My very last course in college was PE, due mostly to my irritation in having to take a PE class for a Business degree.  But once I started it, I enjoyed it.  After hearing the badminton shuttlecock (the thing they hit around) was one of the fastest “balls” in sports, I decided to investigate via a term paper.  And yes, it’s true.  The feathers slow it down almost immediately, but the shuttlecock is in the top three in the fastest category.  Stump friends and family with that one!

Anyway, back to lightsabers. Seeing this video made me wonder what other offerings youtube might have on the subject and a wasted evening later, here’s a list of some of the most interesting…

Princess Bride
Pirates of the Caribbean
Lord of the Rings
Some crazy old men fighting over the right-of-way on a single lane street.
The Lost finale
Dogs
Turtles
Parakeets
Babies
Bears
Tennis match
Monty Python (PG for language)

And the list keeps growing!

Enjoy, EDC

Usually Groupon coupons are two-for-one type deals for restaurants or other attractions, but recently a movie company used it to drive their marketing to a whole new level. Cinemablend reported recently the producers of The Lincoln Lawyer (sorry I won’t link to a product if I don’t know it) used a Groupon deal to boost its number of viewers by nearly 200,000.  Only 40,000 showed up to actually see the movie, but of those, 89% said they wouldn’t have seen the film otherwise.

As a stubbornly independent author, I’m always looking for great ways to cheaply market my work. I’m wondering if Groupon might be an avenue for me and other like-minded artists? I took a look at the site and saw a magazine subscription, but no novels, so I’m unsure if it would be something that might work.

Have you ever used Groupon? Do you know of any novels sold off Groupon? Would you consider purchasing a novel off a Groupon deal?

EDC

As an author this got me thinking about my own weaknesses in my craft.  For example, I tend to reuse a lot of the same descriptive words.  As a matter of fact, I drove crazy one of my valiant test readers with my overuse of the word “scream” while he proofed my latest novel, Runaway.  I had to laugh at myself (and his creative comments) and go through the manuscript searching for every time I used the word and insert a synonym.

I have other weaknesses too, and rely on friends to alert me to them. Also, I have instituted practices to help catch them in other ways. But Close’ story has got me thinking about finding ways to take my weaknesses as an author and leverage them into strengths. Maybe overusing “scream” might be a hopeless cause, but what about other weaknesses I and other authors have?

What if you were a horrible speller and had atrocious grammar?  Maybe you could write your book as if it were the memoirs of your protagonist, who happens to have those same weaknesses? Suddenly, it’s a huge character trait running throughout everything you write.  If you’ve ever read the (much different from the movie) novel Forrest Gump by Winston Groom you know how effective this style of writing can be.

So, what do you think about Chuck Close? What weaknesses do you have, and how could you convert them into strengths?

EDC
2 Cor 12:6-10

And thus was my first experience with “Digitally Native Children”.

Innovation News Daily recently reported on a panel discussing “Raising Digitally Native Children” at this year’s SXSW music, film, and interactive festival/conference in Austin, Texas.  As the parent of a six-year old (or “six-and-a-half” if you ask my daughter), I can well relate to the questions posed by and to parents who want to give their children as many advantages as they can with technology without ruining them in the process.

Some of the topics they discussed (and I often ask myself) include: What technology should I expose my child to and when is it appropriate? For how long should I allow daily interaction with technology, especially when I use it all day long myself? (BTW, click here for one of my favorite Off The Mark cartoons on the subject)  How can I teach my child to guard herself from the bad and embrace only the good in an anything-goes digital world? How can she know the difference?

Here’s an example I recently faced. Someone forwarded to us the famous Charlie video where an adorable little British boy sticks his finger in his baby brother’s mouth and is promptly bitten by the laughing child… “Chauulee bit me!  And it huurt!”.  My daughter loved that video, watching it over and over, and soon was viewing other funny baby videos on YouTube.  Thinking this safe, my wife and I soon focused on other things.

This went on for a few minutes until we realized she was no longer watching funny babies, but rather watching an instructional video on how to breastfeed a baby.  And this wasn’t someone talking about it, this was someone showing how it’s done.  Egad!  We weren’t especially concerned about her seeing this natural part of life, but we steered her away from YouTube at that moment in fears of what the next video might be.

