Hey, now, It's the sun, and it makes me smile

Palimpsests

Links

Shanghai Looks Incredible

The Granite Mountain Records Vault - Where Mormons store data on your ancestors so they can baptize them...

Science models from a time when science could do anything.

Great Speculative Fiction Book Titles

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Stars My Destination
The Light of Other Days
A Thousand Words for Stranger
The Man in the High Castle
All Tomorrow's Parties
The Word for World is Forrest
Enemy Mine
The Mote in God's Eye
The Years of Rice and Salt
Forty Signs of Rain
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
Startide Rising
Speaker for the Dead
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
To Say Nothing of the Dog
The Lathe of Heaven
Stranger in a Strange Land
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

And my legs are so tired from all this standing

Akron/Family - Before and Again

I forgot how much I love this song. Do yourself a favor and type 'Akron Family' into Pandora.

Thanks Derek

Charles Stross on writing fiction

"No, it's not a fucking lifestyle — it's a job. And if you'll excuse me, I've got a book to go write ... "

"Maybe thoughts were minims and emotions were waves, for he was stuffed to exploding with both at once..."

Les Affranchis

Jamais Vu

Driving through Santa Fe last night was eerie. It felt familiar like a place I knew long ago, not somewhere I live. Usually coming home after a trip is accompanied by a relaxing feeling. This time there was no such feeling. It really is time to move on I think.

Aviatophobia Expelliarmus

My fear of flying ended yesterday and I'm still now sure how or why. No drugs; no dread; no certainty of death. Once upon a time every change in vibration or flicker of the lights drove me to grasp the hand rests. Every acceleration or deceleration spelled doom. Flying is to me what it used to be: fun, amazing, and annoying all at once. It's good to be back.

I'm floating in a most peculiar way

Planet earth is blue and there's nothing I can do.

Fantastic Time-lapse Video of the Southwest

Timescapes: "Death is the Road to Awe" from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.

Angel Fire Weekend

All Photos by Deanna Nelson

The Philosophy of Furniture

"In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, meliora probant, deteriora sequuntur — the people are too much a race of gadabouts to study and maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are poor decorists. The Dutch have merely a vague idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain they are all curtains — a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous."

From The Philosophy of Furniture by Edgar Allan Poe

This essay is loaded with quotables:

"...a rivulet of deep meaning in a meadow of words."

"We have no aristocracy of blood, and having therefore as a natural, and indeed as an inevitable thing, fashioned for ourselves an aristocracy of dollars..."

" Its leading feature is glitter — and in that one word how much of all that is detestable do we express ! Flickering, unquiet lights, are sometimes pleasing — to children and idiots always so — but in the embellishment of a room they should be scrupulously avoided."

When Does Simulation Beat Reality?

For the past few years some people have been putting forward the idea that a possible answer to the Fermi paradox is that intelligent races retreat into simulated worlds and either die off or lose any interest in exploring the galaxy/making contact.

I think it's a pretty compelling idea. SEED just published an article on this and here are a few excerpts:

This is the Great Temptation for any technological species—to shape their subjective reality to provide the cues of survival and reproductive success without the substance. Most bright alien species probably go extinct gradually, allocating more time and resources to their pleasures, and less to their children. They eventually die out when the game behind all games—the Game of Life—says “Game Over; you are out of lives and you forgot to reproduce.”

I don't doubt this could happen to humans or any hypothetical ETs that might be out there, but what it doesn't explain to me is why we haven't seen evidence of sentient, self-improving machines scouring the galaxy for resources. Then again, maybe there isn't any reason why machine intelligence wouldn't want to make it's own retreat into the subjective.

Trust me on this...

"A recent study in the Journal of Marketing Communications found that men with beards were deemed more credible than those who were clean-shaven. The study showed participants pictures of men endorsing certain products. In some photos, the men were clean-shaven. In others, the same men had beards. Participants thought the men with beards had greater expertise and were significantly more trustworthy when they were endorsing products like cell phones and toothpaste."

"Important note: The study looked only at neat, medium-length beards. You can't just go all ZZ Top and expect people to trust you."

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/The-Trustworthiness-of-Beards/22581/

2300 A.D.

I think I'd like to have a solar sail craft with a lover, a library, a hammock, and a well stocked bar.

Dock at Mars for a few months and hike Olympus Mons? Sure.



Orbit Jupiter and watch the tempests below rage in slow motion? I guess so.


Check into one of Titan's famous resorts and observe the rings of Saturn through the transparent roof. Why not?



Ah, to live in the future.

Cast Iron Chicago Style Pan Pizza

Economist's Obituary for Eugene Terre'blanche

This thing is rightly harsh...

http://www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15865250

"The “leader”, as he styled himself, was no nicer in private. Though he won amnesty for his political crimes, he was jailed for beating one black worker into a coma and attempting to murder another. Yet unintentionally, he did some good. By making his cause look ridiculous, he weakened it. He fell off his horse at a parade. He wore green underpants with holes in them. He could fill a stadium and put on a show, but as a military commander, he was hopeless. Newspapers mocked him with punning headlines, such as “O volk! Terre’Blanche is back again”. Had he been less of a buffoon, South Africa’s road to democracy might have been bloodier."

...

"He was beaten to death last week, allegedly by two black farmworkers. The murder has sparked fears of renewed racial violence in South Africa. But the motive was apparently personal: unpaid wages and, one imagines, a less than agreeable management style."

Louis Theroux Interviews Terre'blanche

Aurora From space