Quickies Before Bed

Arguing with a cyberspace publisher is probably easier than arguing with a meatspace publisher. Still, it's frustrating to hear that my cover image needs at least 0.125" bleed on all sides after forgetting it from the first time; then to remember, "OK, I'll just add 0.25" to each dimension in Photoshop," but forget that it's 0.25" total and instead add 0.5" total; then to be told that I still don't have at least 0.125" bleed on all sides. Last I checked, 0.25 is at least 0.125.

Keep in mind that I'm doing all this fancible graphics work on a Mac I bought when I graduated high school in 2002. Yeah, the RAM upgrade I got with it put it at a total of half a gig. It takes me several minutes to open Photoshop, I have to watch a progress bar creep along every time I save, and making the .psd into a .pdf gives me nearly enough time to write another book.

Then again, I'm glad that it still just works. But still. Anyway, here are a few of the things that I've been looking at on the internet, which I think you should look at, too:

• Via Rhodopsin, here is the most useful Amazon product review I've seen in a while.
• That reminds me of this shirt, sent to me by Silver Garou (but, like, months ago). Look, if you haven't seen this before, you need to read the reviews. It's almost as good as this.
• Via Pharyngula, The Counter-Creationism Handbook now has its own iPhone app! Awesome!
• Via my crazy browsing habits, I somehow started by looking at Rise Against music videos, and ended at the most effective commercial in the world. I hate myself for liking this, you have to believe me.
• Rhodopsin also just now sent me an interesting article where a dude takes an idea and some numbers and mashes them up with another idea and other numbers, and while I'm no longer really qualified to check his work (Hell, I can't even check calculus limericks any more!), it is at least an interesting coincidence.
• I've also started reading Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians, and I wish I'd read it back in 2007. Then I wouldn't be tempted to say that he stole my idea and went back in time to do actual research on it. (This happens more often than I'd like to admit. See also: James Downard's An Ill Wind in Tortuca, brought to me via Silver Garou.)

OK, that's enough out of me. I need sleep. And to get this damned book finished!