And that’s the crux of it. How can you responsibly and positively expose your child to something that is so beneficial and so important when that very same something can become an equally destructive force? I suppose all parents in every time period have faced that question, balancing out the need to prepare our children for life while shielding them from severe harm.

I’m certainly no expert. Some days I feel like I’m making it up as I go. But there are a few truths I’ve learned along the way. As a Christ-follower, I try to teach our daughter those principles that will enhance her life and how to recognize and avoid practices which will lead her to harm. I also try to take a long-term view. I’m not raising a child, after all; I’m raising a woman. What can I do now that will help position her to successfully learn and grow into the next stage of life – and ultimately to become a strong, confident, and successful woman, prepared, ready, and eager to take the world by the horns?

So, if you’re a parent, what do you do to help guide your Digitally Native Children?

EDC

One of my favorite infographologists (is that even a word?), David McCandless of Information Is Beautiful, has posted a consensus cloud of the Books Everyone Should Read. Basically, he takes the ten most referenced must-read lists, mashes them together, and then uses the same methodology used in tag clouds (check the bottom of my blog to see a tag cloud), and voila… he has this nice piece of info-art that shows the most agreed upon list of books to read.

What I found very interesting was how many titles either were speculative fiction or had fantastical elements to them.  I’ve taken the liberty of boxing the titles with science fiction or fantasy elements and posted it below.  I’m very pleased to see Ender’s Game, Lord of the Rings, and the Chronicles of Narnia included, though I was kind of surprised Twilight made it.  Another surprise was that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, apparently is the top spec-fic title.  All in all, I’m pleased on how well my genre of choice measured up.

What do you think? Any notable omissions?

EDC

The results? Though there will be minor “economy” missions elsewhere, it looks like robotic missions to Mars will be the focus for the coming ten years… but only if the budget holds together.  And manned missions? Those aren’t even mentioned, but I imagine the budget only includes keeping the International Space Station limping along.

The budget… Back in the days when the U.S. was trying to demonstrate technical superiority over rival nations, the government threw money into the space program and had an unmatched focus.  This is readily apparent when you consider that in just over nine years from Yuri Gagarin’s first manned orbital flight, the U.S. had landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon.  Nine years!

Fast forward 42 years and the U.S. space program has all the same excitement and issues of our Social Security program – everyone wants it, no one wants to pay for it, and who knows what it will look like in the future if it actually makes it that far. On top of that, each administration makes different mandates. What one President funds, the next one cancels.

NASA, in my opinion, is suffering what every government-funded agency suffers: a lack of clear goals and focus, unrealistic funding based more on political maneuvering than reality, fickle and shifting leadership, and a disconnect from some sort of customer base.  Contrast this with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and the difference is stark.  If asked which company will be around in 20 years, I’d go with Virgin Galactic every time.

Like all problems, there are no easy fixes.  But if NASA wants to survive, they need to get off the government’s leash and tap more into the private sector. Only when they can truly chart and fund their own way, will they actually be an agency worth saving.

What do you think?

EDC

Take a good look at this odd looking creature below.  No, it’s not a weird space squid… it’s a “History of Science Fiction” infographic!  Just click on the picture to go to a supersized version.  Thanks to Flowing Data for the find!

EDC





I admit it, I’m fairly new at marketing and probably not very good right now.  My experience involves one whole semester of BUS321-Principles of Marketing and reading Guerrilla Marketing for Writers (which was the more helpful of the two). Occasionally, I read an article on the subject, and I do put a lot of thought about how to stretch my marketing budget of $0 a bit farther. Yet, despite my vast ignorance, I really admire good marketing.

So here’s the one nugget I do know… Marketing in it’s simplest terms is just sharing excitement for something.

Case in point: I was pretty active in promoting my latest novel, Runaway, until I found a few errors in the manuscript. Suddenly my excitement in telling everyone and anyone about my first published novel nose-dived.  I took a “pause” in all promotion while going through it again.  I’m just about ready to turn in the update, and with that I know I need to restart my marketing efforts. Only, I’m just not really that inspired. Marketing has been on my mind, but more like changing my oil, mowing the grass, and switching out the filter on my heat pump. Somehow I can’t say the word without groaning.

