Traveling to the nearest star would require a generation ship. Can such a thing be done? No, it can't---as Kim Stanley Robinson explains with alacrity and precision.
Facebook Was Foreshadowed in 1909 (and a Score of Other Things You Didn’t Know about Science Fiction)
Why is 'Frankenstein' considered the mother of the genre? How did we go from seeing so many utopian stories to dystopian ones? Where did the word "robot" come from? Will SF ever be recognized as "true" literature?
My Article from STC Intercom: A Cost-Free Method of Archiving Wiki Pages in Confluence
Of all the boring subjects in the world, page archiving has got to be the most boring one of all. But for organizations whose content starts getting out of control, it's a critical problem to solve. Here's how my team tackled it in a low-cost way.
(Not Quite) Getting Over Cyber Punk
In a Slate op-ed published earlier this week, author Lee Konstantinou argues that "something is broken in our science fiction" and that we need to move beyond the cyber punk aesthetic. Perhaps, but there's one particular insight of cyber punk we should never abandon, which is that technology doesn't just serve us, it changes us---and not always for the better.
Social Media and the Question of Narcissism
Social media taps into our common need to feel connected. But it also adds something unique: a metrics-driven design that can easily turn us inward rather than outward.
If You Like Magic and Jane Austen, You Need to Read ‘Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell’
Susanna Clarke's 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell' is no mere fantasy mixed with historical realism. Each page seeps with clever wit, and it raises poignant questions about our modern relationship with the Otherworldly.
Making Money as a Writer
The New York Times just published a sobering article, "Does It Pay to Be a Writer"? Answer: not unless you have another gig or happen to make bank on royalties.
