OK, maybe also for George. I have a Pavlovian reaction to this music, in almost every variation. My wife has an equally strong, but entirely opposite, reaction. Read more →
Month: June 2007
A Wednesday Miscellany
For some reason I’ve been on a things-in-space-with-cool-pictures kick this week, so why stop now? Here’s a picture of the aurora australis, as seen from Antarctica: That’s one of two images from a post at Canadian hard-SF author Peter Watts‘ blog. Read the post for a higher resolution version, another picture, and a very disturbing mental image. Of course there… Read more →
I expected nothing less
This tiny blog cliche via the R-rated Justine and just-as-risque-as-me Gwenda. The words used to determine this rating CRACK ME UP. For the record they are: “dead”, “drugs”, “death”, “sex”, and “dangerous”. Running the rating routine on various monthly archives of this site generates wildly varying results. Apparently I am remarkably inconsistent in my usage of the “adult” keywords. Heh. Read more →
Banjos playing through the broken glass
I love Harper’s. I suspect I’ve read every issue published since I was about fourteen. And their online presence is also pretty nice. So obviously I eventually got around to the piece this week on Justice in Alabama. It’s worth a read, if only to make you ask Mr. Young’s question “What are you doing Alabama? You got the rest… Read more →
The great paperback giveaway, part 2
More boxes of books repacked, with similar results: Same rules as last time (and some of those are still available for another week as well). Whatever is not claimed by mid-July will go some other way. I’m leaning toward donating them to the hospital library at this point. Post your requests, don’t email me–that way I won’t forget what you… Read more →
Professor Membrane On: A Dead Supernova
“It’s time to move on, son! Real science… try it!” It’d dead. Dead, I tell you. Bad Astronomy drew my attention to the Eta Carinae stuff at Harvard’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory site. The Chandra site says this: Eta Carinae is a mysterious, extremely bright and unstable star located a mere stone’s throw – astronomically speaking – from Earth at a… Read more →
Hanging Around The House: Latest Updates
I spent a fair bit of time last year trying to document the kinds of stuff I have hanging up around the house. I’ve made a couple of changes recently and I figured I might as well log the update here as well. The first set of updates is the addition of my recent set of Michel Gagné prints. I… Read more →
Professor Membrane Spotlight On: The Millennium Simulation
“Hooray for science!” Today we’re talking about the Millennium Simulation. I know this is an old story, dating as it does to 2005, but it’s got three different angles that appeal to my inner science geek plus a little something extra. You could start by reading a summary, or the Guardian article about the project, to get an idea of… Read more →
The great paperback giveaway, part 1
So, I have 12 boxes of paperback books in my back room, that I haven’t unpacked in the six years since the move. The primary reason here is that I’ve never built enough shelving to catch up to my hardcover books, and thus have never had shelving for the paperbacks. Well, OK, the primary reason is that I am World… Read more →
I never thought I’d see this in the National Post
For non-Canadians, here’s just a little bit of context about our “also ran” national newspaper, in the form of a few quotes from from the Wikipedia article on it: The Post was founded in 1998 by Conrad Black to combat what he believed was an “over-liberalizing” of editorial policy in Canadian newspapers Its editorial page featured the opinions of well-known… Read more →
Graph says it all
Note the time window there: that’s 20 years, not hundreds. (The information & content at the parent site, the Corporate Accountability Project, has a pretty high sensible-to-crazy ratioAlthough there is still some stuff there that is far enough to the left of me that I think it’s crazy–and I’m pretty far left. But hey, there should be people out there… Read more →
Dadhood
This is the first Father’s Day when my (2-year old) daughter understood the concept of the day. She gave me a present she made herself. I try to keep most of my “I am the sappy Dad” stuff off this blog, but I’ve got to tell you that having Sarah so excited to give me a Father’s Day present was… Read more →
A little miscellany
This headline made me laugh. I often wonder if headline writers do this on purpose, as McDonald suggests, or not. I find this face averaging tool fascinating. It’s one thing to pick a few attractive faces, average them, and see that the resulting face is more attractive than the majority of source faces, but it’s a whole other thing to… Read more →
How much civil disobedience can you buy for $7.63?
The politeness of this letter is in no way commensurate with the amount of swearing that the precipitating incident invoked: June 11, 2007 RE: Inventory Number LC XXX XXX XXXUS CBSA Casual Refund Centre 1583 Hollis Street Halifax NS B3J 1V4 Dear Madam or Sir: Today I received a package on which I believe an incorrect value for duty was… Read more →
We are living in the future
OK, first the good bit: Right now, today, I can order a programmable T-shirt. (Link from Fred). Sure, it’s only one-colour, and simple stuff right now, but the step from “no programmable clothes” to “simple programmable clothes” is a lot bigger than the step from “simple programmable clothes” to “tricked out programmable clothes”. I can’t stop thinking about this. I… Read more →
