The Magic Echo Chamber

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I was planning on writing some thoughts about the kerfluffle between Amazon and publishing house Macmillan regarding eBook pricing in which Amazon has apparently ceased selling Macmillan books (including books from Macmillan imprint Tor, of which Scalzi is an author), but don’t you know it, I sleep a little late today, putz around eating breakfast, [...]

Twenty-four years. It doesn’t seem that long ago, and yet in other ways it does. I was a college junior at Penn State’s main campus and came back from a class for lunch when my roommate Paul told me the shuttle had blown up. I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. “You mean, like on [...]

The Internets were all a-Twitter (ah-ha! Look at me being all clever ‘n’ stuff!) with today’s unveiling of Apple’s long-rumored tablet device, rather unfortunately christened the iPad. (There were numerous comments online about whether or not Apple had any living, breathing females working for them in whatever department came up with the name.)

I’m sorry to [...]

I know, I know, who really gives a rat’s posterior region about this debate anymore? PCs have their die-hard fans, Macs have their (probably more dedicated) die-hard fans, and never the twain shall meet. So who cares?

Not even me. Not really. I used Macs a very long time ago but switched in the early ’90s [...]

Over at his Antipope diary, SF writer Charlie Stross writes about the monetization paradox with regards to the Internet and publishing. He starts with examples from the newspaper industry and the overriding importance of ad revenue to their business model, then goes on to discuss how bean-counter cost-cutting of the human resources (writers and editors) [...]

Confession: I like John Scalzi. I haven’t met him (I’m not much of a convention goer where I would have the most chance of meeting him, which is something that’s going to change in 2011), but he seems amiable enough on his blog and on Twitter and in his AMC science fiction movie column, and [...]

The earthquake that rocked Haiti a few days ago is every bit as bad as it first appeared. The capital of Port-au-Prince is largely destroyed, and the infrastructure of a nation that didn’t have much of one to begin with has collapsed. Initial estimates put the death toll at 45,000 to 50,000, and possibly much [...]

Yeah, I know, I should be way too old to get Lady GaGa, but damn if I don’t love like puppies and ice cream pretty much everything she does. This song just rocks, and the video is so strange it’s hypnotizing. I’m fairly certain they’ve digitally enlarged her eyes in some of the shots. They [...]

The other day I Tweeted that I really had very little enthusiasm for writing book proposals. I’ve pretty much finished up my young adult novel The Sapphire Eye, which is the first book in a proposed trilogy. I have the general story beats for the other two books mapped out pretty well, and I know [...]