Author Archives: Anton

a sort of conlang

I’m re-reading Strugatsky’s Hard to Be a God. (I read it thirty-odd years ago and forgot nearly everything.) This is a newer translation, by Olena Bormashenko. At one point the protagonist eavesdrops on conspirators, who say: “The chonted will shlake, … Continue reading

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the death of English, part MMXVII

Here: Like much of the news that ekes its way out of the totalitarian state, the murder is equal parts scary, sad, and vaguely comical. I don’t think I had seen this extension of eke before. Once upon a time, … Continue reading

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Klein bagel, mark N

I’ve had other designs made in steel but not this one. (The sintering leaves the steel highly porous, so liquid bronze is brought in by capillary action to fill it; the result is about three parts steel to two parts … Continue reading

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what, more links?

Hm, the first two links here have been lying around for five years; guess I ought to shove them out. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry on restructuring the banks “Zomia”, a large region in Asia that was effectively stateless until recently James Leroy … Continue reading

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exporting transcendence

In the film and TV series Limitless, a drug makes the protagonist temporarily super-intelligent. In the episodes I’ve seen, it’s not established whether any skills learned with the drug remain when it wears off. I imagine that you’d want to … Continue reading

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strange spurts

In a period of 41 seconds on December 21, this site got hits purportedly following links from 75 different pages on scholarsandrogues.com, 21 on russia-insider.com, 21 on www.africaresource.com, 21 on irwinvillagetourzjamaica.com, 20 on jaykeating.com, 18 on *.ox.ac.uk, 17 on www.zylstra.org, … Continue reading

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Use of Symbols

In Marvel/Netflix Daredevil episode 11 “The Path of the Righteous”, [spoiler] drugs [spoiler] and takes her to a secret place. When she wakes up, he sits facing her and puts a large pistol on the table between them, “to get … Continue reading

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