“The city of murderers is safe for travelers and strangers.”
Category: Connections
I liked it this much despite the fact that it takes place in Kentucky
Recommended: Underground, by Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber. Those of us who are always demanding clever, tough ladies in lead roles will enjoy meeting cave geek Wesley Fischer, and those of you who want exciting comics without superheroes and lasersharking will be equally happy. (I could have stood a little more lasersharking, but my weaknesses are common knowledge.) There’s a hint of a sequel in the afterword, which is an idea I heartily endorse!
Twitter is creepy
Yesterday I twittered a thing about the prostate cancer vaccine approval and this is what I got in my inbox the next morning.
WELL GOOD.
Not All Dreams Can Come True
From across the political spectrum (that is, from my liberal girlfriend and my conservative cousin) I have heard rumblings of disappointment about Obama’s supposed plan to end manned space exploration.
If you go read that article you’ll actually see that it’s not the case at all: they’re scrapping the rickety Space Shuttle program, which has been slated for retirement for years and basically only goes to the International Space Station, because they want to concentrate on the mission to build a Mars base–a mission proposed by Bush. Resupply missions to the ISS are being contracted out to an increasingly healthy private spaceflight industry (which development I’d think would please free marketeers). NASA’s budget is actually increasing by $2 billion next year.
But this also seems like a good time to re-link Leonard’s article from 2008 about the relative awesomeness of manned vs. unmanned space exploration. It did a lot to persuade me that, while manned spaceflight does a lot for a very small group–a few hundred people worldwide, all more genetically perfect than supermodels, mostly white, mostly male–unmanned exploration delivers a great deal more, dollar for dollar, for the rest of us.
Raising the level of discourse
The other day Erika got a request to do up a Penny Arcade guest comic and made the mistake of saying so on LJ–and, worse, confessing that she was a little nervous about it–at which opportunity I leapt like a jaguar in a trebuchet. I believe my exact words were “ERIKA ERIKA LEMME HELP I WANNA HELP ERIKA LEMME HEEEELP.” Out of some unknown and misplaced emotion, she acquiesced.
Anyway, it’s up now, so that’s pretty neat! That gag was Erika’s (and Matt’s?), I just helped tweak the dialogue (and, shamefully, truncated Professor Snugglesworth’s name). I did write the little bonus strip mentioned in the post.
This marks the second time in two years that my work has made some kind of appearance on PA. Based on linear progression, the plan is working, and by 2240 my takeover will be complete.
The Fairy Scientist
Remember me talking about how Kara’s dad made a documentary? Now he’s produced a short film for a competition on skepticism and science, featuring her adorable fast-talking niece Lydia in a quest to verify the existence of fairies. Unlike Andrus, this one you can watch right now as part of a proven and effective way of avoiding your work. Go do that!
One of my favorite things of the many, many I’ve stolen from Sumana is the notion that blogs get a “house style.” This, for the record, is the reason long works (novels, movies, etc) get capitalized but not italicized on NFD.
More on transparency versus regulation
Aaron Swartz has a better essay than I could have put together on why transparency alone is ineffective and even harmful.