing, and I’m not going to ascribe it to Charlie, who is a nice man, but it’s real – sometimes, your commenters, by which you often mean your audience and your readership, are really fucking annoying, and sometimes you don’t like them.  Which you can’t say.  Who’s going to pick up another book by a writer who says “My readers are awful pieces of shit and I can think of twenty of them, right off the bat, who should be drowned in hot pig blubber”?  Nobody.  “My audience are all complete pissflaps.  Have you read my website comments threads?  Utter inane gibberish.  I would like to train a giant horse to fuck out all their eyes.”  Who’s going to say that? 

I guarantee you that even the sweetest and kindest writer has thought that exact thought more than once in their lives.  And its corollary: “Oh god, my readers are such horrible demented shitbags, what am I doing so wrong that I attract them all to me?”

Just as I know that every writer has dropped the ball at least once and disappointed a reader.  Or exposed themselves as a total prick or a frothing nutter. 

The deep interaction between creator and reader that the internet has brought us is not always healthy for either side, nor does it always – or even often – bring out the best in either side.

So I do this: I have a twitter account where people can talk to me, and I have a website where I post my research material and show off interesting stuff I’ve found and talk about whatever’s in my head on any given day.  I feel like, that way, we get the best sides of each other.

(Speculation. The thing about the open house that comments systems constitute is this: you accept my invitation into my house, and then I get stroppy because I want to know why you’re pissing on the floor and refusing to talk about anything other than that one sculpture on my shelf that depicts a whore riding a rocket.  But just maybe you’re urinating in fear because you only came into the house to look at the sculpture and now I’m trying to fit you into the oven.)

Best of luck, Charlie.

Also, buy a bigger oven.

someposifeed

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05282012.shtml

dinosaurcomics

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2214

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May 28th, 2012: I got a bunch of emails from Actual Physicists about yesterday's comic! TOTALLY REASONABLE OBJECTIONS INCLUDE: If the universe were shrinking but the speed of light were constant, then all sorts of things are broken If the universe were shrinking then the speed of light would slow proportionally, and therefore it would be undetectable, therefore there's no change if it's true or not so it's an irrelevant theory that may as well be true for our universe (I liked this one quite a bit) Our universe is actually expanding and the speed of light remains constant so why would shrinking be different These are all very good points! Rather than accept the blame for this myself, as author, I will pass it entirely off on Utahraptor, who was wrong but has his friends SO ACCUSTOMED to him being right that now they accept it without questioning. OH SNAP did I just turn a writing / research mistake into character development? OH SNAP-A-DOODLE. Also thanks to everyone who emailed me - I love this stuff and it's always awesome to hear from people who do it professionally! – Ryan

softerworldfeed

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=819

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Interviews and Profiles

• The Coode St. Podcast with Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe (podcast).
• Furious Fiction interviews Jeff VanderMeer (video).
• GeekDad (John Booth) interviews John Scalzi.
• Strange Horizons (Dustin Monk) interviews Karin Tidbeck.
• Suvudu (Matt Staggs) interviews China Mieville.

Advice/Articles

• Omnivoracious (Susan J. Morris) on One Title to Rule Them All: Naming Your Book.
• Bryan Thomas Schmidt on Stepping Outside The Box –Thoughts on Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality In Worldbuilding.
• Janice Hardy on Leave Yourself Notes: Ways to be a More Productive Writer, Part 5.
• Tansy Rayner Roberts on Pratchett’s Women VIII: Has Scythe, Will Teach School.
• The Guardian (Alison Flood) on Do literary spoilers matter?

Blackout by Mira Grant

pennyarcaderss

http://penny-arcade.com/2012/05/28/childs-play-golf-tournament3

pennyarcaderss

http://penny-arcade.com/2012/05/28/further-disruptions