This is probably the only time in my life when I will bellow a sentence including the phrase "motherfuckin'" at a father and his young child and have them both respond with delighted laughter.

If you find the heat death of the universe depressing, you ought to read Manifold: Time, by Stephen Baxter.

DZUR!
Granted, the included review totally has me (and probably the book) pegged. But still.

Austrian mountain hut owners hike more than you do; you should not take their word for it that the trail is "okay ( Read more... )

Was listening to NPR the other night, heard an interesting interview (I can't recall who it was with - Margaret Atwood, perhaps?) in which the interviewee proclaimed herself a "red Tory" and went on to describe it as being among other things someone in favor of the monarchy. Monarchy, that is, in the sense that the British presently have one - the ( Read more... )

Since this has tweaked out everyone I've mentioned it to so far, I share.

For next Halloween: a list of links of existing websites created by people who are dead.

Standard microeconomic reasoning argues that in a purely competitive market, production will stabilize at the point where marginal cost to the producer equals price, and that this is (socially) efficient, since moving in either direction would decrease total utility. In the case of digital property, which is locally a monopoly (any given ( Read more... )

I thought about creating an award for "Best Award," to be given to the award judged most prestigious each year. However, if it really took off I'd have to give it to itself. Maybe that's why nobody has come up with a Best Award yet.

The rhetoric of "we must not criticize the president's actions (or the terrorists will win)" is very scary to me. He can be wrong, you know. He's not the Pope.

"Inasmuch as money is at its base a proxy for allocation of a finite set of goods, it is inherently unsuitable for use in an information society." Discuss ( Read more... )