London's cabbies just gave Uber its biggest boost yet-by striking against Uber

From Talia, who tweeted "Antifragile Uber: Strike against it then watch it get bigger"

From Locus

I sometimes see this license plate on a sports car in the parking lot at my bus stop.
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I first read L. Sprague de Camp's SF classic Lest Darkness Fall more than 40 years ago. It still has not grown old. Tonight I ran across this passage:
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I have learned three of life’s lessons from this series: (1) in the end, you will be judged on the integrity of your mission, whether or not your mission was successful; (2) you can always outsmart a computer; and (3) never be the first person to investigate a glowing blob of plasma on an alien planet.

Happy anniversary, Star Trek. Live long and ( Read more... )

Dump the Warp Core...

Proposed "Warp Drive" is Still Science Fiction

I have been reading The Black Swan. From the Amazon blurb:
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a ( Read more... )

Irish Class, October 1, 2012 Rang Gaeilge, an 1ú lá Mí Dheireadh Fómhair 2012
Mo scéalta
( Léigh tuilleadh )

Chicon Overview
mia_mcdavid and I spent the holiday weekend at Chicon 7 with our son James and carpe_noctum_93. We had a great time. I have some pictures up on Google.
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Tipsy taboo. I particularly noticed:
A handful of scholars permit alcohol as long as it is not made from grapes and dates, because these are specifically mentioned in the Koran.

I had run across this concept exactly once before, in Poul Anderson's 1971 novel Operation Chaos. From a scene in chapter 5: "I believe you are concealing something," ( Read more... )