The occasional scrivener

Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear

Mon, 14 May 2012 08:33:00 +0000

A man is ripped from a deep sleep by a little girl. He’s in a room with other writhing bodies. It’s bitterly cold. The little girls runs, telling him to chase heat.

He’s propelled into a nightmare world of shifting gravity, of changing temperatures, of strange monsters out to kill him. He has only his memories, and crude notes gathered in a book by the little girl.

Where is he? Why was he born? Why don’t his memories of his previous life, preparing to be a teacher to a group of colonists preparing to settle a new world, jibe with the present nightmare reality?

Hull Zero Three is hard SF at its best, combining Bear’s trademark vision of weird biology with a frighteningly plausible look at how we would colonise an alien planet at any price.

Another review.

Links for week of Mon 7 May 2012 (2012W19)

Sun, 13 May 2012 23:49:00 +0000

Dangers of National Unity - NYTimes.com →

Krugman nails it - austerity practically ensured extremists would win election gains. 30s again, + s/gold std/EUR/

FLASH: Avgår efter Twitterstorm - DN.se →

Klockren parodi på gårdagens “twitterstorm” mot Moderaterna #svpol

svpol

The Fat Trap - NYTimes.com →

This article points to something interesting and disturbing - that the bodies of fat people actively try to regain lost weight, despite the best efforts to try to lose it.

It’s interesting because it puts the moralizing about overweight people into perspective - even highly motivated people struggle to lose weight because their bodies are working against them. So there’s no “sloth factor” involved.

It’s scary because if we can find the biological roots to this system, there will be a move to eliminate it - through selective abortion or genetic screening.

obesity fat diet weightloss science

Emanuel Karlsten: Twitter är en damm för högröstade ankor - DN.SE →

Emanuel Karlsten: Twitter är en damm för högröstade ankor Håller med 100%

Open Channel - How Florida brothers’ ‘pill mill’ operation fueled painkiller abuse epidemic →

A fascinating account of a South Florida pill mill distributing oxycontin (“hillbilly herion”) to the eastern US. As seen in “Justified”, where the subsequent tightening of prescription rules closed down the “Florida connection”, leading the criminals in the show to start their own operations in Kentucky.

oxy drugs asseenontv justified addiction crime

Controversy grows in Israel over extension of Tal Law granting haredim army exemptions | JTA - Jewish & Israel News →

Background on the Tal Law, recently deemed unconstitutional. It’s an interesting glimpse of modern Israel.

israel haredi military service excemption yeshiva

75 Years Since The Hindenburg Disaster - In Focus - The Atlantic →

75 Years Since The Hindenburg Disaster - In Focus - The Atlantic - Amazing images

Untitled (http://html9responsiveboilerstrapjs.com/) →

RT @kazarnowicz: “Fork me on Github” is not a programmer euphemism for having sex, but this is funny (ping @filip/ …

WPR Article | Georgia-Israel Love Affair Now a Messy Divorce →

Fascinating overview of the now-strained relationship between the two countries, superficially so similar but in fact with diametrically different foreign policy goals.

foreign-policy georgia israel russia iran realpolitik

U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam | Danger Room | Wired.com →

RT @jwomack: “Precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima…applicable to the Mecca and Medina destruction DP in Phase III”

Using perl to convert short urls (shortened urls) into long urls « Linux Fanatic →

I was looking for a way to “deshortify” shortened URLs and came across this comment by Larry Wall… it’s amazing it works!

perl url shortened deshorten deshortify

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis

Fri, 11 May 2012 08:54:00 +0000

I realised I haven’t blogged about this even though I read it a while back - the perils of ebooks…

This is a collection of articles that I think have been published in the Atlantic already. Lewis travels to Iceland, Greece, Germany, and Ireland to try to discover what happened when these countries were hit by the financial crisis tsunami. It’s a fun quick read, highly recommended.

Links for week of Mon 30 Apr 2012 (2012W18)

Sun, 06 May 2012 23:49:00 +0000

Olympics 2012: A Bruce Schneier Moment - Charlie’s Diary →

Charlie Stross gets imaginitive when it comes to causing terror during the Olympics. I think the next step for terrorists is to turn the security theatre on it’s head. How about shutting down 3 or 4 major airports at the same time? Easily done by phoning in a semi-creditable bomb threat.

london olympics security security-theatre antimissile wtf

Friends Oral History: Inside the Ratings Juggernaut’s Secret Past | Hollywood | Vanity Fair →

Looks lazily written (what “oral history isn’t)[1] but interesting none-the-less. My wife is a big Friends fan so this is for her.

