Archive for the ‘Collections of Excellency’ Category

In compiling the links I share, I usually pick my favorite quote among those I’ve seen that week. However, since it’s been so long, I wound up with a ton of really great quotes, so here you go!

Female asses are… mysterious creatures. ~David Attenborough

The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel. ~Steve Furtick

Acquire inner peace and a multitude will find their salvation near you. ~Catherine De Hueck Doherty

What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful. ~Brené Brown

Watching the moon at dawn, solitary, mid-sky, I knew myself completely: no part left out. ~Izumi Shikibu

You’re going to mess up sometimes. But the good part is, you get to decide how you’re gonna mess it up. ~Marilyn Monroe

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline. ~Abraham Joshua Heschel

You are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing. ~E. E. Cummings

The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace. ~Carlos Santana

He has drawn back, only in order to have enough room for his leap. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Much like how a flock of crows is called a “murder,” a collection of mistakes is called a “life.” ~Robert Bennett

When it comes right down to it, all you have is your self. Your self is a sun with a thousand rays. ~Picasso

When we are gentle with ourselves, we are naturally gentle with others. ~Sakyong

Thus it begins! These links have been collected over the past six weeks. There are a lot of them. You’re welcome. ;)

BUT FIRST, I would like to let you all know that I now have a Pinterest account, where there are many shiny things. Come see!

This Week’s Shinies:

• First Transgender to be Ordained as Catholic Priest – Progress! Huzzah!
• R’ha, a Scifi Short Film – This is freaking amaaazing! And NO HUMANS.
• Billions of Earthlike Planets in Milky Way – *geeks out!*
• The Rainbow Serpent…s
• World’s largest natural sound archive now fully digital and fully online.
• 1912’s Perfect Woman Was From Brooklyn, Weighed 171 Lbs, Had Pear-Shaped Body – This. Yes.
• A sweet, slightly sad comic about friend-love.
• MCA Hogarth’s Year Round-Up – If you want to know how an indie author/artist makes her monies, this is a refreshing insight into the work it takes.
• Draenei Barbershop, by Kyoht – Because I am still a WoW geek. =3
• How to say “Happy New Year!” in approximately a zillion languages. – I know it’s a bit belated, but I still think it’s awesome.
• Writing is for the Heart-Broken
• Tolkien on Language Invention
• Real Spaceman Tweets to Fake Spaceman, From Space – So much geekery, so much love.
• Female Parkour on Youtube – Jaw-droppingly, heart-stoppingly amazeballs.
• Moments That Restored Our Faith in Humanity – or made us cry like babies. Ahem.
• Supporting authors when your heart is bigger than your wallet
• Receive a personalized piece of new artwork in your mailbox every month! – An extremely affordable offering from a very talented artist!
• Tor Reviews Good Books – And Wants Recs – Specifically, in fact, recommendations of books by or featuring women and/or genderqueer people. :D!
• Real Book Tea – O_O
• A Quick Checklist for Books Reviews – Useful for those of us less-accustomed to leaving thinky reviews!
• WTF, Evolution – “Evolution, you are drunk. Go home.”

Current Earworm: Wolf by First Aid Kit. I cannot get this out of my head!

I have a Macbook Pro at work and PCs at home. The CMD key on my Mac, the PC equivalent of CTRL, is where my PC ALT key is. This results in me having to switch kinetic habits with every computer. ARGH.

This Week’s Shinies:

• Dave’s Mapper – A dungeon/city/map generator with a great hand-drawn feel!
• Stars (requires Chrome!) – This is jaw-dropping and just… I LOVE SPACE YOU GUYS
• Celebrating Women in Tech: Grace Hopper – She invented the first code compiler!
• How eBooks Saved My Father’s Reading – This is a pretty awesome thing. :D
• Photos from Seattle’s First Day of Marriage Equality – Yep, I got misty-eyed.
• Hack The Cover – On designing a good ebook cover.
• Dogs Can Drive – Yes, literally. O_O!
• Cheetahs in Super Slow-Mo
• The Star Trek Medical Tricorder Is Real – !!! Why hello, Future, please do come in.

Current Earworm: Forever One by Kobra and the Lotus, thanks to my sister seeing them live as an opening band recently!

The Friday Quote:

Don’t let your struggle become your identity. ~Ralston Bowles

Instagrams of the Week:

In the spirit of the season! Our in-progress tree, and OH MY GOD IT SNOWED A TINY TINY BIT THIS IS INCREDIBLE BECAUSE IT’S TEXAS:

Omigoodness busy busy busy.

This Week’s Shinies:

• Sample Issue of New Language Magazine – *geeks out*
• Ancient Greek Sky vs Ancient Chinese Sky – Because starmaps are always beautiful, and the cultural differences are amazing.
• Lexember – A new conlang word every day for December! What’s not to love?
• Earthrise by MCAH – A new scifi serial, free to read and already awesome!
• Poseidon never looked this good.
• A very odd gait. – The video is… well, kind of surreal!
• This is your brain. This is your brain on harmony.
• World’s oldest D20.

The Friday Quote:

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule. ~Samuel Butler

Instagrams of the Week:

On the left, you have my friend from the third floor balcony of my workplace; on the right, you can see what a well-insulated nap I had! (Two dogs, two cats, one me, and one panda pillow.)

This week went by in a rush, and tomorrow it is December 1st… with a high of 78*F. Oh, Texas.

