Category: Not-politics

Looking for something to read? (SM Stirling)

(Today’s writer: S.M. Stirling)

A lot of people love to hate this particular author – and, given his remarkable lack of suffer-fools-gladly, even by the standards of a genre where it’s practically a prerequisite for writing in it, it’s not entirely surprising – but it still remains true that Stirling’s a crackerjack writer. For this one, I’m just going to toss out a few authors & topics: if you’re already interested in any of them, check out the book associated with it.

That should get you started: fair warning; all of those are alternate history.  I’m fond of the genre, you understand.

The impressive thing about Dungeons & Discourse…

…examples found here and here is how accessible the concept is to people like myself: i.e., one step above pig-ignorant about philosophy. Dresden Codak in general is like that; it’d be one of my favorite webcomics if he’d just buckle down and get to work on it on a regular basis.

Hey, Schlock Mercenary demonstrates that you can combine quality with professional-level reliability…

So I’m guessing that Billy Joel ran over Ron Rosenbaum’s dog.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) I mean, it’s not like I can’t see Ron Rosenbaum’s basic point – although I don’t think that, for example, Bruce Springsteen’s lost his contempt, merely redirected it. Springsteen always wanted to be the next Woody Guthrie, singing the songs of the people and showing how the system keeps folks like him down. The fact that the system instead decided to give him large amounts of money, fame, and influence instead pretty much wrecked Springsteen as an artist until he could flee into the welcoming embrace of traditional celebrity leftist activism. Seriously. The reception given to Born in the USA must have freaked him out, particularly when Reagan cheerfully stole the iconography and completely subverted it.

Anyway, Billy Joel. I can understand the entire “unearned contempt” argument (not sure if I buy it, but I can see it), and as somebody from New Jersey I can certainly grok the entire Burden Of Being The Place Where Billy Joel Comes From (it’s hard to explain; suffice it to say that both Joel and Springsteen have a complex relationship with the region). That being said, I wonder what triggered this? Did Joel get arrested again?

Moe Lane

PS: I’ve always liked “Pressure.”

Crossposted on RedState.

“…now we’re just haggling over the price.”

I haven’t really been all that interested in tracking the saga of Natalie Dylan and her ridiculously overpriced / underpriced virginity: I’m not in the market for what she’s trying to peddle, and I kind of doubt that I would be, even if I wasn’t married and had a kid. Still, this visual comparison from The Tiger in DC amused, because I can see the resemblance, too. It’s something about the eyes – which, by the way, is yet another proof that your mom was right about a lot of things. Your face will freeze that way if you’re not careful.

I sometimes think that kids today are unconsciously working under the assumption that they live in the world of Logan’s Run.

Crossposted at RedState.

Hey, remember the Bush “miserable failure” Googlebomb?

Guess what happened when we switched Presidents Tuesday?

Yup, it’s now triggering Obama.  At least on Yahoo; Google fixed this problem a while back, although if I understand this fellow correctly Obama’s bio is going to be increasingly linked with “failure” until everything’s resolved.  There’s a certain air of “the President’s tech team should have been on top of this:” I dunno if that’s fair.  At any rate, Google’s going to go back in and fix this again – probably with the help of the aforementioned tech team.

And that’s pretty much the point of this post: I just felt like pointing out that if you played Googlebombing games with Bush’s name, congratulations: you’ve helped ensure that the Obama administration has more, fairly tedious work to do.

Have a nice day!

Crossposted at RedState.

At this rate, they’ll be doing something almost perceptible…

…to subatomic particles by the time that I’m dead:

Teleportation Milestone Achieved

Scientists have come a bit closer to achieving the “Star Trek” feat of teleportation. No one is galaxy-hopping, or even beaming people around, but for the first time, information has been teleported between two separate atoms across a distance of a meter – about a yard.

This is a significant milestone in a field known as quantum information processing, said Christopher Monroe of the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland, who led the effort.

Continue reading At this rate, they’ll be doing something almost perceptible…

I wonder if Turtledove & Zabel will ever finish this?

“This” being the alternate history book WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT: The Impeachment & Trial of John F. Kennedy, Written by Harry Turtledove & Bryce Zabel, which postulates as its divergence point the failed assassination of JFK. They’ve got three chapters up at the site, and it looks like a pretty good story – but there hasn’t been any action on this for almost two years, which seems a shame. Harry Turtledove‘s a master at the genre, and we’re about due for some serious reexamining of the Kennedy era.