LEGO

My son has been sick this week, so it’s all been a bit of a blur of schedule-juggling and trying to keep him quiet and resting (because when the medicine kicks in, he feels better, so he promptly runs around … which stirs up the asthma/congestion nastiness). On the upside, I’ve now watched approximately six trillion episodes of the Wild Kratts, and can tell you how an owl’s fringed feathers allow it to swoop down silently, or how the basilisk lizard’s toes are fringed to help it run across water.

Yeah, fringe is in these days.

So anyway, all I’ve got this morning are some links.

Patrick Stewart talks about growing up with an abusive father and the dangers of slashing support to domestic violence shelters and services.

“My mother had no escape route. There were no refuges she could run to; no helplines to call; no advocates to speak out for her. No one came to help, even though everyone knew what was happening behind our closed doors. The small houses in our road were close together, and every Monday morning I walked to school with a bowed head, praying that I wouldn’t run into a neighbour who had heard the weekend’s rows.”

China Mieville on racism and what is and isn’t “censorship.”

“Indeed, an astoundingly small proportion of arguments ‘for free speech’ & ‘against censorship’ or ‘banning’ are, in fact, about free speech, censorship or banning. It is depressing to have to point out, yet again, that there is a distinction between having the legal right to say something & having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say.”

Finally, a collection of LEGO optical illusions, by Brixe63.

I chatted with my editor a week or two back, and I’m hoping to get the final draft of Libriomancer finished today … which means all you get in the blog are a pair of links and some LEGO niftiness.

Link the First: Today is the last day of Pat Rothfuss’ Worldbuilders fundraiser, which has raised more than a quarter of a million dollars this year. The list of signed books and other prizes is like Santa smashed open the pinata of fandom, and an endless waterfall of awesomeness began pouring out.

Link the Second: The Con or Bust auction, which helps fans of color/non-white fans attend SFF conventions, begins on February 11 at 12:01 EST. Details here.

Finally, I present to you the U. S. S. Reliant, in LEGO. (In the Mutara nebula, no less!) The only thing that could make this better would be a minifig of Ricardo Montalban holding a cute little plastic Ceti eel. This was built by Christer Nyberg, aka Myko. Click here or on the pic for the full photo set.