c0riander

In NYC, small grocery stores (i.e. one of many retail storefronts on a block) are often colloquially referred to as bodegas, no matter the economic status of the area.

As a writer familiar with SF&F short fiction markets, I agree that more information is needed.

Including more biographical information on the website about yourself and any editors making acquisition decisions would help. You don't need to have industry cred already (though that helps), but writers like to know that (a) you're not a publisher/editor known not to pay, has a bad rep, etc. and (b) that you're a real person. It's also very helpful to know how long the magazine is funded for when it's not yet established -- so you have confidence that if you submit and are selected, it won't go under before you get paid.

Also, you should include what the publication format is, what specific rights you'd be buying, whether they're exclusive, etc. You say "first English publication rights" -- I'm assuming you mean exclusive First English Language serial rights? Print or digital? Or would it be nonexclusive? Are audio rights exclusive or nonexclusive? If you have a template contract you plan to use, you could link to it.

You have an expected response time, which is great; consider also including time to payment/publication. If you have formatting guidelines/preferences (i.e. standard manuscript format like Vonda McIntyre's), include those.

You can take a look at the guidelines/sites of established short fiction magazines to see what best practices are -- i.e. Asimov's, Clarkesworld, Analog, Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, etc.

Hope that helps! Always exciting to see more short fiction markets!

If your wife has been in caloric restriction for an extended period of time, she may have metabolic damage. I recently stumbled upon Layne Norton's work - he has a PhD in Nutritional Science and is a bodybuilder/powerlifter, and he makes some compelling arguments (and reviews of the literature) about how the metabolism responds to prolonged caloric restriction.

Here's a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHzie6XRGk

It intrigued me enough to look it up. Here's a photo of those first square windows: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/129764-tech-wrecks-lesson...

I think that's a very insightful point, and I agree.

As a side observation, I think you can actually make "fellow" in particular a bit more cool/casual, especially since it is a rather ambiguous term anyway and there are many kinds of fellows working on many levels out there. All it reliably seems to connote a learning environment, some degree of selectivity in participation, and less structure than a traditional school program.

What about "Fellows" or "Scholars"? Both imply learning is involved, but in a more active, unstructured way.

It would help if your air conditioning/HVAC system is also doing air filtration (as they do in the US, not familiar with Shanghai/New Dehli).

There is some research starting to be done on this, e.g. this study on what goes on in improv jazz musicians' brains when they are playing: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...

It could be many things other than a lack of curious women in the population at large. Not saying any of these are true, obviously, but some possibilities: You have biases (conscious or unconscious) in the "type" of woman you befriend? Social signaling or dynamics in your conversations leading to not discussing curiosity-inspiring topics with women? You are not interested in the specific areas or things they are curious about? Etc.

I think that says more about the people you're hanging around with, rather than women in general. I know plenty who are genuinely curious about such things (and you can find a plethora in the news, university faculties, on message boards, etc.)

You would generally want to "change the ratio" of something if you felt there was untapped potential or interest that wasn't being expressed, often due to some systematic or structural barrier.

As an example, I can tell you, I go to a lot of startup events and they are often centered around activities like ping pong or beer drinking. I know many women interested in entrepreneurship and try to get them to go with me, but they tell me they don't like ping pong or would feel uncomfortable. And, at the events themselves, there are typically only one or two women who actually came.

Changing the ratio would involve creating an atmosphere that would encourage women who already have an interest to act on it and thus be better represented.

The other thing few people realize about personality assessments is that they are almost always RELATIVE, not ABSOLUTE, values.

Where you rank on any scale is a function of the population you're being compared to - so, for instance, if you take an assessment as an undergraduate, you may score lower in Extraversion or Openness compared to your peers (since studies show people tend to peak in those values at that time of life) as opposed to the general population. Practically speaking, your results from an assessment are often benchmarked against a group, but it's rare you know who that group is.

I think it was saying that if "happiness"="the pursuit of meaning" then "pursuit of happiness"="pursuit of the pursuit of meaning." Which is redundant.

I agree that both lists are important questions to ask, but as you allude to in your last sentence, it seems like it's asking for a great deal of self-awareness.

Most people are probably just not self-aware to be able to accurately answer those questions (from things like the mechanics of how a future event should occur all the way to "are our values/work styles aligned").

