It’s Hugo nomination season again, which means that I need to come up with a list of works to suggest for SF’s premier fan-voted award. It also means that there are lots of publications out there putting out lists of recommended works to help potential Hugo voters narrow their ballots. Last year, there was a… Continue reading Tell Me What to Nominate
Category: Pop Culture
Non-Dorky Poll: General Hopes
As promised (threatened?) in the previous post, here’s a space for more general commentary in response to the question asked by our Corporate Masters, and modified slightly for blog use: What non-scientific developments do you hope to be blogging or reading about in 2008? Consider this open to all areas of politics and pop culture.… Continue reading Non-Dorky Poll: General Hopes
Steroid Madness
Steroid scandals in sports, most particularly baseball, have been dominating sports media for a couple of years now. I thought that there really wasn’t anything I could possibly care less about, but the New York Times proved me wrong with an article on steroid use among hip-hop artists. Actually, the Times story is a report… Continue reading Steroid Madness
Uncertain Principles Radio
Well, OK, not really. You can, however, hear what I sound like by listening to a couple of official Tor podcasts made from the panel I did at Worldcon with Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Adam Rakunas, Paul Cornell and Yoshio Kobayashi. The panel was back in September, but I haven’t seen the files on Tor’s web… Continue reading Uncertain Principles Radio
Hugo Nominations
Kate and I got our Hugo nomination ballots in the mail yesterday (as members of the 2007 Worldcon, we get the right to nominate works for the 2008 Hugo Awards). The nomination deadline isn’t until March 1st, but this still seems like a good time to ask: What should I be nominating for the 2008… Continue reading Hugo Nominations
Variational Principles and the Story of Your Life
As I mentioned a few days ago, a colleague asked me if I’d be interested in doing a guest lecture for a class on science fiction. She suggested that a good way to go might be to pick one story to have the class read, and talk about that. Kicking ideas around with Kate, I… Continue reading Variational Principles and the Story of Your Life
The Conquest of Cold
The first half of NOVA’s Absolute Zero program aired last night, and I was able to watch the whole thing. Well, more or less– it was a long day, so I was drifting off a little bit about fifteen minutes in, and didn’t get all of the Michael Faraday story, but a phone call woke… Continue reading The Conquest of Cold
Tachyon Movies
Via a back channel, the Gardner Project of EniTech Research. They have an argon laser, so you know it’s science!
Leave My Childhood Icons Alone!
It was sort of amusing when people started doing kitsch holiday commercials in a CGI version of those old quasi-claymation holiday specials (Rodolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the like). I’m ok with hipster irony, at least to a point. It was a whole lot less amusing when somebody (I’ve forgotten who) did a commercial this… Continue reading Leave My Childhood Icons Alone!
Dork Nostalgia: Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time
“Do you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?” — Steven Brust, Dzur Way, way back in October, when I was annoying you all with DonorsChoose fundraining posts, I offered to sell post topics for $30. I’ve paid off most of these, but I have three left, one of which was for… Continue reading Dork Nostalgia: Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time