Faced with the growing strength of the Empire and the possible dissolution of the Rebel Alliance, Luke, Leia, and Han set off on their own. After a series of dangerous adventures, they join up with the other Rebel characters we met in the previous movies for a battle royale with the evil Empire. At the [...]
If there is one science fiction author whose works disturb me, it is Phillip K. Dick. The first work of his that I read was an essay entitled "How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later." I was expecting a tome on how to construct an universe in a science fiction [...]
A year ago, I was reading Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha:
And then, for an hour, he became aware of the strange life he was leading, of him doing lots of things which were only a game, of, though being happy and feeling joy at times, real life still passing him by and not touching him.
Via BoingBoing comes all of Title 17 of the United States Code, which encapsulates all of American copyright law, in short quartains with ABAB rhyming scheme. On 17 USC 107 (fair use):
Despite all of these rights
All people can reproduce
To report, criticise, or teach
Because that is fair use
Almost as interesting as the verse is the copyright [...]
A 750 word review of Thomas Kinsella's The Tain, a compilation from the Táin Bó Cúailnge and other tales from the Ulster Cycle.
A very long post about graduating from Harvard; not reading enough; and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over two thousand words! Nine footnotes! Four pictures! One very long digression!
Previously, I wrote about the Calvin & Hobbes RSS feed I was scraping from UComics. Unfortunately, UComics replaced the image that was placed in the RSS feed with a Flash file. While I have updated the RSS feed, I am still a bit angry, since the Flash utilized on UComics is Flash 8. Since Flash [...]
In tomorrow's New York Times magazine, Kevin Kelly writes the best explanation I have recently read of why book digitization is a good idea and its potential pitfalls. The beginning of the article is a bit silly and utopian, with its claims that the "universal library" (which will include the sum of all human [...]
I was suffering from anomie earlier this week when I stumbled upon Monster Island thanks to a locked LiveJournal post.[1] Despite the fact you cannot read my friend's praise of Monster Island, I think it is still worth reading. Although the novel is for sale at Amazon, the author, David Wellington, decided to make it [...]
On a desk in Lamont Library:
[in pink] You're ugly
[in black] Why is Lamont beautiful and Cabot ugly?
[in different handwriting] One word - modernism. It's an idea where form + function just didn't meld too well.
My personal opinion (which, unfortunately, is not expressed on the walls of Lamont itself) is that Lamont Library was built in [...]
Despite having a Boston setting, the first chapter of Patricia Cornwell's book At Risk, the latest New York Times Sunday Serial, is one of the worst pieces of writing ever written.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
A review of Phillip Roth's bestselling novel, The Plot Against America. With spoilers.
Considering I spent about 4 hours this morning reading the latest Harry Potter book (what can I say? I read fast), I figured it was past due time for me to write about Susanna Clarke's novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I completed back in June. It is perhaps inevitable that my review will [...]
Instead of reading the latest Harry Potter book, I spent last night reading Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. I have intended to read the book since junior year of high school, when one of my friends noted similarities between an English essay I had written entitled "Under the Tire" with Hesse's novel Beneath the Wheel.
Siddhartha was far [...]
The Confusion is the second installment of Neil Stephenson's Baroque Cycle trilogy, which began with Quicksilver (ISBN: 0380977427) and ends with The System of the World (ISBN: 0060523875). In his 1999 bestselling novel Cryptonomicon (ISBN: 0380973464), Stephenson explained the role of cryptography in World War II by switching between two characters - the gung-ho Marine [...]
Subject: hello
From: Catalina Crain <richtrent@walla.com>
Even before I opened it, I could tell that this message was going to be spam. However, I expected the message it contained to be a generic spam message pimping out email addresses, prescription drugs, or OEM software like the vast majority of spam I receive. I have seen spam that [...]