Do you, or anyone here, have suggestions for alleviating that?

I've definitely experienced this on the receiving end, both with startups and new products, but also with random mailing lists that only send out updates sporadically.

A good rule of thumb for ANY mass email communication is to lead with a short explanation of why they're receiving the email: "Thanks for signing up for updates from Newproduct, a new platform for knitters to connect online."

Remind them 1) they signed up, 2) what they signed up for (updates), and 3) who you are (descriptively).

I don't think the quote is advocating cutting out people who are going through a negative time, just those who are negative to YOU.

There's a difference between supporting someone through their difficulty and someone who is not supporting you, whether that means (consciously or unconsciously) belittling, undermining, or dismissing you or your ideas, or just not meshing well or productively with you.

More than just expecting to break your habit, I think the crucial piece is planning what you will do once you have.

The most dangerous moment in building a new habit is the moment when you realize that the best case scenario (aka sticking with the awesome new habit) is just not going to happen. For me, unless I have my Plan B ready to go, I tend to just revert to the status quo or worse (since I already failed, why not go all out). Having the Plan B - a glorified "if failure to complete Plan A, then do B" - already articulated lets me immediately move on to the next thing without beating myself up.

This was really helpful for me when I was getting going with a regular early morning jog. If I didn't get it in before work, plan B was a quick run after work before I drove home. The latter wasn't the habit I wanted to stick, but it helped me forgive myself the lapses until morning running became a habit.

In high school, I was lucky to have multiple teachers who were sticklers for imparting the essential building blocks of strong writing. We spent a lot of time "in the weeds," rote-learning vocabulary, sentence patterns, paragraph construction, and finally, structures for the expository essay (above and beyond the academic essay we mastered in school.)

The surprising thing, even to someone like me who considers herself a good writer to begin with, was how important working through each "level" of writing was. While I haven't reviewed the foundations in a long time (I probably should), because I spent so much time painstakingly memorizing the contents of each earlier on, I can now write quickly and confidently and usually be pretty close to correct.

Here are some books I'd recommend for each level:

1) Vocabulary - Wordly Wise (the older the version of the book, the better the word lists), such as here: http://www.amazon.com/Wordly-Wise-Book-Kenneth-Hodkinson/dp/...

2) Sentence structure - The Art of Styling Sentences, http://www.amazon.com/The-Styling-Sentences-K-D-Sullivan/dp/...

3) Paragraph construction - Paragraphs and Essays (the part on paragraph construction and patterns is very straightforward, basic, and clear, I don't think it's worth buying the whole book though), http://www.amazon.com/Paragraphs-Essays-With-Integrated-Read...

4) Expository essays - Encounters: Essays for Exploration and Inquiry (this is the textbook NYU uses to teach "Writing the Essay"), http://www.amazon.com/Encounters-Exploration-Inquiry-Pat-Hoy...

A quick Google search turns up several interesting studies. Here's a link to a good APA overview of a few of them: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower-poverty-financial.pd...

Totally agree. Writing "X vs Y" posts is a pretty common and effective inbound marketing tactic (it tends to be a common search query across buyers).

Here's an explanation of why and how it works: http://www.thesaleslion.com/blog-talk-about-competition/

This reminds me a great deal of the insights of Susan Sontag in her essay On Photography. To wit:

"A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it -- by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir. Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs... Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable they encounter. Unsure of other responses, they take a picture."

The whole essay is really worth reading - looking specifically at photography, you could make an argument that our other tools like Facebook are growing to fill a similar aggressive, certifying role in our culture...

You can find it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/On-Photography-Susan-Sontag/dp/0312420...

There is Make Haven in New Haven: http://makehaven.org/

I personally start by checking LinkedIn to see if I have any connections there - if not, then I go to my school's alumni network or ask my friends who work in that industry or live in that city to see if anyone can connect me.

Otherwise, it's the cold email...

Smart people ask questions because they have enough confidence that they are smart to expose their ignorance.

Acting like you know everything doesn't come from a place of intelligence - it comes from a place of fear, that the other person knows more than you, that they will judge you, that a "smart person" would know what you don't know. I've forced myself to ask questions many times in meetings when I thought the answer was probably obvious to everyone else - only to discover that others had been wondering the same thing.

