Sigh-fi: Why I see Dune in everything. I consumed it in bits and pieces, in time snatched during a hectic week at work. It was terribly addictive. Like some sort of exotic spice churned into existence by the mysterious alchemy of an entire planet. As I went through the motions of everyday existence by rote, portions of the book shimmered into focus, throwing the rest of my attention out of it. After I put it down, it was all I could do to hold myself from doing a Harlem shake. In public, that is. In the relative privacy of home, I gyrated with wild excitement, like a Nudibranch overdosing on Red Bull.
Where are my manners? Star Wars, The Matrix Reloaded, Tremors, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Dead Man’s Chest, Monster’s Inc., Men in Black II…off the cuff. I am an ardent fan of the genre and have been known to declare during unguarded, not necessarily inebriated, moments, that science fiction is potentially the richest form of literature. Jules Verne, H.G. It’s brilliant, really. Then there’s the philosophy of the book. Henry Rollins Reminds Everyone That Outrage Won’t Be Enough to Prevent Another Steubenville. I've been a fan of Henry Rollins for years - both musically and politically. I'm glad that he's a feminist man and takes a stand against rape culture.
However, I'm going to have to disagree with him here. Yes, I agree with Rollins about the social factors that create rapists. With that said I do not share his reluctance about putting rapists in jail for a very long time. We aren't in a place where we're going to change the social forces that cause roughly 6% to 14% of men to rape, and upwards of 40% of men to say they would commit a rape if they were certain that they would not get arrested. We aren't realistically going to get every parent to raise their sons differently, nor are we going to change the way most men perceive masculinity, we aren't even that likely to transform the type of masculinity that is promoted by organized football.
What we can do is pressure courts, legislatures, prosecutors and police departments to take rape seriously and to punish rapists. Why I Wish I Could Be Religious. Religion haunts me. Intellectually, it grinds away at my sanity and at my hope for humanity. In the age where mankind is discovering the very fabric of existence itself, we still have people insisting that the “one, true faith” is the one that they were indoctrinated into as kids. When 3D printers are mastering the intricacies of complex molecular structures, there are still those adamant in the belief that the world is only a few thousand years old. Religion, in that sense, is disquieting towards any well-read, logical human being. People with iPhones and other advanced tools, for some reason, choose to worship bronze-age divinities as if they were responsible for bestowing mankind with these gifts, rather than human ingenuity and technological innovations.
However, religion, despite these faults, has always had an emotional allure to me — an allure that I couldn’t fully understand until the whole “new pope” saga played out. Religion is the most comforting lie in the world. Training to Become a Better Climber - Part 4 - Vimperator. More Articles Like This Is it possible to improve your climbing without even trying? Jack Geldard thinks that a few small changes in your climbing... [ full article ] Top British Boulderer, Ned Feehally shares his experiences climbing some hard boulders both in the UK and the world, his opinions... [ full article ] In this short video from Canadian competition climber Sean McColl, we see Sean training at a private wall in Chamonix, France. ... [ full article ] Popular Articles Right Now With junior competitions becoming more popular, training for young climbers is becoming much more popular.
An antique axe believed to have belonged to George Mallory sold today at auction for a six figure sum. Related UKC Forum discussions This is the fourth piece in a series of training articles and is aimed at intermediate climbers (Approximate grade range of around UK E1/2, Sport grade F6b+/6c or bouldering grade V3/4 / UK Tech 6a/b).
UKC Articles and Gear Reviews by Robbie Phillips: Name: Regy Roof Toe Hooks. Pain & Gain - Page 1 - News - Miami - Miami New Times - Vimperator. In the summer of 1994, the Sun Gym featured a juice bar; aerobic workouts; free-weights; Hammer, Nautilus, and Cam machines; even baby-sitting services; and on the sly, a variety of illegal steroids available in the locker room. Just north of Miami Lakes, Sun Gym was a serious bodybuilder's hangout, run under the watchful eye of Daniel Lugo, its charismatic, fast-talking manager. Anyone could join, of course, but if you were soft and puffy, you were way out of your league here.
