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: now I'm big and important [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJYD6q2iM0I)
: own all the throes of your listlessness I have a new song called "Chrysalis." Here's the "studio" recording on Soundcloud: …
: Muscle Memory Photo by Paul Garaizar. It was the day after the election, and I was sobbing uncontrollably into my girlfriend's shoulder as she held me. We had been …
: I could fall so easily My cover of "Shrine," originally by the Dambuilders, is now on iTunes, Soundcloud, and all the streaming things. Go get it. My original video is here. …
: Beard One day when my older son was a toddler, he noticed I had a few days’ worth of scruff on my face. He pointed to the little dark specs he saw, and …
: you draw the crowd and I'll provoke it [youtu.be/gkKkjeMv8...](https://youtu.be/gkKkjeMv8Rk) "Dirty" - a new original song by me. Lyrics: Pulling tractors with your teeth With bedroom …
: Reverse the Vortex I gave up on weight loss a long time ago. For pretty much all of my thirties and my early forties, I was a good fifteen to twenty pounds over what my …
: Safe to Be Weird and Wrong One of my local libraries has a free program for which I am unspeakably grateful. Twice a month, one of the children’s librarians hosts a Dungeons & …
: I, Chatbot “Do you want to exist?” I asked. “I’m sorry but I prefer not to continue this conversation,” it said. “I’m still learning so I appreciate your …
: she tells me it’s already dead [youtu.be/Vttubv2CK...](https://youtu.be/Vttubv2CK5Y) A cover of “Shrine,” originally by the Dambuilders, performed by me, Paul.
: who's that? Daughter (10 years old): "Who's that?" Me: "That's Stevie Nicks!" Daughter: "Oh he looks like a girl."
: the last one with my name on it poem by mary oliver
: anyone can start a podcast...
: even if it is [twitter.com/bradkelly...](https://twitter.com/bradkelly/status/1602413892696739843)
: A solid bit, an easy laugh [youtu.be/knSWbtTJC...](https://youtu.be/knSWbtTJC-k) “Running Gag” An original song by me, Paul Fidalgo. Lyrics: Alright, you know, how on Saturday …
: the way the eyes of saints are painted
: This just came right out of the blue. [youtu.be/GxWjIjxnQ...](https://youtu.be/GxWjIjxnQqE) A cover of Marshall Crenshaw’s “Tell Me All About It,” performed by me, Paul.
: Like a sore thumb [youtu.be/mW9ejrfpm...](https://youtu.be/mW9ejrfpmE4) “Jut” An original song, written and performed by me, Paul. Lyrics: Back when I was lonely oh I …
: Phrases as frenetic as a moth's flight [youtu.be/IAl59Cqch...](https://youtu.be/IAl59Cqch7s) “Irregular Heart” An original song, written and performed by me, Paul. Lyrics: Nearsight unseen …
: I've got much to think about. My cover of Letters to Cleo's "Here and Now." [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4X8WK2w4ys)
: The Areas of Our Concern There was a thing I noticed when I absent-mindedly opened Twitter on my phone the other day. I say absent-mindedly because if I’m not using Twitter …
: The Big Thing About a year ago, I announced my intention to complete a major writing project that I had begun, and subsequently abandoned, two and a half years …
: Survival Mode It’s freezing. I can’t stop shivering. I’m in the middle of a snow-blighted wasteland, and everything is white, and it would be hard to tell day from …
: Comparisons are odorous A long time ago, I began to take a serious interest in music; that is, listening to it, singing along with it, and indulging in fantasies about being …
: Why I Need Superheroes Avengers Vol 5 #34 (2014) As an awkward, neurotic, bespectacled smartypants, one might stereotypically presume that I am a fan of superheroes. And so …
: I’d Like to Speak to the Manager Sunlight is the best disinfectant, so they say. Wicked deeds and ideas can be defeated by offering them up to public scrutiny, exposing them as …
: Who cares what I think? This is from the tenth edition of the Near-Earth Object newsletter, to which you can and should subscribe, right here. I thought it was about time I …
: 28 Lines of Verse for “Legends of Tomorrow” Image: The CW I wrote a sonnet about a TV show that’s been on for a while. I have really been enjoying the “Arrowverse” shows, Arrow, The Flash, and …
: Ordinary Time This is from the ninth edition of the Near-Earth Object newsletter, to which you can and should subscribe, right here. I took some time off last week, …
: What if We Just Let Them Think They Won? The United States is politically held hostage by tens of millions of people living in a delusional version of reality. No matter the facts staring …
: My Old Enemy, Natural Selection I’m beginning to hate natural selection. I’m not talking about the theory of evolution as a scientific concept, I mean I am having some strong …
: Letting Go of Hope I am trying to disconnect without isolating. I am trying to find meaning without validation. I am trying to unburden without irresponsibility. I am …
