While future historians will undoubtedly remember August 7th primarily as SteelyKid’s birthday (it would be irresponsible of me to encourage people to go edit the Wikipedia date page accordingly, wouldn’t it?), there was another locally important event on August 7th, some years earlier: August 7th, 2001, saw my first blog post ever, the inaugural post… Continue reading Ten Years Before the Blog
Category: Pop Culture
Fringe Thoughts
Last week, I asked for advice on the show Fringe, because I need to be able to speak sensibly about it for the purpose of talking about parallel universes. I’ve been working through Janne’s list of recommended episodes, watching on my laptop while SteelyKid goes to sleep, and have got up through the Season 3… Continue reading Fringe Thoughts
Religion, Science, and Joy
I was just tagging this for the Links Dump, but I thought it deserved better. Fred Clark, blogdom’s best writer on politics and religion, is putting together a book-like thing from his blog, and has posted the introduction to the section on creationism: The oldest book in our Bible contains a hymn of praise to… Continue reading Religion, Science, and Joy
How Much Outreach Do We Need? Depends on What You Mean by “We”
Over Twitter, somebody pointed to this article on astronomy outreach (free PDF from that link), which argues that everybody else should stop trying to be Brian Cox: I’ve known Brian for years and worked with him before his celebrity status went supernova. I would love to say “I told you so” to all the TV… Continue reading How Much Outreach Do We Need? Depends on What You Mean by “We”
Do You Really Need an Electron Microscope for That?
As previously mentioned, I’m watching a little bit of Fringe in order to be able to talk sensibly about it later this week. I watch the Season 1 finale last night, and its treatment of parallel universes is about what I’d expect for tv, but being the obsessive dork I am, I got distracted from… Continue reading Do You Really Need an Electron Microscope for That?
Jim Butcher, Ghost Story [Library of Babel]
One of the problems with a long-running series is that it accretes backstory as you go (unless, of course, you go the Rex Stout route and just pretend that time doesn’t pass for the characters, even when you have the client in a later book being the son of a character from one of the… Continue reading Jim Butcher, Ghost Story [Library of Babel]
Happy Saturday Music
SteelyKid’s third birthday is next week, but we’re going to Kate’s mother’s for the day itself, so we’re having a birthday party today for her and her friends from day care. So, even though all the news is depressing, it’s a day to be happy. So here’s a happy song: (OK, I don’t quite know… Continue reading Happy Saturday Music
Fringe Query
I’m going to be talking to someone about treatments of parallel worlds in popular media next week, and as the only going mass media concern with a parallel-worlds plot seems to be the show Fringe, it would be helpful for me to be able to talk sensibly about it. Thus, two questions: 1) Where is… Continue reading Fringe Query
China Mieville, Kraken [Library of Babel]
I’m not a huge Mieville fan, but the descriptions I read of Kraken sounded like good fun. As I like fun books, and a fun book written by China Mieville seemed sufficiently improbable that I just had to see it, I picked it up a little while ago, and read it over the last week… Continue reading China Mieville, Kraken [Library of Babel]
Launch Pad
For the past few years, astronomer and SF author Mike Brotherton has been running the Launch Pad Workshop, a program bringing interested SF authors to Wyoming (where he’s on the faculty) to learn about modern astronomy. The idea is to teach writers the real facts about the weird and wonderful things going on in astronomy… Continue reading Launch Pad