Education — Excellence and Quantification
I’m often asked about how I write, and while, like most writers, I’m perfectly happy to flaunt my knowledge and expertise, one of the things that I’ve learned over a long career is that almost every...
View ArticleIt’s Not Personal…
Or… it’s just a job. Anyone who thinks either of these thoughts often, perhaps more than once, should be considered for flogging, a firing squad, or cruel and unusual punishment. Especially if they...
View ArticleThe Greatest Addiction ?
One of the greatest addictions that’s ever struck a nation has engulfed the United States, and it’s making great inroads elsewhere in the world. It’s an addiction so powerful that it’s caused mothers...
View ArticleLegacies and Darknesses as Audiobooks
Tantor Media will be releasing the first two books of the Corean Chronicles in audiobook form. The first book — Legacies — will be released this month, and the second — Darknesses — will be released in...
View ArticleSeptember Question
Do you ever draw characters from real life and just give them different names? There’s only one character — and a very minor one at that — that was taken pretty much whole from “real life” (and no, I’m...
View ArticleWhich Statistics?
There are any number of statements about numbers, including those that cite “lies, damned lies, and statistics,” which was a statement Mark Twain attributed to Disraeli, but which appears in none of...
View Article“I Know”
Perhaps one of the most infuriating responses, especially when repeated day after day by students, subordinates, or someone hired to do a job, is “I know.” When a contractor tells a subcontractor that...
View ArticleAcademic Bureaucracy
Over the last several weeks, my wife the university professor has been deluged with various new and additional academic requirements, touted by the administration as “improvements.” From my past, if...
View ArticleAnger, Frustration, and…
Apparently the FBI has just released a report on mass shootings, covering the last fourteen years. According to the news reports I’ve seen, for the first seven years, “mass” shooting incidents in the...
View ArticleThe No-Inflation Con Game
I don’t know who’s computing the Consumer Price Index that shows the U.S. has low inflation, but their computations don’t square with my real-life experience. The filing cabinets brought it home to me,...
View Article“No-Inflation” and Recession
One of the ostensible reasons why the Federal Reserve has been pumping money into the economy through its quantitative easing program has been to ward off the possibility of deflation, which, according...
View ArticleThis “Horrible” World…?
One of the reasons I don’t write books that have overt and graphic horror in them is that they remind me too much of the state of the world. Admittedly, the world has been filled with horror since the...
View ArticleSingle Factor Fallacy
I happened to glance at a recent issue of Forbes [yes, I read both Forbes and The New York Times, not to mention The Economist, New Scientist, Scientific American, and even occasionally those left wing...
View ArticleRules
In all of my fantasy books, the magic systems are logical, and, if you will, as some readers have put it, “have rules.” And I think it’s fair to say that I was among the first of U.S. fantasy writers...
View ArticleAbsolute Rights Revisited
Anita Sarkeesian was scheduled to speak at Utah State University last Wednesday. Then USU received an email that threatened “the deadliest school shooting in American history” if the school did not...
View ArticleArticle 2
I’ve turned in the second version of the new SF novel — entitled Solar Express — which is a very “hard” SF novel set just about a hundred years in the future and which features as main characters a...
View ArticleOctober Question
Tantor Media has only announced the publication of the first two books of the Corean Chronicles in audiobook format. When are the others scheduled for release? As a matter of fact, Tantor has only...
View ArticleA Culture of Incompetence…?
I guess I’m old-fashioned, or perhaps, an old fogey… or worse, because, when I pay for a good or service, I expect the good to be without defects and the service to be accomplished correctly and in...
View ArticleThe Law, Amazon, and Monopsony…
Recently, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman published a column critical of Amazon, further fanning the flames over Amazon’s tactics in dealing with its suppliers, including the furor over...
View ArticleLobbying…
Amid all the political posturing and smears and counter-smears, one underlying aspect of American politics that is accepted without question by most Americans is the practice of lobbying, although a...
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