So imagine my joy this morning to get my daily email from Cool Infographics profiling a six month plan for online marketing success! Just seeing the title got me excited again. It shows 50 tasks spread over eight different disciplines with a timeline for each.  Plus, it shows the projected impact each task will do. Best of all it’s in a visual format, which is perfect for me. This was just what I needed and I’m going to be studying this bad boy fairly closely in the coming weeks.

I’m so excited, I want to share it with you!  Wow, I guess I am marketing after all…

EDC

Not only am I having to create new situations where most of the dialog and plot makes sense, I’m having to look ahead 15 years from now to try to predict what the future will look like.  For the next few posts I’ll be sharing some of what I’m facing and offer my solutions.  I’d really like your input in if that idea works, and if you could think of things that might be even better.

One of the themes of TMWWT is order vs. anarchy.  I won’t ruin Chesterton’s surprising conclusions on the subject in the book, but a link to one of his other writings can be found here. In his day there was a very serious Anarchy movement, based not in the criminal madness we are accustomed to today, as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight so expertly portrayed. Instead, anarchy was being promoted by philosophers and others in the intelligentsia. This was around the same time that communism was gaining steam, and both movements were reasoned attempts to right perceived wrongs of the existing political structure.

Now, how can I possibly translate this in a near future setting?

Currently there is a growing anarchist movement online. You may have heard of Anonymous, the loosely organized “hacktivist” group who most recently came out in support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks by attacking companies and other online entities who had withdrawn their support.  Anonymous has been around for awhile, but this is the first time they’ve gotten this political and visible.

In my mind’s eye, I can foresee Anonymous and similar groups continuing to grow and becoming a much more organized and potent force.  At some point they will reach critical mass to leverage numbers,  technology, and social media to force change.  Believe me, nothing fuels momentum like success.  One of these days they will succeed in advancing whatever agenda strikes them, and when they do we may witness a new wave of anarchy as they and others are emboldened by their achievement.

Though, I don’t use Anonymous or WikiLeaks in my update of TMWWT, I believe online activism is the way to go in portraying anarchism in the future.  Here is a compilation of related snippets of my new prologue for Thursday…

NO ONE understood what The Convergence would mean until it already happened, and few saw it coming. The change was monumental; it touched every living thing. But contrary to popular belief, it did not transform human nature. It amplified it.

Looking back, historians disagree on when it began. Some said the emergence of cloud computing accessed by mobile devices had set it in motion. Others pointed to the rise of online vigilantism, or “hacktivism”, fueled by corrupt governments and their failure to protect their citizenry from terrorism. Some said it was the breakdown of privacy as all information became digital…

…Change came forcibly with great difficulty and upheaval. The worldview of the technological savvy became one where the virtual and the physical were one, where time-honored institutions such as education, commerce, and government held little value or power, and the idea that one person – with the right information and skill – could institute enormous change for good or for ill. It was the birth of a new form of anarchy…

So, am I on the right track?  Can you foresee such a rise of online anarchy in 15 years? What other ideas could I use to build a world where anarchy is a believable threat to the world?  Thanks for your thoughts and advice!

EDC

For example, test subjects were given scenarios such as how to escape through a window with only a rope half as long as needed.  Consistently, test subjects came up with better solutions when told they were coming up with a solution for someone else as compared to coming up with an idea for their own escape.  That surprised me.  Maybe by distancing ourselves from the consequences, we allow ourselves to be more creative.

My regular readers have heard me say it before: speculative fiction serves a great purpose in that we can examine ethical, moral, and other dilemmas at a safe distance and come up with creative solutions in advance.

An example of this is at Discovery, where 10 futuristic solutions are profiled to deal with an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.  Another example is how SF legend Arthur C. Clarke, of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame is credited with conceiving of the communication satellite.

Even though these examples seem grandiose. there are practical applications in the here and now.  Check out the BPSRD article to find out how much better we are at choosing a gift for someone else’s loved one than our own!

EDC

EDC

The Atlantic

Before you scratch a bald spot on your head, the Turning Test is basically the Super Bowl of the artificial intelligence community.  It’s an annual contest where computer programmers come together to see which program is the most convincing at mimicking a human in a five-minute chat with a judge.  But these computer programs aren’t just competing with each other.  They are also competing with humans.

Here’s how it works… Each judge is placed at a computer to have two chat-style conversations: one with a computer program, the other with a real person.  After those two short interactions, the judge has to determine which is the computer and which is the human. As Christian recounts, his goal as one of the humans conversing with the judges was not only to beat out the computer programs, but also to beat all the other humans at being… well, the most human human.

