The Worldcon program has been posted, but only as a giant, confusing PDF. I was getting cross-eyed trying to figure things out, so I ended up creating my own blank grid sheets, and making notes on those. The following is a by-no-means comprehensive list of things I think look interesting enough to attend. There are […]
Category: Movies
Philosophy of Science (Fiction)
As previously noted, I will be on programming at the upcoming Worldcon in Montreal, including moderating a panel at 10am Saturday with the following title and description: The Philosophy of Science To what extent does SF explore the meaning of science for scientists and create the ideas that our culture has of science? Panelists: Greer […]
Make the Hugos Better
Worldcon is less than two weeks off, which means that it’s time once again for the SF part of blogdom to explode with complaints about the quality of the nominees. There are some reasonable reactions, but it’s mostly slightly over-the-top broadsides. It’s worth emphasizing again that the source of the problem is also the solution […]
MJ, Fame, Writing, and More
If you’re desperate for something to fill your Friday afternoon, and not the comment-leaving sort, you could do a lot worse than spending an hour and a half (give or take) with Chuck Klosternman and Bill Simmons in their two part ESPN podcast. It’s nominally about sports, but they spend a good bit of time […]
Three Quarks Voting, X-Change Files
Two noteworthy things in the meta-blog category: 1) The 3 Quarks Daily science blogging prize nominations are up, and it’s a great list of sciencey bloggy goodness. If you’re looking for a way to procrastinate, you could kill several days reading all 171 entries. Once you’re done reading them, go vote for your favorite. The […]
We Just Turned the Machine Off, and the Antimatter Went Away
I’m a little surprised that I haven’t seen bloggers commenting on Tom Hanks’s appearance on The Daily Show, in which he talks about CERN: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M – Th 11p / 10c Tom Hanks thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor Everything he says is pretty much true, but […]
Pop Culture Interlude: A Good Name for a Band
A little while ago, I was pointed to Jim Munger’s blog, which is full of ranting about various topics. Not quite to the standards of alt.peeves, back in the day, but some of it is entertaining. It also includes several mentions of his band, Better Than Abstinence. There seemed to be something wrong with the […]
Women, Fast Cars, and Physics
I’m speaking, of course, about this past weekend’s Bloggingheads conversation between Jennifer Ouellette and Diandra Leslie-Pelecky. They both blog at Cocktail Party Physics, and Diandra has written The Physics of NASCAR. It’s a good Bloggingheads, covering a wide range of topics related to physics, sports, and entertainment. Jennifer talks about the work of the Science […]
Six Questions (an attempt at a musical “meme”)
The other day, I wanted to hear the seasonally-appropriate Hold Steady song “How a Resurrection Really Feels” (“She crashed into the Easter Mass, with her hair done up in broken glass, She was limping left on broken heels and she said ‘Father, can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?’”), so I punched […]
Tolkien Not Religious?
Arts & Letters Daily had a link to a City Journal article about religious symbolism in science fiction, which attempts to claim that there has been a recent swing toward Christian symbolism in the genre (at least, in movie and television SF– the only books mentioned are forty-ish years old). There are a number of […]