Arts and Entertainment

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Melloween: Night of the Tweeting Dead Winners

Between Twitter and the board, we had people writing 140 character long horror micro-fiction. From twenty-five of those, people voted on their top five. Thanks to a tie, that turned into the top six. And these favorites of one line horror are:

Melloween: Night of the Tweeting Dead

Is it possible to write a scary story in under 140 characters? We're about to find out.

Inspired by a discussion in chat last night, I decided to run a little Halloween writing contest. Write microfiction that's short enough to be a tweet and post it here. I'll stop accepting entries at 12:00 AM EDT Saturday, October 30th, at which point I'll pick my favorite entries for everyone to vote on. From that, you guys get to pick the top five that will go on the front page on Halloween.

If you decide to post your microfiction on Twitter, put the tag #nottd on it for Night of the Tweeting Dead so we can keep track. If you don't have a Twitter account, you can still play and just post your story in the thread.

You can enter as many times as you like.

ST: TOS; The Ultimate Computer S2, Ep53

We're all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine. When it comes to your job, that's different. And it always will be different.

The Enterprise is used to test the M5, a computer that could replace the crew and captain of a starship. As can be expected with this sort of test, something goes wrong.

This has to be one of my all time favorites of the show. The interaction of Kirk, Spock and McCoy is just fantastic throughout and the alienation Kirk feels at being replaced with a computer is so well done. I know it's become a cliche for an AI to run amok and start killing people, but this episode illustrates why it's a cliche: it reflects our discomfort and fear of growing useless as technology marches forward.

Romance novel plot generator

I've been playing with this for a while, but it finally got expanded into something more than just some randomly generated text. Behold, the romance novel plot generator.

It does standard straight romance:

The girl's name is Elizabeth and she is young-looking and focused. She enjoys reading. Her occupation is secretary and overall she is scary smart.

Her hair is streaked with reddish highlights and very long and straight. She is 5'7" and has an athletic body with firm breasts. She wears feminine business suits.

She meets Nicholas in a Secret Compound. He is an accountant, unhealthy and private, and he enjoys dancing. He appears to be big-hearted.

His hair is blond and windblown. He is very tall and is built like a body builder. He wears off-the wall, unique clothes that make him stand out in a crowd.

The obstacle to their romance that they must overcome is money disparity. When a robbery happens it brings them to the realization that they can overcome the obstacle.

It does gay and lesbian romance:

Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

There's been a lot of discussion about the book Sex at Dawn across the internet. It's written by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá who are described as "renegade researchers" in the press release for the book. And what's the book about? It's evolutionary psychology at its finest, trying to explain modern behaviors with "just so" stories about what our ancestors did. It's largely concerned with polyamory and explaining how we're evolved for it and therefore it's a natural state.

They make frequent references to bonobos (AKA "sex chimps") as examples of how they think humans should behave, or at least how they think early hominids did behave. Many of the problems we suffer from today, they claim, are the result of moving away from this natural state.

I think it's pure, unadulterated bullshit.

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