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Amusing definition of FTW:

Simply, "WTF" (q.v.) in reverse, giving “FUCK THE WHAT”. Taken to be expletive (in both linguistic-syntactic and grammatical sense) rather than interrogative particle. Not simple in quintessence, the reversal of the letters actually being, perhaps paradoxically self-referential, antithetic to a volte-face of the same ( Read more... )

Kim Stanley Robinson’s short story “Four Teleological Trails” concerns a guy whose hobby is “trail phantoming” (that is, to discover disused and forgotten trails, made by inspired weirdo Martian areophanists in a crater biome). In the first tale, he thinks he finds an old trail in the middle of a misty rainstorm, finding what he thinks is grey ( Read more... )

Doute que les astres soient des flammes
Doute que le soleil se meuve
Doute que le vrai soit vrai.

(trad. Victor Hugo)

Al Filreis's blog today, a Moment of Zen:

1988. Hard to remember how deeply into the PC (Political Correctness) wars we had fallen. Very deeply. This was of course moments before the Soviet bloc fell and yet anticommunism was still very much an animating force behind attacks on multiculturalists and scholars of race/class/gender.

"[E]ven though we ( Read more... )