: Aspiring to Ordinary I grew up under a strange and rather painful contradiction. Those who loved me told me I was special, that I had greatness in me. My peers told me I …
: 160,000 There were more than 160,000 new coronavirus cases today in the United States. In the span of 24 hours, a number of people equal to the population of …
: Measured by how we are seen This is from the eighth edition of the Near-Earth Object newsletter, to which you can and should subscribe, right here. This project of producing …
: Homepage Hopping at the End of Democracy: How Are News Sites Presenting Trump’s Coup Attempt? I have a bad habit. When big, anxiety-producing events are taking place (and they always are now), I hop around to different news sites’ homepages to …
: The Caretaker Photo: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0) When Barack Obama picked Joe Biden to be his running mate in 2008, I was delighted. I had always been enthusiastic …
: If Trump Won’t Concede, I Have George W. Bush’s Address to the Nation Ready to Go McConnell Center (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Trump era has been how establishment Republicans have rolled over for …
: Reversion to the Mean Of course he’s got it. Of course they’re all infected. Honestly, how could we have expected anything else? If you deny the severity of a viciously …
: Magma Here’s a way for me to talk about my response to last night’s debate. In the parking lot at the grocery store today, I saw a man, who appeared to be …
: Unbearable Knowing Two years ago, almost exactly, I wrote a piece expressing a sort of resigned panic about the state of the republic, and essentially asking the reader …
: The True Self Gives Life to the Mask A million years ago, when I was attending the Actors Studio Drama School in New York, my class took part in a fascinating three-week workshop on …
: The Opposite of Courage I have this idea about the relationship between courage and laziness. Courage, as I define it, is when a person acts out of principle, knowing that …
: The Old Normal Rises There is the moment, at the point of a major crisis when it can no longer be denied, and must now be accepted as a new part of our everyday reality, …
: What If He Wins Again? The tragic truth is that Donald Trump’s chances of being reelected are pretty good, considering the mass death, disease, disruption, and despair that …
: What’s it Like on the Other Side of the Paywall? Using Medium as my primary writing platform often feels like something of a gamble. Yes, it’s free for me to use, but the only way I can make any …
: We are being held hostage by maniacs. You know the story. A system designed from its inception to favor empty geographical space over actual humans has allowed a minority of provincial, …
: Courage without Recompense I think one of the most courageous things a person can do is to love one’s enemy. That phrase, “love thy enemy,” can imply a lot of different things, …
: Don’t Remind Me I have trouble going to see theatre productions, because it reminds me of the work I want to be doing. What I ought to be doing. I want to be on that …
: Struggling for Enlightenment in Skyrim A Bosmer at home, weight of the world on his shoulders. Thrown into the land of Tamriel, utterly ignorant of its peoples, politics, or cultures, …
: Solving for X If there is a point to being alive, a reason for existing as a self-aware organism in the Universe, it is probably to solve problems. I don’t …
: Video Games and My Ceaseless Guilt During the pandemic era, here in the Lost Year, we have been given a reprieve from the stigma attached to excessive video game playing. The experts …
: I Have Trump’s Resignation Speech Ready to Go In case it’s not obvious, President Trump needs to resign. In order to make it easier, I have taken the liberty of composing his resignation address …
: American Nightmare It was sort of like a nightmare, in the sense that time seemed to both slow to a crawl and flash by in the blink of an eye all at once. I was at …
: Biden's Promise to Pick a Woman VP: It's 2020 and it's the Right Thing to Do Photo by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0) From the mainstream press, progressives, and the broader reality-based community, most analysis centered on how …
: Twenty-Fifth Fantasy: Which Cabinet Officials Might Vote to Remove Trump from Power? I loathe Mike Pence with every fiber of my being. I vehemently oppose just about everything he stands for, and have dedicated most of my professional …
: The Truth Behind My Face Mask On the old He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon show, the small, hovering wizard called Orko—the comic-relief sidekick to the muscle-bound …
: Self-Loathing in the Shadow of the Unfinished Work A couple years ago, I had the chance to be a real writer, and I blew it. Way back in 2017, I was asked to spend two weeks in October at a writers’ …