This Week’s Shinies:

• Swedish Toy Catalogue Delightfully Reverses Genders in Toy Ads – BEST. BEST BEST BEST.
• The Boy With Tape On His Face – Comedy… in silence! I love this.
• PVC Pipe Instrument – A guy makes an instrument out of PVP pipes and plays a ton of recognizable snippets from favorite songs. I WANT ONE OF THESE.

Current Earworm: “A Simple Song,” played on a five-octave mbira ohmygod.

The Friday Quote:

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I see my life in terms of music. ~Albert Einstein

Instagrams of the Week:

We placed a new bead order from our wholesaler, and ohmygoodness. The photo on the left isn’t even showing all of them – there’s more in the box!

Loving up this glorious extra-long weekend! Spending most of it writing and sleeping in, so forgive me if I’m a wee bit short on links today. :D

• Two lesbian YA eZines/anthologies now released! – I cannot even tell you how good the writing is, how open-hearted the authors are, and how much I loves these stories and this project.
• Take What You Need – Seen at a gas station. I love this.
• Discover your Elvish horoscope! – Yes, as in Tolkien’s elves. This is hilarious and great.
• Author Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity, anxiety, and genius.

Current Earworm: The entire OceanLab album called Sirens of the Sea, including Just Listen.

The Friday Quote:

You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it. ~Robin Williams

Instagrams of the Week:

A breath of fresh air.

See title of post. *falls flat on face*

• Where Do I Start Reading? – One of my favorite authors, MCA Hogarth, has a super-helpful page for those who want to dive into her works. \o/
• How I Learned A Language In 22 Hours – This was my introduction to…
• Memrise – Making memorization fun and gamelike!
• San Francisco Becomes First City To Offer Free Trans Surgery – *jawdrop* SanFran, you kick ass.
• 3 Jaguars Web Comic Kickstarter – Awesome for the art, the stories, and the author-artist. Also, jaguars!
• Combat Kitchenware – This is quite possibly the awesomest thing ever.
• Magicians – A Language-Learning RPG – Korean mythology and language, in convenient bite-sized RPG form. I could ask for nothing more!

Current Earworm: Melissa Ferrick: Headphones On – HOW HAVE I GONE THIS LONG WITHOUT KNOWING ABOUT THIS WOMAN HOLY CRIKEY

The Friday Quote:

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. ~Epictetus

Instagrams of the Week:

My redonkulously adorable dogs. BB on the left, Orion on the right.

I feel like I’ve done absolutely nothing but absorb giant amounts of new information this week: new faces, new names, new tasks, and a new office floorplan that is labyrinthine. Whew! So glad it’s the weekend.

• Illiterate Ethiopian children, given new tablets with zero instructions, hack them in five months. – We are some crazy-smart monkeys, guys.
• More People Should Write – This, so hard, this.
• Google’s Self-Learning Neural Network Knows What A Cat Is… Without Human Interference – Skynet, now with lolcats!
• What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank (by Krista D. Ball) – I admit, I love the sound of this, and want it. :D
• A message to everyone doing NaNoWriMo this year!
• Elephant Speaks Korean Outloud – Whaaaat. Awesome.
• Scientists further prove their geekery by naming new T-Rex-sized dinosaur after Sauron.
• Dad hacks Zelda to change Link’s sex so his 3 y/o daughter can play a female hero.
• Four teenaged African girls have created a urine-powered generator. – Amazing and useful.

Current Earworm: Miracle of Sound: Little Sister – This isn’t a new-to-me song, but I love the musicality, and it’s fun to sing with, so it gets to be this week’s earworm.

The Friday Quote:

Say good things to everyone. Treat everyone with total respect, and it will all come back. ~Bob Proctor

Instagrams of the Week:

Shots from my new workplace! On the left, faux-sunlight strips (picture taken at night! I LOVE THESE THINGS) and on the right, one of my cubicle companions with the spoils of (Nerf) war. :D

National Novel-Writing Month has begun! And with it, all my free time has lunged out the window – or, more accurately, into the keyboard.

• “Ask Me About My T-Rex” t-shirt – I desperately need this.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Historical Artists – PRICELESS.
• Sunset at 30,000 Feet – not my instagram! but oh so lovely.
• Dice Rings Kickstarter – If nothing else, watch the video; it’s hilarious!
• Broad Spectrum Universe Sampler – Free fiction featuring fearless females? Yes please!
• This is the best version of the “whatever doesn’t kill me” quote yet.
• “In The Garden, I Did Not Sin” – Free lesbian short story! And, of course, beautifully written.

Current Earworm: Florence + The Machine: Seven Devils – This is the sole inspiration for my NaNoWriMo novel.

The Friday Quote:

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. ~Auguste Rodin

Instagrams of the Week:

In honor of NaNo, my writing buddies:

It’s a sparse selection we’ve got today, but we shall soldier on nonetheless!

• The most adorable fruit bats in the world!
• Fabulous author-artist MCA Hogarth has just launched a how-to Kickstarter book with tons of data.
• The best-dressed Victorian centaur ever.
• A space weather forecast!
• Some fabulous free PDFs/books on ancient Egypt: from the Brooklyn Museum, from the Met Museum, and from the American University in Cairo Press. :D!

Current Earworm: Muse: Follow Me – I am so in love with this song right now.

The Friday Quote:

As a curse, “fuck you” is just so passé nowadays. I propose “may you never be fucked again” for greater offense. ~The Angsty Magician

Instagrams of the Week:

In honor of the season: the pumpkin my partner acquired, and our backyard trees.