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Countering Anti-Vaccination Stupidity

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I saw this on Reddit today and it struck me as a great idea. So I thought I’d share it. Health care professionals in Australia are talking about a coming epidemic of preventable diseases – like polio and measles – which kill and maim children (and unvaccinated adults). It’s all because a bunch of [...]

Dammit! Cons Really Work.

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I just spent a huge amount of time, stress, and money attending a spec. fic. writing convention, Conflux 9. It was a bugger to get to (ten hours travelling each way), hugely expensive (about $2,000 all found) and most of the panels I attended were either boring or frustrating (I need a placard that [...]

Turn, Turn, Turn

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I’ve just been thinking about all the technical “revolutions” I’ve lived through and, indeed, had an active part in.

The first was the personal computer revolution. This happened – to me – in the late 1970s. As a psychology undergrad, I studied computing, just for fun. I learned programming in PDP8 assembler then went [...]

Interviewed by the Gold Coast Speckies

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Just a quick note to let you know I was interviewed by a local writers’ group: The Gold Coast Speckies and that interview is up on their site today. The GCS is a fun and active bunch and the interview reflects their slightly off-beat approach. I enjoyed doing it and it presented a few [...]

Clean and Dirty

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People who come here often may remember my definition of science fiction, viz.

Science fiction is a genre in which it is considered true that only reason and the assumption that the physical world is the only one that exists, can explain the universe, and in which the story typically but not necessarily, features [...]

The Next Big Thing

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OK, I gave in and let myself be talked into doing another evil meme thing. This is part of The Next Big Thing series in which authors get to spruik their work in progress. Since I’m particularly excited about the current WIP, I jumped in with both feet. At the end, I’ll explain why [...]

Five Books That Changed My Life?

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Indie author Bryant Delafosse tagged me with one of those meme things. Well I think those meme things are evil and usually I don’t play. But, since I’m embarrassingly flattered to be tagged, and as I have been neglecting my bloggerly duties of late, I’m going to give this one a go.

The idea [...]

This and That

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Yes, an inconsequential post. A mere update. The kind of thing for which the weblog was invented, but whose current home is on Facebook and Twitter where ideas are few and gibber rules the roost. But I’m in a nostalgical state of whimsy and the urge to talk trivia is upon me.

Why this [...]

Am I a Writer Yet?

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Someone tweeted that old chestnut by Richard Bach today, “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” It’s an irritating quotation, like so many, because, while it sounds like a tautology, it is only half true (or some much smaller fraction, in fact). Not quitting is a necessary but not sufficient condition for [...]

An Ontological Breakthrough

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I can’t help it, I agonise over the meanings of things. I’m a discriminator; a differentiator. I like to categorise.

Take “science fiction” (oh stop groaning, you went to the trouble of clicking the link, you might as well listen to what I have to say). It’s a term that arose in the mists [...]