Under The Dome
Cloud AtlasI highly recommend Dreamhost.
I read blogs for a variety of reasons: humor – cuz’ I like funny stuff academics – cuz’ it’s my job Skepticism and Rationality in sciecne – cuz’ it’s interesting Freedom of speech (particularly on the internet) – cuz it’s interesting AND it’s my job In skimming my feed today, I discovered an overlap in [… Read More]
First, the coverage of the Boston bombing on Popehat has been amazing. The gang over there have been doing a bang-up job writing from new angles about the event. My two favorite are: “security theater, martial law, and a tale that trumps every cop-and-donut joke you’ve ever heard” in which Clark wrote about the enormous [… Read More]
Them: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson It’s a little disconcerting how close Ronson gets to very scary people in this book. But his point, I think, is that even the very scary people are just people. Them details Ronson’s journey into the late 1990s and early 2000s subculture of conspiracy theorists, people who believe [… Read More]
Bit Parts: Following up on my post earlier this week… Oh my goodness, I hadn’t realized how many people whom you would later see in more prominent acting roles had bit parts on The West Wing. I’m not speaking about prominent roles, but rather the occasional one-off role. Here are a few: Clark Gregg, now [… Read More]
I never watched The West Wing when it was airing live. The first time I watched the show, it was running in syndication and I watched an episode every day with lunch. I watched through the end of season four which is, I recall, when Aaron Sorkin left the show. I never returned to see [… Read More]
Each week as part of the service at Unity Temple in Oak Park, the ministers read from the book of the prayers of the people — a book you can write requests in for the congregation to include. They take pains to include three lists each week: Individuals being held in McHenry County Jail awaiting [… Read More]
I don’ t know where this post it going. I suppose the alternate title could be “Random thoughts on evil, Hell, and the religious questions thereabouts.” Also could be “blogging when I should be doing other things.” 1. Constructing Hells In Surface Detail, Iain M. Banks imagines a post-singularity future in which digital upload was [… Read More]
Fair warning: Thorough research for this post may take you a few minutes, as you have some link-reading to do. Background: Brandywine books is the blog of novelist Lars Walker and a couple of his friends (or just one?, hi Phil!). Walker reviews books at a prodigious pace (faster than me) and writes about a [… Read More]
One of the Planet Money podcasters mentioned, a while back, that the American people are really dumb about how we understand taxes and spending (my words, not his). Some of us complain when the government spends money by collecting it and then disbursing it, but few of us complain when the government spends money by [… Read More]
From Lowering the Bar: Writing (or speaking) at a higher grade level is not a good thing, or at least not necessarily. What these particular numbers really measure (at least the Flesch-Kincaid test) is the complexity and length of sentences. It says nothing about how accurate or intelligent the sentences are, and all else being equal, the [… Read More]
An open letter to Illinois Lawmakers. I am one of your constituents who lives in Forest Park, IL. I’m emailing to indicate that I believe one of the state’s most significant duties is to fund the shepherding of public lands and enable us all to use this vital (and economical) resource. To that end, I [… Read More]
Being Elmo and This Film is Not Yet Rated This Film is Not Yet Rated (hereafter: This Film) explores the shadowy world of the MPAA ratings board, a secretive organization that wields enormous power to shape the market future of the films under their consideration. Being Elmo explores the shadowy world of Muppeteers, the vivacious [… Read More]
In Charles Stross’ near future crime thriller Halting State, the police officers wear “life recorders,” embedded video cameras that record every moment of their work. While most of us would bristle at that kind of observation in our own lives, I have become more and more convinced that such practices must be part of the [… Read More]
Hello Rep Yarbrough, I’m emailing as a constituent of yours (resident of the 900 block of Elgin Avenue in Forest Park, IL) to urge you to vote NO on HB 4085. As a Democrat, I suspect you are already voting this way, but I would urge you to consider the following post, written by a [… Read More]
Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, narrated by Scott Brick I’ll be honest: I knew almost nothing about the BALCO scandal before I read this book. Sure, I knew that congress had some hearings about steroids, and that it turned out [… Read More]