As I write this the DOW is up a little from its 700 point loss. My stocks are down around 5% and I expect they’ll keep sliding about 20%, 40% or more. I wanted to sell, but we didn’t see the edge of the precipice until it was too late. I still want to sell. […]
Wanderings
Resources for Science Fiction: Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction. – Ray Bradbury
Monthly Archives: September 2008
Waiting for Real Estate Prices to crash
Monday, September 29, 2008
Ram Island, Saco Bay, Maine. I found this house on an island off the coast of Maine for $555,000. I figure that in six months I can pick it up for $350K. I would add solar and a windmill and renovate it to be livable all year round. I would make a trip to the […]
Toadstools
Sunday, September 28, 2008
My grandfather was often asked the secret to his long life. He lived well into his nineties. His answer was "Toadstools". He would smile a little and there would be a glint in his eye. "Toadstools," he would say, "I never ate a one of them." There were toadstools in my back woods after the […]
And now for something COMPLETELY different
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Ice Cream for Crow – Captain Beefheart. I can’t stop watching this.
SciFi Social Bookmark Link
Friday, September 26, 2008
42blips.com seems to be a social networking site for Spec-Fic geeks. It is a delicious.com/slashdot/digg type of link site, but narrowed down to spec-fic. The main page shows latest hot stories and you vote on them. All of the stories are tv/film Sci-Fi and not literary SF. (Note to J. Erwine – you should join […]
Netflix Prize
Thursday, September 25, 2008
I like programming and I am especially good at working on large sets of data. I’ve always had a job where I have to work on fuzzy information and distill it down to a few essential nuggets. One of my first programming jobs was for the old Western Union (the original one that sent telegraphs, […]
The Underpeople – Cordwainer Smith
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Underpeople is actually the second half of a much longer novel called Norstrilia that editors broke up into two shorter novels. In the 1960s a paperback was about 160 pages plus or minus 10. Font size and line spacing was tweaked to arrive at this number, or failing that, they chopped the book up. […]
2008 Republican Party Platform Opposes Bailouts
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The Republican Party adopted 3 weeks ago explicitly opposes government bailouts of private companies. Here is the exact quote (from the section “Rebuilding Homeownership”): We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We […]