If You Build It, Will They Come?

Free content – particularly in the audio fiction space – suddenly seems a lot less of a perpetual free lunch than it did six months ago, and it’s got a lot of folks freaking out in my corner of the Internet. Providers are dropping like flies this year! Matthew Wayne Selznick and J.C. Hutchins have both very publicly withdrawn from the podcast fiction space, and for the best reason there is: Money.

[Correction: MWS chimed in in the comments to correct my misapprehension of his current attitude toward podcasting, which is considerably more complex than the paragraph above makes it seem. My apologies for inadvertently misrepresenting him.]

The two of them are generation one podiobookers who appeared in the space hot on the heels of the three founders, and seeing them throw in the towel has a lot of other creators wondering: “Are we all just being idiots giving stuff away for free?” And it’s got a lot of fans wondering “What’s going to happen now? Are all my favorite writers going to give up?”

Continue reading ‘If You Build It, Will They Come?’

Falling For A Ruse?

Are the New Atheists Bad for Science?
By J. Daniel Sawyer

In an article on Beliefnet this week, Michael Ruse argues that the “new atheists” are a “bloody disaster.” He argues using a mixture of caricatures, complaints, and criticisms, so before I go into why I think the man is full of organic fertilizer on the broader issues, I will address the salient ones:

[Cut for opinionated rantings that might irritate some readers]
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Updates, general and specific

I’m stopping in to give you all a quick digest on my recent activities, which have been many, prolific, and at hopefully somewhat scandalous.

First, the appearances. You can find me on recent episodes of Podioracket, The Dead Robots Society, and doing voice work as the German Army in Philippa Ballantine’s Weather Child. You can also hear my fantasy story Buried Alive In The Blues, for which I also did some of the voice work, on the excellent (if racy) anthology series Erotica A La Carte.

For those of you who enjoy my Open Source madness will be pleased to hear that there are new LinuxJournal articles – one is a review of the Indamixx portable recording studio, and the other, which hasn’t yet published, is a review of OpenGear’s new KVM management console. I’m currently stalking a couple more regular writing gigs, so if the internet gods smile upon me, you may be seeing quite a lot more out of me in this vein in the coming months.

Podcast monkeys, you may have noticed the new buttons on the right side of the page – each podcast feed now has an iTunes one-click subscription link, as well as the normal RSS buttons. There’s also now an Uberfeed, which will give you everything I podcast (except Apologia, which you can get here).

You also may have noticed that I’m now podcasting my new novel Down From Ten. This is a comedic country house mystery with elements of romance, horror, and science fiction around the edges – it’s a change of gears from The Antithesis Progression. It’s also listed on iTunes now, so if you’re listening and enjoying it, please leave a review and tell your friends.

I’m also the subject of, and participant in dialog to, a blog series about the doctrinal foundations of Christianity by Scott Roche on the Spiritual Tramp blog. If you like my arguments on Apologia, you’ll definitely find this one entertaining.

I’ve also recorded MORE Reprobates Hour episodes, which, along with all the other special features I have on my hard drive, I’ll hopefully start spooling out here again this month.

As far as writing projects go, Free Will is picking up steam and is now officially on schedule for a November release. I’m also working on a couple more secret projects, which hopefully I’ll have news about soon here.

Finally, I hope to have some good news on sales in the next couple weeks, so watch this space!

Site Updates

I’ve updated the Media Appearances and Publications pages, for those of you who want to be current on what I’ve been up to besides my podcasts and blogging.

The Year that Almost Wouldn’t Die

Some highlights and lowlights of 2008

This year, particularly the second half, has seen a lot of people turn very pessimistic about, well, everything. Yeah, the economy’s slowing down. Yeah, people like me are scrambling just to make ends meet – when money goes slow everywhere, it hits the arts hard. And yeah, some things just sucked. But you know what? Today’s “awful” is a hell of a lot better than “great” was when my grandparents were growing up. Despite environmental problems, terrorists, crooked investment bankers, and crookeder politicians (yes, in all parties), I’m living in a time when “five-percent unemployment” is really bad. When I was a kid in the early 80s, that would have been music to everyone’s ears. Ditto for crime, poverty, war casualty, plague death, and violence figures almost everywhere on Earth (though some of us are a lot luckier than others, through no merit of our own).

