Thrill-seekers turn to designer kidnapping
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/3362369/Thrill-seekers-turn-to-designer-kidnapping

Adolfo Farsari – The Man Who Shot Old Japan
http://quazen.com/arts/photography/adolfo-farsari-the-man-who-shot-old-japan/

Flushing Your Troubles Away
http://in.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=48711129&newsChannel=lifestyleMolt

For Love Of Do-Good Vampires: A Bloody Book List
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123115545&ps=cprs

Are Creative Writing Courses Just For People That Want to Teach Creative Writing?
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-novel-idea-turns-creative-writing-into-an-academic-racket-20100226-p914.html

Someone who had a bad day at work and no doubt remembered it for a long time.
Pilot who dismissed Pearl Harbor radar bogeys dies at 96
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100227a4.html

An amazing short film from Japan.

I’ve read lots of articles where people have mentioned the visual complexity of Avatar, but this 3-minute short-film is the most visually complex work I’ve seen.  There is just so much going on.

Just reminding people that my short story Reading By Numbers is eligible to be nominated for a Hugo.

Sean Wallace, the co-editor of Fantasy includes the story in his nominations.

My story didn’t make the Nebula shortlist, but SF Signal asked the finalists if their own work hadn’t made it onto the shortlist what other stories they thought should have made the shortlist.

Rachel Swirsky mentioned my story.

“I was also really taken by another debut story from Fantasy Magazine, Aidan Doyle’s “Reading by Numbers,” a formally experimental piece of fiction that plays with the intersections between mathematics and storytelling to create a story that’s both surprising and moving.”

A really interesting talk about using the psychology of game design, games and social networking, external rewards, and how games are going to be everywhere in the future.

http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2010/2/22/external-rewards-and-jesse-schells-amazing-lecture.html

Today is my 36th birthday.  In the war against time, it is always the chocolate cake that pays the highest price.

Some thoughts on turning 36:

• Today I am 13150 days old.
• If I had been born 2 years earlier, I would have had 27 fewer birthdays (pesky leap years).
• Countries in which I’ve celebrated a birthday: Australia, Japan, Wales, Chile, Venezuela.
• If you had up all the numbers from 1 to 36 you get 666.
• Number of paranormal and/or religious experiences encountered in 36 years: 0.  (I expect this trend to continue).
• Number of cars owned in 36 years: 0.
• Number of countries visited: 73.
• 36 is 6 squared.  6 is the smallest perfect number.
• Number of bones broken: 1.  (I broke my wrist parachuting).
• The older I get, the less mature I feel.