"Black Box" by Jennifer Egan, short story on the New Yorker web site

I went to read this because I recognized Jennifer Egan's name. The associations in my head for her name were 'award-winning, literary, sci fi'. The story is interesting but I don't feel that I fully understand it.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/04/black-box-2#

When I checked my journal database I found that I'd read her book _The Keep_ in 2011 and been impressed. Similar to this story, though, I was more impressed while reading it than at the end, where there were some things that seemed unfinished.

Halloween 2014: My Owlman Costume

This is me as the Owlman of Morrison's Earth 2 comic.

  
I guess I'm doing kind of an Owlman Returns? I look a little paunchy to me. Like Owlman had hung up the feathers for a few years, but then somebody got him drunk and convinced him to put on the costume ONE MORE TIME:

Still, I was really happy with the stylized-feather-cape thing. Side note: I've definitely proven that such a cape would be completely impractical for any kind of acrobatics. 

New story "Expecting to Fly" on the Scary Go Round / Bad Machinery web site

The author of the venerable Scary Go Round webcomic and the more recent Bad Machinery is taking a break from Bad Machinery to do a new story. He does this now and then, and I've really enjoyed the results.

Here's the start of the new story: http://scarygoround.com/?date=20140831

Allen has developed his fictional town of Tackleford, UK into a host of characters, and this story is a jump backwards in time to see Shelley Winters as a child.

I've grown the whimsy of Allen's art, the snarky comments of his characters, and the way lots always seems to happen between installments, so that in most strips you spend some time figuring out what happened since last time.

Anyhow, I highly recommend it. http://scarygoround.com has become a daily stop for me.

Everybody Eats Everybody on Sunday's Planet, by Jeff Swycaffer

I was remembering this story, which I'd enjoyed in Dragon Magazine years ago, so I did a search, and the whole issue is archived as a PDF here:

http://www.annarchive.com/files/Drmg069.pdf

The story involves an ousted dictator who flees assassination to land his damaged starship on an apparently deserted planet, where his attempts to repeat his dominion are met with an unusual rebuff.

Also, aliens try to eat him. Repeatedly. Enjoy!

Kommissar, the boardgame of hilariously misunderstanding the Soviet Union

This game sounds hilarious for what it reveals about America, basically. Also, kind of sounds fun.

http://boingboing.net/2014/09/19/review-kommissar-the-board-g.html

Text mechanic: online tools to manipulate text

For people who [can't be bothered to learn EMACS/have never heard of EMACS/are sick of hearing about EMACS], this must be really, really sweet.

I bet I'll find uses for it too.

http://textmechanic.com/

"What the Elfmaid Brought" by Stephen Reid Case

I was particularly impressed with the story "What the Elfmaid Brought" which was the feature story last Friday on Daily Science Fiction.

I liked the hints of a world with modern sensibilities mixed with fairly Tolkienesque elves and powerful magic. I loved the image of a wizard perplexed by the protagonist's mysterious library, when the wizard himself manifests only as a ball of light.

Most of all I liked the deeply romantic -- in both senses -- ending.

Daily Science Fiction features slightly longer stories on Fridays, and I often find I enjoy them more. I like to read and write supershort flash fiction, but also feel that it is more hit or miss: it's that much harder to please a wide audience with a very short piece.

Or maybe that's an exccuse. Nevermind. Go read this one and enjoy!

Transitioning to renewable energy; Boulder's success

Very interesting video about Boulder, CO taking its energy policy into its own hands, with big companies fighting hard against it:  https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/campaign-for-local-power

...and a detailed article about the same: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18299-dirty-energys-dirty-tactics-boulder-on-the-front-lines-of-the-renewable-energy-future

There is no skills gap with American workers

Here's an interesting New York Times article that says the idea that American workers have a skills gap is nonsense:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/opinion/krugman-jobs-and-skills-and-zombies.html?_r=0

This is interesting because it calls the concern about a skills gap a 'zombie idea', one that isn't true but that nonetheless refuses to die. I'm interested in that sort of thing, that "how we know what isn't so" thing.  Also, it mentions how the idea benefits corporations and their executives.

In fact, this is a good time to mention the book How We Know What Isn't So by Thomas Gilovich, which I very much enjoyed. It explains misinformation and wrong beliefs by examining biases and heuristics in our psychology. I read it in 2009, and I recommend it.