As a writer I found the article to be very helpful to my own craft.  One thing authors face when writing dialog is to try to make it sound as natural as possible.  Our readers are, in a sense, eavesdropping on what two or more people are saying, and it needs to sound convincing. Otherwise, our readers won’t be able to suspend disbelief and immerse themselves in the story.

Of particular interest to me was when Christian describes how fights don’t keep on subject. When two people are in a heated argument, each statement becomes “unanchored from all context”. What this means is that usually a statement only refers to whatever has just been said, and the discussion quickly meanders away from the original subject. It seems mountains aren’t actually made from molehills – the molehill was completely left behind in the race up the mountain.

Anyway, please go give it a read.  If nothing else, it will help you recognize when you’re reading something crafted by a computer instead of a real person.

Thanks,
C6001-XE  ver. 2.4  (filling in today for EDC)

Click here to go to the article.

EDC

Thing from the Addams Family is a proud Kindle owner.

IO9 is one of my weekly stop-by sites for speculative fiction, and recently they reprinted an amazing little nugget from Business Insider for any writer who’d like to see their work on a Kindle.  With easy step-by-step instructions, they shared how to format any document and convert to a Kindle-ready file. They even have links to shareware designed for the purpose.

My only wish was they had taken more time to explain what it took to make a table of contents, as the software seemed geared toward html experts instead of barely computer literate authors such as myself.  Maybe somebody can give me some pointers on doing that.  Anyway, here’s the link… enjoy!

EDC

If you haven’t watched the short-lived series Firefly or its silver screen finale, Serenity, please stop reading and either rent, buy, or queue them up and watch them immediately, then get back here pronto.

OK, now that we’re all in the same ‘verse, here’s a quick little recap…  Firefly is basically a post-Civil War western set in the distant future.  It fully embraces all the spaghetti western tropes, but then playfully turns them on their ear in very witty and surprising ways.  As it’s prone to, Fox canceled it right away, yet the love of this show grew until a finale movie, Serenity, was released in theaters. Not many shows get a movie, let alone after just ten aired episodes.  And anyone who’s seen Firefly knows why.

So let’s fast-forward to the present. In a recent interview, Nathan Fillion (aka Cap’n Malcolm Reynolds) said if he ever won the lottery, he’d buy the rights to Firefly and start making it again. Well, the Browncoats (Firefly fandom) have organized Help Nathan Buy Firefly, and are seriously going to try to put their money where Nathan’s mouth is.

Now as fans of the show know, nothing can stop the signal, and I’m doing my part to get it out.  Please stop by the site and their facebook page and spread the word!

EDC

Great speculative fiction, right? Well, Slate has recently posted an article of how certain types of crime have begun to be predicted in real life with sci-fi accuracy.  Author Christopher Beam tells of how police departments are beginning to harness statistical data to help them predict where crime might strike next:

Predictive policing is based on the idea that some crime is random—but a lot isn’t. For example, home burglaries are relatively predictable. When a house gets robbed, the likelihood of that house or houses near it getting robbed again spikes in the following days.

And the reason? He goes on to share how human nature is predictable:

Data-driven law enforcement shows that the criminal mind is not the dark, complex, and ultimately unknowable thing of Hollywood films. Instead, it’s depressingly typical—driven by supply, demand, cost, and opportunity.

One of my favorite authors, G.K. Chesterton says it this way:

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

I guess the lesson here is that we all suffer from human nature.

Speaking of thievery, please absolve me from mine!  Head on over to Slate to read the article I so heavily borrowed from.

EDC

A few examples…

- If you want to use a symbolic gesture in a story, you need to use it three times for the reader to really catch it and to understand the meaning you intend.

- An emotional shift should come every five minutes or so, or your readers will begin to become numb to the emotion you wish to convey.

- Allow your character’s dialog to help paint the scene instead of solely relying upon description.  For an example from my latest novel, Runaway, here’s a scene where one character is trying to coach the other on how to act if they are boarded by the military for an inspection for contraband.  Notice how I attempt to paint the scene as if the other character is getting distracted – all without one word of description.

“…Their scans must have come up with something, but they’re not sure which ship.  Now, if they board us, you got to keep a level head!  You hear me?  Don’t go saying anything about our plans!  Look at me now, look at me!  Just answer all questions like we’re doing normal business, which we are.  Got that?”

