"Best Posts" becomes "Story Bits"

I’ve decided that the “Best Posts” series I’ve been running for several months now needs to evolve into something more relevant to MetaWriting.  I know I am not alone in the quest for ideas for new stories.  To that end, I’m starting a new series called “Story Bits” where interesting items on the Web become interesting plot details, character bios, settings, and other bits of a story.

Why am I doing this?  As a software developer I find myself frequently searching the Web looking for a snippet of code that performs a certain task.  Those snippets are virtually always free.  On my technical blog, I try to extend the same courtesy to other developers with my code snippets.  In this way, the development community as a whole improves and builds on itself.  I see the same need in the writing community.  I’ve consumed ideas from dozens of bloggers and hundreds of posts, and now, I’d like to contribute something back that is regular, fresh, and hopefully provides you with the seed of a new story.

 

• TechEBlog had an article Friday showing an artist’s conception of a new ship planned by Royal Caribbean, which they claim will be the world’s largest.  I think this would be a cool setting; it’s not so much a cruise ship but a small floating city.
• Another article on TechEBlog on Friday has a computer simulation of a new “smart train” that allows people to board and alight without the train ever slowing down, let alone stopping.  This could make for a cool vehicle for a story (pun intended), especially if the train was interstellar where slowing down would cost fuel.

Best Post for Week Ending 6/14/2008

Feeling the stress of a book deadline?  Ready to pull your hair out over a great scene that just won’t fit?

Do you feel like you could just break something?

Now you can!  Just step up to the Anger Release Machine, deposit your money, and release some of that pent-up frustration.

Best Post for Week Ending 6/7/2008

According to this article on Slashdot, and this one on National Geographic’s site, the 1985 search for the RMS Titanic was actually just a side excursion for Robert Ballard, the discoverer.

Was the 1997 film a cover story, too?  Let the conspiracy theories begin.

Best Post for Week Ending 5/31/2008

I found so many “best post”-worthy items that I decided to make it a “round-up” week.

• I have become more and more interested in “steampunk” over the last few months, a mash up of Victorian-aged looks and modern-day technology.  Here is a great example – a steampunk USB drive.  Now, if it actually emitted steam when it was plugged in – THAT would be even cooler.
• Try your hand at Battle Pong – very high on both the “coolness” scale and the “useless” scale for the iPhone.
• What do you do when you have far too much time on your hands, and a boatload of DHL postage to use up?  Draw using GPS tracking data of course!
• And finally: Today – Cisco OnStage Telepresence Holographic Video Conferencing; tomorrow, the holodeck.  (Ok, maybe next week, the holodeck.)

Best Post for Week Ending 5/24/2008

In keeping with my Indiana Jones theme from last week, I came across this real-life re-enactment of the boulder-chase sequence from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.  If you had ever wondered what to do with the few million LEGO’s lying around your house – well, there you go.

Best Post for Week of 5/17/2008

This week is a double-shot of Indy:

TechEBlog had an article on Friday about Indiana Jones’ fedora being sold by ThinkGeek.  The short video showing what a trip to the kitchen will turn into when you don it was particularly amusing.

Also, a long-awaited video game for our household – LEGO Indiana Jones – comes out on June 3.  We’ve loved playing the LEGO Star Wars games (two games, each covering one of the two trilogies), and being able to play with a six-shooter and a bull whip is just too cool.  TechEBlog had a post on Thursday for the game, as well as a trailer for it.  If you’re not familiar with the LEGO games, they tend to spoof a lot of the scenes and sight-gags from the movies, and this one is no different.

Best Post for Week of 5/10/2008

Looking back I’ve apparently misplaced a week.  I hate it when I do that.

This week, however, I came across the “Bridge to Terrify-ia”: http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/sky-bridge.

With a drop off like that, I wonder if they have problems with base jumpers at all?  At least it’s not over a “boilin’ lake o’ lava!“.

Best Post for Week of 4/26/2008

There are many TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) and ETLAs (Extended Three Letter Acronyms, for those TLAs that just won’t fit into 3 letters) out there, and some of them take on pronunciations of their own.  For example, you don’t say “en-ey-ess-ey”, you say “NASA”.

It seems like the earliest acronyms would always take on the letters of the original title.  For example, the title “Federal Bureau of Investigation” came first and was quickly shortened to “FBI”.  There is a very clear workflow here:

1. Create title
2. Shorten to acronym
3. Bonus points if Step 2 results in something pronounceable

I’ve been suspicious as of late that the acronyms were coming first, and the people behind them were making up names to fit the letters.  For example, the “patriot” in “PATRIOT Act of 2001” is actually an acronym for “Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”.  Then there’s the US SAFE WEB Act of 2005, which stands for – you guessed it (or maybe you didn’t) – “Undertaking Spam, Spyware, And Fraud Enforcement With Enforcers across Borders”.

This past week I came across one clinched the deal.  You know people are starting with the sound-bite-worthy acronym and making the title fit the letters when you see a weapon system called “MAHEM”, which stands for “Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition”:

http://www.darpa.mil/TTO/programs/mahem.htm

 

Full Disclosure: I originally found this on Slashdot, but the link doesn’t appear to be working any longer: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/23/1714254&from=rss.

Best Post for Week of 4/19/2008

You know, between this knife set, and the Blendtec “Will it blend?” commercials, I could actually get into cooking!

Best Post for Week of 4/12/2008

All right, I admit it.  The weekend totally got away from me, and before I knew it the subsequent week had started.  Rest assured that the digital slap on the wrist has been delivered.

Last week, I found a post on TechEBlog.com for Super Talent USB Drives that in my opinion are fast approaching ridiculously small.  The product page for these on the Super Talent site describes them as the “perfect accessory to adorn keychains, mobile phones, or wearing as a necklace.”

Necklace?  More like earrings.  Nicely modest formal earrings.