Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 3,174 entries, all of them here in full.
September 20, 2009 · 214 words
I Knew It!
Melting polar icecaps are exposing hundreds of secret lairs!ZACKENBERG RESEARCH STATION, GREENLAND—Claiming it to be one of the most dramatic and visible signs of climate change to date, researchers said Monday that receding polar ice caps have revealed nearly 200 clandestine lairs once buried deep beneath hundreds of
Read entry →September 20, 2009 · 109 words
Deep Cover Monopoly
During the Second World War, maps and tools were smuggled to Allied POW’s inside copies of the Monopoly game. The British secret service conspired with the U.K. manufacturer to stuff a compass, small metal tools, such as files, and, most importantly, a map, into cut-out compartments in the Monopoly board itself. “It wa
Read entry →September 19, 2009 · 996 words
Market Garden
John Appel reminded me that today is the one day when I count count on my dad having a hangover.My father was a two-vodka-martini-before-dinner kind of drinker, at least until later in life when he realized he could save money by skipping the vermouth entirely. He rarely got hammered, but he always got hammered on [&he
Read entry →September 17, 2009 · 103 words
Saturn’s Towers
The Cassini spacecraft has discovered giant structures towering in Saturn’s rings. (The spike on the picture is the structure’s shadow, not the structure itself.) In recent weeks, Cassini’s cameras have spotted not only the predictable shadows of some of Saturn’s moons, but also the shadows of newly revealed vertical s
Read entry →September 16, 2009 · 1,108 words
Judicial Humor
A judge in Georgia has dismissed as frivolous the case of Captain Doctor Connie Rhodes, who asked to be excused duty in Iraq on the grounds that President Obama is not a U.S. citizen and lacked the authority to order her deployment. Whew! The Republic is saved, yet again. But what was really terrific was […]
Read entry →September 16, 2009 · 499 words
Successful Moon Landing Test = $1Million.
Someone has qualified for the Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. (Small steps, but still worth a million bucks.)Armadillo Aerospace qualified to win a million dollars of NASA’s money today by accomplishing a rocket-powered round trip modeled after a moon landing. The team’s remote-controlled Scorpius rocket (form
Read entry →September 15, 2009 · 298 words
Heir of Skanderbeg!
So it turns out that my wife, at least on her mom’s side, is a descendant of Albanian patriots and heroes. Who knew? The person who knew was her cousin Jan, who was one of our dinner guests the other night, and who brought with her a history of the Italian Albanians, otherwise known as […]
Read entry →September 14, 2009 · 122 words
Got Euros . . . ?
Here we see pictures from the catalog of Dumont, one of my German publishers. This Is Not a Game got a four-page spread in the middle of the catalog! (Michelle Houellebecq, John Cheever, and Haruki Murakami only got two pages each!) For a minute there, I thought they were going to keep the US title, […]
Read entry →September 14, 2009 · 86 words
748
Lovely dinner party Saturday night, with seven people. We had linguini with Kathy’s freshly-made pesto; caprici salad with basil, fresh mozzarella, and heirloom tomatoes from the farmers’ market; and roast chicken coated with rosemary, garlic, and balsamic vinegar, with a red wine reduction sauce. Dessert was Nadine’s
Read entry →September 12, 2009 · 203 words
Technology Kicks Me in the Butt, Yet Again
For my current project, I invented some cool drone aircraft. Then reality went and invented something even cooler. I refer to the Maveric UAS, made by Prioria Robotics. This little drone can be carried by a single person, folded up in a six-inch tube, then thrown in the air to see what’s over the next […]
Read entry →September 12, 2009 · 177 words
Baby-Eating Birds
[from Brad Smith] A giant New Zealand eagle, extinct now for 500 years, may have snacked on human babies.In a paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, scientists make the case that an extinct giant predatory eagle might have been eating children. The eagle was not a scavenger, as some believed, but a
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