I’ve always been kind of a Pixar fan. They do good films over there, and basically everyone knows it. Up, when it came out, hit me like a truck. I still can’t watch it again. It’s a movie about loss, and it’s simply one of the most depressing things I’ve ever watched. That’s not the…
Assorted Ramblings (blog)
The Streisand Effect
In 2003, Barbara Streisand sued a photographer for posting pictures of her beachfront home on the internet without her permission. The photo was part of a 12,000 photograph collection, meant for the purpose of detailing shoreline erosion in California. It was small, obscure, and nobody cared about it. Yet in her zealous defense of her privacy,…
In Which Frog Enters Attorney Mode to Talk About Cops
I want to take a moment to honor Sergeant Greg Moore of the Couer d’Alene Police Department. I didn’t know Sgt. Moore well. He wasn’t a buddy. He was a guy I met a couple of times in the course of business. He seemed nice, and I never had to file a suppression motion on…
The post that treadeth into no-man’s land.
Alright, it’s been a year, and I’m ready to break down the #Gamergate debacle. I shall attempt to do so, and then I shall await the flensing that comes when any blogger touches this, the internet’s third rail. Let me begin by saying this: I am a gamer. I like video games. I like board…
Marvel finally irks me, but it’s not in my geek.
I have a rule. I don’t watch TV shows about lawyers. I just don’t do it. Not that they aren’t perfectly good shows, most of the time. But…I am a lawyer. And the closest I have seen anyone come to showing what it’s really like to do my job is either Benched or Night Court, depending on the episode….
What the Hell Just Happened to Me? – the side effects of the Grant-Frog style.
So, as of today the Grant-Frog style has existed for an entire week. It has been one of the strangest weeks of my writing career. Let me start by saying this: the style started as a lark. Grant Riddell and I were getting drunk at the Norwescon Small Press party, having a good ol’ time,…
“On the Hugo Nominations,” or “Giving Zero Poops”
Guess what? There’s a lot of drama surrounding the Hugo nominations. At first glance, this seems like a big deal. After all, I’m a genre writer. This is kind of the award for us, it’s our Oscars, right? It’s all the recognition from peers that matters to us, to validate our writing. Not only that,…
Win a Kindle by Being A Terrible Writer: The Grant-Frog Style Guide
So, many times at cons, we authors are asked to read things and evaluate them. Most of the time the work needs polishing, but is pretty good. Occasionally, though, we get handed something that makes The Eye of Argon look like frickin’ Tolkein. But here’s what’s interesting: when we authors talk about it, the unintentional…
Argh!
Ok, ok. I have tried to be calm. I have tried to deal with the fact that a great many of my people are reacting in a completely irresponsible manner to the problems confronting us. #Gamergate and the bullshit that surrounds it, the 4channers, the trolls; these people are nowhere near in the right. But…
A Larger Perspective: In response to the response to Scott Aaronsen
Before you read this post, read this. Let’s put the comment into context, first. Few of the other commenter’s on Dr. Aaronsen’s comment take it in the context of the full conversation, so let me attempt to outline this one. There was an MIT professor, a Prof. Lewin, who committed sexual harassment. Well, was alleged,…