Comments on: An absolutely splendid week at the Watcher’s Council

By: Tonestaple

Tonestaple — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:08:44 +0000

If you have an email address on your site, it's carefully hidden. No matter, I found what I was looking for anyway and now you get two for the price of one: http://jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/myjob.html This is by Jerry Pournelle, who writes a lot with Larry Niven, and I recommend both of them, and is an essay on how to get his job. At the end, you will find a link to the Heinlein speech I mentioned.

By: Tonestaple

Tonestaple — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:31:46 +0000

Book, I missed your lament for San Francisco when it first popped up, and have just finished it. First, it would have made/would make a great article for “City Journal.” Second, whoever pointed out that this is your book is right, whether it’s fiction or non-. And if you want to write a novel, you need to put the notion of being too much of a dilletante out of your head because writing requires a single-mindedness I’m not sure I can achieve.

For now, if you want to write fiction, first start with short stories, just to get your mind working in an idea-generating direction. You might try reading Augusten Burroughs, who I think has made his name writing stories about SF.

Bless my soul, I saved Heinlein’s speech on writing and I will send it to you.

Then, forget about every book that we all put in the “meaningful books” post and go read every bit of Tom Wolfe you can find, all the essays, and finish up with “Bonfire of the Vanities”.

They all say write what you know and you know SF. I think your book would have to be a tragedy, or not, now that I’m having a little idea about Seattle…. Hmmmmm.

By: BrianE

BrianE — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 04:29:22 +0000

sure enough Islam is produces nothing, unlike christianity, etc.

I tried Yahoo and the first four suggestions were positive, but they did include the islam is evil, etc.

Apparently muslims have nothing better to do than type in search suggestions millions of times a day.

No, Google says it’s a bug in their search engine and they’re working to “fix it as quickly as we can”.
http://searchengineland.com/islam-is-blocked-by-google-suggest-bug-32921

Right!!!!!!

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:22:45 +0000

In the non-Council submissions, I really enjoyed the simple “Google Blocking Negative Search Recommendations on Islam – Why?”

Try it yourself! It is rather amazing! Go to http://www.google.com. And type in the following:
Christianity is
Judaism is
Buddhism is
Hinduism is
Islam is

After seeing the “suggested completions” revealed for the first four, you too will be amazed at what you see for “Islam is”.

If anyone has an explanation, I’d love to hear it.