There’s a phrase I’ve used on this blog more than once that I had reason to Google just now and found that (to my surprise) the top hits are mostly my writings. It is “defect attractor”. In this post I’m going to explain why I think this is an important concept that needs to be… Continue reading Defect attractors
Month: May 2018
The new science of Indo-European origins
I’ve had a strong amateur interest in historical linguistics since my teens in the early 1970s. Then, as today, a lot of the energy in that field was focused in the origins and taxonomy of the Indo-European family – the one that includes English and the Latin-derived and Germanic languages and Greek and also a… Continue reading The new science of Indo-European origins
A touch in the night
Occasionally I have dreams that seem to be trying to assemble into the plot of an SF novel – weird and fractured as dreams are, but with something like a long-form narrative struggling to develop. Occasionally I have nightmares. I don’t know how it goes for anybody else – and one reason I’m posting this… Continue reading A touch in the night
Review: The Fractal Man
The Fractal Man (written by J.Neil Schulman, soon to be available on Amazon) is a very, very funny book – if you share enough subcultural history with the author to get the in-jokes. If you don’t – and in particular if you never met Samuel Edward Konkin – the man known as known as “SEKIII”… Continue reading Review: The Fractal Man
I saw Brand X live a few hours ago
I saw Brand X live a few hours ago. Great jazz-fusion band from the 1970s, still playing like genius maniacs after all these years. Dropped $200 on tickets, dinner for me and my wife, and a Brand X cap. Worth. Every. Penny. Yeah, they saved “Nuclear Burn” for the encore…only during the last regular number… Continue reading I saw Brand X live a few hours ago
Draining the manual-page swamp
One of my long-term projects is cleaning up the Unix manual-page corpus so it will render nicely in HTML. The world is divided into two kinds of people. One kind hears that, just nods and says “That’s nice,” having no idea what it entails. The other kind sputters coffee onto his or her monitor and… Continue reading Draining the manual-page swamp
Embrace the SICK
There’s a very interesting article just out, C Is Not a Low-level Language;. in which David Chisnall punctures the comforting illusion that C is really a “close-to-the-metal” language and relates this illusion to the high costs of Spectre and other processor-level bugs. Those of us who think seriously about language design have long been aware… Continue reading Embrace the SICK
Friends of Armed & Dangerous gathering 2018
The 2018 edition of the annual Friends of Armed & Dangerous FTF will be held in room 821 of the Southfield Westin in Southfield, MI between 9 p.m. and 12 p.m. this evening. If you are at Penguicon, or in the neighborhood and can talk yourself yourself in, come join us for an evening of… Continue reading Friends of Armed & Dangerous gathering 2018
Review: The Mutineer’s Daughter
I greatly enjoyed Thomas Mays’s first novel, A Sword Into Darkness, and have been looking forward to reading the implied sequel. His new collaboration with Chris Kennedy, The Mutineer’s Daughter, isn’t it. Instead, we get a crossover YA/space-opera that is a bit cramped by having been written to the conventions of the YA form. Also… Continue reading Review: The Mutineer’s Daughter