I noticed on Walter Jon Williams’ blog that there seems to be a meme going around about quickly listing 15 books that you think will always be with you. Williams suggests actually modifying the meme by taking some time to think, which is an idea that appeals to me.
In some senses it’s ludicrous–I just had [...]
Posted in Books | 2 Comments »
When I consider the solar system as our working neighborhood, I am reminded not of “the final frontier,” but of Antarctica. Our Antarctic stations are a bit like moon bases that we can reach with airplanes. We staff them with rotating crews, and carry out interesting and useful research, but fully inhabiting the ice is [...]
Posted in Smart Things | No Comments »
Have you taken a moment to add your name to the 2011 Mars mission?
I did, and I can prove it.
I partly did because hey, it’s Mars, and partly because one of my poker group works on the Mars Rover. I can get a lot of comedy out of “my participation” in the project. Sure, he [...]
Posted in One-and-done, Science and Technology | No Comments »
Are you familiar with GapMinder? It’s a great resource for visualization of all kinds of interesting data.
One particular visualization that I’ve been thinking about lately is this presentation of life expectancy, average income, and population for several countries over time. It tells a primarily positive story about what’s been happening in the world over the [...]
Posted in One-and-done, Political | No Comments »
No, I’m not talking about Emma Bull’s 1994 novel Finder–although I think you should go read that too, and all the other Borderlands stuff.
I’m talking about Carla Speed McNeil’s comic Finder.
Why should you read it, you might ask?
Well, I think it’s one of the best straight up science fiction comics out there, and I’ve been [...]
Posted in Books, Reviews | No Comments »
Normally you’d expect to visit an article titled 15 Ugliest Products Ever in order to have a bit of a drive-by laugh at what some people think is tasteful or interesting or whatever. Ugly is a subjective judgement, after all, but you do expect to be able to pretty well mock anything that someone is [...]
Posted in One-and-done | No Comments »
Of all the people with whom I’ve had in person discussions about the plague that is PowerPoint, no one is as vociferous in their denigration of that application, and the kinds of thinking and communication it encourages than I1 am.
Thus, it is somewhat rewarding to see more and more articles that seem to be trying [...]
Posted in Science and Technology | 4 Comments »
So, because of the recently discovered vulnerability in DD-WRT, I figured it was time to update the firmware on my router.
Yes, I know that since I don’t allow remote configuration of the router I was somewhat protected from the threat, but I was due for an upgrade anyway.
However, I do have to ask myself [...]
Posted in General | 1 Comment »
As a child–I think around 8 or so–I once got booted out of Sunday school for “disrupting the class” with a series of “outspoken incidents”. What actually happened, at least as I remember it now, was that I was politely but firmly asking the teacher a number of questions she found inconvenient about the material [...]
Posted in General | No Comments »
I just found out today that our local free weekly was running a charity contest as an eBay auction. The winner would get to give the command to fire the Citadel’s noon gun while in period costume, among other things. I would have totally bid fairly highly on that–it would have been hilarious, especially as [...]
Posted in Storytime | No Comments »
One of my standing gags when talking foreign policy to Americans (and I by no means think this is exclusively mine–it’s the kind of joke that’s just obvious) has to do with the difference in diplomatic styles between the countries. Americans, of course, tend to us a lot of guns and a bit of butter, [...]
Posted in Political | No Comments »
Generally speaking I appreciate black humour. Generally speaking I get that especially dry, uniquely British style of humour. Generally speaking any book that’s described as witty, much less as “a masterpiece of wit”, is right up my alley. Generally a book that makes excellent use of metaphoric commentary to satirize and skewer political systems, the [...]
Posted in Books, Reviews | No Comments »
I’ve been watching, but staying out of, the debate around the US health care system and how it will change.
What I don’t understand are the people who resist full insurance because they have good benefits now through work, and don’t see the need to pay for other people’s benefits.
I first don’t understand it because [...]
Posted in Political | 1 Comment »
OpenCulture has some interesting (and free) philosophy stuff to listen to. I love this kind of stuff, and it transforms time in the car alone from a chore1 into a chance to stretch your head. That’s always good.
Back in the early days of my road tripping I used to work my way through The Teaching [...]
Posted in Storytime | No Comments »
One of the things I’m interested in generally is the notion of augmented or mediated reality–everything from simple HUD overlays to the kind of stuff Karl Schroeder so excellent explored in Lady Of Mazes. Some of the ideas that were clearly science fiction just a little while ago are turning into real street level science [...]
Posted in Science and Technology | No Comments »
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