That was the 1500th post. That seems utterly ridiculous.
SF Authors Say Smart Things: KSR on climate & social justice
Does the word postcapitalism look odd to you? It should, because you hardly ever see it. We have a blank spot in our vision of the future. Perhaps we think that history has somehow gone away. In fact, history is with us now more than ever, because we are at a crux in the human story. That’s from the conclusion… Read more →
The Latest Addition
The latest addition the collection of stuff hanging around my house: a signed print of Wondermark #442: In which Beth keeps her Books, which I have had framed, and which is now hanging on the door to my office/libraryCan I coin a new word for that? I mean I could just use study, but that’s kind of fusty. How about… Read more →
Aside
The Vampire of Venice. A true story, courtesy of the BBC.
A capsule review
most of it is such a carbon copy of the book that some of what alan’s saying gets across by accident. it’s kind of like someone with no sense of humour retelling a joke he heard once. some lines are taken out of context and you remember them from the book so you KNOW they’re a good line, you KNOW… Read more →
Ouch, my aesthetic sensibilities!
Courtesy of Andrew Wheeler, I bring you my new choice for dramatic readings, narrowly edging out me previous preference for reading passages from the Book Of Revelations with a hammy Southern Baptist preacher delivery. I’m not sure yet what voice to use to give the text the presentation it deserves. The text follows after the jump. Read more →
Sunday Night, Not Too Serious
I’m just closing some tabs here as I’m watching the adaptation of Choke. It’s actually a pretty good adaptation. Or maybe it’s just Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston carrying it. Anyway, on to the tabs–nothing too deep tonight: I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear that Sarah Palin’s daughter and her hockey player fiancee have broken up. I… Read more →
Cheney’s Assassination Bureau
You’ve probably seen the story by now: Hersh replied, “After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet.” Hersh then went on to describe a second… Read more →
Apostates running the temple
“There are too many long-winded articles, there’s no search engines and worst of all they get ink on your fingers.” If you thought Irvine’s commentary on half of the people studying the writing of fiction not being people who read for pleasure was bitterly amusing, this story should crack you up. Read more →
The appropriate response to their garbage
I tip my hat to the students of the University of Chicago, who nicely illustrate the appropriate response to the Westboro Baptist Church: mockery. They were accompanied down the street by a group of students mocking the WBC’s message. The students held a sign reading “Figs Doom Nations” and planted themselves across the street from the WBC, drawing from a… Read more →
SF Writers Say Smart Things: Irvine On Literary Taste
We have very nearly succeeded in turning reading–that most active of cultural activities–into a passive extension of mass media. Alex Irvine takes a quick swing at the kind of literature produced when about half of potential writers don’t read for pleasure. I actually wanted to quote the whole second paragraph, but since the post was only two paragraphs long, that… Read more →
Not just a sappy Dad post
There you see Sarah receiving her first belt at her taekwondo class. The final part of her belt test involved kicking through a board. I expected it to be some kind of styrofoam or balsa or something–she’s only four years old after all. But no, it was a pine plank, and a decently thick one. Witness: I’m insanely proud of… Read more →
Eight links make a post
And now, for another exciting post of links and short comments: I’ve always been aware of having been gifted with a pretty powerful attention span. I have always kind of assumed it came from becoming a reader at a very young age, but I guess it’s equally plausible that things are actually ordered the other way and my resistance to… Read more →
Aside
I just received the strangest phone call.
I answered and a recording told me that I had received a text message from a Rogers Wireless subscriber. Then recording then ended and a text-to-speech system read out the content of the message. Apparently Rogers hasn’t invested heavily in TTS, since the message sounded like SAM reading text on my Commodore in the 80s, but that only made the whole thing weirder.
The content of the message?
“The power of Christ compels you. The power of Christ compels you. The power of Christ compels you. The power of Christ compels you.”
You can see it everywhere you look: people just ain’t no good
Hmm… A study by the Ponemon Institute found that more than 59 percent of those surveyed kept corporate data after leaving their jobs. The survey, which was sponsored by Symantec, included responses from 945 adult employees who had lost or left a job in 2008. The most commonly stolen pieces of information were e-mail lists and non-financial business information, taken… Read more →
