Arthur C. Clarke

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Jan 7-13, 2018

/ Melanie Marttila

This week was thoughtier than usual 🙂

Dana Goodyear: can Hollywood change its ways? The New Yorker

Joseph Shapiro exposes the sexual assault epidemic that no one talks about. NPR

Zdravko Cvijetic lists 13 things you must give up to live the life you want. Uplift

Judith Graham says that good friends might be your best brain booster as you age. Scientific American

Ed Yong pays tribute to the transgender scientist who changed how we understand the brain. The Atlantic

The benefits of deep sleep and how we can get more of it. Dan Gartenberg’s TED Talk.

 

Holly Butcher was diagnosed with Ewings sarcoma and posted an inspirational message on the eve of her death. BoredPanda

Mya Fourstar aims for college basketball and life beyond the reserve. Jesse Dougherty for The Washington Post.

Arthur C. Clarke predicts the internet in 1962.

 

Dave Mosher reports on the Jupiter probe’s latest mind-bending images of the gas giant. The Business Insider

Andrew Fazekas shares his top eight must-see sky events of 2018. National Geographic

NPR’s Skunk Bear explores the sci-fi sound of singing ice.

 

SciShow: Egyptian Blue. Modern applications for an ancient pigment.

 

Shake your silk-maker: the dance of the peacock spider.

 

The firefly experience.

 

I hope something in this curation got your mental corn popping.

Be well until the weekend.

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, December 13-19, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila

Here’s your Writerly Goodness for the first day of winter, 2015.

K.M. Weiland offers four ways to reignite your sense of wonder in your writing.

Later in the week, Katie shared three smart tips for structuring powerful scenes.

Roz Morris wonders how much you talk about your work in progress?

I’m fond of the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) and similar assessments. Jami Gold shares some MBTI resources in her exploration of personality and how it affects writing process.

Janice Hardy offers some strategies for describing your first person narrator. Fiction University.

Angela Ackerman discusses how to use weather to create mood, not clichés on Writers in the Storm.

Carly Watters explains why we need time, fear, and talent to make it as writers.

Amy Craft explores the science behind the best way to read for CBS News.

Kids should read whatever they want, whenever they want. Rachel Cordasco for Book Riot.

Tech Insider shares six websites that let you download ebooks for free. You may not know about all of them.

Steven Pinker reveals some of the most misused word in the English language. Business Insider.

Scrabble’s Anagram Christmas turns negatives into positives 🙂

 

X-rays reveal the secrets of medieval books. Medieval Books.

Mansplaining Lolita. Rebecca Solnit for LitHub.

Buzzfeed shares 38 literary quotes that may help you when you’re feeling down. ‘Tis the seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Blastr shares Arthur C. Clarke’s top 12 science fiction movies.

Den of Geek celebrates the dogs of speculative fiction.

Molly Templeton reviews the first episode on SyFy’s The Magicians (based on Lev Grossman’s novels) for Tor.com. Phil and I caught it and were very impressed. Looking forward.

Leah Schnelbach liked the SyFy adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End well enough, but Phil and I weren’t impressed. Now Phil is a scientist and a SF purist, so his reaction was understandable. My disappointment? Not so much. I’m still working it through, but I think it has something to do with the storytelling decisions made. The critical error in my estimation (so far)? Whose story is it? What character is there from beginning to (almost) end? Karellan. That’s who. Now that’s a story I would have liked to see. It would have been a bigger departure from the book than what SyFy gave us, but I think it would have been better. That’s just my opinion, though.

Because the costume makes the period drama part of Outlander shine, Frock Flicks is giving us droughtlander sufferers a sneak peek at the season two wardrobe.

Good words to you, my friends. The light is returning! Or maybe it’s just the Earth turning/tilting? Meh. Precession and all that.

See you in two days for some Thoughty on Thursday 🙂

Tipsday