I found this open letter printed in the Georgia Straight, a local left wing free paper here in Vancouver, a couple of weeks ago. Now, don’t get me wrong, even though politically, I’m pretty conservative, I love the Straight for the voice it gives to those who aren’t usually heard.

That said, sometimes there’s a reason those voices aren’t heard. From the article:

We would also recommend that you ask staff to consider if potential penalties involved with Vancouver withdrawing from hosting the 2010 Games outweigh the looming costs to the City for security and other Olympic costs.

This is marginal thinking at best. Pull out of the games? Are you nuts? Imagine the lawsuits from every business owner who decided to move to Vancouver, from every condo owner who bought here, from all the investors in the various Olympic venues, not to mention the costs of all the infrastructure projects begun here in the last four years.

Publishing an open letter by nut cases like this damages the reputation of the Georgia Straight and marginalizes voices that might have genuine, well-thought out issues about the Games (whatever they might be). Most frighteningly, there appears to be some people with medium-sized reputations who signed that letter. Come on, people, try reading what you signed!

Tags: Georgia Straight, Olympics

I recently read The Bag Lady Papers by Alexandra Penney, a best-selling author who wrote “How to Make Love to a Man” back in the 70s.

Since then, she’s pretty much been living in the lap of luxury… until her life savings were taken from her by Bernie Madoff. To make end’s meat, she’s been writing these blog posts which recount her plunge from a life of opulence, to one slightly above middle class. Horrors!

Now, Penney is either a cunning entrepreneur or the worst author ever. The articles come across as being about the most pompous, self-serving individual you can imagine. But it’s autobiographical!!! Surely a decent author could make herself sound sympathetic? But, and here’s the thing, the articles look like she’s trying to do just that!

Before I reached for a bedtime Tylenol PM, I Googled the Hemlock Society. I wanted to know a painless way to die.

Sympathetic, right? But then…

I began to think about my options: I’d have to sell the cottage in West Palm Beach immediately. I’d need to lay off Yolanda. I could cancel the newspaper subscriptions and read everything online. I only needed a cell phone. I’d have to stop taking taxis. And who could highlight my hair for almost no money? And how hard was it to give yourself a really good pedicure?

Pedicures? Highlights? Come on. Two paragraphs ago, you were talking about suicide.

Believe it or not, I highly recommend reading these articles. Why? Because, if I didn’t know they were factual, I would have said the protagonist wasn’t believable. You wanna know how to write “rich and clueless”? It’s all right there in these articles.

**Her story has a happy ending. She was able to secure a book deal from an old friend. Looks like she’s back to sipping Crystal!

Tags: Alexandre Penney, The Bag Lady Papers

Found this article on the net. Talk about fiction becoming fact. We’re about ten seconds away from the world of “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale“.

From the article:

Suppose scientists could erase certain memories by tinkering with a single substance in the brain. Could make you forget a chronic fear, a traumatic loss, even a bad habit.

Researchers in Brooklyn have recently accomplished comparable feats, with a single dose of an experimental drug delivered to areas of the brain critical for holding specific types of memory, like emotional associations, spatial knowledge or motor skills.

So here’s a quick challenge for you: Create a flash fiction story revolving around memory loss and sub it to EDF. We never seem to get enough science fiction.

Tags: Story Idea

How long until this guy wins a Nobel?

I’ve heard it said that a human level AI is only about 20 years away. This kind of news story makes me believe it. I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords!

Tags: Robots

Damn.

I had to love Michael Alcubierre for attempting to legitimize warp drive in the eyes of physics, however, it now looks like his idea has been proved to be impossible.

Looks like we’ll have to fall back on that old favourite, hyperspace!