This just in from my best friend’s day at work:
OMG… Gotta tell you something that happened at work today…
Just as the new boss entered the office I got a call.
User asks me how to make an @.
I say, "Okay. To get the @ sign: you hold shift and press 2."
She says, "Won't that make a capital 2?"
I do not miss a beat, and say, "Hon, the @ is the capital 2"
"Ooooohhhhh."
"Yep. Glad I could help you. See you later." *click*
Boss busts up laughing a moment later.
Go check out my short story, “Invincible” at Black Hat Magick.
This one is just geek-action-cheesecake for people who happen to like Hadaly, the AI from the Black Hat Magick series.
Go check out my short story, “The Fox in the Garden” on Authonomy.
We love you, and we will miss you.
It looks like the long lived, Wren’s Nest, is shutting down. From The Witches’ Voice Facebook page,
Greetings! As many of you already know – or have discovered via a TWV link – Wren’s Nest is closed. There are new ways by which media and people exchange information. This page is one of them. We would like to thank everyone who supported, shared, commented and otherwise made Wren’s Nest News the resource that it was. It was my heart-felt pleasure and deepest honor to serve you. – Wren
It’s been a constant inspiration and I’ve loved reading the Wren’s Nest.
Started in 1997? 13 years isn’t bad.
“Fate protects fools, little children and ships named Enterprise.” – Cmdr. Riker (Contagion, Star Trek: The Next Generation).
And in some cases: me.
Here I am today, Star Gate: Atlantis running through Netflix on the TV, wrapped up in the voices of my thoughts. And I am pretty lucky; although, one person’s fortune can certainly be another person’s misfortune. I have no job, no income, adding myself to the great unwashed masses—and not to mention starving authors who spend more time on their creative work than getting a living wage—but I am not homeless (again) nor am I without family or company.
I have chosen to study strangely divergent sciences: computers and anthropology. Yet, I am able to easily find ways to combine them through video games and social media. In fact, the emergence of social media itself is staggeringly luck-filled for someone of my interests. I use a lot of what I’ve learned from it, and from other people, in order to better enhance my writing. Such as how I’ve developed the most recent offering from Black Hat Magick in the form of Book 2 “Tango & Cache”.
(Still only three chapters and less than 9,000 words, but progressing on schedule for publication beginning during Fall 2010.)
I don’t see myself winning the lottery.
I don’t see myself being discovered by some traditional publishing house either, but I do hope to keep my semi-popularity up-to-date. One day I might have some minor fame to work from for my craft, but like most authors—especially the millions before me—I will probably languish in a glittering obscurity.
However, I might point out here: I am still lucky.
I have fans. I have a small cadre of dedicated, worthwhile fans, whose messages still warm my heart every time I receive them.
Keep an eye out for a new story appearing on Black Hat Magick for all you guys.
From the CNN article on this recent decision by a federal judge in California:
"Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license," Walker wrote in his decision. "Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples."
I am sure those who have listened to the opposition to gay marriage and arguments presented by that side and find them unconvincing will probably find this judgment ring true. If our law is going to be a proper reflection of our culture, protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority, and actually “secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” then it will have to be rational.
No single argument for banning gay marriage to this day has been rational.
In fact, the most compelling arguments banning gay marriage would instead ban the institution of marriage itself!
"Big surprise! We expected nothing different from Judge Vaughn Walker, after the biased way he conducted this trial," said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage. "With a stroke of his pen, Judge Walker has overruled the votes and values of 7 million Californians who voted for marriage as one man and one woman."
Right, because majority rule has ever been a good or proper guide for morality. How many people across the world would have voted in favor of enslaving minority groups across many eras of our past? Those majority groups were as immoral then as they are immoral now. Your might in numbers does not make you right.
If each of those seven million Californians who voted would like to present their best argument for defining legal marriage as “between one man and one woman” they’re welcome to do so. If even a single one of those seven million manages to produce a valid, sound, and convincing argument then we have something to talk about; otherwise one or seven million bad arguments doesn’t amount to anything: zero times seven million is zero.
Those seven million people should instead stop, drop, and think. What if any one of them had seven million people arguing that they didn’t deserve to marry the one they loved because they said so, not because it would be reasonable to say so, would they still just lie down and accept it? What parts of their lives would they actually accept majority rule when the outcome would be both irrational and harmful?
Probably not many.
Link, via CNN.
Burning rubber where angels fear to tread.