One thing that has bothered me lately is the spelling of grey. Traditionally, I have always spelled it "grey" with no problems with any electronic spellchecks. Unfortunately, for some reason the Unix American English dictionaries do not include "grey" in their listings, preferring instead "gray." While my mind has no problem recognizing both of these [...]
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
From the Preface Foreword of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men:
Night was his [James Agee's] time. In Alabama he worked I don't know how late. Some parts of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men read as though they were written on the spot at night. Later, in a small house in Frenchtown, New Jersey, the [...]
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Sunday, November 21, 2004
Joey deVilla has scanned the entire 17-page comic "I am Curious (BLACK)!," which I previously wrote about back in February. This comic is bizarre enough that it is impossible to talk about all of the strange things that happen. Just go read it.
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
Two gems from Sunday's New York Times Opinion section. Thomas Friedman exhorts voters to choose the heir of George H. W. Bush, the 41st president.
So as we approach this critical election of 2004, my advice, dear readers, is this: Vote for the candidate who embodies the ethos of George H. W. Bush - the old [...]
Since the entire idea of writing online is producing your own content, blog plagiarism would seem a bit moronic. As any reader of Chilling Effects could tell you, this is not the case. I was reading a post on Weblog Tools Collection about a person offering to install WordPress blogs for others for free. It [...]
Accordion Guy blogs about the "Exploring the Fusion Power of Public and Participatory Journalism" Conference (clunky name, but interesting content), which occurred earlier today in Toronto. Over the span of several posts, he lays out a detailed reconstruction of the speeches and Q&A sessions in convenient bullet-point format. Start at the first post here. It's [...]
In the interest of full disclosure, Amazon follows Anarchy, State, & Utopia with three more government books, followed by a lot of random music interspersed with some science fiction and a number of works of French existentialism.
When I started reading the New York Times article "Susanna Clarke's Magic Book," I was not impressed. Another supposed successor to Harry Potter, I thought, when will these publishers ever learn? Then I saw the endorsements from Neil Gaiman and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Interest piqued, I downloaded the first chapter [PDF] and read it.
I liked [...]
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The first two paragraphs of Maureen Dowd's latest column, "Banned in Boston":
BOSTON ? The Democratic convention stage has the hushed mahogany dignity of a Republican men's club: all dark wood paneling with maroon and faux marble trim. The podium has an ersatz presidential seal with a flag. Even the hoi polloi in the press are [...]
Tim LaHaye wrote a letter in response to Nicholas Kristof's column condemning the last book in LaHaye's "Left Behind" series, Glorious Appearing.
Comparing my book "Glorious Appearing" to "fundamentalist Islamic tracts" is a real stretch. The Islamic radicals who bomb the innocent are not nice people!
No, Islamic radicals are not nice people. Kristof was noting that [...]
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This is the funniest letter to the New York Times that I have read in a while. Throughout the article "Tyson Looks in the Mirror and Sees a Troubled Man," the boxer repeatedly makes reference to the adventure novel The Count of Monte Cristo. Jay Wolpert wrote in to clarify that one of Tyson's quotes [...]
In high school, I can remember having conversations with a number of my English teachers about Ulysses. The general "vibe" that I got from those conversations was confirmed after I read some Joyce (Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man), I got the feeling that Ulysses was one of a very [...]
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As requested in the comments section, here is my analysis of the first issue of H Bomb Magazine (relevant Crimson articles here and here). I do not have a scanner, so if you want pictures, you will just have to buy the issue (which you can do online through their website). My issue is in [...]
I was reading the May issue of my high school newspaper, The Mall, when I came across a charming (although unsolicited) advertisement on page 9 for this very site. Notwithstanding my general antipathy toward all things high school, I was tickled pink.
The most interesting article in the issue was the editorial "A Tale of Two [...]
Friday, February 13, 2004
Military medals are supposed to honor those who have been especially courageous. Most of their descriptions include reference to "valourous service benefiting our wondrous nation of X," or somesuch. This idea of national benefit is the end-all of medals; courage is the most important component.