blog
revere | August 26, 2007I have an admission to make. For the last couple of weeks I have been bootlegging off of whatever available wifi I could find. This has found me out on the porch of our unit, balancing my laptop on a the railing, trying to catch a couple of waves. Sick? Mrs. R. thinks so. It's not that I don't want to pay for wifi. I'd gladly pay them if I had any idea where they were and I could connect easily. I have Comcast service at home and this unit is cabled by Comcast, too, so if I could move the service temporarily I would. But I can't do that and I don't have a modem. Anyway, blogging at 28K is…
razib | August 25, 2007Check it, Chris Mooney is on bloggingheads.tv. He's promoting his book Storm World, which is a really good read. I can't speak in detail to the area of science which Chris covers, but the bigger picture issue of the "intersection" between public policy and the culture of science and the ensuing controversies have a universal resonance.
razib | August 21, 2007This morning in NYC I took a cab to Penn Station. It was raining really hard...so I was curious, I asked the cab driver, "So do you get more fares when it's raining?" He explained that yes, there are more fares on hand, but because of the rain and traffic jams it works out to less revenue in a given day (e.g., he explained that half the time he's stuck in traffic without a fare).
Then I showed up in D.C. this afternoon, and I notice no meter or even all that offical crap that NYC cabs have. I start freaking out and wondering whether this is really a cab, but the guy drops me off and asks…
razib | August 20, 2007Most of you know that I was in NYC this weekend and I hung with the ScienceBlogs crowd. Others have summarized the goings on with eminent competence, so I won't add more to that. There was lots of fun to be had, and I made sure I had some of it. But, I would like to give a shout out to two individuals: Lee Billings and Joshua "I like it brown!" Roebke. They're editors at Seed, and really fun guys when drunk/drinking. I do have to say that my memories are pretty pleasant since I schooled Roebke in a "Yo Mama!" face off, nerd style. He likes it dead and brown; that's all you have to know…
razib | August 20, 2007I went to Bacchus on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn tonight. Great food, great wine. But here is why I am giving them props: habanero tabasco sauce!. Yes, instead of offering me cayenne tabasco, they actually offered me a nice spicy condiment. And I shall remain eternally grateful. So:
Bacchus
409 Atlantic Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11217-1702
Phone: (718) 852-1572
Check it out. And ask for hot sauce!
razib | August 19, 2007Went to see Superbad with Jake, Kara & Jason Rosenhouse. I thought it was OK, only checked time once. But again, the pairing of fug dudes with un-fug chicks leaves me unsuspended in my disbelief.
razib | August 16, 20071 hour after I landed in NYC from the land of green trees and the Pacific I had to explain to another visitor that the E train could take him to Penn Station, that you could recognize it by the colored label affixed to the front and the sides. And yes, they would announce it when they arrived at Penn Station (and you could actually look out the window and note that it wasn't a typical stop by the bustle). My fellow stranger was from a state called New Jersey. Strange, eh?
razib | August 16, 2007For the Northwestern bibliophiles, did you know that Powell's started in Chicago? I did not. There is a small Powell's bookstore (the original) about 5 blocks east of the University of Chicago. Seeing the exact same font on the sign and the name is pretty strange if you aren't expecting to stumble upon it.
razib | August 14, 2007In a line.
Guy in front of me: Line's long, hey?
Me: You Canadian?
Guy in front of me: [surprised look] What! How'd you know? How could you tell.
Me: Well, you said "hey" in your first three words. I thought you were either joking and pretending to be Canadian for laughs, or actually Canadian.
Guy in front of me: I didn't even know I said "hey."
Me: Canadians are funny. Canada is funny.
Guy in front of me: We're a much bigger country than you.
Me: But you have a smaller population than California. And you're always frozen.
Guy in front me: [nervous laugh] Well, that's pretty much right,…
revere | August 11, 2007We accidentally put up Sunday's Sermonette this morning (Saturday) but now I've moved it to its proper place on Sunday (tomorrow). This happened because the Reveres are on the road (literally) headed for the beach for a few weeks and I wrote the Sermonette late at night after driving all day. At the beach we won't have internet connection, although we are told there is a wifi hot spot not too far away, so we'll check in periodically.
We're not settled on how we are going to handle blogging under these conditions. We will try to put up all the things you know and love to hate (like the…
razib | August 9, 2007Hung with old college friends last night. We kept referring to South Park episodes to illustrate a point or make an analogy so as to clarify an issue. Interesting that this is a common touchstone for my generation.
razib | August 8, 2007In High-wire Act:
Before agreeing to work on the opera, Albarn and Hewlett made two trips to China with Shi-Zheng. While visiting the city of Yinchuan, in Ninzxia Province, Albarn spent an afternoon lying on the floor of his hotel room recording the sound of horns in the street.
There is no "Ninzxia province." Yinchuan is the capital of Ningxia. Or NÃngxià or Ning-hsia or Ningsia. Google turns out 5 results for "Ninzxia," one of which is the article in The New Yorker (the others look like purposeful hidden misspellings so that search engines will catch the sites).
Not a big deal, but if…
razib | August 7, 2007TNR has a piece by one of the writers for Buffy and the Vampire Slayer (and an assorted other sci-fi shows) about the appeal of some stories (e.g., Harry Potter) and the lack of others. Her basic thesis is that the story needs a "Chosen One" central spoke to anchor the axis of the narrative. That sounds fine, though I have to wonder why David Lynch's Dune tanked so much (just a bad film?). I don't have any grand theory for why sci-fi and science fiction are ghettoized in the norm but occasionally break out to become cultural phenomena. It seems like one of those stochastic "Tipping Point…
razib | August 4, 2007I saw The Bourne Ultimatum today. Good movie, only checked the time once (10 minutes before the film ended). Julia Stiles looks totally Asian with black hair.