I've started reading a little more (roughly a book a week, bought with the money that used to fund my Magic habit) and I plan to eventually write a little something about all of them. But right now I feel a need to write about Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente, aka yuki-onnaFor those of you unfamiliar with this book, the premise is 'sexually transmitted ( Read more... )

Walking by the FDR memorial yesterday, I saw Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" carved in stone.

Freedom of Speech
Freedom of Religion
Freedom from Fear
Freedom from Want

Norman Rockwell, the famous Saturday Evening Post illustrator made paintings of all of them (see above links). Growing up, my Mom's parents put oil landscapes and still lifes on the ( Read more... )

I've never listened that much to music. I've already talked about that hereI think now I know why that is ( Read more... )

“Economists think everything can be boiled down to money.” Well, yes. We do. But we have better reasons for it than you might think. I say “we,” but I of course turned in my supply and demand curves six months ago to be an engineer, and nobody yells at engineers for thinking mainly in numbers. But the perfectly accurate slander I was subject ( Read more... )

Marianne reminded me of the girls I could never talk to in undergrad: former sorority president at Vanderbilt, self-confident, sharp, stunning, one of those people who make friends within seconds of walking into the room. I reminded Marianne of the young academics she grew up with: an unkempt, inarticulate super-calculator who was still in the ( Read more... )

It distresses me how many of my Econ 202 students reason through an equation as follows ( Read more... )

I don’t know how many of you read Girl Genius, but I suspect most of you would enjoy it. Because it started as a comic book, the online archives are in two bits: Girl Genius 101 (reprints from the comic books) and Girl Genius Advanced (new strips). 101 is only a few months from catching up to the beginning of Advanced, so this morning I decided I ( Read more... )

We’re all familiar with the concepts of the Love Machine and the Sex Machine, but I am trying to picture what a Happiness Machine would look like. In my head it is a huge 50’s-sci-fi-style mass of wires and gear with a few vacuum tubes stuck on for nostalgia. The interface of this machine would be a comfy armchair for the subject to sit in, a ( Read more... )

I owe you all a story. Let's see what I have ( Read more... )

I think I can recall a few occasions, years ago, when I was a kid, on which I was bored. I wonder what it felt like ( Read more... )