Monthly Archives: July 2002

mad cosmology

Posted on Monday, 2002 July 15 by Anton

Some entertaining notions in Susan Stepney’s notes from a panel at Eastercon 2001: Maybe we’re surrounded by fake scenery, living in a “planetarium” – what are the required capabilities of civilisations that can fool us? info is needed to generate … Continue reading →

Posted in fandom, sciences | 1 Comment

a cryonaut in the news

Posted on Monday, 2002 July 15 by Anton

Ted Williams, who I gather had something to do with sports, is in liquid nitrogen storage and his daughter is suing to make sure he stays dead. (Thanks to Kennita Watson for the link.) I have been acquainted with several … Continue reading →

Posted in futures | Leave a comment

the other structure of scientific revolutions

Posted on Sunday, 2002 July 14 by Anton

Current reading: Freeman Dyson, Imagined Worlds (Harvard, 1997). [Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)] misled a whole generation of students and historians of science into believing that all scientific revolutions are concept-driven. The concept-driven revolutions are the … Continue reading →

Posted in history, sciences | Leave a comment

“disappointment was my closest friend”

Posted on Sunday, 2002 July 14 by Anton

That old familiar mood disorder got a lot of teeth into me over the last few days; but even if I thought you cared to read about that in more detail, I’m far from sure that I’d want my moaning … Continue reading →

Posted in bitterness | Leave a comment

muppet mystery

Posted on Sunday, 2002 July 14 by Anton

HIV comes to Sesame Street, and Tim Blair wonders how: How will the character’s contraction of the disease be explained? Sharing a needle with Oscar in his squalid street dwelling? Sex can be ruled out — Muppets don’t have genitals. … Continue reading →

Posted in cinema, medicine | Leave a comment

today we choose faces

Posted on Saturday, 2002 July 13 by Anton

This week I read Zelazny’s Lord of Light for about the fourth time; and got to thinking about faces. The story is set in a world where it is routine to transfer one’s soul every forty or fifty years into … Continue reading →

Posted in futures, prose | Leave a comment

a third eye may help

Posted on Saturday, 2002 July 13 by Anton

Java stereo hypercube. Now where did I hide those red/blue filters?

Posted in mathematics | Leave a comment