teaching yourself to harness the wind

A boy in Malawi who was unable to attend school taught himself how to read and then read a book about wind turbines.  This interested him so much that he built his own electrical generator to power a few lights and radios in his hut.  Neighbors jeered until the setup worked.
The book.  Via Boingboing which had this to say:

Undaunted by poverty or the famines that affected his country, William taught himself by studying the books in the library of an elementary school in his village. In 2002, when he was 14 years old, he went to the library to find out what the English word "grapes" meant and he stumbled across a science book for elementary school students called Using Energy. William says that finding this book was the trigger that changed the course of his life.
He had a difficult time reading the book, but he pored over its diagrams for motors and generators, and eventually came up with the idea of building an electricity-generating wind turbine. His village did not have electricity (in fact, only 2% of Malawi receives electricity service, and that service is very spotty), and he dreamed of being able to read at night in his house....

sampling and stealing music are not the same

So says NPR's Science Friday at Boingboing

Jason renshaw on creativity and teaching ESL

He was interviewed by TEFL.net.  Here's an excerpt and follow the link for more.

I guess I have always been full of ideas, and I think that can be traced to five aspects of my childhood:
1. Growing up without much in the way of TV or video games.
2. Being crazy about Lego from a very young age (and never all that interested in making the model on the box cover – always wanted to make new stuff!).
3. Spending my formative teenage years in a tiny rural town in Victoria, where to have fun you needed to be creative!
4. Being an avid reader and story-writer all the way through school.
5. Being a regular player (and later gamemaster and materials writer) of adventure role-playing games.
Other than that, I think I’ve been heavily influenced by my father in terms of always doing a job to the best of your ability, including being willing to challenge authority or the “done thing” when and where necessary. I had a range of different jobs (everything from supermarket work to managing pubs and even tourism marketing) before getting seriously into teaching, which gave me a good wide perspective about living and working, but also gave me chances to be creative in roles one might otherwise assume were boring or without much scope for thinking outside the box. I also went to one of Australia’s most prestigious universities and found it awfully stuffy… I think rebellion is a natural part of a lot of the creativity we see in people!

via his own blog.

Science Fiction Writing workshop in March

Starship Sof, which has an excellent podcast, is offering an online workshop for science fiction writers and wannabes.
From the website:

What will be covered in this workshop

• The Beginning - Gregory Frost
• Plot Tricks from the Dark Side - James Patrick Kelly
• How To Fix Your Story After It's Written and You Discover That It Doesn't Work - Michael Swanwick
• Why Writing Groups - Mercurio D. Rivera
• What An Editor Wants - Sheila Williams
• Question And Answers - All

Via Boingboing


Updated later:
Also from Boingboing, a Science Fiction writing workshop for teens, although this one appears to be in physical space.

Learn about writing and publishing. Meet other teens who share your interest in writing speculative fiction. Talk about short stories, novels, and films. Have your submission story critiqued. Brainstorm new story ideas, write a first draft, receive feedback, and rewrite. Attend readings by the authors. Do a public reading. Learn about submitting for publication, and send off your story at our manuscript mailing party...

another link dump

I am traveling and want to keep these links until i return home to better review them:

Writing badly, well
Korea's own Gord Sellar has another story published.
presentation apps

A Wrinkle in Time in 90 seconds

I really enjoyed this family video showing Newbery Award Winning novel A wrinkle in Time, or at least the main plot, in 90 seconds.  A lot of fun.  I think other Newbery award winning novel treatments can be found at the link.

Doctorow at Boingboing

I'm a fan of Boingboing and visit it daily.  I am also a fan of one of the founders, Cory Doctorow.  I recently found two articles that may of importance to creative people by Doctorow.  The first is how to avoid writer's block and the second discusses politics and the issues involved with net neutrality.

In the first, he offers advice from Roald Dahl via Lifehacker on how to keep momentum while writing and avoid writer's block.  The key for Dahl seemed to be leaving the work halfway through a sentence so that when he returned, he would start the session by finishing a thought rather than creating a new one.  This let him settle into the rhythm of his work.

Put in practice while working, it can apply far beyond just writers. When facing a long term project with multiple milestones, Dahl's "never return to a blank page" mentality remedies hiccups in focus. By keeping yourself motivated to return to a milestone or project you feel comfortable with, you may find it easier to keep making progress.

The net neutrality article is more involved with what to do with your work once it is completed.

If Net Neutrality is clobbered the way the telcos hope it will be, the next Web or YouTube won't come from disruptive inventors in a garage; it will come from the corporate labs at one of the five big media consortia or one of a handful of phone and cable companies. It will be sold as a ''premium'' service, and it won't upset anyone's multi-million-dollar status quo.