Install Wikipedia on your iPod

Its finally here! The future of information in your pocket! Take that Brittanica! Up yours Encarta!! Wikipedia on your ipod. only...

I don't have an ipod.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Install Wikipedia on your iPod: "Cory Doctorow: Encyclopodia is a snapshot of Wikipedia as an 800MB ebook for your iPod. Link (Thanks, Ted!) "

Alien Abduction Questionnaire

So...

 

Have you ever been abducted by aliens? Please read this simple questionnaire and answer truthfully. If you have answered positively to two or more, or if you have a large glowing object sticking out of your butt, you may have been abducted by aliens. If you have answered positively to two or more than two of these questions, please call

 

UFOBGONE

 

At UFOBGONE, we have a commitment to servicing your every alien paranoiac-delusional need. We provide the following facilities:

 

1. Thorough and compassionate counselling services, including soothing brain relaxation techniques adopted from the former USSR, China and North Korea. Removes all urges to build strange mound shaped objects out of mashed potato, psychotic impulses upon encountering mathematical/musical combinations, or any other Alien Abduction inducted psychoses/neuroses.

 

2. Detailed physical examinations, with facilities for deep rectal/urethral/general orficial penetration and extraction, maceration, vivisection and other deep surgical alien  abduction investigative techniques.*

 

3. Advanced alien parasite identification and extraction methods, to get even the peskiest xenomorph/critter/ET/Marvin the Martian out of your system.**

 

4. Long term care and therapy for severely traumatised victims of alien abduction, with advanced medical therapy methods including trepanning, neurojolt therapy and other effective methods for the removal of all memories/scars/parasites/lovechildren which may tend to be the residue of an alien abduction .

 

All services are provided free of monetary charge.***

 

So, if you suspect that you have been abducted by an alien at any time in the past/present or near future please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

Phone: +919911090286****

Email: Post your comments to the most recent post on www.thekirk.blogspot.com  . Dont worry, we'll get in touch with you.

 

Our lines are always open. Call anytime.

 

* May cause temporary headaches, nausea, disorientation, desire to eat own innards, irresistable urge to impale oneself on a pizza and other NON ALIEN ABDUCTION related psychoses/neuroses

** Due to the risk of chest cavity rupture/disintegration, all applicants for this program will have to sign our special UFOBGONE disclaimer, drafted in accordance with the laws of the Code of Hammurabi.

*** We reserve all rights to retain any bodypart that we find necessary in order to proceed with our examinations, including kidneys, liver, stomach lining and retinal walls.

**** Please be understanding about our operators as we provide the worst affected victims of alien abduction atrocities with employment in the hope that they may someday find a better life.

 

Wha?

Bloing. Post Friday night special. That contented, filled, semisozzled, pacified feeling. Then, of course, you spend half the day in office. Aaaah, the joy of life. I'm going back to Maddu ras soon. Maddu ras, here I come. In the meantime, the Antitrust-IP Guidelines await, with sharpened teeth and black slimy tongues.

Mood meter: Wha?

Reset.

Normality seems restored today. In fact, I seem to have come out the other side.

 

The temperature in Delhi today was 4 degrees celsius minimum. I'm not sure what it was at 8:00 in the morning today. I decided to have a cold water bath. Was re-educated on the principles of heat transfer when steam started coming off me. Realised that abovesaid steam was actually vital internal body heat disappearing into the air. Continued anyway.

 

Now, a few hours later, I feel as if I've been reset. Most educational.

 

Worth trying once, but not more than.

Bzzzzzzzzz

That strange feeling that starts in your eyes and moves through your head when you haven't slept in 24 hours. I assume a caffeine high feels like this. I've never had one, though I drink lots of coffee. Symptoms:

1. bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

2. everything is surreal and unconnected to reality, like images viewed through a thick glass pane.

3. people are talking to you, and you can hear what they saying, but relating to them is like pushing through gelatine. Your reactions are on instinct, from a subconscious rulebook you've picked up over years of human survival and etiquette. Nothing really matters.

4. And finally, an underlying layer of bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

And then, somewhere in the middle of the day, you crash. Total systems shutdown.

 

The only thing I can compare it to is Fever Bright.

Stock Spec Fi and Farthana

Okay, I'm back. Found something far freakier from the place I just blogged to earlier. A "speculative" fiction site called strange horizons, which I haven't really checked out yet. What's really interesting is their list of stock plotlines which they will NOT accept from writers:

The original link to the site is here. However, I'm reproducing the same thing here cause I'm too lazy to paraphrase. However, as the legal maxim goes, res ipsa loquitor.

 

 

Strange Horizons

______________

Fiction Submission Guidelines: Stories We See Too Often

_____________________________________________

 

This is an attempt at classifying the kinds of non-horror plots and themes that we receive too frequently. We have a separate page for horror stories.

