Joyeuse is doing another science fiction and fantasy linguistic survey. It's v. interesting (and a bit frustrating, if you happen to have "know where to look it up" at your fingerips. Heh.) You can participate here:

http://joyeuse13.livejournal.com/547942.html

hattip to countrycousin

This is a very annoying video. Watch it yourself, and see!
( Read more... )

If your frying pan catches fire, use a wet dishcloth to extinguish the blaze ( Read more... )

Recycling is good for you, right? Right! (Assuming there is such a thing as "virtual 'green'" of course) In any event:

sartorias linked to frumiousb's remarks about "Illustrating the Other (Across the Nightingale Floor, Lian Hearn)" and continued the discussion on her own blog For my part, I appreciated frumiousb's distinction of the person using an alien (to them ( Read more... )

In the course of looking up "a short biography" of C.S. Lewis for a library patron, I happened to read one[1]

"Clive Staples Lewis." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006 ( Read more... )

In the comments section of this post by johncwright concerning the probability that writers are not the wisest judges of what is and is not their best work: after all "C.S. Lewis thought Til We Have Faces was his," baduin remarked:

And it was - at least his best fiction. His other books are either for children, or are interesting, but flawed, like the planetary ( Read more... )

Most of you probably know that when you get an internet chain-letter of the helpful-advice variety, it's wise to visit www.snopes.com to double check its utility.

I think the homeopathic ones (two drops of Actual Fact in bucketful of Bogus) are the most dangerous, myself; so here's an excerpt from one that recently arrived in my in-box.

Tip 3: ( Read more... )

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that male body parts are inherently funnier than female.

That is all.

With the new Narnia movie out in Theatres, midnight next Thursday (why yes, I am just about insane enough - I still haven't managed to find a sitter for Friday, after all), I know there'll be people cough-idiotjournalists-cough running amok, announcing the story as "Christian Allegory". Allow me to head them all off at the pass with this quote, ( Read more... )

Accordingly, any theory that cannot be falsified is not a scientific theory.

A Steve the molecular biologist on intelligent design, science and God. A long time ago, and in a college campus far, far away, I wanted to do what Steve does. About God and evolution? We're on the same page ( Read more... )