Michael Flynn's Blog, page 76

Baby Talk

I will try to transcribe this as I heard it.  Adam (aged 4) is telling us about his imaginary girl friends. 

My first girl friend is Elizabeth and my second one is Nito.  [He holds up fingers to indicate the number, in case we are confused on this point.:]  Your brain is like a map.  You can see pictures and talk to people, and kiss them.  Nito is talking to me now. 

[His sister asks him if he means "in his thoughts".:] 

No, these are visions.  Thoughts are... [Hesitation:]  Thoughts are in the ...

If Rock and Roll Were a Subway

The Rock Lines would look like this:

www.flickr.com/photos/smoy/4413987999/sizes/o/in/pool-16135094@N00/

You will likely get a better image at the original site.

How Do You Know

When there is an Olympic Hockey Match in Canada? 

Simple: track water usage.  



The green line is the day before.  The blue line is the day of the Hockey Gold Medal game.  The timing is exquisite.

The Age of Representation

The Passing of the Modern Ages

This is one mark the passing of the Modern Ages, which were ages of representation in the arts.  You can see it in painting, sculpture, writing.  The goal of the Renaissance, Age of Reason, Victorian Age and all was to represent the world "als es wirklich war" (as it truly was).  The words are Ranke's and refer to historiography, but look at Dürer's watercolor of a Young Hare, in which every hair [pun intended:] is drawn in. 
Likewise, the novel was called "novel"...

The Clapping Hands of God

StarShipSofa podcast has put up my story The Clapping Hands Of God.  You can listen to the story here. The intro for the story starts around the one hr mark.  I've been told that the story has be very well received. with many many emails regarding the story, some stating this has been the best show of StarShipSofa's life. The narration is by a guy called Mike Boris. 

OK, This is Kool

h/t Mark Shea

On the great masters

Contra originalis

An alert reader writes me to point out an essay Out There in the Blogosphere:
> I'd be interested to see your reaction to this:
> http://www.infiniteinjury.org/blog/2010/02/25/reading-originals/ . 
>
> Summary: "[I:]n all those disciplines where we have reliable quantatative [sic:] measurements of progress (with the obvious exception of history) returning to the original works of past great thinkers is decidedly unhelpful. Therefore at the very least anyone who wishes to claim t...

Whiggish History

.

Science Marches On! 

Quite dramatically so, in this illo from Popular Mechanics (Jan, 1952)
(h/t: paleofuture)



Back in the Modern Ages, when everyone believed in Progress-with-a-capital-P. 

And the audience for SF comprised those for whom such pictures caused a swelling of the heart and a tear of joy in the eye.  Notice that there are only two human figures in the entire panorama. 

Not shown are burking fresh cadavers for anatomists, the eugenics movement, poison gas, the Tuskegee experiments,...

Shaking Mistel Branches at Statues is not Science

A Common Conflation

One Tim O'Neill raises an interesting point on his blog Armariam Magnum in response to a communication received regarding his post " "Agora" and Hypatia - Hollywood Strikes Again ":  Mr. O'Neill is himself an atheist, but is devoted to empirical evidence and sound reasoning.  I've edited out his direct responses to the communicator. 

It's bizarre the way whenever these people who scream so hysterically about how Christianity murdered ancient learning and philosophy are...

This Day in History

Iwo Jima Day



Sixty-five years ago today, a young man named Joe Flynn was the first to climb down the netting from the side of his troopship and enter a smaller craft that would take him to an LST.  He fell off the netting, but a fortunate sway of the boat brought it underneath him, so he landed on his backpack in the boat rather than in the Pacific Ocean between the pitching boat and the hull of the troopship. 

LST is an abbreviation, Marines will tell you, for Large Slow Target. 

The boat got...