Here’s something really wonderful, from our friend Horace Jeffery Hodges. Go and enjoy.
That the mainstream media list hard to port is so obvious to anyone who doesn’t share their reference frame that it’s hardly worth mentioning — or at least it would be so if everyone on the left didn’t deny it so fatiguingly and disingenuously at every opportunity. With that in mind, here’s a refreshing post […]
The other day I was reading up on Phlebopus marginatus, the Salmon gum mushroom of Western Australia, and noticed that it is “generally recorded as of unknown edibility”. I was surprised to see that — I mean, is the thing edible, or not? — until I thought about it and realized just what’s involved in […]
Call me crazy, but I think this is one rakish alligator.
Here’s Arthur Miller, remembering the sweltering New York of his youth. (I doubt I would have survived it.)
Working late tonight, with much to catch up on — so for now, just an odd little item about the physics of Slinkies.
We’re back, after a splendid trip. Visiting Venice and Florence reminds one just how tall the West’s candle once stood, and on returning home it’s hard not to dwell on how very low it has burned. But that’s just the way of the world, I suppose. Did I miss anything? I have a lot of […]
We’ll likely be off the air until sometime around June 21st: the lovely Nina and I are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary with a little trip to Italy (Venice and Florence). We’ll have scant access to email and the Internet — and it will be nice to take a little break from all that is […]
From the website “prosthetic knowledge” comes this cross-section of a marram-grass leaf:
Here’s a nifty invention, at least four years in the making. Wonder how long the deregulating will take?
From NASA: a little historical item about a previous transit of Venus.
Have a look at some impressive photos of yesterday’s astronomical event, here.
With the Walker recall election on the morrow — widely regarded as a key American battle in the bitter ideological conflict now convulsing all of the West — here’s a piquant item from Mark Steyn. Excerpt: [I]n 2012 the advanced Western social-democratic citizen looks pretty similar, whether viewed from Greece or Germany, California or Quebec. […]
My friend G. Orcalimbo Jones (be sure to listen to the live stream of his radio show on WOMR, Fridays at 9 P.M.) has sent us a nifty item: a continuously zoom-able display of our Universe at all scales. Seen this way, scale itself seems to become a linear dimension of its own. Have a […]
In a rare online moment over the holiday weekend, I ran across an article in the Daily Mail about how our Department of Homeland Security, in its restless hunt for loquacious malefactors, scans the Internet for alarming words. The article lists scores of examples. I noted with interest, though, that the list is published on […]
This space will be mostly quiet for the next few days, as the lovely Nina and I occupy ourselves with spring cleaning, houseguests, and Memorial Day revelry. Enjoy the holiday weekend!
Life just keeps getting better.
Attention, readers: Radio Derb is back. John Derbyshire, following his defenestration by National Review, has dusted himself off and taken his weekly podcast over to Taki’s. So far, there are three new installments. Have a listen here. And speaking of Derb, here’s a recent essay of his, also at Taki’s: Ridding Myself of the Day.
For those of you who might enjoy it, here’s a five-part interview with Thomas Sowell on the role of intellectuals in modern democracies. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5.) Churchill said this, once upon a time: The worst difficulties from which we suffer do not come from without. They come from within. They do not come […]
Ever since seeing Fantasia as a boy, I’ve been fascinated by animated renderings of music. Poking around online today I found two very different animations of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #6. Both are complete mappings of the musical score onto a scrolling visual display, and so both express the same information. I can’t decide, though, […]
Here’s a poignant item from the Daily Mail: a P-40 Kittyhawk lost in the Sahara 70 years ago has just been discovered, preserved in the sands.
There’s a sad front-page article in today’s New York Times about frontotemporal dementia, a family of degenerative brain diseases that gradually destroy not only various skills and cognitive functions, but also the essential nature of a patient’s personality. These diseases are stark reminders that what we are — that all of what we are — […]
It’s been a long day at work, but I might have managed to write a post nevertheless — had I not lost myself for the past hour at the infinitely engaging (at least for a well-seasoned old gaffer like me) ‘miscellaneous” page at Lileks.com. Have a look for yourself.
Here we are in 2012, and the most advanced technological civilization that has ever existed is stymied by three tons of meat in a log cabin. What was it that Emerson said about hobgoblins?
April 26, 2012 – 10:09 pm
First thing tomorrow I’m driving down to Milburn Landing State Park, near Pocomoke City, MD, for a weekend of camping with some boyhood chums: a long-overdue reunion inspired by a weekend we spent there 40 years ago this summer. One of us lives in San Diego, one in Minnesota, one in Cincinnati, and one in […]
Sitting for a portrait? Keep this in mind. Going on a date? Head for Peter Luger’s. Last, but not least: there’s no need to be glum just because Earth Day’s over. Not until you’ve read Iowahawk’s annual homage to Gaia, anyway.
