All posts by Chris

terrified by terror

Politics

It’s almost becoming a cliche that our President and his administration say one thing and do the opposite. The most recent evidence of this comes from the LA Times, where Robert Scheer has an excellent article on “the CIA covering up a critical 9/11 report”:http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer19oct19,1,6540113.column?coll=la-home-utilities until after the election.

On a side note, all the legislation, spending requests, troop movements, and revelations that have been postponed by the administration until after the elections are going to make November a very busy month. I just hope that recount craziness in Florida, Ohio, or wherever (oh, there will be some) doesn’t distract us from important goings-on in Washington.

Neal Stephenson

Literature

Slashdot just posted an “amazing interview with Neal Stephenson”:http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/20/1518217, with subjects ranging from art criticism to the Vingean singularity to travel tips. The whole thing shows what a true wit Stephenson is, with the full power of both geekiness and social awareness at his disposal.

I’m posting the entirety of the interview here, because there’s no way of telling how permanent the Slashdot link is.
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dungeons and dagrons

Fun

Oh, the geekiness. As stolen from “Boing Boing”:http://www.boingboing.net/ :

“Dungeon Majesty”:http://www.dungeonmajesty.com/indexer.html is a cable-access TV show in which four young women play Dungeons and Dragons — the show is intercut with Z-grade green-screen masks of them staging D&D fights in front of fakey caves or deep in spooky woods, and illustrated with flip-book animations fo D&D monsters drawn in pen on lined paper. This is really fantastic stuff — it’s got nerd pride to burn, and production values that make MST3K look slick.

for the working… scotsman?

Oddly Enough

Karen points out a site for the “Utilikilt Workman’s Kilt”:https://secure.utilikilts.com/catalog-workman-index.htm complete with pockets and hammer loop. Apparently for an extra $25 you can get one with a “Beer Gut Cut”. Mm hmm. I have no response to that.

The company’s motto is, “We sell freedom!” Mm hmm.

Space, it’s what’s for dinner

Space, Technology

I’ll have details of my own space exploration soon, but for now I’m sure you’ll be excited to hear about the new Space Prize, Robert Bigelow’s follow-on to the X Prize. It’s a $50 million prize for the first vehicle that can reach low earth orbit and dock with Nautilus, his proposed orbiting hotel. Go, space folks!