Recently updated blogs

John McTiernan's Predator, with Jess Dunne and Joe Griffin. At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database. Show notes, including links: https://them0vieblog.com/2022/06/04/287-top-gun-maverick-this-just-in-50/ Follow us on twitter at @thetwofifty.

Threats against a small Nevada town Pride celebration

I was there at the beginning with Frelux, buying one of their very first lights. And now, years later, I am delighted to own one of their newest. That first light caught my eye because it ran a rare form factor (found only in the Spy series from Cool Fall, the Spy 007 review is here, and various rip offs) and was exceptionally cheap for a custom—coming in at $95. …

SOPHIE's posthumous album SOPHIE is out now on Transgressive and Future Classic - and there's some great stuff on it. An interesting piece at the New Yorker by Jia Tolentino looking at SOPHIE's career and work in terms of "plasticity" On "Bipp""black space latticed with radically strange objects: a rubbery squelch of a bass beat, a melodic line like a laser coated in latex, percussive punctuation marks that seemed to …

Lots of interest in gene editing startups but in practice they don't do that well: Few diseases can be corrected through gene editing, hence valuations of such companies, despite FDA approvals, are low. Compare with addressing shared causes of multi-morbidity like aging or obesity. If you want to work on the former, at Retro.bio we are hiring :) The decline of social status of stay at home moms as cause …

I’m in New York this week for a work thing, stationed close to the Empire State building. The last time I was here it was almost a decade ago and...I didn’t have a great time. Actually, I haven't liked New York the three times I’ve been here. I’m sorry! I’m absolutely not walking over here! Despite how excited I was when I first entered the city, New York felt like …

In the mid-19th century, school reformers made the distinction between head-and-hand learning in children and youth–both had to be schooled. After the Civil War, reformers introduced “manual education” into schools. Working with tools to fashion wood, iron, and other metals into useful objects, teachers and students balanced the then nearly total focus on academic subjects (see here and here). While adding such courses to the high school curriculum was common …

I mean, emails, of course I’ve sent emails, I’ve been sending emails since (checks) December, yes, but see, the thing about December is, in December I was still writing the forty-third novelette? of forty-four? And though I was pretty sure I’d finish it all within the year to come, I mean, writing an epic is hardly a precision enterprise, it’s not like I can point to a section of the …

UPDATE 5 October 2024: in addition to the pretty printing pdf version of the “Nonviolent personality” by Giuliano Pontara that I translated from the Italian original, the booklet is now also available for free in reflowable epub version, for easier reading on a wider variety of devices. The remainder of this post below, which introduces the booklet, is almost the same as the original post from 3 March 2011. ~~~ …

Which books/covers/authors in the post intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed? 1. In Alien Flesh, Gregory Benford (1986) Joe Bergeron’s cover for the 1986 edition From the back cover: “A journey into the depts of space and time by Gregory Benford, winner of the Nebula Award.” Contents: “In Alien Flesh” (1978), “Time Shards” (1979), “Redeemer” (1979), “Snatching the Bot” (1977), “Relativistic Effects” (1982), “Nooncoming” (1978), “To the Storming …

Relative Dormancy Star Trek: TNG will always be my measure of a tablet. We’re still not there yet. Paid a visit to the Field Museum in Chicago. Vibe.

A quick post about some quirky geology today. Geodes are crystal-filled masses inside a larger body of rock. They are awesome. Scientists generally know how they form. Voids or bubbles in volcanic or sedimentary rock (particularly basalt/lava) were inundated with hot, mineral rich, fluids circulating in the ground. Crystals grew from the fluids – like rock candy grows on a string in a saturated sugar solution. Geodes are typically small. …

Nicky Campbell: “Woah. Welcome to indisputably the nation's top pop show. What an opener we've got for you tonight. They're frenetic, flamboyant, fun loving, the lot. You can tell from their name that they come from Germany. They're here tonight with Harlem Desire. The one and only, the two and only, London Boys.” [21] LONDON BOYS: harlem desire. Stanley Appel doesn't like starting Top of the Pops with the host …

AT. LONG. LAST. This part of the challenge was always going to be a difficult owing to the amount of Barbel and indeed Chub present. I have spent over the course of 10 trips (including this trip) 168 hours of angling with 62 Barbel caught, the 62nd being the one I was after, everything in between has been enjoyable and testing in equal measure. A wonderful part of the world, …

Hey You,First off, we're sorry for the delay in getting this newsletter to you—our busy summer months are catching up with us! But we’re here now, and October is packed with so much happening in Aberdeen’s cultural scene that we couldn’t let you miss out. Despite the shorter days and the cooler weather, the city is full of creative energy, and we’re excited to bring you all the latest news.In …