Wired
magazine asked a bunch of famous authors to write six-word long stories. Here are some:
Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth. - Vernor Vinge
Computer, did we bring batteries? Computer? - Eileen Gunn
It cost too much, staying human. - Bruce Sterling
We kissed. She melted. Mop please! - James Patrick Kelly
His penis snapped off; he’s pregnant! - Rudy Rucker
Internet “wakes up?” Ridicu - no carrier. - Charles Stross
Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time - Alan Moore
Longed for him. Got him. Shit. - Margaret Atwood
Batman Sues Batsignal: Demands Trademark Royalties. - Cory Doctorow
Help! Trapped in a text adventure! - Marc Laidlaw
Bush told the truth. Hell froze. - William Gibson
[link]
Unsurprisingly, Alan Moore's is the most clever.
Oh, there's a bunch more 6-word stories at the link. Including a bunch that aren't in the print edition. The print version, OTOH, has a bunch of funky typesetting stuff for the stories.
And that bastard Clarke refused to make his story six words.
I particularly like Charlie Stross's, for the same reason Moore's is good: the play with narration.
I'm mostly blocking out the artificial office small talk with my iPod, but every time someone passes by the receptionist's desk on the other side of my cube and asks if it's Friday yet, I go a little bit more
Dexter
inside.
But as long as the animals still like me, y'all should be safe.
This is scary. OK, kinda' scary. I mean, relative to other scary stuff going on now:
One of the more heated topics under discussion at a meeting of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives this week involves a little-known aspect of US border law. Snip from an article by Joe Sharkey in the New York Times:
U.S. customs officials have the authority to scrutinize the contents of travelers' laptops and even confiscate them for a period of time, without giving a reason. Appeals are under way in some confiscation cases, but the law is clear.
"They don't need probable cause to perform these searches under the current law," said Tim Kane, a Washington lawyer who is researching the matter for corporate clients. "They can do it without suspicion or without really revealing their motivations."
I guess some people have had their laptops confiscated a year ago, with no word on if or when they'll get them back.
[link]
Wasted day. Wasted life. Dessert, please.
- Steven Meretzky
So very, very true
