must be doing something right
My 5-year-old and my 3-year-old were saying what they wanted to be for Halloween--an Air Force pilot and a dinosaur, respectively. They immediately engaged in a debate over who'd win in a fight.
Cherie Priest, Boneshaker: Yeah, it’s zombie steampunk. But it’s also the story of Briar Wilkes, entering a poisoned city where rotters roam the streets and only breathing masks keep the living from being turned into rotters too, in search of her son Ezekiel. Ezekiel’s gone inside to find out whether his father was really the monster who broke the hole in the world that now leaks the blight that turns people into rotters and also, if properly distilled, produces a highly addictive drug. There are airships and robot arms and strange guns, and a Civil War unduly extended by the presence of steampunk technology, though the story is set in Seattle and so the war appears only as background. I enjoyed it!
Nicholas A. Christakis & James H. Fowler, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives: You might have seen reporting on the phenomenon that weight gain seems to be contagious: having friends gain weight makes it more likely that you will, too, and this is even true if friends of your friends gain weight. A lot of other things work like this, to the third degree but no further, and Christakis & Fowler have some interesting stories to tell about how this affects both individuals and societies-it has implications for the spread of STDs as well as for the rationality of voting (your vote may not make any difference, but if you vote your friends are more likely to vote, as are their friends, and if birds of an ideological feather flock together then your vote can be part of a cascade that does make a difference). It’s an interesting read.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
Cherie Priest, Boneshaker: Yeah, it’s zombie steampunk. But it’s also the story of Briar Wilkes, entering a poisoned city where rotters roam the streets and only breathing masks keep the living from being turned into rotters too, in search of her son Ezekiel. Ezekiel’s gone inside to find out whether his father was really the monster who broke the hole in the world that now leaks the blight that turns people into rotters and also, if properly distilled, produces a highly addictive drug. There are airships and robot arms and strange guns, and a Civil War unduly extended by the presence of steampunk technology, though the story is set in Seattle and so the war appears only as background. I enjoyed it!
Nicholas A. Christakis & James H. Fowler, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives: You might have seen reporting on the phenomenon that weight gain seems to be contagious: having friends gain weight makes it more likely that you will, too, and this is even true if friends of your friends gain weight. A lot of other things work like this, to the third degree but no further, and Christakis & Fowler have some interesting stories to tell about how this affects both individuals and societies-it has implications for the spread of STDs as well as for the rationality of voting (your vote may not make any difference, but if you vote your friends are more likely to vote, as are their friends, and if birds of an ideological feather flock together then your vote can be part of a cascade that does make a difference). It’s an interesting read.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.