I can’t believe this list was written 35 years ago. I mean, I wasn’t even born yet, and every item on that list is still 100% on the money. You don’t expect anything to resist obsolescence for that long in a field like computer science. We’re in a major design phase at work right now, and I think I shall… Read more →
Author: Mr. McLaren
Does rejecting God make for a dreary world? Hell no!
Quoting from the When God is gone, everything is holy post at Science Musings: Once we reject the absolute truth of one thing, whatever it might be — God, a holy book, a law of nature — then everything, even the smallest element of reality — an insect, a leaf, a grain of sand — becomes infinitely interesting. The physicist… Read more →
Hanging Around The House 5: Dining Room
Continuing the series of posts that try to capture the various pieces of art I have hanging around the house. Remember that these posts are made up of quick snapshots–these are hardly professional images, and the upstairs images are worse than the downstairs ones since the angles I could use to take the snapshots are much more highly constrained. The… Read more →
46% of Americans “not too bright”
So, just to review: Adminstration fabricates evidence and knowingly misleads the country into a way: OK Administration tramples civil rights several ways: That’s fine Administration’s crazy war kills 1000s of Americans and 1000000s of brown people: No problem Supposedly ‘conservative’ Administration cuts taxes and raises spending to result in record deficits even though they started with record surplus: Sure Administration… Read more →
I am an uncle!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Ryan James Turnbull, Day One: (Have I mentioned how much I love living in the future? He’s around 2000km from here, but we can see him immediately. Awesome.) Read more →
Professor Membrane’s Science Roundup
I really love the idea that Titan has seas of sand. It’s so ‘pulp science fiction’. You can totally imagine some John Carter analogue, riding some kind of beast adapted to the thicker atmosphere and lower gravity (not to mention temperature!) across the dunes of Titan’s Sea of Shifting Sands. Yay also for the fact that Titan’s winds are apparently… Read more →
Recommended Reading (??): Lost Girls
Well, it looks like Lost Girls is finally going to be a published reality. As you could imagine, if you know me IRL, or if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, I’m kind of a big ole’ drooling Alan Moore fanboy, so a new 240 pages graphic novel from him is a cause for some celebtration–especially… Read more →
Hanging Around The House 4: Upstairs Foyer
Continuing the series of posts that try to capture the various pieces of art I have hanging around the house. Remember that these posts are made up of quick snapshots–these are hardly professional images, and the upstairs images are worse than the downstairs ones since the angles I could use to take the snapshots are much more highly constrained. The… Read more →
Ultimate x 2
“Say that I was foolish/Say that I was blind/Never say that I got left behind” I saw the nerd apotheosis of Flash animation today: The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. Batman! Godzilla! Zombie Lincoln! And then it starts to get really good. When I started to spread the word I found out that this actually circulated a couple of months… Read more →
I am not making this up
Please go read this Reuters article: Fortune-telling judge couldn’t see it coming. There’s something funny in every paragraph. Actually, you know what, I’m going to do a commentary. Here’s the first paragraph. I challenge you to read it aloud with a straight face: A Philippine judge who claimed he could see into the future and admitted consulting imaginary mystic dwarfs… Read more →
…they all have a way of beginning in Lankhmar.
So, did you see that Dark Horse is planning to reprint the Lanhkmar books? And reprint the old Epic comic adaptations? And that they have the movie license? And that they’re going to do some comic adaptations? You can see how this came about: First, they are having a (surprising) success with the Conan comics, and they are actively searching… Read more →
Recommended Reading: Man Walks Into A Pub
Well, this will be a dramatically different kind of book recommendation from the last one. (Although I guess there is a tenuous sequitor, since Jeff Ford has been known to enjoy a beer.) I also wanted to take a moment to recommend to everyone the book that is currently my downstairs bathroom book: Pete Brown’s Man Walks Into A Pub:… Read more →
Recommended Reading: Empire Of Ice Cream
A lovely large box of books arrived on Friday, and amongst them was one I was terribly anxious for: The Empire of Ice Cream, the new short story collection by Jeffrey Ford. It might be a bit early, but I think I’m prepared to make the call that this will be the short story collection of the year.At some point… Read more →
Reaction Shots
Laughing: as Christopher Rowe does a 70s-cop-flying-tackle citizen’s arrest of Sentator Bill Frist for possession of Latin. Confused: at why Donna Martin is in a movie called Cthulhu. Why not just call it “Shadow Over Riversmouth”? Sad: upon hearing of the death of John Kenneth Galbraith. Awed: at the size of Stephen Colbert’s balls. Pleased: to see local comic retailer,… Read more →
Science Fiction Authors Say Smart Things: Sean Stewart
From the introductory page at Sean’s website: Art is fundamentally embarrassing. It requires you to expose how you truly feel. It demands that you admit the things that make you laugh and cry, that scare you or turn you on. And when you do that, there will always be people to tell you you’re sentimental, or perverse, or over-intellectual, or… Read more →
