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aseI have figured out why my photoshop output's dropped since college: I've had no exams that needed study procrastination. Someone please tell me if I got over-enthusiastic and illegible with the text.
The big news in the SF blogs last week was 1.) payment rates for short stories, 2.) Canadian author Peter Watts' run-in with American border police. I have no comment about the first, but on the second: the border police suck! Who knew that getting out of your car and engaging an armed officer of the law in a hostile fashion would end badly? I'm rolling by eyes pretty hard, because it's like a bunch of privileged people noticed that hey, abuse of authority sucks, wow. Somewhere, the many, many people who look "kinda like that Bin Laden guy" and were too afraid to cuss out the border patrol in Spanish and Greek and Hindi are mocking the pasty white people. I am most in sympathy with Jo Walton's reaction that says, "well, do you want to live in a police state?" Because my answer is "not really, but the other option is taking the feds to court and spending a lot of time losing on appeal." There is a small, mean part of me that is glad some vaguely middle-class white guy with a lot of internet buddies got pepper-sprayed and dumped back in Canada with callous thoughtlessness, because law suits are not started by the most downtrodden, and I don't particularly care for the security paranoia that's still griping the US. (If you really want your head explode, I recommend the TSA blog. It's almost not worth your time to find examples of CYA and security a hapless 20something could defeat by accident. Not that I've ever carried through shampoo, conditioner, antifrizz serum and a fourth bottle of liquids, nope. Cough.) So I wish Mr. Watts a long and vicious lawsuit for great justice.
Just, you know, my $0.02 American.
...and back to the lecture review I am obviously displacing some hostility from.
The big news in the SF blogs last week was 1.) payment rates for short stories, 2.) Canadian author Peter Watts' run-in with American border police. I have no comment about the first, but on the second: the border police suck! Who knew that getting out of your car and engaging an armed officer of the law in a hostile fashion would end badly? I'm rolling by eyes pretty hard, because it's like a bunch of privileged people noticed that hey, abuse of authority sucks, wow. Somewhere, the many, many people who look "kinda like that Bin Laden guy" and were too afraid to cuss out the border patrol in Spanish and Greek and Hindi are mocking the pasty white people. I am most in sympathy with Jo Walton's reaction that says, "well, do you want to live in a police state?" Because my answer is "not really, but the other option is taking the feds to court and spending a lot of time losing on appeal." There is a small, mean part of me that is glad some vaguely middle-class white guy with a lot of internet buddies got pepper-sprayed and dumped back in Canada with callous thoughtlessness, because law suits are not started by the most downtrodden, and I don't particularly care for the security paranoia that's still griping the US. (If you really want your head explode, I recommend the TSA blog. It's almost not worth your time to find examples of CYA and security a hapless 20something could defeat by accident. Not that I've ever carried through shampoo, conditioner, antifrizz serum and a fourth bottle of liquids, nope. Cough.) So I wish Mr. Watts a long and vicious lawsuit for great justice.
Just, you know, my $0.02 American.
...and back to the lecture review I am obviously displacing some hostility from.
