While doing a little research on cryptobiosis, for a far-future flash story I’m writing about a society where longevity-treatments are the ultimate key to power in a society, I ran across a description of the weirdest animal I’ve ever heard of: the tardigrade, also known as the “water bear”. Check out these characteristics (courtesy of the Wikipedia entry linked above): Body with four segments and head Ventral nervous system with one ganglion per segment Multilobed brain Triradiate muscular sucking pharynx Stylets A single gonad Instead of a coelom they have a haemocoel, the only place where we still can find …
Category: ASIDES
Fictional expletives, Foreign expletives
Such a list exists, at Wikipedia, of course. I’m sure other writers will enjouy. And for cusses in other languages, see here, though I cannot vouch for accuracy on the latter.
The Devil’s Language?
While looking up Japanese idioms for a section of my newest story draft, I found this interesying little tidbit on a site on the language: In the 16th century, St. Francis Xavier reported to Rome that the Japanese language had been devised by the Devil to prevent the spread of Christianity in Japan. Many who have attempted to crack the Japanese market and learn Japanese might agree with St. Francis! Occasionally I joke with Koreans that the Korean language was designed by the Japanese to make transmission of Western technical knowledge into Korea slower, as a part of their colonial …
Stanley’s Slides
Great photoset on flicker: someone scanning her grandpa Stanley’s slides. Wonderful, and again, revelatory of the mystery of other peoples’ lives.
// ahree lee / me
Ahree Lee’s “me” is one of the weirder experimental films you’ll run across online: weird because it hypnotizes you and also, at the same time, says something about how we change over time, and how we do not change. Great, fascinating, and available for viewing at Atomfilms. Update: Oh yeah, I found it on Gpod.
Adrian on Cosmology and Airports
I really liked this post by Adrian at mssv.net. Just musings about airports and the Milky Way.
Clarion West 2006 Instructors and Awards
Both Paul Park and Ian R. MacLeod are up for this year’s Sidewise Award, and it’s a very nice thing to see two such talented individuals being recognized, especially for an award for work in a subgenre I myself enjoy so much — alternate history. And in very big recent news, Paul Park is also up for the World Fantasy award 2006 for the novel format.
China Mieville Sketches
Recently posted on Runagate Rampant, the very low-volume China Mieville-related mailing list, was a link to sketches that will be incuded in his upcoming book Un Lun Dun at Del Rey Online. They look interesting enough. I just hope it’s not as Neil Gaiman-ish as it looks from the cover. I saw a Neil Gaiman film in Seattle and, no offense, Splinister, but it didn’t really work for me all that well, though I really did give it the old open-minded college try.
Chirality @ Clarion
Brief note: mainly posting this so as not to lose the link or have to hunt for it: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001 was awarded for work in chirality, which is something that looks like it will be an important science bitlet in the story I’m writing now. The link above is a really good explanation of what the hell chirality is. Working like mad, hoping to finish this at midweek and, barring objections, submit it for crit on a day when fewer submissions are currently scheduled. If it’s okay with our very cool new instructor, Maureen McHugh, who …
Hugo Nominees, 2006
Adrian posted a link to a site with tons of criticism of all of the Hugo nominees for 2006. Worth a look.