Monday various

  • Google Maps Typography. I’m reminded of Textism’s Found Alphabet. [via]

  • John Scalzi on why it’s a good thing that YA novels have been winning major genre awards lately:

    Yes, how horrible it is that some of what’s being hailed as the best science fiction and fantasy written today is in a literary category designed to encourage millions of young people to read for the rest of their natural lives. Because God knows the last thing science fiction and fantasy publishing needs right now is whole generation of new and enthusiastic readers who might actually get hooked into the genre until they die. It’s a goddamn tragedy, it is.

    I wasn’t aware the recent wins had “caused some consternation and grumbling in certain quarters,” but maybe that’s just because I don’t hang out in those quarters. (I just finished reading Scott Westerfeld’s Midnighters series, and it was easily some of the best storytelling I’ve read recently.) Personally, I think the only thing that matters is that a book be good when it wins an award.

  • Gerry Canavan offers two examples of how “our brains don’t work.” First, the suggestion that the “health aura” of things like salads, etc., actually encourages us to eat unhealthy foods instead. And second, an optical illusion you can’t help but see — unless, of course, you’re a schizophrenic. (They’re apparently not fooled.) While on the one hand it’s nice to have evidence to suggest that I’m not schizophrenic, seeing that optical illusion at work was starting to freak me out a little.

  • “Was there anything in your childhood that led you to want to destroy civilization as we know it?” How do you even respond to a question like that? The founders of Twitter do a decent enough job, but Maureen “I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account” Dowd’s “interview” is just ridiculous. I think you can make an argument that Twitter is an annoyance or a time-waster, but most people making that argument would be content to, I dunno, simply not use it. [via]

  • I was totally captivated by this short documentary, Carts of Darkness, which Showcase.ca describes thusly:

    This isn’t one of those homeless-guys-are-just-like-us exercises in upper-middle class guilt trips. As it turns out, these guys are nothing like us.

    It’s not always easy to watch, but I found it fascinating. [via]

3 thoughts on “Monday various”

  1. That face illusion is pretty freaky. I kept thinking, damn it, I should be able to force my brain to see reality when I know it’s there. But I couldn’t.

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