I thought this discussion was about sexism in tech - what kind of comments are sexist and why that matters - not about convicting or even trying a particular individual in the court of public opinion.

Of course it matters to his reputation, but by definition if we're talking about the larger question of sexism in the industry, it doesn't seem relevant to me. In fact, I think it serves to excuse or ignore the question of sexism that was raised.

If we are talking about whether or not sexism occurred, then it does not in fact matter what someone said before or after they said something sexist.

I'm not trying to convict anyone - in another comment I note that these situations are often unclear, and many very well-intentioned people may not even realize they are harming or undermining someone (and they probably think highly of that person, too!). To be honest, my primary impetus was to explain why a comment like this is actually sexist (there seemed to be some disagreement on that part) and why it is harmful. It's not always intuitive, since we often describe our friends as "attractive" or "sexy" without a second thought in a friendly/social context.

I'm not trying to say that the introducer was sexist - the behavior was.

Edit: From the downvotes, it seems that there is disagreement here - which part do people take issue with?

The point is relevance to the situation and context.

If someone is about to give a talk, then (depending on the venue) it may be appropriate to say "Stacy is very funny," because it has a clear implication for the situation at hand.

But imagine this. A woman walks by - your colleague Bob knows her and waves. You say, "Bob, who was that?" He says, "That's Stacy from Accounting. She has a great sense of humor." Do we think Stacy is great at her job? Probably not.

The point is that in a professional context (certain professions excluded), it is never relevant to comment on someone's appearance or sexualize them. Like many things related to sexual harassment, the waters can be murky, and many people don't realize they are undermining their colleagues (often people they do in fact greatly respect) by their words and behaviors.

And there is just no excuse for commenting on someone's appearance or sexualizing them in a professional context. Even if you don't know them well.

Some of these comments baffle me.

Look, it doesn't matter what someone said before or after they sexualized someone in a professional context. Here's why: human beings are smart. They know that things people say matter. Thus, if you are commenting on someone's appearance or sexiness in a professional context, that must matter to you.

Why is that important? It serves to undermine the person it's said about. Rather than being judged on their work, or their connections, or what not - they are now being judged for their appearance. And that steals credibility they may have had in other, legitimate arenas.

It says, I like you because you're attractive, not because you deserve it.

("Oh, Nancy's not a good lawyer - everyone just thinks she's pretty." "Well Bob got that promotion because he's so good-looking. He didn't really deserve it." Etc.)

And yes, in some contexts, we expect to be more casual and colloquial. But if you're in a professional setting, unprofessional remarks do insidious harm to the subject.

Actually, you may be interested to know the OED is a historical dictionary and in fact does not necessarily list common usage first.

  The OED is a historical dictionary, with a structure that is very different from 
  that of a dictionary of current English such as ODO... For each word in the OED, 
  on the other hand, the senses are dealt with in chronological order 
  according to the quotation evidence. This way the senses with the earliest 
  quotations appear first, and the senses which have developed more recently appear 
  further down the entry – like a ‘family tree’ for each word.

Not to mention, those familiar enough with the word to understand what Apocrypha are should hopefully be able to infer why someone may be referring to apocrypha without a capital A. It's not a long cognitive leap.

If you're suggesting that a number of people may not actually understand how to interpret or use the word, then I agree (as in this thread, I suspect). But that is the case for many descriptive and useful words in the English language and has rarely been a good argument for dumbing down the level of communication.

I'm not sure what you are getting at here. The word is originally Greek (ἀπόκρυφα) and means "those hidden away" - in common usage it can refer to accounts that are not part of the "official story," such as the Bible's Apocrypha.

There are other meanings as well which cast doubt on the authenticity of the story (not surprising actually when you consider the Bible's Apocrypha's relationship with the Church.) Here are the 2 definition OED gives:

1. A writing or statement of doubtful authorship or authenticity; spec. those books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions of the Old Testament, which were not originally written in Hebrew and not counted genuine by Jews, and which, at the Reformation, were excluded from the Sacred Canon by the Protestant party, as having no well-grounded claim to inspired authorship.

2. [As in Greek] Hidden things; secrets. rare.