In history classes, we pay a lot of attention to Columbus–in 1492, after all, he set out to discover a route to the Americas. Love his accomplishments or hate his humanitarian record (and I see no contradiction in doing both), he inaugurated the Age of Discovery (TM) which changed the …
If you’re not the kind of obsessive geek I am, you might have missed that yesterday the first major accomplishment in de novo life extension through gene therapy got published. This project has been going on for a while, but up until yesterday, all therapies and attempted engineering have either …
This is a review of Trader’s Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, a science fiction series by Nathan Lowell comprised of the books Quarter Share, Half Share, Full Share, Double Share, Captain’s Share, and Owner’s Share. The series is reviewed as a whole. Call him Ishmael–and forget …
A bit of fun news. My co-author on Throwing Lead, Mary Mason, and I had so much fun doing Throwing Lead that we’re starting work on our next Writer’s Guide. After much discussion over whether to start straight in with Throwing Lead 2 or to get on with another one …
I spend my life cultivating and exploring questions at all levels from the inane to the putatively profound. Part of my job is asking questions–in fact, if you squint hard enough and look through enough lenses, you will be able to find a question or cluster of them behind every …
This is the last politics post for a good long while. Click on the “more” link to read it–I’ve positioned it very high up so that those of you who are uninterested in the topic don’t need to read about it.
Warning: Politics For those of you following the SOPA/PIPA to-do, be warned: if you live in California, both of your Senators are flogging hard for this thing. Because of that, for these two characters I actually wrote a note rather than just calling, tweeting, or petitioning. In case you want …
There will be a new newsletter out shortly after the new year, but as we’re winding down this year I wanted to take a moment out and give you all a wave and huge thanks. 2011 has been a remarkably productive year, and the last four days are going to …
I had the fortune to meet Christopher Hitchens briefly during his stop in Palo Alto in 2007–I found him to be drunk, surly, and completely irascible. It was not a disappointment. Going through life we collect intellectual heroes. As someone who was raised with academic ideals (critical thinking, intellectual integrity, …
I’ve been holding this post for a while, because the situation is moving so quickly and the feelings are so high, but I’ve had enough people ask me about it that I thought it would be good to have a centralized place to direct them. This post is political, but …