Life is one long series of decisions. Today, for instance, I had to decide on a topic for this column—and decided to write about the science of making decisions. Despite what we’d like to think, research continues to show that rational thinking often has little to do with our decision-making process. As Jerry Adler pointed …
Category: Blog
Snow slogging and photo blogging, the sequel
The second tour I photographed Friday for my Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw book was Germantown. You may be wondering about the name. From the introduction to this section in the book: Germantown…emerged as a distinct residential and commercial neighbourhood in the early 1900s. Regina Market Square, established in 1892, was a public …
A review of my bio of Jimi Hendrix
I found this on Amazon today: the first review I’ve seen of my children’s biography Jimi Hendrix: Kiss the Sky(Enslow Publishers), from Booklist: From the American Rebels series, this biography introduces electric-guitar virtuoso Jimi Hendrix. Readers may be tempted to skim the opening pages, which explore Hendrix’s family tree back to the 1800s and chronicle …
Books that influenced today’s technologists…
…are rounded up in a survey by IEEE Spectrum. Robert A. Heinlein is well-represented, but even J.R.R. Tolkien gets a mention. (Via The Website at the End of the Universe.)
Cosmic coincidence
The main location for the action in my new SF novel, set on a mostly ocean-covered world circling a distant star, is a town called Hansen’s Harbor, named after Dr. Victor Hansen, who led his genetically modified merpeople to safety. Today I discovered someone had found my blog while searching for Hansen’s Harbor. Turns out …
Snow slogging and photo blogging
Yesterday I photographed two of the tours from Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw. First: Lakeview. Lots of very nice houses. Lots of other scenic things to shoot, starting with Wascana Centre: As you can tell, it may be March, but it definitely ain’t spring yet: Of course there were the obvious things I …
Laura, the complete story
I’ve started writing some entertainment stories for the Regina Leader Post on a freelance basis. My first one ran today, but unfortunately was curtailed rather drastically, so that it ended extremely abruptly. So here’s the complete story, as it read in a perfect world where newspapers have unlimited space and brilliant copy is never edited: …
Trudging through the snow, carrying a camera…
…was how I spent a large chunk of today. Still working on Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw, and having been stymied in my plan to do two, count ’em, two tours yesterday by snow. (Snow! In Saskatchewan! In the winter! Who’d have thunk it?) today I at least managed one, in the General …
Robotic sub to explore sinkhole
NASA is sending an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle–a.k.a. a robotic sub–to explore the world’s deepest sinkhole: Like La Pilita, Zacatón is in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas and was formed by the collapse of a limestone chamber dissolved by warm, acidic groundwater that originated in a nearby volcanic region. The current theory is that the cenote …
Something else I should have had on my fictional ocean planet:
A 127-mph submarine!
Hard on the heels of my column about ray guns…
…comes this story, headlined “Star Trek-like ‘Tricorder’ becomes science fact”: A press release at Purdue University has unveiled the startling news that a portable sensing system to analyze chemical components is now a reality. About the size of a large car battery, the unit is, at less than 20 pounds, much smaller than the refrigerator …
Photos of the Day: The Centre Block
That’s what they call the part of the city (formerly known as the Transition Area) I was taking pictures in today. Here are a few: This municipal heritage property has long been one of my favorite houses in the city, and no wonder. It was built in 1911 (at a cost of $30,000) for Lorence …
My latest live walk and vlog
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