Monday, October 7, 2024

Review of Mary Gentle's Ash: A Secret History

›
Spoilers included. I had heard of this book years ago: a not quite alternate history of late medieval Europe. Its strong points come dow...
Monday, September 23, 2024

Achieving The Impossible: Making Golf Cool

›
My friend (the one with the metal golf cart) is a son of a bitch and meets more certified metal gods while golfing than I ever have backstag...
Monday, October 23, 2023

The Dispossessed by Le Guin

›
In fiction, people write about things that interest them. This is a trivial observation, but there's more to it than that. Why make up...
Monday, December 5, 2022

Why Are UAPs Associated With Naval Aviation?

›
We're more likely to find artifacts from technology-using aliens - self-reproducing (von Neumann) probes - rather than the aliens themse...
Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Why Dune is Unique: Three Reasons, and Some Questions

›
(Contains novel spoilers, Lynch movie spoilers, but not Villeneuve movie spoilers.) Dune has a lot of very loyal readers who rightly under...
Saturday, May 15, 2021

Review of Three Body Problem

›
Warning: spoilers. The Good Western readers will inevitably learn a lot about the Cultural Revolution period and the attitudes abou...
Tuesday, April 6, 2021

We Are Definitely in a Simulation; Also the Simulation Argument is Poorly-Defined With Many Unjustified Assumptions

›
Periodically I re-write an argument about both the relevance of the simulation argument, as well as its poorly defined nature. This leads t...
Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Unfit to Rest, No Haven (2020)

›
Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Rejoice, We Conquer!

›
Metellus Celer recalls the following: when he was Proconsul in Gaul, he was given people from India by the king of the Sueves; upon requesti...