Ted Rabinowitz's Blog, page 17

And Continuing the Snowden Theme-

John Oliver's "Surveillance" episode of Last Week Tonight includes an interview with Edward Snowden himself, and it does a great job of being both clear and terrifying.

Edward Snowden, Unrest in Peace

Whatever you may think of Snowden - hero, traitor, moody loner - you have to admit that this is public art and civil disobedience with style.


http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Edward-Snowden-Sculpture-Bust-Fort-Greene-Park-Brooklyn-New-York-Hologram-Image-298954351.html

Why We All Need a Good Agent

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, my novel, The Wrong Sword, was stranded when Musa Publishing went out of business. My agent, Michael Carr of Veritas Literary, has lost no time in getting TWS back out there. And we shall see...

Terry Pratchett Has Passed Away

So far, 2015 has been an awful year for those who love science fiction and fantasy. First, Leonard Nimoy died; now Terry Pratchett (or Sir Terry, OBE) has passed on. Pratchett, for those few who don't know, is an author of fantasy and science fiction, and the creator of the Discworld novels.

A series of dementedly sardonic books spanning more than three decades, Discworld is to fantasy what The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is to science fiction: They both display a loopy, intellectual, madly philosophical love of the genre and its conventions, and a gift for following bizarre assumptions to logical and insane conclusions. Pratchett could take a gag and make it run over a dozen pages before letting it collapse in exhaustion; he never found a cliché he didn't like...to turn on its head; and he was merciless to the archetypes of sword and sorcery. He was probably the first author, for instance, to consider what would happen after Conan aged out of his "musclebound swordsman" status; and he recast Gandalf and his colleagues as squabbling Oxbridge dons. He was also, by all accounts, a gentle and gracious man.

Pratchett was 66 when he died, and he knew it was coming: He had been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. He considered himself fortunate that the disease affected his physical condition, while leaving his cognitive faculties relatively unscathed. This allowed him to keep working almost until the end. When he was granted a coat of arms in 2010, it contained a nod to his condition, to one of his most beloved characters, and to Blue Oyster Cult: The motto was Noli Timere Messorem.

Don't Fear the Reaper.

The New MacBook

If you use a Mac - as I do -  this will probably interest you.
It seems that the new MacBook is less of a powerhouse laptop, and more of a tablet with a keyboard.
Here are two posts, one putting a positive spin on it, and one putting a negative spin.


http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/03/09/apple_releases_2_lb_12_retina_macbook.html

http://gizmodo.com/the-new-macbook-isnt-what-you-think-1690390617

One hopes that the MacBook Pro will still be around.

R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy

So, you've probably heard by now that Leonard Nimoy has passed away. Charlie Jane Anders wrote a fine obituary at io9.com.

I don't know much about his personal life - although it seemed to be fairly happy and healthy - and I can't add anything to what the Internet will surely say about him. I'm one of those who genuinely preferred the original Star Trek series to its sequels, and Mr. Nimoy certainly portrayed one of my favorite characters. All I can really say is this: Hearing that he passed away has made my day a little darker...the first time the death of any well-known person has ever done that.

His performance added nuance and irony to genre television - a first. And he seemed to genuinely appreciate the fan culture that grew up around the series, even when he was uncertain about participating in a particular project.

In short, he had class.

ETA: On Talkingpointsmemo.com, Josh Marshall said it best:

"As a fan from early boyhood, if you were a Trek fan and a Spock fan, if you got to know more about who Nimoy was, he was exactly who you would have wanted him to be. That is a very, very special thing."

Exactly.

LLAP.

THE FOUR-DAY COUNTDOWN!

Hey, gang-

In case you haven't heard (OMG, how could you not know? EVERYBODY'S HEARD!) my publisher, Musa, will be closing its doors forever at the end of the month. At that time, The Wrong Sword will disappear from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Smashwords.

Now, don't worry - TWS *will* return, along with sequels, via another publisher. My agent, the redoubtable Michael Carr, is working on that as we speak. However, there will be a slight hiatus between the time Musa closes and the time the TWS series reappears.

So...
If you've been on the fence...
If you've said "I WANT this wonderful ebook, but I'm just not sure..."
Well, NOW IS THE TIME!
BUY THIS BOOK!
ON AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, OR SMASHWORDS!

YOUR MOM WILL BE GLAD YOU DID!

Civil Forfeiture Takes One in the Teeth

Civil forfeiture - if you're not familiar with it - is a US procedure that allows particularly rapacious police departments to confiscate your property even when you have not been convicted of any crime. And it's up to you to prove your innocence to get it back. If you do get it back, years later, it's often worth less than the money you've expended. It has ruined people's business and their lives, and it is used (surprise!) disproportionately against non-whites.
Now Eric Holder, the Attorney General, is ending a primary DOJ program that makes civil forfeiture an easy tactic for state and local police departments. It's a major win for civil rights. And I know this blog is mostly about The Nerd, but this is an issue that touches me personally, so...yay.
As we were driving east out of Albuquerque through the great state of Arizona (I'm being ironic - I won't be heading back to AZ any time soon) we were stopped by a state trooper. The usual wave of Law-Abiding Square Citizen Panic - oh no, a ticket! - was followed by sheer bafflement: I was driving on cruise control at 67 miles per hour on an empty freeway, and I'd had my car checked out mechanically before I left North Hollywood. So why was Mr. Trooper stopping us?
Well, he got me out of the car - he was a good-looking guy, late 20s early 30s, maybe 5'7", Latino, slender - and told me he was giving me a "warning." I was driving five miles above the speed limit, and I was following the car in front of me at 200 yards instead of 300 yards. 
Five miles above the speed limit. Two hundred yards instead of 300. A warning, not a ticket.
Then for the next 20 minutes, he tried to shake me up. Told me I seemed "agitated." Asked me to take a breathalyzer. Asked me where I was going, and why. Asked me if he could look in my trunk. I am ashamed to admit that I let him put his hand on my wrist to take my pulse. But when he asked to look in my trunk, something clicked. And I suddenly realized that my first real crime was having California plates; and my second real crime was a car with cosmetic panel damage, whose trunk sat low enough to clearly be full of something. At the time, I thought he wanted to search for drugs. Now, I realize that he would have been just as happy to confiscate and sell my laptop, smartphone, car and printer...you know, the stuff I need to earn a living. (And don't think that hasn't happened.) When I realized this, and that he wasn't going to do anything without my say-so, I asked for the "warning" slip, said good-bye, and drove away. 
It was my great good fortune to be a middle-aged white guy with a travel buddy, or things could have been much worse. (When you're up against a stranger with a gun, you are grateful for any privilege you have.) If this is all the police drama I encounter in the next five years, I'll be doing about a million years better than a lot of people, most of them with darker complexions.
But I'll admit I did break one law in Arizona - I tore up the ticket and tossed the pieces out the window.
Oh, and f*ck you, Grand Canyon State.

Do Viruses Make Us Smarter?

I always knew I was carrying around those extra genes for a reason.

Travel (Poster) to Another Planet

JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has commissioned some artwork - travel posters to some recently discovered exoplanets that might support life.

Kepler 186f orbits a red sun...



HD 40307g is eight times Earth's mass...




And Kepler 16b orbits a binary star.




You can download the full posters here.