Now for another tip, check out Duarte’s analysis of MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream” speech.  As experts on public speaking, they have done a lot of analysis on what makes addresses like MLK’s so engaging and memorable. In their short video, they’ve broken down this historic speech into various components and explain how MLK expertly alternated between reality and vision, his use of imagery, his knowledge of his audience(s), and his pacing and rhythm.  This is a fascinating study and well worth taking a look.

Which of MLK’s techniques surprised you the most?

EDC

Dynamic Diagram’s map has other interactive features such as showing the month or zodiac, the phases of the moon, and even how the solar system would look if it were Tychonian (Earth-centered).  Again, authors might find this valuable if they need to plot out the planets’ positions on a given date, or even to see if the moon is full or not.

So what do you think?  Did they do a good job?

EDC

Why is this helpful?  Well, suppose you want to write a tale about a cross-country trip and the people your protagonist meets along the way? You can print this map out, trace out your route, and suddenly you have a good sense of the names and nationalities of the areas your characters will visit.

Click here to see the map at National Geographic.

So did your surname make it on the map?

EDC

EDC

According to his information link, he never really set out to make such a popular video channel.  He was just trying to show off his talents in order to find a job in the movie business.  Hopefully, he will find a great gig and also get to keep making these trailers.

One thing I really appreciate is that he’s also included versions with side-by-side comparisons with the real trailers, showing how he matched the scenes and with comments on where he got the clips.

For a master page with links to all, please click here.

Which is your favorite?
EDC

To paraphrase, being human and being a person are two different things, even though the terms are often used interchangeably.  The difference is that a human being is defined by DNA, while a person can be defined by a set of criteria.  For example, in Spain the great apes are legally considered “persons”.

Carter systematically traces the dangers of using “person” and “human” interchangeably – especially if being a person is determined by things like intelligence or capability. If a person’s rights are based on someone being considered a person, then at times humans might find themselves without rights. I won’t retell his fine post here, but it’s very worth reading and is quite thought-provoking.

I bring up the subject in that through speculative fiction, we are often faced with fictional life forms and artificial intelligences which would be considered persons. Yet it’s not so cut and dry.  Should these entities, these persons, have rights on par with humans? Should a computer program, which has demonstrated the minimum requirements for personhood be protected against being turned off?

Tackling questions like these is what speculative fiction does best. With the continual advancement in genetics and computer science, we may soon be faced with such moral  dilemmas. Speculative fiction can help us explore these scenarios ahead of time and perhaps help guide us through to the best outcomes.

Yet there is one other component to consider. What about the worldview of those who legally define personhood? What about the belief systems of those who influence tomorrow’s policy through creating speculative fiction today? Both will have a huge impact on how these questions will ultimately be answered.

The question is: who’s voice should and/or will be the most persuasive?
EDC

For many years production companies have pushed this idea outward with extras on websites for TV shows and movies (here’s a good site for movie websites and reviews). Lately, viral marketing has pushed it even further with forwarded emails linking to sites of amazing detail and so realistic you’re not quite sure if it is real or if it’s fictional.  For example, if you’ve seen Iron Man 2, then you know much of the movie takes place at the “Stark Expo”.  Did you know the Stark Expo has its own website?

J.J. Abrams is known for his fun extras with his movies and TV shows.  He even goes a step further.  Last year a bunch of actors dressed like the Observers from his show Fringe (one of the best shows on TV — you gotta watch it!) visited major cities around the country… just observing.

Well, now he’s gone even further.  Last week’s episode, “The Firefly” guest-starred Christopher Lloyd as an elderly keyboardist of one of Walter’s favorite 60′s bands, the fictional Violet Sedan Chair.  Well, later in the week, a couple happened to find a Violet Sedan Chair LP at a vintage record store (Read about it here at Wired).  Talk about extras!

So what are some of your favorite extras?
EDC

Most people don’t think movie sequels are as good as the original, but can you be sure? Well, BoxOfficeQuant has come out with a really interesting IG showing how sequels of movies plot in comparison to the originals, using Rotten Tomatoes rankings.  So here it is, the proof we’ve been waiting for…  Click the image below to follow the link to a larger version.

So how did your favorite sequels rank?
EDC