Special board offer - I have extra bookplates and so anyone here who wants to personalize anything that has my name on it, hit me at the profile addy with "borg bookplate) in the subject line. Thank you so so much to everyone who is posting and reccing and talking up the books also - I am so grateful to you.

Hey all - I am working with HackEd, a startup focused on creating the cybersecurity experts needed now. I'm basically the DM - some big cybersurity names are providing the curriculum and I'm making the 7 weeks an immersive story-based experience. It's sort of a Cyberpunk game made real.

Applicants have to do a coding challenge and submit a fairly tough application, and we select about 12 per running of the course. Towards the end of the course we bring in companies and government who have the best jobs in cybersecurity and work to place the students. The 12 people who get in don't pay for the training; they are on scholarship. If they get hired, the company who hires them pays us.

The immersive, story-based approach gives the students the closest thing to real-world experience possible, to address the catch-22 of needing experience to get hired so you can get experience. It gives them stories to tell interviewers. And it forces them to work together, to compete, and to be creative rather than just following a manual or doing script-kiddie stuff.

So that's the sales pitch. If you are interested, yay! If you know people who might be interested in going through this, send them the link? There will be 4 runnings of the course each year, and we are hoping to expand the number of students we can accept for the last two to maybe 15-20.

Thanks!

George Takei's musical Allegiance was on Broadway last year, and now is being broadcast one night only at theaters around the country, on December 13th. This would be your only chance to see it with the original cast.

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If anyone still has an account on LiveJournal, you should know that its security is now at risk from the Russian government: [link]

I know everyone is asking you for money right now, but, help me out and buy our new anthology. [link]

I have S1 of Buffy on DVD, in the old fold-out-into-one-big-spread format. Any takers?

Ben Browder is doing a reddit Q&A that goes live this afternoon at 3pm EST: [link]

My spouse has a lovely article up on Forbes about a recent trip he took. Have a read--as lots of hits might mean another trip, one I get to go along on! [link]

For the past 4 years, it has been my honor to be the director of USC's Undergraduate Writers' Conference. This year I am very excited to announce that Fran Wilde has graciously agreed to be the keynote speaker. Which means in a few weeks, I get to bogart all the Fran! I mean no, I get to share her with the wonderful USC community. link

because the internet likes carrots and publishers like buzz and preorders and library requests, I find myself in the position of trying to self promote yet again. Here we go, friends...

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