Main plot types are numbered; subspecies and variants receive letters.

Of course it's not impossible to write a good story with one of these plots or themes; it's not that these are inherently bad plots, merely that we see too many stories that use them.

1. Person is (metaphorically) at point A, wants to be at point B. Looks at point B, says "I want to be at point B." Walks to point B, encountering no meaningful obstacles or difficulties. The end. (A.k.a. the linear plot.)
2. Creative person is having trouble creating.
   1. Writer has writer's block.
   2. Painter can't seem to paint anything good.
   3. Sculptor can't seem to sculpt anything good.
   4. Creative person's work is reviled by critics who don't understand how brilliant it is.
   5. Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.
3. Visitor to alien planet ignores information about local rules, inadvertantly violates them, is punished.
   1. New diplomat arrives on alien planet, ignores anthropologist's attempts to explain local rules, is punished.
4. Weird things happen, but it turns out they're not real.
   1. In the end, it turns out it was all a dream.
   2. In the end, it turns out it was all in virtual reality.
   3. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is insane.
   4. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is writing a novel and the events we've seen are part of the novel.
5. An A.I. gets loose on the Net despite the computer it was on not being connected to the Net.
   1. An A.I. gets loose on the Net but the author doesn't have a clear concept of what it means for software to be "loose on the Net." (Hint: the Net is currently a collection of individual computers, not some kind of big ubercomputer; software doesn't currently run in the wires between computers.)
6. The future is soulless.
   1. In the future, all learning is electronic, until kid is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a book.
   2. In the future, everything is electronic, until kid is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a wise old person who's lived a non-electronic life.
7. Protagonist is a bad person. (We don't object to this in a story; we merely object to it being the main point of the plot.)
   1. Bad person is told they'll get the reward that they deserve, which ends up being something bad.
   2. Terrorists (especially Osama bin Laden) discover that horrible things happen to them in the afterlife (or otherwise get their comeuppance).
   3. Protagonist is portrayed as really awful, but that portrayal is merely a setup for the ending, in which they see the error of their ways and are redeemed.
8. A place is described, with no plot or characters.
9. A surprise twist ending occurs. (Note that we do like endings that were unexpected as long as they derive naturally from character action.)
   1. The characters are described as if they are humans, but in the end it turns out they're not humans.
   2. Creatures are described as "vermin" or "pests" or "monsters," but in the end it turns out they're humans.
   3. The author conceals some essential piece of information from the reader that would be obvious if the reader were present at the scene. (This can be done well, but rarely is.)
   4. Person is floating in a formless void; in the end, they're born.
   5. Person uses time travel to achieve some particular result, but in the end something unexpected happens that thwarts their plan.
   6. The main point of the story is for the author to metaphorically tell the reader, "Ha, ha, I tricked you! You thought one thing was going on, but it was really something else! You sure are dumb!"
10. Someone calls technical support; wacky hijinx ensue.
    1. Someone calls technical support for a magical item.
    2. Someone calls technical support for a piece of advanced technology.
    3. The title of the story is 1-800-SOMETHING-CUTE.
11. Scientist uses himself or herself as test subject.
12. Evil unethical doctor performs medical experiments on unsuspecting patient.
13. Office life turns out to be soul-deadening, literally or metaphorically.
14. In the future, criminals are punished much more harshly than they are today.
    1. In the future, the punishment always fits the crime.
    2. In the future, the American constitutional amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment has been repealed, or is interpreted very narrowly, or is just ignored by the author.
15. White protagonist is given wise and mystical advice by Holy Simple Native Folk.
16. A party of D&D characters (usually including a fighter, a magic-user, and a thief, one of whom is an elf and one a dwarf) enters a dungeon (or the wilderness, or a town, or a tavern) and fights monsters (usually including orcs).
    1. A group of real-world humans who like roleplaying find themselves transported to D&D world.
17. An alien observes and comments on the peculiar habits of humans, for allegedly comic effect.
    1. The alien is fluent in English and completely familiar with various English idioms, but is completely unfamiliar with human biology and/or with such concepts as sex or violence.
    2. The alien takes everything literally.
18. Space travel is wonderful and will solve all our problems. (We may agree that space travel is pretty cool, but we'd rather that weren't the whole point of the story.)
19. Man has an awful, shrewish wife; in the end he gets revenge on her, by (for example) killing her or leaving her.

That's a lot of stock writing. Though a few of these seem too generic to condemn straight off as stock, I can imagine myself tearing my hair out over the nteenth story about D&D characters named something like Bolar Ironbowels or something tearing bodyparts and loot out of an orc. However, I would be glad to see someone like Farthana the Pregnant Cow (apologies to Gaurav and Annie) wandering around...

Peanuts and Lovecraft?

Where on earth did someone think this up? Pretty fun combination, if you like your Peanuts laced with H P Lovecraft.