I would like to write about last night’s movie night. However, I’m not sure I can. I’m still laughing when I think about it. Let’s just say this: “The act of death has caused another life to be reborn. Together we share the wonder of human existence, and let there be no doubt that all of us are brothers. There… Read more →
Year: 2006
Mad Russians
I think of vodka as a serious drinker’s drink. Not a “serious drinker” as in “someone who knows how to live the good life, and likes to drink”, but rather “serious drinker” as in “views the beverage as a delivery system for sought-after oblivion”. This is likely due to the number of people in the service industries I have known… Read more →
An Early Saturday Miscellany
OK, I love this BBC story about some crazy plans the American military have had for “non-lethal” weapons. The US military investigated building a “gay bomb”, which would make enemy soldiers “sexually irresistible” to each other, government papers say. Other weapons that never saw the light of day include one to make soldiers obvious by their bad breath. Any guesses… Read more →
Scientists Say Smart Things, Too
I’ve referred to Professor Paul Myers, and his blog Pharyngula on more than one occasion here, and I’ve probably lifted uncredited links from him a few more times (“bad blogger, no Google juice for you”). I definitely read his stuff among the first things every day. Well, he’s the subject of the Science Friday interview today at Daily Kos. I… Read more →
SF authors say smart things (Part 3)
I could just as easily have titled this one “Looking forward to 2006”. Right now Bruce Sterling is having an online interactive discussion/seminar on the view for the year ahead over on The Well’s Inkwell.vue There are more than one places in the discussion already where Sterling is saying smart things, and the thread is still growing. Here’s an example:… Read more →
Looking back to 2005
I don’t really feel that sense of the end of something, and of something new beginning that we’re meant to feel at the start of a new year. I haven’t gone through any reflecting, and sizing up of 2005, because I don’t feel that usual sense of demarcation that the holiday season typically generates–I just feel each day as part… Read more →
H.G.P.A.
Have you noticed I talk a lot on this blog about my weekly poker game? This is some more of that–I should make a category for this so people can skip these posts if they don’t care. What you’re looking at there is a scan of some playing cards featuring the crest & slogan of the Halifax Gentlemen’s Poker Association… Read more →
SF authors say smart things (Part 2)
Responding on his message-board-cum-blog to a question about writing and “staying in the moment” Christopher Moore (whom I’ve mentioned here before) goes on at length about Buddhist concepts and their relation to the arts. Here’s the nub of what he says: In my studies I ran across an interview with Wynton Marsalis, wherein he compares Jazz to Sumi-e. What he… Read more →
SF authors say smart things (Part 1)
I’ve been doing a lot of talking about how silly “Intelligent Design” theory is, but deep thinking SF writer Karl Schroeder has pointed out that I (and a whole bunch of other folks, including almost everyone more optimistic about humanity than I am) may have been guilty of making the same mistake in the other direction: The idea that organisms… Read more →
Understanding my weekly game
I’ve always been interested in the idea of information visualization–that there are better ways to present information than the simple ones we always use. In fact, I once wrote a university paper on things that were experimental at the time, like transparently overlaid GIS information, etc. In this spirit, I present the eight other players in my weekly poker game,… Read more →
100 things we didn’t know this time last year
Each week BBC’s “the Magazine” picks out snippets from the news, and compiles them into 10 Things We Didn’t Know This Time Last Week list. They’ve put the lists from 2005 together and made a master list of 100 things we didn’t know this time last year. Here’s a couple of snippets to encourage you to click through: 8. Devout… Read more →
US government warns it’s running out of cash
OK, let’s just quickly check out the article: US government warns it’s running out of cash Treasury Secretary John Snow has warned that unless Congress raises the national debt limit, the US government will run out of cash to finance its daily work in two months. In a letter to Senate leaders Thursday, Snow said the statutory debt limit imposed… Read more →
