Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 3,176 entries, all of them here in full.
September 8, 2007 · 124 words
Why Men?
“Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women asmen.“I think this difference is the single most underappreciated fact about gender. To get that kind of difference, you had to have something like, throughout the entire history of the human race, maybe 80% of women but only 40% of men reproduced. “ So h
Read entry →September 8, 2007 · 145 words
Strike in Second Life
IBM employees are going on strike in Second Life. During the talks to renew IBM’s Italian internal collectiveagreement, the works council, supported by the majority of IBM Italy employees, asked for a small salary increase. IBM responded by cancelling their “productive results benefit”, resulting in a loss of €1000 per
Read entry →September 7, 2007 · 61 words
Laboratory Supermen
“The feeble-minded and the man of intelligence should not be equal before the law.”High civilization is besieged by those possessed of inferior genetics! A heroic man of action and a brilliant scientist team up to find the secret of immortality, in order to create a super race!The time was the 1930s. The man of action
Read entry →September 5, 2007 · 108 words
Lucky Camera
According to this press release from the University of Cambridge, Lucky Imaging is now taking astronomical pictures that are clearer than those produced by Hubble, and at 1/50,000th the cost. The system uses ground-based cameras combined with inexpensive software. “These are the sharpest images ever taken either from t
Read entry →September 5, 2007 · 80 words
Rain, Thunder, Hail, Beef!
So here we find our soaked survivors of the Williams Lake hike. First me modeling the latest in plastic tabards. Note the flared shoulders, the tight bodice, the daring use of double vents. Next, we have Me, Pat, and Scott. Scott displays his Manly Stance. Thirdly, Williams Lake without the tourists. Picture the silenc
Read entry →September 4, 2007 · 745 words
Thunder, Lighting, Hail
The holiday weekend was full. On Friday night Kathy and I journeyed to Santa Fe for Carl’s birthday party. Next morning, following breakfast at Melinda’s of Lamy (eggs baked atop spinach, brie, havarti, and cream), we journeyed to Snow Bear at Taos Ski Valley for a weekend with our friends Pat and Scott. We drank [&hel
Read entry →August 31, 2007 · 530 words
$9 Billion Gone
” . . . in March 2004, your company magically wins a contract from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq to design and build the Baghdad Police College, a facility that’s supposed to house and train at least 4,000 police recruits. But two years and $72 million later, you deliver not a functioning police academy [
Read entry →August 31, 2007 · 334 words
Drugs for Uncle Sam
In my last post, I referenced drugs. Which are bad for you, right?Unless they’re good, patriotic drugs used to enhance our soldiers and disable— sorry, “calm”— our enemies. In which case they’re terrific drugs!Here’s an article from the Herald-Tribune on the militarization of medicine. “We could also see tr
Read entry →August 31, 2007 · 288 words
Drugs
So why is it that a couple of my favorite TV series are about drugs? The Wire is my current candidate for best dramatic series ever. Covering the entire spectrum of people concerned with the distribution and sale of narcotics (the cops, the gangsters, the courts, and the neighborhood), The Wire is essentially about poi
Read entry →