Marcel Popescu

(H/T to Dean Wesley Smith ) 1) You must write. 2) You must finish what you write. 3) You must not rewrite unless to editorial demand. 4) You must mail your work to someone who can buy it. 5) You must keep the work in the mail until someone buys it.

I wrote this story a few days ago. I have no idea what to do with it now... so here's the first step: put it on the blog. If anybody gets here, by some amazing coincidence, please leave feedback even if it's only "it sucks" :) The paradox maker Jack ripped the envelope. “Dear Mr. Harroway,” it began, “we are happy to inform you that your application for a study of the local effects of the 2030 Tehran terrorist attacks has been accepted.” “Yes!” he shouted. “Yes, yes, yes!” His work at cultivating important officials had finally paid off. The bribes didn’t hurt either. Jack was a brilliant physicist. Almost forty-five years old – his birthday just last month – he had everything a scientist could want: a great career, the admiration of his peers, even a great family. He did have one obsession though: he wanted to go back in time and kill himself. Why? He probably couldn’t answer, at least not without a great deal of thought, but it was mostly because he had been fascina...

Here's something I never thought I'd see in the US (as bad as I believe it has become): Ideas Matter , a pro-IP propaganda site build by Microsoft and others, has the following on their About page: In the words of President Barack Obama: "Our single greatest asset is..." Bear with me while I'm freaking out here. I grew up in communist Romania until I was 18. Any time you wanted to write something - including in school essays - we would have to quote the beloved president. Freaking programming books, few as they were, would have something that the president said in their introduction. What the hell???