I generally like Tim Powers' writing; his "secret history" kind of work appeals to me a lot. (I'll admit I haven't been as pleased with his work since "Last Call", or even since "The Stress of Her Regard", but it's still usually fairly good.) He's usually pretty good about not making demonstrably false historical statements. But ( Read more... )

A good webcomic may include lengthy arcs of world-significant action; Freefall has certainly had its share of that. But I must say it's nice to see a few strips of Florence playing with her boyfriend's dog.

Well, that was interesting ( Read more... )

Today, I went onto campus to take possession of my new office. I got the keys from the secretary and spent a not-so-entertaining couple of hours unpacking the four large (~5' high) boxes containing my books and journals. I've just laid them flat and disorganized on the shelves; I'll get them upright and sorted sometime during the summer. The three ( Read more... )

This cartoon, depicting the unity cabinet appointed by Churchill when he took office in 1940, strikes me as interesting: some of the figures are rolling up their right sleeves, some their left. I can only identify two of them, Churchill (Conservative) in the front left, rolling up his right sleeve, and Attlee (Labour) next to him, rolling up his ( Read more... )

I've decided that the material on rho-negative classes will take over the second half of Taxonomy III. (The first half sets up the second round of machinery.) The material that I was planning on putting there will spin off as the new Taxonomy IV, and the old IV and V will bump down one notch. Six papers, not five. Each will bear the main title " ( Read more... )

Every so often - it's rare, but not nonexistent - my WiFi flakes for a bit, and I can't access anything. It usually resolves in a matter of minutes, but it leaves one trace: any websites in my Bookmark list that I try to access during the flake have their icons in the Bookmark menu replaced by the AT&T (my ISP) logo ( Read more... )

In my last post about mathematics, I was deliberately vague about my student's and my discoveries. I'm not going to be much more precise here, but I think it's fairest to be a little more clear ( Read more... )

The floor of my den/computer room is covered, in part, with stacks of books I don't have shelf space for ( Read more... )

This is just... hilarious, touching, wondrous. This is one smart dog.