The journal

August 20, 2010 · 48 words

Talking About Jack

Fred Pohl, whose blog features many stories of the dawn of science fiction and fandom, has begun a series of posts on his blog about Jack Williamson. I note they’re titled “Jack the Wonderful Williamson,” and I can’t fault Fred’s choice of words. The story starts here.

August 19, 2010 · 472 words

Gatsby: the Prequel

I just watched the first few episodes of Season Six of Entourage, which features the premiere of Vinnie Chase’s new movie, The Great Gatsby, directed by Martin Scorsese. I am unclear whether Vinnie is playing Gatsby or Nick Carraway. (I sure as hell can’t see him as Gatsby.) In fact I can’t really see anyone […]

August 17, 2010 · 41 words

Catchy Tune

Thanks to Patricia, I discovered this video, the title of which is too hot to print. So here it is, in honor of Ray Bradbury’s 9oth birthday. I think it conclusively demonstrates that Ray hasn’t gotten older, he’s gotten hotter.

August 17, 2010 · 68 words

Värttinä

Sage Walker and I used to call this band “the teenage Finnish witches,” for all that they haven’t been teenagers for a while now. While they’re not teenagers, they’re still pretty witchy. And come to that, Teenage Finnish Witches would be a good name for a band. My paternal grandmother, by the way, was an […]

August 17, 2010 · 775 words

Beware the Knife

[via Jen] Nanex, a market data firm, has discovered a host of mystery bots making gazillions of trades on the nation’s stock exchanges. The trading bots visualized in the stock charts in this story aren’t doing anything that could be construed to help the market. Unknown entities for unknown reasons are sending thousan

August 14, 2010 · 11 words

It’s, Like, Cthulhu. Totally.

The Call of Cthulhu in, like, under two minutes. (via Corie)

August 14, 2010 · 45 words

Cute Little Lamb Gone to Heaven

Tonight’s dinner: basmati rice, raita made with fresh garden cucumbers and tomatoes, spicy Indian lamb roast in a sauce made from yogurt, chiles, sweet garlic, sultanas, coriander, and cumin. The lamb was amazingly tender. Not that I’m responsible for that feature of the meal, particularly.

August 14, 2010 · 287 words

Star Crunching

A rare “disrupted binary pulsar” has been discovered by three amateur scientists using their home computers. The discoverers, from the US and Germany found the object with the help of the Einstein@Home project. It asks users to donate time on their computers, allowing them to be used for searching through scientific da

August 11, 2010 · 0 words

I’d Like to Return This Translation Program, Please

August 11, 2010 · 558 words

Doom. And, While We’re At It, Doom.

Friend of the blog Foxessa pointed me at an article about our floundering recovery from Paul Krugman. The lights are going out all over America — literally. Colorado Springs has made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or

August 11, 2010 · 6 words

My New Hero

My new hero’s name is Jenny.

August 10, 2010 · 690 words

Deep Culture

It has to be said we had a deeply cultured and civilized weekend. Saturday afternoon I went to the world premiere of a locally-made low-budget Western called The Righteous and the Wicked. (This was not the civilized part.) It featured a number of local actors, some of whom I know, and was made for a […]