Sun Gym's favored lads were thick and ripped. This was not a place for weekend warriors. Supposedly the gym had 571 members, but the books were wrong. Sun Gym was hemorrhaging clients, who were taking their paunches to the newly opened Gold's Gym complex in Miami Lakes. Gold's didn't push a cult of the perfect physique; fitness training there was, by comparison, a casual outlet for exercise and social interaction. Miami accountant John Mese had opened Sun Gym just seven years before, in January 1987. Details. Best Books Of 2012 : NPR - Vimperator. Black Market Drug Site 'Silk Road' Booming: $22 Million In Annual Sales - Forbes - Vimperator. () - 1207.7139v1.pdf - Vimperator. The Last Answer | Thrivenotes. The Last Answer by Isaac Asimov — © 1980 Murray Templeton was forty-five years old, in the prime of life, and with all parts of his body in perfect working order except for certain key portions of his coronary arteries, but that was enough.
The pain had come suddenly, had mounted to an unbearable peak, and had then ebbed steadily. He could feel his breath slowing and a kind of gathering peace washing over him. There is no pleasure like the absence of pain – immediately after pain. He opened his eyes and noted with distant amusement that the others in the room were still agitated. Now, with the pain gone, the others were still hovering, still anxious, still gathered about his fallen body –– Which, he suddenly realised, he was looking down on. He was down there, sprawled, face contorted.
He thought: Miracle of miracles! And although that was a humiliating way for an atheistic physicist to die, he felt only the mildest surprise, and no alteration of the peace in which he was immersed. “Yes.” Whatever happened to the Hurd? – The story of the GNU OS. Although the GNU operating system was first conceived in 1983 and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) had first declared an interest in using the Mach microkernel as the core of the GNU operating system kernel as far back as 1987, the sources of the Mach microkernel – developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) – weren’t released under a suitable licence until 1991, by which time Linus Torvalds had begun his project to write a UNIX-like kernel for the IBM 386.
If the Linux kernel hadn’t been written when it was, licensed under the GPLv2 and surrounded by components of the GNU operating system, or Linux hadn’t captured the moment and the imagination of developers, the energy that gathered around Linux might have gone to the Hurd and the world might have been a different place. But it wasn’t just the rise of Linux, or the choice of the Mach microkernel that slowed the progress of the Hurd. A slightly large closet GNU paid for itself through the sale of the software. At the bleeding edge. What is Deliberate Practice. Being Productive - When It Slowly Becomes An Obsession.
Being productive is something we are pursuing relentlessly without questioning the outer limits of it. There is no such thing as too productive, we think, and often times we are obsessing with it in excess. If you are addicted to self-improvement, and in any way beat your head over being more productive the larger part of the day, then you probably never even came to realize that fanatically trying to increase productivity, you are only limiting yourself and your potential. Hence, can the very idea of increasing productivity turn as counterproductive on the long run? Or the more important question:Do you feel that by being obsessed with increasing productivity you are not even aware of it? More is better, or so we think If things are good for us, why not have some of them in plenty?
Double size’em too, right? That’s never the case, albeit it may strike us as such. It’s more of a drive we have, which in a way hinders productivity, trying to be more productive that is. But now jokes aside. Offline: how's it going? It's all anybody asks me. I tell them I'm not using the internet for a year, and they just need to know: "How's it going? " "It's going great," I say. "Yeah? " they say, dubiously. Their eyes glaze over: they're trying to imagine what it would be like for them to leave the internet for any span of time. They probably read some article recently that made them feel bad about their Facebook habit. "I don't think I could do it," they admit. "Well, it's not actually a realistic thing to do," I assure them.
"Wait, they're still paying you? " Crazy, isn't it? And it is going great. The first two weeks were a zen-like blur. Without the internet, everything seemed new to me. Three months later, I don't miss the internet at all. But now that not having internet is no longer new, just normal, the zen calm is gone.