So, yeah, 2008 might have been a scary year. But as I look back at the global “Big Picture” there aren’t a lot of things that are truly scary in the long run – not like there were twenty, fifty, or eighty years ago – not to mention longer ago than that.

On a personal level, it’s been a mixed year, but as I was drawing up this list I can’t help but be staggered by how far the scales tip towards the wonderful. Click on the link to read my self-indulgent recap.
Continue reading ‘The Year that Almost Wouldn’t Die’

Articles In The Wild!

I’ve been a bit delinquent about updating the publications page, but I’ve just caught it up. New articles from yours truly recently released into the wild include a review of the HP MediaVault Pro in the current issue of LinuxJournal, and a review of Xara Xtreme in last month’s issue.

Two for One LinuxJournal

When the days are long, and the heat is oppressive, and the construction site next door is pouring the smelliest damn asphalt you’ve ever smelt, and you’re starting to get cramps from the stress…well, you know it’s that time of the month. The time of the month when only one thing can save you: Sardonic witicisms from your favoite LinuxJournal author.

That’s right, boys and girls and intermediates, it’s time once again for that most pleasant of games, the “Find Dan Sawyer in LinuxJournal” contest. This month it’s easy – I’m in their twice. In my first article I show you how to fake a UFO landing that’ll make you the envy of YouTube using a little bit of Voodoo — I rather like the irony of using ancient Creole magic to hoax lovers of the paranormal, myself.

After that, we go out to coffee with the Cradlepoint PHS300 just to prove that we can get broadband anywhere we damn well please.

It’s a killer issue, with some other great home-brewing articles on it, including an excellent one about MythTV. Give it a gander!

Official Doctorow

Well, it’s official. I interviewed Cory Doctorow for a LinuxJournal earlier this week, and just got done transcribing the interview. He’s not the fastest mouth in the west, but man does he talk fast. At the end of the transcription I clocked his word-rate, subtracting out the gaps where I was asking questions and not counting his false-starts, umms, ahs, and other verbal stumbles that one doesn’t transcribe for a published interview.

The Official Cory Doctorow verbal word rate (on a day when he’s jet-lagged and taking things slow) is:

148wpm.

And I’ve met the guy in person when he’s at the top of his game, and I’ll bet you my left toe that he was running slow in our interview.

Hat’s off, Cory. Next target: The MicroMachine Man!

Check out Cory’s other blog, BoingBoing.

Isn’t it technically a speedball? Or a pair of them?

When you mix cocaine and heroin, you get a concoction that was once upon a time called a “speedball.” Two highly euphoric drugs married together to marinate your synapses in life-destroying pleasure — what could be better?

Well, how about two consecutive months of two articles per month in LinuxJournal?

Last month, you may have noticed my initials scrawled across two articles, the “Podcaster’s Shootout” comparison between Skype and Gizmo, and the more hardware-oriented review of the Teak 3018. Well, this month the state of IT writing got even worse with the publication of the modest little volume you see at left. Inside you’ll find my comprehensive review of CeltX screenwriting software, which I’ve recently used to write the script of a miniseries entitled Down From Ten. Also buried within these silken pages is a survey of some of the best and most useful Firefox extensions, including some for circumventing totalitarian firewalls and other such nonsense.

What can I say? I’ve been busy. And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Another Double Header!

That’s right, ladies, germs, and droogies of all persuasions, it’s time for another double-article spectacular in this month’s LinuxJournal. This month, I take on the eternal question facing all podcasters: “What VOIP program is right for me?”

Needless to say, I am shamelessly opinionated on the topic.

For an encore, I team up with my hardware engineering genius friend Lynx Crowe to bring you a review of the Teak 3018, a nice little box that alleges itself to be a network appliance. Does it live up to its own hype? Find out in this month’s LinuxJournal Magazine, with a cover that looks supiciously like this:

Click here to go to the issue!