[1] yes I’ve heard of Studs Terkel

friends tv oral-history making-of casting

Natural gas: Difference Engine: Awash in the stuff | The Economist →

The Economist hoo-rahs the product of fracking - natural gas from shale. Although there is little discussion of the local effects of fracking, there are some interesting nuggets here - the fact that gas prices are plummeting, and the possible future of CNG-powered vehicles.

gas fracking economics cng future price usa manufacturing

Death Star? No thank you. — The Monkey Cage →

Entertaining look at the security policy implications of the Death Star. TL;DR the Emperor should put scarce resourced in other things than the Death Star, and not blow up planets willy-nilly.

star-wars security dictatorship

From Halmstad to Wembley: how ‘Swedish icon’ Roy Hodgson ended up as England manager - Telegraph →

The story about an English coach transforming my hometown’s football team. He’s now the England manager.

football halmstad history reportage

Links for week of Mon 23 Apr 2012 (2012W17)

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:49:00 +0000

Zac’s Pad →

Howto get Mosh working with Putty for SSH from Windows.

mosh windows ssh putty howto

The Ayatollah Under the Bed(sheets) - By Karim Sadjadpour | Foreign Policy →

Entertaining article about the weird sexual politics in Iran

Iran sex politics

Wow Watch Wednesday: Grieb & Benzinger’s Blue Danube : The Watch Lounge – The Online Watch Lover’s Magazine →

Amazing skeletonized watch. For Stephmw.

watch grieb+benzinger watches

The Chief Complaint: Dr. Otis Brawley - Features - Atlanta Magazine →

Heartbreaking story about the state of health care in the USA

usa politics health healthcare cancer insurance race

Ned Batchelder: Two problems →

Some people, reading a jwz quip, make up their own. Now you have two jokes.

Some good ones here.

humour nerd code jwz

Shift Happens - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education →

Overview and discussion about Kuhn’s theory about the paradigm shift.

science history philosophy

Garbology: Difference engine: Talking trash | The Economist →

Overview of different methods of physical garbage disposal and the associated costs.

garbage disposal recycling environment

Get ‘Em Early: A Marketing Plan For Raising Watch Lovers →

Article about marketing watches to kids. I’m personally interested in making it easier for my son to wear a watch, but the market really isn’t there in my opinion.

watches marketing

The New Yorker’s Umlaut Is Actually a Diaeresis : The New Yorker →

The New Yorker, in a nutshell.

style language diaeresis typography new-yorker

Review: A Singular Empire | The National Interest →

Why did the Roman empire last as long as it did? A book that attempts to explain.

rome roman-empire history review

Return of the linkblog

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 17:18:00 +0000

I finally got my ass in gear and moved from Delicious to Pinboard, and in the process got a bit carried away and coded a bunch of scripts to import my links into this blog.

So now I have basically all my links mirrored here, minus the ones that are dead (about 20%!). They will be updated every week going forward. Enjoy!

Links for week of Mon 16 Apr 2012 (2012W16)

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 23:49:00 +0000

The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees by E. Lily Yu →

Hugo-nominated short story. Via Scalzi.

sf Hugo short-story ebook

H.P. Lovecraft Answers Your Relationship Questions « The Bygone Bureau →

About what you would expect…

humour parody squamous rugose eldritch

Pinboard: howto page →

Info on RSS feeds etc

howto rss todo

Scent Guide - AskMen →

Guide to the terminology of men’s scents. I don’t use any myself as my wife is allergic but I do have a coworker who asked my about this just the other day. This is basically for her.

perfume scent terminology

Neonomicon by Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:34:00 +0000

This graphic novel (emphasis on graphic, there’s plenty of bodily fluids flowing here) is a fresh take on the old Cthulhu mythos. I was interested in how Moore would handle it and he did it masterfully. Recommended if you like that kind of stuff.

New domain!

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:24:00 +0000

If you’re seeing this post, I’ve moved the blog to my “own” domain gerikson.com.

Update: comments should be migrated! Kudos to Disqus for providing the tools to do this!

Links for week of Mon 9 Apr 2012 (2012W15)

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 23:49:00 +0000

PHP: a fractal of bad design - fuzzy notepad →

Every few years, a new generation of programmers discovers the eldritch horrors of PHP and a new rant sees the light of day. This is a bit more comprehensive than most.

code php rant