Today’s Genius of the day is Tim Minear. The nominating committee wanted to point out some of the reasons he won: 1. The Firefly episode “Out of Gas” 2. His very clear influence in the second season of Angel, for the better 3. The phrase “Sky-Bully” Tim, Forced Perspective salutes you! We owe you a […]

Richard Dawkins is endorsing a new meme, best expressed as an analogy: gay is to homosexual as bright is to atheist, though perhaps the broader term queer could be brought into the analogy, as bright seems to include everybody with a predominantly naturalistic view of the world.

Philip Pullman and C.S. Lewis in the literary cagematch of the century!!! Not really, just a fairly confrontational interview with Pullman that goes into issues literary and spiritual. A highlight: Throughout His Dark Materials there’s a strong sense of ‘ought’. All the most attractive characters—Lyra and Will, Lee Scoresby, Iorek Byrnison, Mary Malone—are driven in […]

crank.net is a potentially useful index of cranks on the web, by topic!

At the clinic today, I had to hang around for an hour to make sure the four injections into my belly fat didn’t go horribly, horribly wrong; and since the usual magazines there aren’t really suitable for killing time (and I didn’t know I was going to be in the group with the side-effect injections, […]

Another publisher’s description, this time of The Prostate: Everything You Need to Know: “Taguchi, a urologist (Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal), explains the most common prostate problems in plain language, with a bit of humor, for general readers.” Because there’s nothing people like more than a bit of prostate humor. Craig? Any prostate jokes?

From a publisher’s description of Betty Crocker’s Cookie Book, 2nd edition: “Betty Crocker’s celebration of the cookie includes more than 240 recipes for everything from Deluxe Chocolate Chip Cookies to Walnut Biscotti. Rpclu Rpad Bars, No-Roll Sugar Cookies, and more.” Rpclu Rpad Bars?

Three nuns in their sixties are awaiting heavy sentencing for breaking into a nuclear missile site and painting crosses on the silo cover in their own blood, plus some fairly symbolic (given that the nun in the picture is fairly petite– your fun size nun, if you will) hammer damage. Their lawyer says the serious […]

If you need to preserve food for a long time, you have a few main options. If you’re going on a long space journey, I recommend canned food. If you’re backpacking, I recommend dried food to reconstitute on the road (make sure you find potable water!). If you’re at home, try freezing your food. A […]

A weblog of cool tools, edited by a guy who used to edit Whole Earth Review.