http://discovermagazine.com/2007/feb/toxoplasma-gondii-culture-sex-ratio

"An interesting tangent to the idea of fantasy being about bling is the fantasy role-playing game which most definitely IS a crypto-Objectivist bare-knuckle capitalist fantasy in which the peasants spend their lives with their feet in shit while the "elite" go around collecting huge mountains of gold, killing anyone that stands in their way and ( Read more... )

I played two wonderful boardgames this weekend: Twilight Imperium and Shogun.

Twilight Imperium is a multiplayer "Civilization"-type game, where each player competes to colonize planets, develop helpful technologies, build space fleets, trade resources, invade and defend, and even determine galactic laws. If you've ever played Master of Orion or ( Read more... )

Another very short piece of fiction, for those interested. Very different from the previous story.

( Read more )

Saw Children of Men tonight. Wow. Brilliant, unrelenting, powerful. I loved it. I recommend that NOBODY see it.

Children of Men makes all other dystopias redundant. If I wasn't already a complete misanthrope, I think this film would have made me one. I kind of have to wonder, though... what exactly was the point ( Read more... )

FACT! Nobody has ever received a bad fortune from a fortune cookie.
FACT! Luck can be described as a sort of probabilistic energy source.
FACT! Energy can be neither created nor destroyed.

CONCLUSION! Chinese restaurants are creating a serious imbalance of luck in the world. If we don't stop them, the bad luck buildup will eventually burst open ( Read more... )

So I haven't really had a lot to say lately, as evidenced by my month-long absence from LJ. One week of that I spent visiting my Mum "up north" (as we Canadians like to say -- it basically translates as "more northerly, colder and uncivilized than where I am currently located... suckaz"), but other than that I don't have much of an excuse. Maybe a ( Read more... )

This is fun. You need flash and about 20 minutes to watch it, but it's well worth it. It's a power-point presentation and promo for the novel Blindsight by Peter Watts, which I am just about to start reading online here. Vampires and science fiction? Give me some of that! (The reasons why Watts posted it for free are depressing but also interesting ( Read more... )

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15878.htmRead more... )

I realize that this is old, but it is still one of the best things I have ever seen on the internet. Worth a revisit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhpG17WH0Ek