Stephen Fry is involved in Pindex, a “Pinterest for eduction” which sets up collections of resources on specific topics. This is the Creative Writing one.
Unfortunately, their CSS is currently broken, and the menu is clashing with the content (for me on Chrome, at least). But it looks like there’s some good stuff there.
It’s unfortunate that Patreon doesn’t work better at connecting potential patrons with creators (which it notoriously doesn’t). I’ve thought about starting a Patreon-funded short story magazine, but realistically I know that I’d spend a lot of time just building up the audience, with no guarantee that I’d ever reach a useful level.
Originally shared by Walter Roberson
Sent off “Aspiration Value” to Fantastic Stories of the Imagination this morning. I have a good feeling about this little story. It’s based on a throwaway remark by a futurist in a video I watched, from which I pulled a clear but far from simple conflict to build the story around.
And if Fantastic don’t want it, it’s the kind of piece that’s suitable for a dozen other pro markets.
DARPA are funding a project to improve brain-computer interfaces to a useful level.
Originally shared by Winchell Chung
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, discussed by:
– Zachary Bookman, Chief Executive Officer, OpenGov, USA
– Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda
– Anand Mahindra, Chairman and Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra, India
– Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft Corporation, USA
– Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer and Member of the Board,
Facebook, USA
Moderated by:
Andrew R. Sorkin, Columnist, New York Times, USA
Quick background: the first industrial revolution is the one we all know (steam-powered machinery and manufacturing, from the 1780s). The second came with mass production techniques and electrification, starting around 1870. The third, around 1970, involved electronics, IT and automation, and the fourth involves greater integration and merging of the digital, physical, and human worlds (so-called cyberphysical systems).
I’ve watched a few of these Davos 2016 videos now, and I’m seeing common themes:
– overall optimism that the opportunities of new technology outweigh the threats;
– a warning that there are still significant threats (not least from the pace of change), and we need to think about them and deal with them intelligently;
– an awareness that we, as societies, have to choose whether everyone will get access to the benefits, rather than confining them to the already-well-off (on which Anand Mahindra’s comment is, “To raise the quality of life is the biggest business opportunity going”);
– the potential for a great contribution from those who currently don’t have that access (including women);
– the important role of government policy in creating an environment for innovation and then reflecting society’s consensus in its direction of the outcomes;
– how government will become more connected to its citizens and more transparent;
– how, at the same time as old jobs disappear, new ones are created by technological advances (non-tech jobs as well);
– how vital it is to retain a human connection and human values while using (morally neutral) technology, and how being connected to one another with empathy can improve the overall tone and condition of society at large.
Something new: the idea that smart villages can be the future, rather than more and more migration to cities. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and it’s going to make its way into some future fiction, in all likelihood.
Robin Sloan used to work for Twitter, but is better known for writing Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, which is a novel about, among many other things, Google. Here, he talks to an interviewer about how digital tools can be married to a different sensibility from the usual instant/huge/shallow/short-term approach that we tend to associate with them, and how the slower, more thorough process of, for example, traditional publishing has something to be said for it.
I have to admit I’ve only read a couple of these (the Karen Lord and the N.K. Jemison). I’ve read some of the other authors, but not the books listed here. And most of them I’ve never heard of, especially the early ones. Why might that be, I wonder?
Originally shared by Raw Dog Screaming Press
A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction http://buff.ly/1RNGQYr #diversefiction
I have to admit I’ve only read a couple of these (the Karen Lord and the N.K. Jemison). I’ve read some of the other authors, but not the books listed here. And most of them I’ve never heard of, especially the early ones. Why might that be, I wonder?
Originally shared by Raw Dog Screaming Press
A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction http://buff.ly/1RNGQYr #diversefiction
A very distinguished panel (three professors, the chairman of a space resources company, and the president of Estonia) discuss the big coming changes in technology and what that will mean for society in the next decade and a half.
Among the predictions:
– genome editing for disease prevention and human enhancement (big ethical issues: Do we only modify the genes of people who are already born, or also embryos? Do we just select from existing genes, or make deliberate changes? Do parents make these choices, or the government? Do we change how we treat people based on what we know about their genome?)
– cheap and reliable space travel for the extraction of resources
– greater insight into our own selves: the functioning of our individual bodies, our bacterial symbiotes, and the activity of our brains
– digital transformation in business and beyond
– “cognitive assistants” (basically AI PAs)
AI is divided into “narrow” and “general”. General AI (that thinks at an equal or greater level than a human) is decades away – and an authentic threat to human life – but “narrow” AI has a lot of promise to improve human life in the shorter term. (However, there are still the concerns about hacking.)
All of these advances can be seen as software/data problems in some sense, and therefore all of them raise issues about privacy, security and data ownership. If we have more reliance on data, then hackers changing it will have a high impact, such as in health or autonomous vehicles – but if governments try to put the brakes on technological advancement, they risk falling behind, or not solving immediate, solvable issues because of fears of more extreme uses or edge cases. Law in general tends to lag behind technology, and this is a problem – technologists don’t understand the social and legal implications, and lawmakers don’t understand technology. There’s a case for engaging more widely within society to solve these problems. We will need to be more explicit about implicit decisions we have been making.
There’s no built-in guarantee that these advances will benefit people in general rather than the elite. That’s something that needs to come via policy rather than out of the technology itself.
On the upside, we have the opportunity to increase transparency, which fights corruption and improves quality of life for society in general.
There are definite risks (and bad things will inevitably happen), but there are also great opportunities, and the likelihood is that, if done thoughtfully, changes to technology (matched with good policy) will improve our lives. The key thing is: what do we want as a society? And can we adapt successfully to the changes that are coming, as individuals and nations?
Not only could these data scientists not find much difference between literary novels by people with and without an MFA, but they couldn’t find a discernable difference between white and non-white writers, either. And well over 90% of both groups (MFA and non-MFA) had a majority male cast, even though 66% of MFA students are women.
Seems like literary novels are not where we should look for innovation and diversity, then. And, at best, doing an MFA (something that Americans spend $200 million a year on) seems to introduce you to the “in group” rather than making any difference to how you write.
Originally shared by A.H. Pellett
Whether you have an MFA in writing or not, this article may speak to you. Some scientists got together to determine whether the writing of an MFA graduate is different from a non-MFA graduate. Semi-spoiler alert, depending upon which side of the coin you have set yourself on toward this educational track, you may come away from this article a bit disturbed by the study’s conclusions (last two sentences of the article).