Entries by robertc

Since everybody seems to be making lists right now, and having been inspired by some other lists, I've produced my own list - Rob's Top Ten Sci-Fi Books.

These things seem to be popular at the moment: the top 50 personal sci-fi blogs from author John Scalzi. The definition of 'personal' seems to have incited most of the commentary, as some quite popular and/or famous blogs have been left off the list. I bookmarked a few I liked the look of from the list and the comments.

Does the practically unlimited access to information and opinion that the internet gives us expand our minds, or do we just filter out all the stuff we don't agree with to bolster our own confidence in our opinions? A very thought provoking article, I'm going to have to find some blogs I disagree with...

Nature has published a list of the 50 most popular blogs written by scientists. The ranking is from Technorati, so it's not the most visited blogs but the ones most linked to. I've bookmarked my favourite ones.

There's a new Dashboard Confessional album available on emusic. I've listened to it a few times now and I can't say it's gripped me yet in the same way the older albums have, but it's pleasant enough to listen to.

According the the story Meat, by Terry Bisson it's because we're too disgusting to know! An old story (from 1991, apparently) but entertaining.

--Edit

Cool, there's also a film

I'm a big fan of Douglas Coupland, so I was delighted to discover he has a new book out, JPod. From what I'd read it seemed this novel was a reworking of his classic Microserfs, which is one of my favourite books of all time, but apart from the tech/nerd characters it's not really very similar. I initially found this a bit disappointing but I think that was my expectations rather than the quality of the book, and a few hundred pages later I was engrossed (and, at times, giggling on the tube). Not so much a reworking, more of a sequel I think. The book is brazenly self referential, from the opening line of part one:

"Oh god. I feel like a refugee from a Douglas Coupland novel."

Later in the book Coupland himself makes an appearance and promptly steals the protagonist's laptop so he can make his life into a book, it's easier to steal your life than to make stuff up he tells him! So leaning towards the ironically self referential, which is quite enjoyable in it's own right, but makes this not the ideal book to introduce yourself to Coupland if you've not read his books before.

Although this article is blatantly over-simplifying the study of philosophy, it does have some nice quotes

Google have been sued for profiting from child porn, generally it seems like a spurious suit. One thing that attracted my attention was that the politician who is backing the lawsuit is also behind a campaign to stop his local shops selling toy guns - I'm not at all sure what this is intended to achieve? It seems to be a widespread phenomenom in America, but the logic seems to be flawed. The problem seems to be that teenage children are going around holding up shopkeepers with 'toy' weapons, but apparently this is not the responsibility of the teenage children in question, or their parents, but a problem with toy manufacturers selling toy guns in the first place. If owning a 'gun' is such a big problem why are they attacking toy manufacturers and not the manufacturers of real guns and the laws which make them so pervasive in American society?

This is funny: The Postmodernism Generator. I got an essay entitled "The postcultural paradigm of narrative in the works of Gaiman", highlights included a long discussion on the works of Madonna:

In the works of Madonna, a predominant concept is the distinction between masculine and feminine. The subject is interpolated into a deconstructivist sublimation that includes reality as a paradox. Thus, the premise of the postcultural paradigm of narrative implies that the media is capable of intentionality, given that Sartre’s analysis of semiotic theory is invalid.

Unfortunately the 'permalink' feature doesn't appear to be working.