The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an article about a Washington State program to help people turn their gardens into wildlife sanctuaries. The article includes an interview with a gardener who has grown such a garden since 1992--with enough tips to get you started on making your own.

Odd News from Reuters Updated: Wed, Aug 01 12:30 PM EDT


MADRID (Reuters) - Villagers and police armed with nets and gloves hunted for thousands of missing mink on Wednesday after the animals escaped from a fur farm in central Spain, officials said.

Just found this on the Jerry Pournelle website, posted today, August 1:

Poul Anderson, mentor, author, colleague, and friend, died last night about midnight. It wasn't unexpected. He was at home with his wife and daughter and friends, having long ago declined to be frozen and possibly take part in the nitrogen party at the end of time. I will be doing a memorial piece for Locus and other science fiction publications. We don't do Viking funerals any more. We should.

I was a good news editor, today, and sat down to write out my Anthrocon report. Click below to read it!

Camels that can make use of salty water have been found in China. This article is worth reading just for the final paragraph, which displays the dry sense of humor commonly associated with people in the UK. *grin*

RABCO, the parent company of Mailbox Books, announced to their mailing list the purchase of Bronzebear Media's inventory, service mark, and customer information.

Click "Read more..." for the full announcement.

Sorry, this article may appeal to gamers and game developers only. I ran across this article on Microsoft's research site, stating the abilities of the Xbox's graphics engine to produce fur.


That's right. Fur.

Finally, as well as your phong shading over your polygons, you now get to have fuzzy characters. It reads like standard Microsoft PR garbage, but if you anticipate purchasing an Xbox, perhaps you wish to have a look at the article at:
http://www.research.microsoft.com/graphics/realtime_fur.asp.

Anthrocon finished up today, after a very successful weekend. Total paid attendance for the weekend was 1457 people--a confirmed number, straight from the head of Anthrocon registration. I will have a full report in a couple of days.

There's a brand new family-friendly furry RPG and chat club for nonmorphic furry fans interested in roleplaying the Pleistocene (aka "Stone Age") epoch: Paleofurs RPG :)

Micah's Note: Looks like a mailing-list/BBS style game.

In the language of the pacific northwest Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, the name for mountain goat translates as "our-brother-the-color-of-snow." Now the 200-member tribe is fighting to save its brother from the brink of extinction.

Click "Read more..." for more details and the link.

Never really thought about how quickly dinosaurs must have grown, given their size... the recent Nature had an article on the growth rate of dinosaurs, which is summarized in this Yahoo newsbit. Apparently they didn't grow at the same rate that modern reptiles do.

Locus online reports that Fred Marcellino, the author and illustrator of the award-winning children's book I, Crocodile died July 12. He was 61. He was a freelance designer who many say changed the way modern book covers are designed. His most famous cover painting is probably the cover for Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. He designed the covers for a large number of fantasy and children's books, illustrated many children's books, and wrote and illustrated a number of his own.

Some of you might remember Tad William's charming novel, Tailchaser's Song about a cat out to save the world... or maybe you've picked up some of his later work, the fantasy about Osten Ard (the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series), or the Otherland books. It looks like Williams is jumping into online fiction experimentation with his website Shadowmarch. He plans to allow subscriptions soon, but in essence it's a pay-if-you-like-it fantasy serial. The author has significant plans for the site, outlined in the 'About' section. I think it's cool to see successful authors trying out the online fiction models... someone's going to have to, in order to find a way that works.

While I wouldn't normally post a random website for consideration on Flayrah, I thought it was just cause in this case... some of you might remember Tracy Butler's furry work from Yerf, and how she vanished off the face of the earth for about a year. She finally has a working website, Ainessa. Go check out her newer stuff (her updated human versions of her story characters are simply astonishing). Also among the 'I was recently resurrected and breathed the breath of life on my website' set was Aimee Majors, whose site remains in its Christmas configuration, but finally sports some news updates and additional art.

I'm off to Anthrocon for the next few days. I may check in briefly, I may not. A few things before I go.