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Meta
Author Archives: Anton
how (some) fireflies do it
Fireflies in Borneo have a wonderfully simple and distributed way of synchronizing their blinks. If I had the skill I’d make a screensaver of it. A couple of ways to play with the concept: I wouldn’t expect all bugs to … Continue reading
Posted in sciences
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less than fifty years later
I’ve read Heinlein’s Red Planet three times, starting at age seven or eight, and each time I soon forgot most of the plot. One thing that stuck with me was that the school’s new head signaled his evil by ordering … Continue reading
Posted in heraldry, language, prose
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questions of emphasis
In Sherlock episode “The Lying Detective”, the phrase serial killer is uttered many times, always stressing the first word – as if the second were a given, even when (for the speakers) any killings are hypothetical. That impaired my enjoyment of … Continue reading
Posted in cinema, language
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you can talk to me now
When I changed the site to HTTPS but didn’t change a corresponding setting in WordPress, comments were broken. Should be working now.
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
Posted in language, prose
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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
Posted in language
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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
Posted in merch
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