• While putting our Christmas decorations up a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that I only hear the word "stocking" in connection with Christmas these days. Does anyone actually wear stockings anymore?
• Well, the best Christmas present we telescope freaks could ask for is a successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, now scheduled to ( Read more... )

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Pong, everybody. Relax. I'm still here. And I'm very glad to say that I'm probably 1200 words from the end of my current book project. If it weren't for some home repairs and carpet cleaning I'd be done by now, and I expect to be done by EOD Friday. The publisher is still reluctant to say much about the book, for reasons I still don't understand. I ( Read more... )

Cathedral Demonstration Turns to Riot

(AP) Violence erupted at a noon-hour protest in front of Holy Name Cathedral, as demonstrators from the liberal Catholic organization Christ With Us traded taunts with counter-demonstrators from the reactionary conservative group Voluntas Dei. The march, targeting the recent moratorium on marriage annulments ( Read more... )

• I recently reinstalled Windows on a 120GB Samsung 840 SSD, and have been wondering how long it will last. Here's a nice intro; read the comments too. I'm guessing that it will last longer than the system itself--especially given my recent history.
• The just-released Firefox 19 has a built-in PDF renderer. So far it's worked fairly well for me. One ( Read more... )

On this fine Halloween Sunday morning, I have to ask: W(h)ither zombies? I've read about why pirates like parrots, but the undying love steampunkers hold for death-in-self-denial has always puzzled me. I guess it's part of the punk rather than the steam, and I've always been better at steam than punk. A recent blog post by Charles Stross has ( Read more... )

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