Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 240
September 1, 2009
Feel The Burn
It makes this New Mexican's heart swell to bursting to know that the successful test today of the new all-American airborne laser assassination weapon was conducted right here in our state!Tremble, evildoers! Someday soon you'll just be walking down the street working out your wicked schemes, and suddenly--- just as in my favorite scenes in the classic film Scanners--- your head will just explode
August 31, 2009
The New Literacy
From the article by Clive Thompson (thanks to Blake Charlton).As the school year begins, be ready to hear pundits fretting once again about how kids today can't write—and technology is to blame. Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into "bleak, bald, sad shorthand" (as University College of
Nipple Song
Nothing better to start your day than a fine jumpin' Bollywood video--- this time with handy English subtitles!
Rescission
In response to Ron's post on "Putting it Simply," below, I dug up a statistics on government-run health care. Since most of you probably don't read this blog for the comments on the comments, I thought I'd put them here.In countries with government-run health care, there isn't a man with a gun telling you that you can't get a second opinion. Or a third. Likewise, most countries with government
August 28, 2009
At This Rate, My Plan for World Domination Will Come to Fruition Even More Quickly!
Mark W. Tiedemann has said some awesomely nice things about This Is Not a Game over on irosf.com.When Williams is good, he is very good—and this is one of his best. He dances across the lines that blur real world and gameplaying with elegance and an acerbic sense of consequences that denies the artificial separation between the two worlds. When games grow large and complex enough, he suggests,
Away
I'm off this weekend for Bubonicon.And if I miss you there, I'll hope to catch you next week at Dragoncon.
Birthday Greetings
Happy 93rd,Jack Vance!
August 25, 2009
Putting it Simply
A pleasingly elementary cartoon about why we need government-run health care.
Inglourious
We had a power outage last night, and I couldn't do the stuff I usually do, and it was getting too dark to read. So I headed out to see Quentin Tarantino's latest, Inglourious Basterds. The short review: this is Tarantino's least successful film. But because it's Tarantino, it's probably better than most of the movies you've probably seen this summer. There are several quite wonderful scenes,
Standing On Her Head
Saturday night we joined Gene Bostwick for dinner and the Santa Fe Opera. Dinner was at Espiritu, a hole-in-the-wall Italian joint next to K-Mart. Let's just say that chipotle Alfredo sauce doesn't sound like a good idea, but it tastes like a great idea. It's lucky that I don't live within 90 miles of Espiritu, otherwise I'd eat there all the time and blow up like a blimp. The opera was La