April 21, 2012 – 10:25 pm
Sorry, haven’t had much to say since getting back, and it might be quiet here for a few more days. I need a little recess while I think about things.
I’m back from my trip to Singularity University, and I’ll just say it was one of the more remarkable experiences I’ve ever had — something like a futurist’s boot-camp, in the company of a hundred or so very smart people. The days’ events began at about 8 a.m., typically didn’t let up until midnight or […]
April 10, 2012 – 11:43 pm
I’ll be away for a few days: my friend Salim Ismail has invited me to participate in a program this week out at Singularity University, so I’ll be flying to San Francisco early Wednesday morning. I’ll be posting when I can — this looks like it’s going to be a fascinating experience — but the […]
No posting today: I’m heading off to Ephrata, PA, for the annual banquet and awards ceremony of the national quilter’s association I’ve been sewing with since my early twenties. (I’ve been quilting since I was a boy; I should post some photos of some of my work sometime.) My latest piece, which expresses the deepening […]
March 23, 2012 – 10:12 pm
The lovely Nina and I, having pried open a tiny gap in our routine of ceaseless toil, made the five-hour drive back to the Outer Cape late last night. We arrived sometime in the “wee small hours of the morning”, and awoke to a clear blue sky, fragrant sea breezes, and warm golden sunshine — […]
I follow a lot of different accounts on Twitter, but one of my favorites is @NASAVoyager2. Here’s the latest: I am currently 13 hrs 37 mins 31 secs of light-travel time from Earth (2012:081:2L) That’s it: cool, calm and collected. I’ve been a follower for months now, and never once have I seen this thing […]
Here. I assume the Royal Navy has a carrier on the way.
I’ve been grappling for three days with a difficult problem at work and an impending deadline, and so have had no opportunity for writing — though Lord knows there’s a lot going on right now I’d like to comment on: Afghanistan, the Dharun Ravi verdict, the man who was buried alive by pinto beans, etc. […]
March 14, 2012 – 12:32 pm
Anyone have experience with Movable Type upgrades? I have a friend who needs some assistance.
It was a lovely day today, with golden sunshine and temperature well into the 60’s, and so I took a walk along Mayo Beach, a south-facing harborside littoral a few hundred yards from our wooded hilltop. Readers may recall that Wellfleet has had a rash of dolphin strandings this winter. As I walked the mile-long […]
Well, while we’ve been fussing over such trivialities as the essential principles of American society and the fate of our Republic, we’ve missed the big story of the day: a chicken nugget that looks like George Washington. It sold for over eight thousand dollars.
Folks my age are old enough to remember, wistfully, the golden age of the American manned-spaceflight program, and have with sadness watched NASA’s long descent into senescence and irrelevance — from the virile pioneer of a “new frontier” that it was in the 1960s, to a sedentary bureaucracy tasked with getting children interested in science […]
With a hat tip to John D., have a tour of Kiyosato, a Japanese ghost town.
Here’s a home-delivery service that loses its customers as fast as it finds them.
Shocking news this morning: Andrew Breitbart dead at 43.
February 29, 2012 – 11:46 am
It appears that the George Friedman resignation letter we mentioned here has turned out to be a hoax. (Thanks to reader Dom for the tip.) More here.
February 27, 2012 – 2:40 pm
At the beginning of his book Breaking the Spell, Daniel Dennett wrote: You watch an ant in a meadow, laboriously climbing up a blade of grass, higher and higher until it falls, then climbs again, and again, like Sisyphus rolling his rock, always striving to reach the top. Why is the ant doing this? What […]
February 26, 2012 – 11:40 pm
Speaking of where the buck stops, it appears that George Friedman has stepped down as the head of STRATFOR in response to the recent hacking attack against them, in which client accounts containing credit cards, passwords, etc., were breached.
February 24, 2012 – 7:41 pm
Okay, enough grumpiness. Time for a lighter note, to ring in the weekend. In this item, magician Teller talks about the tricks of the trade.
February 23, 2012 – 10:45 pm
After working all day and teaching class this evening, I’m spent. So for tonight, just a few links to keep you occupied: — Nothing new under the sun. — Plan B: Algae! — The birds and the bees. — Last but not least, news you can use: How to to deal with those annoying roadblock […]
February 22, 2012 – 12:30 am
Google has commemorated the 150th birthday of Heinrich Hertz, the physicist for whom the standard unit for the frequency of oscillating waves is named, with one of its “doodle” tributes. Here it is: Forgive me, but as an audio engineer I have to say that this image is very poorly chosen, and will offend, in […]