The haiku and micropoetry journal I edit, tinywords, got 875 submissions in the course of 2 weeks for our upcoming summer issue. Since I expect I’ll be able to publish about 50 or 60 poems in this issue, that means the acceptance rate is going to be significantly less than 10%. It also means I [...]

The iPad has touched a nerve in the geek community. Judging by comments on Wired.com and elsewhere, many people are outraged that Apple would try to foist a less-capable, dumbed-down device on an unsuspecting public. Thanks to clever marketing, these people point out, Apple has persuaded us to spend $500 and more for something that’s [...]

I spent way too much of last Sunday figuring out how to import over 300 articles from my database of published articles into WordPress, to make it easier to find and manage all that work. Those articles are now visible in the published work category here in my blog. I also switched this site to [...]

1987: Thousands of physicists crowd a ballroom at the New York Hilton for a hastily arranged marathon session on high-temperature superconductivity. The event generates so much excitement that it is later referred to as the “Woodstock of Physics.” Discovered in 1911, superconductivity is a phenomenon in which certain materials, at very low temperatures, become essentially [...]

Apple announced the iPad Wednesday, and with it added e-books to the menu of content it’s selling via iTunes. But I can’t believe that Steve Jobs is going to stop there. Brian X. Chen and I predicted on Tuesday evening that Apple’s big announcement would go beyond the iPad, and include the announcement of a [...]

This week brought the pleasing news that people are reading more than ever, thanks to the internet. In fact, the amount people read tripled from 1980 to 2008. That’s amazing considering it had previously been undergoing decades of steady decline. Suddenly people stopped watching so much television, and started reading again. They’re just reading on [...]

From my own experience, and the experience of friends who had spent months to years to a lifetime devoted to little magazines and small presses, I knew in my bones that tinywords had become overwhelming. This stuff eats you alive. But I also knew, it’s damn hard to let go once you made your mark. [...]

A couple of weeks ago I took part in a discussion about press embargoes, with Tom Foremski, Damon Darlin and Mark Glaser, skillfully moderated by Sam Whitmore. Also in the audience, and contributing worthy comments, were Rafe Needleman, Paul Boutin, and other members of the press and PR corps. I kicked things off (and got [...]

The collective intelligence poured into inventing new portable games over the past several centuries is equivalent, scientists estimate, to the outpouring of genius from a whole year’s worth of Nobel prize winners. Except instead of curing cancer, we’re making toys for kids who have trouble paying attention in school! Read more: Pocket Players: 13 Great [...]