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January, 2009

Jan 30

2009

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NetNewsWire Locations for iPhone and iPod Touch

If you’re any­thing like me, you’ve got a large num­ber of RSS feeds. Viewing updates is hard enough on a desktop com­puter and some­times impossible on a hand­held device like the iPod Touch. A couple of days back, I came across a tip (via Daring Fireball) that can help with hand­ling that volume of RSS.
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Jan 30

2009

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Three things Pat Holt would like to see (Part 3)

I’ve come late to this series of art­icles on the blog of Pat Holt, a US-based editor and publishing-type per­son (her bio­graphy makes her some­what dif­fi­cult to define).
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Jan 30

2009

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Get Aliya and Neil — the easy way

VeggieBox, the blog of writers Aliya Whiteley and Neil Ayres, now has an RSS feed that con­tains the text of posts. Huzzah!

Feed me

Jan 30

2009

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How to write a book

I find the grind inter­est­ing. The grind of writ­ing. Which tools do writers use? This is the oppos­ite of the high flown, cre­at­ive stuff. This is not inspir­a­tion. This is about the coal face.

Steven Johnson, an American writer, uses DevonTHINK.

Now each chapter starts life as a kind of archipelago of inspir­ing quotes, which makes it seem far less daunt­ing. All I have to do is build bridges between the islands.

I use DevonTHINK too. And so does Michael Chabon.

DIY: How to write a book — Boing Boing

Jan 29

2009

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★ The Tale of Russell T. Davies

As my fam­ily and child­hood friends can attest, I once had an unspeak­ably detailed know­ledge of the BBC tele­vi­sion show Doctor Who. I knew all the epis­ode names, trans­mis­sion dates, major char­ac­ters. Think this guy with a shorter nose. Even now, it’s not dif­fi­cult to recall that the machine used in the War Games epis­ode to ferry troops from one place to another was called a SIDRAT (Space and Inter-Dimensional Robot All-Purpose Transporter). See?
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Jan 29

2009

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Blogging with the Stars

I’ve been hibern­at­ing over the winter. To be spe­cific, I’ve been mark­ing assign­ments. There was no time for updat­ing this blog. But when I say ‘no time for updat­ing’, I mean I had no time to write longish art­icles. There was cer­tainly time to write shorter ones.

This morn­ing, I had an idea. Maybe two.
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Jan 29

2009

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The Genre that Dare Not Speak Its Name

What do nov­els about a jour­ney across post-apocalyptic America, a clone wait­ress rebelling against a future soci­ety, a world-girdling pipe of spe­cial gas keep­ing mutant creatures at bay, a plan to rid a col­on­is­able new world of dino­saurs, and genetic engin­eer­ing in a col­lapsed civil­isa­tion have in common?

They are all most def­in­itely not sci­ence fiction.

My favour­ite bit about this post? The graphic at the top shows a fly­ing sau­cer in Earth orbit; the cap­tion makes it clear that the space­ship is CGI.

Thanks for that.

David Barnett: Science fic­tion is the genre that dare not speak its name | Books | guardian.co.uk