Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 185

Bodacious Battlin' Brontes

via Kris Rusch

Gotta admit, I've often wished I could treat publishers like this. Especially when they put on their stovepipe hats and start twirling their mustaches at me.

Reviews Too Late: Rin

Netflix suggested that I would like the anime series Rin, the subtitle of which is Daughters of Mnemosyne.  Very brave of anyone, let alone Japanese, to put a word like "Mnemosyne" in the title.Rin is an immortal who is also a private detective, sharing an office with her girlfriend Mimi, who is also immortal.  (No straight women in this series, at least so far.)  In the first episode, while hired to find someone's missing cat, she encounters a young man who seems to have lost his memories...

I Alter My DNA Daily

Finally, a scientific discovery made just for me!In the current issue of Cell Metabolism— my basic light reading— researchers report on beneficial changes to DNA achieved both through drinking caffeine and through exercise."The DNA changes in question are known as epigenetic modifications and involve the gain or loss of chemical marks on DNA over and above the familiar sequence of As, Gs, Ts, and Cs . . . Broadly speaking, the findings offer more evidence that our genomes are much more...

Blows Against the Empire

Okay, so at least we know the dimensions of the problem.NASA has admitted that their computers are riddled with hackers, having logged over 5400 intrusions over the last couple years.  The most spectacular of these, originating in China, actually seized control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's systems, "gaining the ability to install malware, delete or steal sensitive data, and hijack the accounts of users in order to gain their privileged access . . . "On another occasion, the...

Connections

I was thinking today about James Burke's admirable television series Connections, where seemingly unconnected historical events were shown to have contributed to a modern scientific discovery.As a fond hommage to that series, I'd like to trace some connections myself— though I'm not going to do science history, because that's not really my strong point.  So here we are in the field of popular entertainment.First, the question: what do the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg have to do...

Mandelbox Set

Last night we went to the First Friday Fractals show at the local Imax, just to get our dose of insane psychedelia.  Here's part of what we saw— only you have to picture this stretched out as wide as the night sky, with full digital sound.
I would advise clicking the "full screen" box on the lower right hand of the display.

Crowdsourcing the Law

Remember that scene in Fahrenheit 451 when Montag is on the run, and the announcer on television talks to his "friends" (in Bradbury's future, television has friended the entire audience), and the announcer tells the friends to go outside and look for the fugitive?In the François Truffaut film, this scene was particularly chilling, with whole streets of zombielike couch potatoes stepping outside onto their perfectly manicured lawns to look for the man whose crime was reading Charles Dickens.N...

I Enter the Scalziverse

John Scalzi very kindly let me enter his universe for an essay about The Fourth Wall. Enjoy.

The Little Receipts They Raineth Down . . .

What have I been doing today?  Sorting through hundreds of little receipts, many marked with indecipherable scrawls, in order to enter the results into Quicken and prepare my tax forms.
Which, after many hours and an aching back, I have achieved.
Only to find that Quicken refuses to print the results.
May I just remark that "Intuit," as a company name, is proving to be something of a misrepresentation?

The Clock Ticks in Traditional Fashion

Just a reminder that Orbit has put all ebooks of This Is Not a Game on sale for $2.99, but that the sale should end on March 1.  So if you want to take advantage of this generous offer, the Clock on the Clubhouse Wall is telling you that you have only a few hours left.