Book Report: Claudius the God
The people of the United States of America came together to elect a man who would turn this nation into a panopticon—choosing him over another man who was all that plus bigotry. Bigotry was vot...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: The Collapse of Complex Societies
This book looks at the collapse of the Roman empire, the Mayan civilization, and those Chaco folks you heard about from the X-Files. Why do civilizations collapse? There's a bunch of theories runni...
Permalink & Comments
Turns out my net hookup is too slow for onlive service. Now trying to find a place to put an Xbox in this tiny apartment. May involve hollowing out a wall and adding a load-bearing television set. ...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Killing Neighbors
I used to work for a lady named Lee Ann Fujii. She was pretty cool, so when I heard that she wrote a book, I figured I'd read it to see what she's been up to. She's now a foreign policy wonk special...
Permalink & Comments
Link: Auto-translation of foreign web pages getting more convenient
I sometimes visit web pages that are in languages other than American. To understand those pages, I need translation. For a while, the Google Toolbar has had a useful button: you can press this bu...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You
I read this book because it's by Dorothy Bryant who wrote the excellent The Confessions of Madame Psyche. I read it even though my mom read it and didn't care for it much. I didn't care for it much...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
I guess I made through ~100 pages of palace intrigue before I realized I don't especially want to read through that much palace intrigue. Yeah, that's right, I'm yet another person who made it partw...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: I Claudius
Someone asked for the origin of the name of the Canary Islands, with the caveat that it was a trick question. So everyone present wracked their brains. I asked, "Were they named after dogs?" and th...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Shinteki Decathlon 3 was awesome. Since then, I have had approximate 0.0 hours of unstructured awake time. Thus, not so much blogging. But I will paraphrase a conversation I was in a while ba...
Permalink & Comments
Link: Steven Pitsenbarger at Alternative Photography
Apparently, "anthotype" is a photographic development system which uses dyes from plants. I never would have heard about it if it wasn't for this guy: "Pitsenbarger has had a lifelong fascinati...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
On the one side: snake-oil salesmen selling land, politicians seeking more consituents, consultants boosting their chances at government grants with Pollyannish lies of a land of plenty in need of s...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Earth Abides
George R. Stewart wrote Earth Abides, a story in which about 9999 out of every 10000 humans is wiped out by a big plague. What will happen afterwards? Will our hero preserve civilization's triumphs ...
Permalink & Comments
