Link Musings

I've been debating starting to do regular link posts... I might. If I do, they may be in the form of thought-streams from my day, or a few days (if some sort of topical, or at least related, lumpet emerges from my reading/thinking/writing for more than a day). This may also be another random post, never to be repeated, in a blog full of them.

Digital Ecology? - This musing from Jacquet is pretty interesting, and reaches beyond the immediate field in which her musings occur. I keep returning to “This is a different type of ecology, one facilitated by the digital universe”, and wondering if there isn't more there. The idea that the digital universe has its own ecology whispers beneath the surface. Not that that is a new idea...just a compelling one.

50 Posts About Cyborgs - This is interesting for the topic/material, but also for the format. I'm increasingly interested in the variety allowed by “blog form” publishing. I like the idea that a stand-alone, non-continuous, digital object can be created as a blog – Particularly in the simple interface delivered by Tumblr. Although I'm not sure I need more inspiration to start new blog projects, as I'm sitting at... half a dozen blogs now, including this one. Most of them I have no idea what to do with... other than I wanted to write about, or create something about, a topic that didn't fit in well on a blog I'd already established. That said, I have some writing/thought projects that would make interesting non-updating blog-form works.
On the Cyborg topic:

Clearly, we are self-made. We are the first technology. We are part inventor and part the invented. We have used our minds to manufacture our selves and thus we humans today are the first cyborgs. We have invented ourselves. And we are not done yet. Kevin Kelly

I like a lot of this (the whole piece), although some of it is just distressing. Distressing in that it gives me visions of fat, iDevicePadObject plugged in, and tuned out, humans; Evolved with our technology, gone slow, dumpy and soft. Slow, soft, dumpy things are food to my mind. Obligate button pushers are a terrifying concept. They are not spear throwers, or rifle shooters; Those dangerous creatures of beautiful and lethal form. I refuse to be a button pusher. I'll go wild, and raise other wild things, if I must.

Newspaper Extinction Timeline- Interesting in the whole new publishing vs. old publishing way. I wonder how true this is for local papers in more remote places? The nearest towns to me are small, and isolated by miles and miles without urban sprawl; They are also not technologically contemporary communities, nor (most importantly) are there electronic media sources to supply them. What of the small town local paper in the Western US, and similar areas of geographic isolation, low population and low support from electronic media? Local media is different when you're in San Francisco, Ca. and San Francisco, NM.

I got notification of an acceptance the other day (on my birthday actually), and it should be getting published soon... If so, you'll get more soon. If not, perhaps more weeks of silence. This is my blogination-machine, and I'll use it as I see fit, after all.

Solutions for Austerity and Hostility

I've been far too busy with other things recently, and have been neglecting my blog here. For those friends and readers who are interested in issues of and skills for wilderness survival, abandoned mine exploration, armed citizen/concealed carry, armed professions, individual medical skills and tactical medicine, and a related mish-mash there of, I'll invite you to where I have been busy: http://BFELabs.com is my “professional” home as something other than a writer/artist. Some of you may find it interesting. Some of you may find it appalling.
I'll admit some trepidation at linking these two halves of my life. While the one is rather accepting of the other, it doesn't always go both ways. The artsy, literary, side of the house is often not at all accepting of the gun carrying, wilderness capable, military/police friendly, war-on-terror supporting, knife fighting, mine exploring, MMA-training, type. Whereas the long fangs are often as artsy and literary as anyone else. This is a constant source of disappointment in my life, as folks from the supposedly kinder/gentler art and writing world are often so put-off by the other as to make friendship difficult. The professional costs may be as high as well. That is, however, just the way it is. I am who and what I am, and I'll never compromise that because I offend the delicate political sensibilities of my fellow artists and writers. It's not that I am politically incorrect – You are just ideologically sheltered.

A New Tag

I avoid "administrative" blogging to a large extent, but am adding a new "Post Label"/Tag to clear some things up.
I post both fiction and non-fiction on this blog. Starting now (and retroactively as of tonight) all fiction entries will have a "Fiction" tag.
All creative non-fiction entries will remain untagged as such, though they will continue to bear the tag "Experience".

Doing this had made me consider two things:
First... the amount of fiction I've posted here is rather slight. I think a few readers may be surprised at what didn't pick up a Fiction tag. Or maybe not.
Secondly... None of the poetry posted here is fictional. And that is true for the majority (I can only think of a single piece that's fiction). It's an interesting rumination on the nature of poetry.