A speculative “design probe” on the concept of electronic-ink tattoos. Really just a piece of video art (10MB WMV), but worth a look.

Susannah Breslin writes of me:

Nowadays, Warren Ellis is future kink’s preeminent virtual coolhunter. From his gonzo-porno explorations of Second Life sex, “Please Stop Doing That to the Cat,” to his DON’T LOOK coverage of mind-boggling body modifications, Ellis goes where no man has gone before, exploring the outer reaches of extreme fetishism.

Via EnglishRussia:

One Russian guy in Kharkov, Ukraine preferred was obsessed with some idea which he tried to express in writing on any flat surface he met. All his flat carried his scriptures, the local lobbies and walls of houses also had not stayed untouched.

Many photos, all amazing:

Sort of.

In secret trials last week, the British Army said it had made a vehicle completely disappear and predicted that an invisible tank would be ready for service by 2012. The new technology uses cameras and projectors to beam images of the surrounding landscape onto a tank.

Professor Sir John Pendry, of Imperial College London said…the only drawback was the reliability of the cameras and projectors. But he added: “The next stage is to make the tank invisible without them – which is intricate and complicated, but possible.”

Your productivity killer for the day: preterhuman.net hosts “a searchable database of over 200,000 text files on a variety of subjects.” The breadth of material in here is astonishing.

Short film by Ruairi Robinson, briefly featuring Cillian Murphy. Beautiful little job:

“Doctors in China have saved the life of a woman who had 26 pins and needles inserted into her body when she was a child in an apparent attempt to change her sex to a boy.”

“Two villagers walk near the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China’s Sichuan Province.”

Site’s been updated, with more video and photography. Also notable:

Floria is currently working on her first feature film. She is both writing and directing this film, which is a coming of age story based on the ’70s all girl rock n roll band, the Runaways.

If you happen to see a copy of INTERZONE 212 (which I guess came out a few weeks ago), you need to pick it up and read the short story “Ack-Ack Macaque” by Gareth Lyn Powell. The commercialisation of a web animation into some diseased Max Headroom as metaphor for the wreckage of a fucked-up relationship. It’s about two things: the people, and the idea. Just the way sf should work.

Cover design for SF novel from Mam Tor? Publishing.

• Ainjel Emme (Æ) – AUSTIN, Texas and VENICE, California – Down-tempo / Psychedelic / Pop – www.myspace.com/ainjelemme
  (tags: music)

Via b3ta:

I’m aware that many of my younger and foreign readers may not get this. I do not care. (Shame the guy misspelled “Williams,” though.)

The 4am is a mixtape file containing nothing but music donated directly by new and/or unsigned acts. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am is mixed down to 128 of the kbps. The 4am will operate heavy machinery if it feels like it. The 4am is on Zulu Time.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

5: There Aren’t Any Stars Out

It’s late-Sunday-night music, and be-gentle-it’s-Monday music. “Open Your Arms” is a comforting blanket of noise. “I’m Sorry, But This Is Goodbye” is chiming and evocative, to me at least, of a certain kind of reverie. “I Will Lay You Down” is the new one by Lanterns On The Lake, a tender autumnal thing. “Mississippi Nights” is a beautifully recorded piece of Americana, with all the space of the night in it.

“Song For Vara,” the longest song on the ‘cast, reminds me of many things. For me, it’s an alchemy of autumn nights spent by the radio in the 80s, poured out as postrock. If you’re nice and calm after that? “Delerium Tremont” is staggering drunk, all over the place and loving every minute. Go forth and be the same.

 

 The 4am: 5 - There Aren't Any Stars Out [25:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9125)

off’tan’discord – “Open Your Arms” (3:21)

Better Living Through Science – “I’m Sorry, But This Is Goodbye” (2:10)

Lanterns on the Lake – “I Will Lay You Down” (4:20)

Previously Missing – “Mississippi Nights” (4:18)

Shortwave Dahlia – “Song For Vara” (6:47)

The Perennials – “Delerium Tremont” (4:29)

The 4am needs music: If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com.

If you enjoyed The 4am, please spread the word, linking back to this post.

Wil Wheaton’s been guesting in an episode of NUMB3RS, which is set partly at a comics convention. The production contacted Colleen Doran for set dressing, and they generated a complete fake Colleen Doran booth at the fake convention, which Wil took a couple of shots of.

It’s been pointed out to me that these magazines pay for shit. They pay rates that I wouldn’t work at — $50/1000 words, more or less. I once heard a writer call it “a charitable donation.” Given that one of the digests, at least, will contain some 100,000 words, that’s a creative budget (before art) of $5000/issue. Which I’d like you to turn around in your head for a few moments.

I’d like to know some numbers, I really would.

Consider that a magazine like ASIMOV’S or F&SF, who sell 15000 in subscriptions and 5000 at newsstand at a cover price of $3.99, constitutes a theoretical gross of some $80000. Fudged number, sure, but in the ballpark. What does that break down to?

Well, 55% of your 5000 copies just vanished, because the distributor took it. 55% is the cost of doing business in the returnable-sales game, which in this instance means $11000 of the $20000 you made from your sell-through of 5000 copies. So you’re down to $69000.

But those 15000 other copies are subscription, so your distribution is the cost of mailing them. And the three big US mags give you some 25% off the cover rate to subscribe. So you’re down to an imaginary number of ($45000 + $9000) $54000 before you even pay the postal service.

What does it cost to mail those things? I assume there has to be discounts available to post 15000 copies of something, so it’s got to be worth the magazine’s while even though they’ve given up 25% of cover price (or $15000). And if you’re keeping score, you’ve noticed that you’ve shed more than a quarter of your imaginary gross just through the cost of doing business. Running a magazine is, in fact, a job for crazy people.

What’s the unit cost on printing? These things are printed on pulp in relatively large runs, the printing bill can’t be too onerous. I mean, it’d be pointless selling to newsstand at all if the unit cost was more than a couple of bucks — and they have to be printing 15000 copies for newsstand for them to sell 5000 at a 32% sellthrough as reported for ASIMOV’s. A total print run of 30000 minimum. A unit cost of $1/copy would break them. You’ve got to assume the unit cost is way under a dollar.

The ballpark for the writing budget is $5000. Call it $1000 for art? That’s another $6000, plus whatever you allow for production. And even though we’re missing hard numbers to plug in here, you can see that it’s all got to come out of a pool of $54000. What if it costs fifty cents to print a copy and fifty cents to send one? That’s a minimum of $22500.

Here’s another number – ASIMOV’S lost 3000 subscribers last year. Using the above as a rough mark, that’s clearly at least $6000 per month taken out of their calculations for this year. Or: their entire creative budget per month.

ASIMOV’S and ANALOG are part of a large magazine group, and so their printing bills should be a lot less due to gangprinting and other cost-saving elements, and also their salaries ought to be payments amortised across the entire company rather than pegged to the magazine’s takings. They’d only go into the red when (budget+print bill+circulation costs) > (subscription fees + sellthrough). F&SF, I believe, doesn’t have that kind of buffer.

I really wish I had those missing numbers tonight.

(UPDATE: someone pointed out in email that there are also ad revenues to take into account — also, that when there’s ad space to burn there’s crosspromotion to be had.)

Science fiction is going to lose at least one of these magazines in the next five years. This is where other people say to me, “that’s why we’ve gone to the web.”

A few people have reported trouble locating it, so: the feed for The 4am podcast is http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast .

I’ll add the next edition to iTunes, with a bit of luck (iTunes is still just stupid with podcasts, and you should use Juice or something instead).

(link)