Archive for June, 2009

Old John D. Knew A Thing Or Two

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

A parade is a group, and I’m not a group animal. I think a mob, no matter what it happens to be doing, is the lowest form of living thing, always steaming with potential murder. Several things I could write on my placard and then carry it all by myself down empty streets.
UP WITH [...]

Posted in Books, Smart Things | No Comments »

The why of your eye, and the tricking of it also

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

This week when I was picking up comics at the shop, my daughter talked me into buying Jay Hosler’s latest science comic, Optical Allusions, to read with her. This was a pretty easy sell, considering my previous enjoyment of Hosler’s Clan Apis and Sandwalk Adventures (both of which, it occurs to me just now, are [...]

Posted in Books, Science and Technology | No Comments »

A Monday Night Gallimaufry

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Let’s see if we can close some of the myriad tabs I’ve opened in the process of trying to catch up with everything that happened in the non-work world while I was off spending time at the Melbourne office:

I’m quite impressed at the 16-year old (from the city where I did my university days) who [...]

Posted in Linkapalooza | No Comments »

That’s The Problem.

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

I will have more to say about this when I’m not about to start a 24-hour flight around more than half the world, but I just want to nail down this quote from Clay Shirky talking about Iran/Twitter/etc:
Absolutely. I’ve been saying this for a while — as a medium gets faster, it gets more emotional. [...]

Posted in Head-Explodes | 1 Comment »

Language and the Shaping Of Thought

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

While I was doing my undergraduate studies, in addition to my Engineering degree, and my minor in Philosophy, I also pursed a number of “options”, notably including an option in Cognitive Studies. Both the mechanics of thinking and the philosophy of cognition and identity were (and remain) of great interest to me.1
One of the topics [...]

Posted in Science and Technology | 2 Comments »

June 16, 2009 9:55 pm

It’s just vanishingly possible I’ve mentioned my appreciation for Scott Morse’s art on the blog in the past. Given that I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that he’s doing a crazy online comic called The Shogunaut, which he’s been updating regularly. He’s up to 25 pages as I type this, and will likelly complete it soon. It’s kind of a Jack Kirby-meets-Maurice-Noble thing–perhaps not for most people, but if it’s the kind of thing you like, it’s really the kind of thing you’ll like.

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June 16, 2009 7:52 pm

While I’m mildly interested in the medical issues surrounding tire dust and latex allergies that Peter Montague raises in his piece “Tire Dust“, I’m much more interested in the history of automotive cabals explicitly destroying electric public transit, as that’s something I was previously unfamiliar with (and frankly, from this one source I don’t have enough to know if it’s something that can be tarred with the “conspiracy theory” brush, despite having footnotes ). Certainly the idea that Los Angeles was once a paragon of clean public transit, and ended up how it did by conscious planning, not by chance, is something that I’m going to have to look into.

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Now I’m Going To Have To Reread The Prince

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

I heard quite a lot–references and allusions–about Machiavelli during my early teen years, and that lead me to get around to reading The Prince at some point during my time living in Switzerland–I was 16 at the time.
I remember being impressed and amused by the book, and by what I knew about how it connected [...]

Posted in Books, Political | 2 Comments »

June 15, 2009 11:31 pm

Well, the wikipedia cop jargon entry is a bit on the dry side… but I did find a lovely guide to some UK cop slang. My favourite is probably ‘not carnival related’.

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Medical Slang Amuses

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Sometimes you just need to read random Wikipedia entries to find things that will educate, entertain, or amuse you. I’m not going to make any kind of statement about Wikipedia as a citeable reference, but damn there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s worth reading anyway.
Today’s example: the article on medical slang. It nicely [...]

Posted in One-and-done | No Comments »

What I Did On My Summer Vacation, By Chris McLaren, Age 36

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

I’ve been away from the Internet, and this blog specifically, a bit lately, and so I thought I’d give you a little photographic taste of what I’ve been up to. (Click on through if you’re interested.)

Posted in Storytime | 2 Comments »

June 3, 2009 12:19 am

So, it seems Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Jane Yolen (it might be more than 5 now–I don’t keep track) is doing a YA graphic novel with comics publisher Dark Horse. I think this will be her 10,576th (this is a rough figure) published work. And it’s certainly something I’ll be picking up and reading with my daughter.

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The future’s not what it used to be

Monday, June 1st, 2009

In catching up with my RSS reader, I see that everyone and his brother is pointing me to that CNN “where’s my jetpack” article.
The article didn’t really interest me, but it does touch on some “man, the future of the past isn’t what it used to be thoughts” I’d been having at while at Disneyland–specifically, [...]

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