I'm just stock Paul Miller. "Disconnecting" and "disconnected" are two very different things People ask me if I recommend taking a break from the internet. And if the talk isn't good? How Not to Become Mat Honan: A Short Primer on Online Security | Threat Level. Meet Mat Honan. He just had his digital life dissolved by hackers. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired. Illustration: Ross Patton/Wired By now, you’ve probably read or heard about Wired staff writer Mat Honan’s journey through digital hell, in which hackers social-engineered Apple into giving them the keys to his digital life, allowing them to scrub his laptop, iPhone and iPad, hijack his and Gizmodo’s Twitter accounts and delete eight-years-worth of email from his Gmail account.
Honan admits to making a number of mistakes — such as failing to enable two-factor authentication and not backing up his data — that allowed the hack to escalate to the point from which there was no return. In the hope of preventing you from experiencing a similar fate, we’ve listed a number of steps you can take to protect your data and your identity online. 1. Gmail and other services offer two-factor authentication that help secure your account even if your password is stolen or cracked. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
The End of the University as We Know It - Nathan Harden - The American Interest Magazine. Abortion in America Is Rand Paul Staking Out a Middle Ground in the Abortion Wars? At the University of Chicago this week, Rand Paul made some remarks about “in-between solutions” to abortion that have conservatives wondering where he stands. The general electorate, however, would welcome a politician who occupies the middle ground on this issue. illliberal liberalism Colleges Aren’t Protective Cocoons Liberals are increasingly unwilling to permit conservatives even to speak on campus. Higher Education Bubble Fewer High School Grads are Going to College College enrollment is way down as more high school grads choose work over school. Dam the Neighbors Ethiopia: East Africa’s Success Story?
Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam will be a jewel in the crown of a country whose fortunes are finally improving. Pipelines and Dragons and Bears Oh My Eyeing China, Russia Risks its European Energy Market The End of History? How America Forgot Geopolitics Essay Race, Democracy and the Constitution Roger Berkowitz. A Generation Lost in the Bazaar - ACM Queue. The Bike Shed Development Poul-Henning Kamp Thirteen years ago, Eric Raymond's book The Cathedral and the Bazaar (O'Reilly Media, 2001) redefined our vocabulary and all but promised an end to the waterfall model and big software companies, thanks to the new grass-roots open source software development movement. I found the book thought provoking, but it did not convince me.
On the other hand, being deeply involved in open source, I couldn't help but think that it would be nice if he was right. The book I brought to the beach house this summer is also thought provoking, much more so than Raymond's (which it even mentions rather positively): Frederick P. Thirteen years ago also marks the apogee of the dot-com euphoria, where every teenager was a Web programmer and every college dropout had a Web startup.
I have not seen any competent analysis of how much bigger the IT industry became during the dot-com years. I updated my laptop. Modularity and code reuse are, of course, A Good Thing. It hurts a bit... : nosleep. The Basement. : nosleep. King's "Everything You Need to Know...." By Stephen King (reprinted in Sylvia K. Burack, ed. The Writer's Handbook. Boston, MA: Writer, Inc., 1988: 3-9) I. The First Introduction THAT'S RIGHT. Last night, in the well-loved gymnasium of Lisbon High School, partisans and Jay Hills fans alike were stunned by an athletic performance unequaled in school history: Bob Ransom, known as "Bullet" Bob for both his size and accuracy, scored thirty-seven points. (after edit marks) Last night, in the Lisbon High School gymnasium, partisans and Jay Hills fans alike were stunned by an athletic performance unequaled in school history: Bob Ransom scored thirty-seven points.
When Gould finished marking up my copy in the manner I have indicated above, he looked up and must have seen something on my face. This, of course, is the killer. 2. Type. 3. If you haven't marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy job. 4. You want to get up on a soapbox and preach? 5. You want to write a story? 6. 7. Does this mean you can't write "serious fiction"?