Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 231

Grand Masters

A video featuring all the Grand Masters of the Science Fiction Writers of America (through 2000, anyway).The video features a lot of voices that we can no longer hear.There's a kind of prequel to this video featuring Jack Williamson, which for some reason is not available for embedding in such untrustworthy sites as this, but you can find Jack here.

Go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog!

Today is National Palindrome Day.

Not Thinking in Years

I've noticed that a lot of other bloggers are posting year-end summaries. Top ten news stories of 2009, favorite books of 2009, New Year's resolutions for 2010, favorite blog posts of 2009, favorite 2009 blog posts by the owner of the blog. This is all fine, except maybe the last, which is kind of like one of those episodes of a sitcom that's nothing but clips from previous episodes strung

Where's Jesus? (A Holiday Game)

I picked this game up from Boing Boing, and discovered that it's a perfect way to waste a cold winter afternoon, particularly during the holiday season.Go to Wikipedia. Click on "random article" (on the left side, under the globe). Of the various links on that random page, click on the one most likely to lead you to the article on Jesus. Then continue following the links until you actually

Beaker/Beethoven

Beaker's Ode to Joy.Note that it would be illegal for students at Danvers High School in Salem to attempt this.

Black Hole Created! Sorta.

Scientists have created a black hole in a Bose-Einstein condensate. Well, an acoustic black hole. Not a real black hole.But they may get some perfectly genuine Hawking radiation out of it, so it's still cool. One of the many curious properties of Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs) is that the flow of sound through them is governed by the same equations that describe how light is bent by a

We Caught the Terrorist, So Let's Have More Restrictions!

Some goofy terrorist wannabe named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab set off an incendiary device in his own lap on an aircraft, and scorched the living fuck out of his thighs. (Of course "thighs" may be a euphemism here.)(He was on a watch list, apparently, so I have to wonder why he and his thighs weren't checked out before he got on the plane.)According to the FBI, Umar is in custody and singing like

Bollywood Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like a Bollywood Christmas. [via Ellen Datlow:]

Can You Do the Fandango?

This isn't a holiday video, exactly, but it should put you in the holiday spirit.

Noir

Saw a couple of films noir recently, one a classic, the other more recent.Gun Crazy (1951) was the classic, and was a pure example of the film noir--- or, as we called them in America, B pictures. Made on the cheap, full of actors you don't remember ever seeing before, and filmed on the streets in natural light because it's less expensive than using a sound stage. Lots of gritty action,