Every editor will tell you the first sentence in a novel is crucial. Most first sentences that are perceived as “good” are really first paragraphs comprised of short, punchy, humorous or incongruous sentences: “The earth ended yesterday. That wasn’t the weirdest thing to happen to me. But there’s no hiding it: I grew wings overnight.” … The Children of Men – First Sentence
A bookstore chain in Great Britain figured out how to please customers, and the big step was letting the individual operators use their space as they saw fit. Waterstones stores stopped selling shelf space to big publishers (emphasis mine): Next came the staff. [managing director James] Daunt shrunk Waterstones’ central office and fired half of … How to Sell Print Books
Another politcal/current events post. Bear with me. While doing my cool down run on the gym treadmill, I saw a CNN headline, roughly paraphrased: “Clinton wants us to take a fresh look at her.” Granted, this was during a panel of five interchangeable talking head-types—three grim, serious guys in suits and two leggy, brightly-colored women—so … Stale Scumbags
Don’t read any further if you dislike techy talk or mild complaining. I have a large Amazon wish list of 550+ books, and it gets pretty darn difficult when I’m in a real-world book (print rules!) store and need to check if the store has a book on the list. There’s no option to “see … The Amazon Wish List Chronicles
Azure Ides-Grey posted an old Underoath video on his blog, and it made nostalgic something similar, but even futher back for me. I jammed this album for an entire year straight my senior year of high school, and most recently, during a workout. I credit the album for getting me interested in philosophy as a … Album: Believer’s Dimensions
I don’t vote and I have little interest in politics, but Scott Adams’ latest post about the RNC convention held my interest: Persuasion-wise, Trump’s family was the big story of the convention. People seem to love them in the same way the public loved the Kennedys. And notice how Donald Jr. and Eric both have … Politics Is Not Rational
Refer, dear reader, to the post title. The book is still free for Kindle Unlimited users. The link to buy is here. The ebook was $4.99 originally, though I’m not sure why I didn’t make it 99 cents right off the bat. If I wanted to be dishonest I could probably come up with an … Pale Blue Scratch Ebook is Now Only 99 Cents
Interesting analysis. I’m not a big TV guy, so I haven’t seen any of the episodes, but I’d have to watch one of the hundreds of hour-long edgy drama-type of series, this would be at the top of the list. A few things though, that the video mentions: justice can’t be objective because people aren’t … Video: The Philosophy of Daredevil
I’m not greedy; I don’t pretend to own anything that’s not ownable in the first place. That includes non-scarce things like ideas. This is one way of saying someone should take these ideas and run with them. Unlike some of you reading this, I don’t have a time machine, so I don’t have the resources … Steal These Two Ideas For Blogs
If I wanted to contact someone I don’t know personally, there’s a few things I’d rather do than hunt around someone’s blog for their email address. The next thing would be dragging my tongue across lines of broken glass shards, by the meter. I figure I’d get to maybe the third row before I pass … Put Your Dang Email Address On Your Blog
My entry for Ed’s Radix Fidem project has been revised (see original here). I added a concluding paragraph, and Ed had his hand in some editing. The last paragraph was a doozy for me, though you can’t really tell—it’s not Shakespeare nor St. Paul. I mulled it over, off and on, for almost a month. … The Epistemology of Belief, Revised
Taken from the USX Tower on Grant Street. There was a protest against violence or jobs or birds. Something or other. I don’t know—just take your pick of Marxoid causes and it would fit right in. It wasn’t terribly large; what you see in the photo is the whole thing. It was very noisy and … Photo: Pittsburgh Protest, July 2016
I was doing some reading/watching for an upcoming podcast on which I’ll be a guest, and I came upon a video of an analysis of a film. It’s a hard sci-fi/crime film which deals, in part, with artificial intelligence becoming “self-aware.” The video’s author thought the film’s implicit warning are applicable to real-life situations. The … When Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
1 – The hard drive on the family computer, an ASUS, pooped the bed. It’s almost done with repairs, but naturally I haven’t been able to post as often on here since I can only do it via phone. If you’ve ever tried to write a blog post in that manner, you’ll know how hellish … Personal Technology Notes