March 2012
15 posts
A Universe Of Self-replicating Code | Conversation... →
George Dyson, author of my latest must-read, Turing’s Cathedral, talks computation and life.
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A FiveBooks interview on utopia, dystopia, and the apocalypse with John Gray:
On Civilization and Its Discontents:
Freud is a very relevant figure to this discussion. The limits of progress are in the flaws and divisions of human nature, which are integral to being human. The way Freud represents this in a number of his works, including Civilisation and Its Discontents, is to say that there...
Walt Whitman's drafts for "Song of Myself" →
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A Different Stripe: What to read after 'The Hunger... →
nyrbclassics:
…if you’ve read the Hunger Games trilogy (however many times), bought your ticket for the movie, and still need more dystopian teenage angst, we heartily recommend The Chyrsalids: “KEEP PURE THE STOCK OF THE LORD; WATCH THOU FOR THE MUTANT.”
If you like this kind of post-apocalyptic fiction, The Chrysalids is definitely required reading.
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The Best Western Novels from The Western Writers... →
H.P. Lovecraft, Author, Is Dead →
longformorg:
On the 75th anniversary of the writer’s death, a look at his influence.
While the Cthulhu Mythos never featured prominently in King’s novels, It is generally regarded as his most Lovecraftian work. King’s declaration of Lovecraft as “the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale” is found on the jacket of nearly every compendium of Lovecraft “best of”...
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As I’ve been mulling over science’s role in our lives as a mediator between us and nature, and how it fails in that role in a post-apocalyptic setting, I am struck by this comment by David Hume:
We are placed in this world, as in a great theatre, where the true springs and causes of every event are entirely concealed from us; nor have we either sufficient wisdom to foresee, or power...
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My latest sci-fi review: Bernard Wolfe’s 1952 behemoth, Limbo, over at the Finch and Pea.
A teaser:
It’s the post-apocalyptic 1990’s, thanks to a late 70’s nuclear third world war brought on by the giant computers that had been delegated by humans to handle geopolitics. (They sound a little like the micro-trading computers that now handle the much of high finance.) It turns out...
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Academic freedom looking good in Virginia, more at the Finch and Pea.
Looking out the window of Starbucks, I see the best company slogan ever: Irish Plastering and Tuckpointing - “Get plastered with Irish”
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Motherhood versus the Lab at the Finch and Pea.
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Santorum’s Arrested Development by Garry Wills |... →
A massive case of projection: Santorum believes college is about brain-washing because that’s how he educates his children.
February 2012
34 posts
I’m sure this one won’t be controversial - science proves rich people are dishonest jerks:
Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior, PNAS:
Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law...
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In the New Yorker, James Wood on Santorum’s bizarre views on environmental conservation:
Put aside theology for a moment. Just intellectually, there are many peculiarities here. According to Santorum, environmentalists and leftists believe in serving the earth, while proper Christians “should have dominion over it, and should be good stewards of it.” The distinction Santorum is working...
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The Dalkey Archive has just released a reprint of The Recognitions. Now read about William Gaddis, over at the New Yorker:
William Gaddis, in the closing pages of his colossal 1955 novel “The Recognitions,” inserts a brief scene that manages to be at once rancorously funny, brazenly self-referential, and spookily prescient about the critical fate that lay in store for his work. A book reviewer...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/science/yeast-gen... →
A Pulitzer-prize winning novelist visits a genetics lab, and none of the scientists can remember the visit.
