Whatever » From the “People This Lacking in Self-Awareness Really Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Speak in Public Ever Again” Files But, you know what, there’s “graduate from good schools and work hard in public service” elite, and then there’s “make millions in corporate America and marry into the family that owned the mortgage on Europe” elite. Those are two entirely… Read more →
Tag: smart things
SF Writers Say Smart Things: Memorial Day Edition
I guess I just think that the best way to honor the sacrifices of our veterans, and the service of our soldiers, and sailors, and marines and airmen, is to not ask them to be killed or maimed in a war we should never have started in the first place. To end the Russian Roulette of tour after tour after… Read more →
SF Authors Say Smart Things: John Shirley on ego
There’s a misunderstanding that the right-hand-path in spirituality, to use a short hand term, is about abasing or losing yourself or demolishing yourself. Not true at all. It’s simply about being in right relationship to the divine source of consciousness, and the Bodhisatvas who try to mitigate, and eventually end, the world’s suffering. But it’s not self annihilation. It’s more… Read more →
SF Writers Say Smart Things: Cory Doctorow on statistics and security
I often use the same example Cory uses here in discussing security issues at work: 99% effective means 10,000 failures over a million instances. Which in turn means that if you’re trying to detect a 1-in-a-million event, then you will get it 9999 false positives for every real event you detect–and at that rate, you will never find the actual… Read more →
Watts on Earth Hour
Some of my cynical thoughts on “Earth Hour” tonight are echoed, and then turned up to 11 by Canadian hard SF author, Peter Watts. Hundreds, maybe thousands of Torontonians will celebrate the event by climbing into their SUVs and driving out to Downsview Park, there to light candles in the darkness. The Eaton’s Center up at Yonge and Dundas is… Read more →
SF Writers Say Smart Things: Peter Watts
“But going after the Scientologists in a world full of Christians, Muslims, and Trekkies is like surveying a world ravaged by AIDS and devoting yourself to the eradication of the hangnail.” —Peter Watts Read more →
SF Authors Say Smart Things: Peter Watts
Most people acquire their beliefs through osmosis and observation, not investigation. We’d rather observe than derive. Raised in a society awash in certain ubiquitous beliefs, you tend to accept those beliefs without thinking. I think most people come to their faith in the same way they come to believe that not wearing a tie is “unprofessional office behaviour” Another in… Read more →
Quote of the Day: Peter Watts
And the audience was pretty damn appreciative, even if some of them had already heard my comparison of God to an invisible purple hamster who lives up my butt and tells me what to do. (source) Read more →
SF Authors (and editors) saying more smart things…
We’ll grab a couple of them today: Will Shetterly talking about Mormon underwear: Here’s one way to tell a faith from a racket: If it makes you think you’re better than everyone else, it’s a racket, not a faith. I kind of love that. It’s the answer to all the “One True Religion” and “Chose People of X” things that… Read more →
A bookish Sunday Miscellany
I’m not sure why, but for some reason book reviews written by authors whose work I like tend to carry more weight with me than reviews by almost anyone else. This is why I pay special attention to things like Paul Witcover‘s reviews at Realms of Fantasy and Sci Fi Weekly, or Norman Spinrad‘s review/essays in Asimov’s, etc. I was… Read more →
