I have extremely strong convictions about free speech and robust debate. Thus, I was rather unhappy the first time that I decided it was necessary to delete a comment on this blog. The rule I published at that time was that comments that were both (a) anonymous, and (b) content-free vitriol, would be subject to… Continue reading Monkey feces and other forms of communication
Author: esr
Massive Intelligence Raids Follow Zarqawi’s Death
NEW YORK (Disassociated Press) – In a surprise sequel to the death of top al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this morning, police have executed raids and searches on dozens of newsrooms and editorial offices belonging to a shadowy and ill-defined network called the “MSM”. The resulting haul of intelligence on terrorist objectives and strategy has… Continue reading Massive Intelligence Raids Follow Zarqawi’s Death
Commands and Colors: Ancients
I’ve put a new page up on my website about the excellent Commands & Colors: Ancients game. It’s just couple of variant rules and some scenario results now, but may grow in the future.
I have received a death threat
Well, this is novel. I’ve just received a terroristic death threat. From an idiot who failed to obscure his return path. Here it is, precisely as I received it mere minutes ago: From salehizadeh_atc@yahoo.com Sun May 21 22:44:42 2006 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.1 (2006-03-10) on snark.thyrsus.com X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,DNS_FROM_RFC_ABUSE, DNS_FROM_RFC_WHOIS,UPPERCASE_25_50 autolearn=no version=3.1.1… Continue reading I have received a death threat
Testosterone makes people stupid
Yes, testosterone makes people stupid. No, I’m not talking about the men who secrete and metabolize it, I’m talking about the nervous old women of both sexes who pronounce upon it as though it were some sort of demonic drug.
Animal imagination?
About a month ago, one of my regular respondents asked me to blog about self-awareness in animals. I’m doing so now because it will be useful for an essay I’m planning to write about ethical and legal definitions of humanity.
The Eurogame Phenomenon
I enjoy strategy games. I’ve been playing them since the heyday of the elaborate hundreds-of-tiny-counters hex-map historical-simulation wargames in the 1970s and early 1980s. But those games don’t get played much any more, largely because they took so long to set up and learn; after 1985 or so younger gamers moved to computer simulations instead,… Continue reading The Eurogame Phenomenon
Memetic Success
Bwahahaha! My sinister master plan for world domination is working. Straight from the pages of the highest-quality general-news magazine in English, check this out! The money ‘graf is the last one: Moreover, the ease with which the internet spreads wrong-headedness–to say nothing of lies and slander–is offset by the ease with which it spreads insights… Continue reading Memetic Success
In the Belly of the Beast
In the beautiful-irony department, I have just learned that my name and copyright now appears in the EULA (End-User License Agreement) of a Microsoft product. A vector-graphics editor called “Microsoft Expressions”, apparently — thanks to Martin Dawson for the tip. The history behind this is that GIFLIB is open-source software for hacking GIF images —… Continue reading In the Belly of the Beast
Apologists for Islam
Since I posted Dan Simmons’s Message From The Future, I’ve had a couple of Muslims show up on this blog protesting that I’ve got it all wrong, that Islam is a peaceful and tolerant religion and Islamic terror is an aberration not sanctioned by the Koran. Here’s a challenge to all you apologists for Islam:… Continue reading Apologists for Islam
My Comment Policy
I deleted a coment this morning. This is not something I normally do, except for comments that are both anonymous and content-free — abuse and invective do not count as ‘content’ for this purpose. The comment I deleted this morning was not anonymous, and it could be argued that there was some content in it.… Continue reading My Comment Policy
Dan Simmons’s message from the future
I very seldom post just to forward my readers to someone else’s writing, but SF author Dan Simmons has earned it with this potent warning. Read the whole thing. Because it is indeed our future, unless we wake up.
Islam Is At War With Us
I’ve been warning since 2002 that the West really is in a war to defend civilization against Islamic barbarians, and had better face up to that fact before the consequences of whitewashing Islam as a “religion of peace” get worse. Comes now Fjordman, a blogger from Norway who tells us that Moslem immigrants to Sweden… Continue reading Islam Is At War With Us
Open Letter to Steve Lohr & John Markoff
You’ve described only symptoms in Windows Is So Slow, but Why?, not the underlying problem. Closed-source software development has a scaling limit, a maximum complexity above which it collapses under its own weight.
HOWTO updates
I’ve just upgraded to Fedora Core 5. As a consequence, I’ve updated the following HOWTOs Fedora Core on Thinkpad X40 HOWTO Fedora Multimedia Installation HOWTO
The End of Faith
Sam Harris’s The End of Faith is a well-executed polemic of a kind that, in retrospect, has been curiously absent in the West over the last fifty years. Not since I read Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not A Christian in the early 1970s have I seen an attack on organized religion as clear, uncompromising,… Continue reading The End of Faith
The Rape Exception
Logicians know that when you deduce a contradiction, your premises are broken. When human beings express a contradiction, it usually means their true beliefs are not their stated or conscious ones; they’re rationalizing a position which they may not be fully aware of.
Hotness in Hollywood
I had planned my string of meditations on the movies to stop with three. But, having succumbed to the mischievous blandishments of my beloved wife Cathy, here’s a fourth. Today I shall consider hotness in Hollywood — some movies that at least partly sold me with sex, and how they did it.
When Hollywood Gets It Right
My last two posts (If Hollywood Were Really Brave and Out of the Frame) have slammed Hollywood pretty hard for cranking out preachy, boring crap while congratulating itself on its bravery. I’ll make it a triptych by examining some recent movies that I found truly excellent.
Out of the Frame
Movie ticket receipts in North America dipped by six percent in 2005 to nine billion dollars, comes today’s report on the status of the film industry. The most hyped movie of 2005 was a depressing, pokey flick about gay sheepherders. The Oscar nominations were otherwise dominated by one movie that flogged us all for our… Continue reading Out of the Frame