At the moment, this requires lying still inside a huge machine that draws as much power as a nuclear submarine. But you know how technological progress goes.
Originally shared by Ward Plunet
Brain Scanning Just Got Very Good—and Very Unsettling
HCP data has also enabled researchers to use a brain scan to predict how a person will perform on an intelligence test and during a memory or reading task. “This may be a bit scary,” admitted Roderic Pettigrew, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, during introductory remarks at the symposium. In order to collect of that data, the HCP team pioneered the use of a “multiband” approach, which involves scanning three sections of the brain at the same time instead of in series. This method has allowed radiologists to acquire high-resolution images up to 8 times as fast as they previously could using traditional MRI machines. “That gives us higher quality data; it also gives us a ton more data,” said Van Essen at the symposium.
This post makes some good points. While helping us think through potential bad consequences of a technological or social change is an important function of science fiction, it can become a facile way to tell a dramatic story, and obscure the fact that most technological and social changes also have a positive side.
The challenge is to explore the positive side without becoming boring.
The thing about books is that they’re not very much good when they’re closed and wedged into a shelf. At the same time, no sensible curator would let you put your grubby little mitts on a 250-year-old treasure. So, starting in 2013, the British Library began scanning thousands of books from the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, and has now made all of the images contained within them free to download (they’re all well out of copyright).
I trust +Gregory Lynn’s recommendations, so I clicked through to this essay and read it, and found myself convinced.
Originally shared by Gregory Lynn
I’ve been reading Kameron Hurley’s Geek Feminist Revolution. If you’re into that sort of thing, you should read it. If you’re not, you should read the attached essay anyway.
It’s about the similarities between writing fiction and writing advertising copy. If you’re a writerly type and you’re looking for ways to make money to buy you time to write the novel that’s going to change the world, well, it turns out that using words to get people to buy stuff is a valuable skill.
Roughly one-fifth of the difference between athletes can be put down to practice. That’s still quite a lot, and although the article implies that the remaining four-fifths is probably inherent skill, I can think of other possibilities: quality of training, personal attitude, context (how good you were compared with the people you first competed against)…
We can’t just map this straight on to creative pursuits, either. I think there probably is a talent component, but how large it is… that’s another question.
Yesterday, Jim posted some genderswaps of classic SF works, which were massively and obviously sexist. Today, he gives us a couple of scenes from one of his own books, and from another current work – and they’re still noticeably sexist, though the intensity has been dialled down considerably.
Originally shared by Jim Hines
Follow-up to yesterday’s blog post. Now with two genderswapped scenes from my own work, and one from a current Hugo nominee.
Medieval banquets. Not just sucking pig with an apple in its mouth.
Via Ilyanna Kreske.
Originally shared by Karen Price
“This manuscript is not just a description of meals enjoyed, it is an instructional text: a series of recipes, 196 in total, put together in a parchment scroll by King Richard’s cooks so that other cooks could learn their trade. Some of the recipes are for everyday use (‘common meats for the household as they should be made, craftily and wholesomely’) and some are for feasts. All are fascinating for the glimpses they give us of the incredible range of ingredients available to medieval cooks in wealthy households, the customs surrounding eating and the links drawn between food and other important contemporary disciplines – the introduction says that the work was given ‘the approval and consent of the masters of medicine and of philosophy’ who served at Richard’s court.”
I watched the original set a couple of years ago and found them extremely valuable. Sanderson is a smart guy who knows writing, and has an engaging lecturing style.
Originally shared by Brandon Sanderson
2016 Sanderson Lectures
All,
Several years back, grad student Scott Ashton asked me if he could record my BYU lectures and post them for an online curriculum as part of a project he was doing. I said yes, and it was never supposed to be “a thing,” not really. It was a student doing a project, and using my lectures as a way to explore online education.
Well, since that time, those lectures (which are collected at Scott’s site, which he called Write About Dragons) have been viewed tens of thousands of times, and become one of the big hallmarks of my web presence, at least as far as writing education goes. I’ve been blown away by the reception to them. At the same time, I’ve been keenly aware that the recording was subpar. This isn’t Scott’s fault—he actually did an excellent job, considering his background. But the lectures are at times difficult to hear, and the filming was handled on a single amateur camera.
For years, I’ve been wanting to do something better. And this year I had my chance. My good friend Earl is a semiprofessional filmmaker, and was looking for a new project. I pitched a better-recorded set of lectures, filmed this year in my class, and he jumped at the idea.
I’m extremely pleased with how these turned out. I think the lectures have evolved over time in ways you’ll find useful, and the filming is top-notch. (No promises about the jokes though.) We’ll be releasing these at a pace of around one a week, and it is my hope for them to replace the previous series as the “canonical” version of my writing lectures online.
So, it is with great pleasure that I give you the 2016 Sanderson Lectures, with thanks to Earl Cahill and his assistants for their camera work and editing. (Earl’s company, Camera Panda, gets a shout-out as well.)
Butler is amazing. As I’ve remarked before, saying that she wrote about race is like saying that Jane Austen wrote about gender roles.
Originally shared by Cheryl Martin
Today Octavia E. Butler would have been sixty-nine years old. The world lost an extraordinary voice far too soon, but—lucky for all us readers!—she left us with so many amazing books! So we’re celebrating Ms. Butler’s birthday today (June 22nd) by putting the ebook editions of six of her best works on sale in the U.S. for just $3.99 each:
