I have a weird reaction to trauma, I think. When I get freaked out, or particularly stressed, or something awful happens, I write.

I’ve been struggling to put into words how I was affected by the quake yesterday. It hasn’t been easy - mainly because as soon as I approach the actual event in my mind something twists around in there and I start ( Read more... )

I can't afford to buy food this week.

Back when I was working full time (or near enough), I had plenty of money to spare.  In addition to putting some aside for savings, I figured why not help improve the world a little at the same time.  There's no way I was going to donate to a missionary group, so I figured UNICEF was the best bet (atheistic ( Read more... )

KAOS now has a Ministry of Truth!  We need writers, photographers, sponsors, spin-doctors, commisars, media representatives and anyone else that wants to further the glory of KAOS.  By decree of the Dictator: Note the Ministry is a subdivision of the Politburo.  As a member of the Ministry, you will not be on the Politburo, but you will be able to ( Read more... )

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Well, tangentially at least ( Read more... )

This is a kid playing toccata and fugue.  With an accordion.

Click to view

This is a ridiculously alarmist article.  And it's rather poorly written, too.  It comes from a site that seems dead set on villainising the American Right, and ... well, read this extract for yourself:

Over the last 30 years Evangelical fundamentalists have managed to do what Chairman Mao failed to do with his Red Guards: indoctrinate a whole ( Read more... )

So apparently Ukraine's got talent too.

This is an eight-minute clip, but it is well worth watching - it's a living sand sculpture, and apparently it's a tribute to the Ukrainians that died under Stalinist rule.  I would love to know the artist that starts singing around the 5:50 mark, too.

Click to view

This is an eye opener.

It's an article by Johann Hari, a British journalist with a somewhat perverse interest in getting up close and personal with the American right.  He's written other articles as well, all of them insightful and all of them from the ... well, I guess you'd call them the left.  He certainly has no love for the American right, and ( Read more... )

Alright, this is one almighty longshot, but what the hell, right?

I'm toying around with a very near-future scifi setting at the moment (as in, just getting into interstellar travel type thing), and I need a way to classify planets.  I remember being shown Traveller's system for doing this and thinking it was beautifully elegant.

Anyone know where to ( Read more... )