theories of magic

Tailsteak writes:

All comics have to have a setting. Very often, almost all of that setting can be implied, especially if the comic is set in the quote-unquote “real world”. If you’re using magic or hypertechnology to drive your plots, however, it’s important to define how that magic or that hypertechnology works.

Much as some of us would like it to be important, no, it isn’t. Think of fairy tales; think of Tolkien, who never expounded a theory of magic and probably never thought of needing one. The scientific approach to magic was, I think, invented by such writers as Fletcher Pratt and Randall Garrett; it is the novel feature of their works.

Posted in arts | 2 Comments

Mavwrecks

I’ve noticed some changes in jumping from MacOS 10.6.x to 10.9:

The keystroke Command Option Eject no longer puts the computer to sleep.

On the Dock, the active app indicator is much less visible. (later improved)

Scroll bars no longer have arrow buttons, so I can’t click to scroll slowly.

When I charge my telephone on USB, it’s no longer recognized as a volume. (I’ve since got an Android phone, with a tolerable interface.)

Posted in neep-neep | Leave a comment

Of course! Why didn’t we think of that?

The second-weirdest argument for statism that I’ve heard is: “We are social animals!” … implying, I guess, that if not for the constant threat of force we would not behave according to our nature.

The weirdest (which I’ve only heard twice) is: “There are always some people who will seek to dominate others, and there needs to be a structure to facilitate that ambition.”

Posted in politics | 1 Comment

privilege, my foot

A Mother’s White Privilege

To admit white privilege is to admit a stake, however small, in ongoing injustice. It’s to see a world different than your previous perception. Acknowledging that your own group enjoys social and economic benefits of systemic racism is frightening and uncomfortable.

She lists a bunch of ugly things that are unlikely to happen to her sons, as well as some offensive things not said to her by the ignorant, thanks to their blondness.

What’s missing from the piece is any description of “benefits” — any reason to believe that we as Whites would be any worse off if, for example, the Blue Gang were to stop abusing Blacks.

Not being murdered by cops is not a “privilege”. Nobody ever said, “Let’s organize and arm a gang of bullies so that they can spend their days not murdering our kind of people.” Absence of SWAT raids is the state of nature, not an artificial benefit.

Posted in race, security theater | Leave a comment

cinema 2012

This week I watched two movies that coincidentally opened in the same week in 2012. Neither delighted me.

In Looper, the terrible threat to be averted is a gangster bent on — gasp — wiping out a group of retired killers. I should care? The targets aren’t even interesting: they’re not so much hitmen, which would suggest some need for cleverness in their métier, as overpaid slaughterhouse workers.
In the end, why does Joe’s “change” (it’s a time travel story) erase Sara’s death but not Cid’s wound?

Seven Psychopaths is self-consciously ironic, “transgressive” and self-referential; nothing here that hasn’t been done better.

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get off my lawn

Saturday I missed a birthday party because I’m not on Facebook. So it goes.

Posted in general | 1 Comment

unapologetically one-sided

My newest design on Shapeways is a model of the Lawson-Klein surface : a stereographic projection of

( cos(u)cos(2v), cos(u)sin(2v), sin(u)cos(v), sin(u)sin(v) )

Posted in mathematics, merch | 2 Comments