Blog Posts in "snippets"

I know that feeling

Posted at 11:34:56 on Sun, October 14th 2007 by graham
in: links neil gaiman snippets writing

Whilst I feel his pain, it's good to know in some ways that Neil Gaiman suffers the same problems of the rest of us, even the massively inexperienced and by comparison untalented ones (Link):

... I am still somewhere in the hell that's either Chapter 5 or Chapter 6 of THIS DAMNED BOOK which seems determined to be longer than it was meant to be. (You're not a novel, I tell it. You're not even a novella. You're a novelette. And you're due in on Monday. But the story merely laughs and stretches ominously and I have no idea what this bloody pool is doing in the middle of the forest.)

The future is probably weirder than we can imagine

Posted at 19:14:22 on Sun, July 08th 2007 by graham
in: charlie stross fiction futurology links simon willison snippets

Charlie Stross has a written a nice piece illustrating the difficulty of positing plausible possible futures.

Unpacking the Zeitgeist (via Simon Willison):

... it is making my head hurt because there are too many prior assumptions nested recursively inside it to unpack easily.

...

There are thirty years' worth of future shock condensed into this one news item. And the reason I'm writing about it is that I don't think I could get away with putting such an conceptually overloaded incident into one of my novels; it would take too much set-up and require so much infodumping that many readers would lose interest.

Let me know if you've seen my motivation around anywhere

Posted at 23:53:00 on Thu, January 05th 2006 by graham
in: from the inbox general snippets

Motivation is lacking at the moment, it seems. I've spent the last two nights effectively just dicking around with the manuscript, writing bits and pieces and then removing them because they just didn't make any sense. It's depressing, but I suspect it's a similar condition to that which afflicted me when the word count was in the low twenty thousands: the feeling that you've come so far - is there anything left to give?

Well, there's 50,000-odd words between then and now, so I guess the answer is a firm yes. I just need to get back on track.

I was hoping to go to a coffee shop tomorrow, Cafe Nero or the Whale Tale, and get something written, but the car needs new brake pads so I guess that's off the cards, too. Irritating. Very irritating.

Anyway, today's links roundup (I have to do something with my time, right?):

BBC NEWS: Germans flock to see silent monks
An unlikely film has been filling cinemas in Germany in recent weeks: a three-hour documentary with hardly a single spoken word, set in a monastery.
(tags: news interesting research religion silence films monkscarthusian terrorofthebell germany)
Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists
Someone took the time and trouble to scour America's wishlists for 'dangerous' books, with tongue in cheek.
(tags: datamining privacy security amazon data research terrorismantiterrorism)
My Bionic Quest for Boléro
A deaf geek tinkers with his cochlear implant until he can hear Ravel's Boléo again (via BoingBoing)
(tags: music software science deafness cool news geekery hackingjourneys)
Take a leap into hyperspace
Burkhard Heim produced a theory that may allow for the effects of gravity on an object to be mitigated using immense magnetic fields. This could (theoretically) lead to a propulsion system whereby spacecraft travel in, for want of a better word, hyperspace
(tags: space spacetravel spaceflight research sciencequantummechanics physics hyperspace scifi ideas travel)
Cheerleading can kill (El Reg)
Because jumping up and down with pom-poms is inherently dangerous.
(tags: cheerleading news humour elreg science medicine)
BBC NEWS: AA upsets dead driver's relatives
Bureaucracy gone mad
(tags: bureaucracy AA news stupidity death humour)
What is your most dangerous idea?
Lots of very clever people talk about their most dangerous ideas. (via Slashdot)
(tags: 2006 cool future futurology history humans ideas cultureinteresting philosophy science politics religion research scifi storiestheory thoughts reference writing weird )
Swansea IT staff shunted to Capgemini (El Reg)
This is a familiar concept to anyone who went through the L!beration at Pendle last year, although it was handled better than what has happened at Swansea. L!berata is one of the reasons I left, actually.
(tags: localgovernment pendle swansea privatisation egov)
Ian Pearson's guide to the future
A list of articles by BT's resident futurologist (via Warren Ellis)
(tags: research computers ideas science future futurism futurology trends ianpearson theory warrenellis)

Search

Latest Twitter

Amazon keeps offering me perversely expensive things in the "Treat yourself" section. Nikon AF-S 400mm f/2.8, only £6,299.95. Lemme think... 2008-12-01 18:49:34 (More)

Recent entries

Launchpad Bugs

Post Categories

10mm 15th of july upload america amusing animals atheism august9upload august 9 upload autoportrait bass bbc bird blackandwhite blogging blogs boat boston buildings candid canonical caton church colour colourised computing cricket d300 d40x desaturated django editing flickr flower forestofbowland friends from the inbox funny general heysham home humour in the news lancashire lancaster landscape launchpad links linux london lune massachusetts may 12th upload me monochrome morecambe morecambebay music nanowrimo nature neil gaiman news new site night norfolk norfolkbroads novel novel-the-second observations pendle people photography podcasts portrait posts that started out differently programming python quotes ranting reading reflection religion science sea selfportrait sepia september mass upload the first shadows sigma1020mm silhouette silliness sky stupidity sunset texture thoughts three hundred and sixty-odd days of 2008 travel tree twitter ubuntu urbandecay warren ellis, internet jesus water work writing writing ideas

About

Graham Binns is a writer, photographer, musician and software developer from Lancaster, England, with far too much hair, a penchant for odd t-shirts and a magnificent hat. He has been making things up for as long as he can remember and has been making code work for long enough to make a living from it.

He has written one novel, which is in the process of composting, and is working remembering how to write before embarking on a second. In the meantime, he photographs things, since it's easier not to have to make the world up in his head all of the time.

From the gallery

Unequal is Unamerican MA Got it Right Still No Apocalypse Don't Discrimin8 Church Financing Available