The Puget News

A detailed look at the creation of characters in various writing styles.

Quoted: From Jane Eyre to Jean Brodie, David Copperfield to David Brent, whether solidly realised or lightly sketched, fictional figures can be as vivid to us as real people. But just what, exactly, is a character, asks James Wood

I had not heard of Laura Albert but apparently she got in trouble for creating a fictional identity to publish her fiction. That seems like an extension of artistic license to me. I mean, she’s not overtly lying in a memoir like some other authors of recent memory. What’s the hubbub?

Following up on the success of “The Gates” art project in 2005, New York city will be having four waterfalls installed for this summer. This may be the time I finally make it out there to check out the city!

Quoted: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Four giant waterfalls will be erected in New York for three months this summer in a public art project city officials hope will create $55 million in extra tourism revenue for the

A photo exploration of the Long Duration Exposure Facility, a 30′ X 14′ cyclinder we put into space to see what the exposure would do. Attached to the outside were panels of various experiments. Very neat!

Quoted: the nonist, now searching recorded history for some semblance of truth.

Rafe Furst has published a way of reading entire books for free on Amazon. By searching for a set of keywords which progresses you through an entire book, you create a Covering Set. It sounds a bit heavy-weight to me…

Quoted: A set of keywords that lets you read an entire book for free on Amazon is a covering set (CS). If the number of keywords in a CS is less than or equal to that of all other CSs for the same book, then it is a Minimal Amazon Covering Set (MACS). There may be more than one MACS for any given book. (And yes, someone who is highly skilled at discovering these could be considered a “MACS book pro”).

This seems like a handy service. You can select a Public Domain book from the Internet Archive or Google Books and have it printed by Lulu for you.

An awesome metal house in Texas. I wonder if the cooling bill is awful?

Quoted: We’re going to need hardened steel habitats after the zombie apocalypse That might have been what Robert Bruno architect had

If I ever start writing that science fiction novel I’ve been putting off, this program seems like an excellent choice for organizing the thoughts and getting to writing.

A multimedia slide show of modular housing from Wired Magazine.

Quoted: With increased population density and climate change, space- and energy-efficient housing is all the rage. But style need not be sacrificed for practicality. Wired News scopes the smallest and coolest modular housing out there.

Travelodge is experimenting with Travelpod, experimental sleep pods made out of shipping containers and stacked for special events like Burning Man. Cool!

The Baltazar Residence. Cool architecture.

Quoted: A small one story bungalow sat on a substandard lot between two nondescript condominiums. Within that small house lived a growing family with a modern aesthetic who wanted to take advantage of the ocean views their site offered while adding square footage. The house has a concrete base that rises out of the ground with a minimal amount of openings until the second story, where it turns into a steel frame with a glass window wall that offers a panoramic view out to the Pacific Ocean.

Yayoi Kusama is an artist infautuated with “dots!”

Quoted: -year old Yayoi Kusama has had a hallucinatory obsession with dots for as long as she can remember Throughout the

I’m excited about the new io9 Science Fiction blog. This is their manifesto explaining the site purpose.

Quoted: Earth is full of people who want to sell you cheap ways of seeing the future They tell you tomorrow will be more of the same, with shinier toys. Or that work as we know it is about to end. io9 is the visionary watchdog who calls those charlatans on their shit. We’re going to show you a new world that’s shockingly different from what you’re used to. And it’s not always going to be a shiny happy place.

London City Map created entirely out of typography. Cool.

Quoted: NB: Studio is a graphic design consultancy based in London.

A work of short fiction by David Foster Wallace writing for “The New Yorker,” about two “good people” trying to come to a joint decision.

Quoted: The New Yorker

Personal MBA likes the Kindle as a v1 device but like most others, looks forward to the day when he can read all of his material on such a device. So far, only ~30% of the pMBA reading list is available on the device.

Get the free eBook from True Films “200 Documentaries You Must See Before You Die.”

The New York Times Book Reviewers each select their personal Top 10 for the year. There is lots of good reading to be found here.

Quoted: Janet Maslin, Michiko Kakutani and William Grimes pick their favorite books of 2007.

Bookgasm posts a list of the “5 Best Sci-Fi Books of 2007.”

Quoted: In formulating this year’s list, I took a long, hard look at my nominees and made, perhaps, a bold choice: I left out William Gibson. It’s not that SPOOK COUNTRY isn’t a good book – it is. What it isn’t, however, is science fiction. Mr.