The Long Tail. A Wired article on the economics of hits vs. non-hits. I normally don't listen to or read bestsellers anyway.
Prof Pursued by Mob of Bloggers. I know that this got to be more than an annoyance for the prof in question, but who can't love the title of this article? I'm imagining a middle-aged prof with glasses and a sweater that went out of style in his grad school days being chased by a bunch of rabid geeks with laptops and monitor tans across a campus courtyard. And I'm giggling like mad.
Technology's gender balancing act. "Technology has come a long way since the washing machine, but somewhere along the line it lost relevance to women. Now gadget makers are striving to win back the female market."
Interview: Philip Pullman. "The learning curve from teaching to writing has taught Philip Pullman a simple lesson: children don't want literature, they want to be told a story." Basically, Pullman is saying that writers these days are too concerned with being literary and hip. As a reader, I say, right on. When I'm reading something, I want to be entertained, not be bored to death with clause construction and pomo ranting.
Grand rounds #3. Yes, I'm terribly behind, but I'm terribly behind on a lot of internet things. So for those of you interested in medical things, go read. I'm just amused that Kottke seems to have noticed this meme. He never noticed these kinds of memes before.
I've been spending some time at the Nanowrimo forums and I've noticed some interesting threads. Here's one on types of speculative fiction which sums up the major sub-genres nicely. It's not all inclusive, of course, but such lists can't be. People create new sub-genres all the time. There's another thread on male vs. female main characters. There's an argument that readers like male main characters better because both genders can identify with external issues and that female main characters aren't as popular because males find it difficult to sympathize with a woman's internal conflicts. The argument, in my opinion, is just a stereotypical excuse for something more fundamental. The reader can identify with any character if the writer describes the character well. If the writer does this badly, then the character comes out inscrutable and at worst, fake.
Who are novelists voting for? How many people vote for which side isn't all that interesting. It's the reasons that they give for their choices which really struck me. No matter who they're voting for, they all sound completely brainwashed.
