SELECT * FROM Shane

My manager wore a “Where’s My Jetpack?” T-shirt to work the other day, and that got me thinking. A lot, actually. About all of the stuff that could exist now, given current levels of technology, and all the stuff that might exist in the future for consumers to purchase and operate.

After some very careful pondering, I have reached the conclusion that despite frequent appearances in science fiction tales (including mine) a flying car or hovercar will probably never make it onto the market. Here are some reasons why.

Read more »

Katie has responded to my blog post “Career or Baby” on her blog with the aptly titled “Response to ‘Career or baby” – Part One and Part Two.

I feel that my position has been slightly misrepresented in these posts, and so I will take the opportunity presented by having my own blog to respond to her response with some clarifications of my position.

Read more »

People base a great deal of their personal identity around their job. When asked what they wanted to do when they grew up, I never heard anyone answer “I want to be a good person and a productive member of society” or “I want to be a stay-at-home parent and spouse.” It was always “a policeman,” “a spaceman,” “a writer,” “an actor,” “a retail worker,” etc.

So when issues like the gender pay gap come up (as they have been again and again recently), I am not without sympathy. Even as a card-carrying member of the oppressive and selfish patriarchy, I firmly believe that the same work should get the same pay, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or any of the other millions of traits for which people can be prejudiced against. And I would like to see more women in the workforce (hell, you can have my job).

But there are some very simplistic arguments out there regarding gender equality that don’t take the whole picture into account. Over-reliance on aggregate “sound-bite” type statistics is creating a farce of the issue and is obscuring a number of important factors. Here are some thoughts based on my impressions, and a little research – all presented with a dash of my winning and unique male-perspective bluster.

Read more »

Until very recently, it never crossed my mind that the purpose of writing was not necessarily to be published. Although every book on writing I had ever read stated that you must enjoy the process, they all (naturally) continued on to offer advice on getting published, so I guess I developed the assumption that the two processes go hand-in-hand.

For me, getting published was not about making money… or at least, not as much about that as it was about other things.

Read more »