But China won’t be telling us much until they actually pull it off.
Winners of the Ig® Nobel Prize
May I have the envelope please… I normally do a column on these. Maybe I still will.
A quick update
I haven’t been blogging for the last 10 days because I’ve been on vacation, but I am still alive and so is Hassenpfeffer! I’m in Toronto at the moment; look for a return to regular blogging when I get home in mid-October. In the meantime, why not visit one of the fine sites listed to …
The ideal e-book reader gets closer…
I have an inherent interest, having experimented with e-publishing (with Spirit Singer), in the development of a truly useable (and loveable) electronic reading device. Electronic paper is one technology that may give it to us. Apparently it may give us even more.
The worst jobs in science
Just last week, at the conclusion of the column on the dinosaur extinction debate, I wrote this: “Science is anything but a collection of dull facts: it’s a living, breathing, growing and very human enterprise. That’s what makes it fascinating.” That is, of course, true (would I lie to you?), but the fact is, nothing …
Reading Report
I finished Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman yesterday, and the most recent issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine today. I don’t know why I didn’t read Good Omens earlier: it’s brilliant. Exactly the right blend of Pratchettian humour and Gaimanian darkness, and of particular enjoyment to someone raised in the Church of …
The Mystica
I’ve been slowly playing my way through the computer game Gabriel Knight III (yes, I know, it’s ancient–what can I say? I was kind of busy the last three or four years), in which the characters are provided with a computerized reference to all things mystical. Turns out it really exists: it’s The MYSTICA.ORG and …
I talk to my keys, but they never listen to me…
I hope this prediction is correct, although I rather imagine I’ll keep my keyboard for writing even when speech recognition is perfected–my brain has been wired to route my thoughts through a keyboard for something approaching 30 years. But I’ll bet there’ll be newer writers who take to dictating fiction the way I took to …
Wheels in the Sky
Some interesting history about how the concept of space stations went from science fiction to reality, thanks to Wernher von Braun.
Guinea-zilla
God or Gaia–take your pick–has a sense of humour. A good match for Goose-zilla, which I wrote about here. Hmmm, I see a new book from Erich Von Daniken hitting the shelves soon… “Petting Zoo of the Gods.”
Major magazine indirectly validates my choice of career
Popular Science enumerates the worst jobs in science–proof that I made the right decision in deciding to write about science (both fact and fiction) rather than pursuing it as a career.
Neanderthal art?
This 30,000-year-old statue might be the work of Neanderthals…an interesting notion to me, since I’ve just spent many hours in the company of modern Neanderthals as envisioned by Robert J. Sawyer.
My latest live walk and vlog
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