Harlan Ellison, a writer with a more than active imagination and an activist for writers, died peacefully in his sleep yesterday. he was 84. You can see write-ups in Variety and the Los Angeles Times. A brief, but excellent remembrance is from Mark Evanier, who knew him for almost 50 years. I think he put it best when he said: Harlan was a writer who made other writers proud to be writers. He goes on to……
If you’ve wondered what the point of some jobs are — and if, in fact, there seem to be more jobs out there trying to “maximize innovative enterprise solutions” or just “realize value,” you’re not alone. What’s worse is realizing you might be in one of those positions and then pondering what you can possibly do within the confines of that meaninglessness. (Though I suppose some people long for that.) Over at the Washington Post, Jena…
In case the various posts on Star Trek or my mentions of writing a space opera radio show hadn’t clued you in already, my geek quotient is reasonably high. So yes, not only am I aware of Dungeons & Dragons, I have played Dungeons & Dragons and, in fact, have served as a Dungeon Master. As far as I’m concerned, that’s not a bad thing for writers or storytellers in general (see also these pieces on…
Reading a recent article by Bryce Covert about the demise of Toys “R” Us reminded me of other cases that ring similar bells about heavily indebted companies that went into bankruptcy like Hostess and American Airlines. All said cases make me wonder what the place of private equity should be (see Covert’s article for some questions raised). And in case you want an argument for private equity much as it exists, listen to an interview with David Rubenstein of…
Because I posted a number of videos by CGP Grey last week and because you want to know more about Skanda-hoovians (You know you do) Enjoy!
Even if I hadn’t studied primatology in school, I’d still like Lunarbaboon: his cartoons are so often fun and poignant. Case in point: this particular entry that’s perfect for Father’s Day. Thanks to all the dads out there.
My local primaries were not particularly interesting, but I found Maine’s primary elections very interesting to watch because they were using ranked-choice voting. What is ranked-choice voting, you ask? Why not explain it with dinosaurs? Or, you could look at this longer piece by CGP Grey: I like this because it also explains how ranked choice voting (here called “alternative vote/instant runoff voting”) is not the end-all, be-all panacea, yet has advantages over “first past…
Netflix is spending billions of dollars each year on content, so –love ’em or hate ’em– it’s usually good to know what they’re up to. Adam Levy, over at the Motley Fool, has a piece that goes over Netflix’s drive to spend billions in creating original content is actually trying to save money in the long run (even if Fools don’t think Netflix is going to be truly “50% originals” as sometimes reported). For indie filmmakers, definitely check out…
We officially launched Jabberwocky Audio Theater on the broadcast airwaves yesterday. It was exciting. It took a lot of work to get to this point — and really, the main point of the work was to share these stories with people. But, as with all creative endeavors –heck, with any endeavors that depend on public reaction to thrive– the enduring question is: will enough people be interested… enough? And that multi-faceted question is important: because we…
I mentioned this back in March when the prologue episode dropped, but I got a chance to play a Vorta, one of the villains of Star Trek, in an audio fan production last year. The series, A Call to Unity, is now posted on iTunes so you can subscribe and get your post-Romulus destruction Trek fix. Enjoy… maybe not as much as my character enjoys tormenting Starfleet captains, but, well, you know…