Archive for August, 2005

Stagger On, Weary Titan

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

There was a fascinating piece in the Guardian earlier this week, which was brought to my attention by one of my Evil Genius pals. (I’m linking the title below to Common Dreams, since they sometimes keep things accessible in the long term better than the source papers):

Stagger On, Weary Titan
The US is reeling, like imperial [...]

Baby Blog Week: Last One

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005

Quoting now from an email Trish sent me this morning, after Sarah went to her one year doctor’s appointment:
Sarah had her one-year appointment this morning. I don’t have the exact measurements with me, but she’s 90th percentile for height, 75th for weight, and well over 100th for head circumference. She had three needles, [...]

Baby Blog Week: No fear

Monday, August 22nd, 2005

Birthday crisis over. All is good. Regular blogging to resume now.

Baby Blog Week: As promised…

Friday, August 19th, 2005

The cover of next month’s Bad Parenting Monthly, with feature article “Ponyfear!”:

(Actually, in this photo, the pony doesn’t look exactly chuffed either, does he?)

Baby Blog Week: The fastest year ever

Thursday, August 18th, 2005

Sarah Kathleen McLaren is one year old today.
Damn.
That was the fastest year ever. It’s definitely one of those “seems like it was just 10 minutes ago, but also seems like it was so long ago I don’t remember life before that” situations.
For the record, at age 1, she is awesome.
I bought her a couple of [...]

How I Spent My Friday Night

Sunday, August 14th, 2005

So, we had another poker tournament at “the Drake” this Friday. I was quite excited since this would be the premiere of my custom Cthulhu chips, which had just arrived on Thursday. Here’s a shot of my new chips (which, like all the images in this post, is a link to a larger image):

<Insert your [...]

Silly Talk about Philosophy

Thursday, August 11th, 2005

In response to a thread where scientists discuss silly things that non-scientists have said to them, a similar thread has sprung up where philosophers have the same kind of discusstion.
Reading through this really amused me, especially the places where the “public” (which might be best read as “non-academic” but also including “non-amateur philosophers”) [...]

Bring it on Danielle

Monday, August 8th, 2005

My favourite post in the blogosphere today.
Here’s a little bit for you:
You, dear mechanic, proceeded to tell me that the knock sensor was wearing out, and needed to be replaced, to the tune of $250. I immediately called BULLSHIT on that, and asked you to check my extended warranty. When you told me that my [...]

If he’s right it will radically alter my marriage…

Monday, August 8th, 2005

Everyone should be checking out the Long Bets web site, a portal designed to deal with predictions that stretch significantly into the future. You can vote on the predictions, discuss them, or challenge the predictor to actually bet on their prediction.
There are some very interesting things being discussed here, and everyone with a science fiction [...]

Speaking back to Power

Monday, August 8th, 2005

You know, now that I’m a parent I think I’m supposed to be changing my attitudes about the appropriate response to Authority. Happily, that doesn’t seem to be happening, and I still seem to think that the more Authority is asserted, the more the correct response becomes mockery.
(Here’s my intellectual pretension for the day: [...]

United States Homeland Security network monitors suspicious activity

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005

Man, so many things to say about this item in today’s Wikinews.
Instead of trying to write something clear and sensible (I’ve slept about 5 hours since Monday) I’m just going to pull quotes from the article and comment on them.
“The secret network is a component of the HSIN, which is the primary conduit for DHS [...]

Car Mix July 2005

Monday, August 1st, 2005

The fact that my car is awesomely set up for listening to my (apparently discontinued) portable MP3 player (on which I may post more later) means that 99% of the time when I am driving I am not making use of my car stereo as anything other than a way to route sound to my [...]