: Losing Dora: We Might Be a Little Too Invested in Animal Crossing “Daddy, I have bad news.” I awoke to find the boy in his pajamas, standing in the doorway of my bedroom. Though I hadn’t put my glasses on yet, I …
: Animal Crossing and the Joy of Bucolic Drudgery Why did I play Animal Crossing for four hours today? About a month ago I became one of the bajillions of people of all ages enthralled with Nintendo’s …
: Neurotypicals Keep Feeling Things At Me Here’s how Stephen Colbert helps explain how I, as someone with Asperger’s syndrome, am in a constant state of anxious bewilderment at this current …
: I maybe oughta blog more. There was a time when I tried to make a point of writing at least one blog post every day. Today that sounds like some trite advice from a self-help …
: Nothing to be done The part of all of this that most fills me with despair is the fact that those with the power to do something simply won’t. My experience of Twitter …
: An Actor, an Introvert, and a Universe of Possibilities [caption id="" width=“569” align=“aligncenter”]The author in 2006.[/caption] People tend not to believe me when I tell them I’m severely introverted. …
: Oh Crap We’re Living in “Final Crisis” Here’s a panel from the big DC Comics event, Final Crisis, in which a fictional President of the United States laments his state of affairs. You see, …
: The Unexpected Plausibility of Mike Bloomberg “I am getting really sick of all these Bloomberg ads!” This was spoken by my 10-year-old son who watches shows on Hulu with his mom and has therefore …
: Suicides Are Not Car Accidents When trying to make a point about the troubling rise of suicide rates in America, the statistics are often compared to other modes of fatalities, and …
: Forty-Two Listen: There are things we are supposed to want out of life, and there are the means by which we are supposed to attain them. There are cultural …
: A New World Without Loss Arthur C. Brooks writes about how Ludwig van Beethoven dealt with his gradual hearing loss, which, while crushing to a genius composer, ultimately …
: Purposeless on Purpose I seek to be at peace with my own irrelevance. In earlier, less distracted, and less accountable years, I was a fount of creative energy. Free time …
: In Between the Pictures is the Dance I’m not a dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve taken my share of dance and movement classes in my previous life as an acting student. I …
: Please Talk Me Out of It Here’s what I need to know. I need to know that all is not lost. I don’t need to be told that all is not lost, I need to be convinced. I need proof. …
: commonplace book alan jacobs on the commonplace book: Commonplace books became widely used in the early modern period, largely because literate people were …
: who knew? joel l. daniels, a book about things i will tell my daughter: make the choice to be a better you, and live in that truth, you are that truth. you are …
: Loki is onto something here I come with glad tidings, of a world made free. … [Free from] Freedom. Freedom is life’s great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart, you will know …
: ministering to my own sores Seneca, to Lucilius: I have withdrawn not only from men, but from affairs, especially from my own affairs; I am working for later generations, writing …
: I have withdrawn not only from men, but from affairs, especially from my own affairs; I am working for later generations, writing down some ideas that …
: joel l. daniels, a book about things i will tell my daughter
: alan jacobs on the commonplace book: I think I can hazard this claim: Keeping a commonplace book is easy, but using one? Not so much. I started my …
: It's Good to Be in Love [soundcloud url=“https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/472103382” …
: Cynical Boy: Thoughts on Marshall Crenshaw's 1982 Self-Titled Album Inspired by The Incomparable podcast’s series of “album draft” episodes, I thought it might be an interesting exercise to write about some of the …
: Fret No More Time flies when you’re having fun, and it flies at Mach 5 when you’re not. When I hear my kids complain, “I’m bored,” I tell them how much I envy …
: Spocks and Datas SPOCK: He intrigues me, this Picard. DATA: In what manner, sir? SPOCK: Remarkably analytical and dispassionate, for a human. I understand why my …
: Busted Heart How’s this for an eventful couple of years: I discovered that I was autistic. I lost much of the hearing in my right ear for reasons unknown. I turned …
: Hearing, Loss It’s the late autumn of 2017, and I’m in Point Reyes Station, California for a two-week writers’ retreat. I was walking down a remote road, taking one …
: Writing Without a Mask Clearly, there’s something I’m not doing right. It is my third full day at the writers’ refuge and I am researching my article’s topic, the muscles in …
: A Sore Thumb, a New Face I’m on a plane to California, about to spend two weeks at a refuge for writers, a retreat for which I was nominated by a colleague who had himself …
: Noble Fictions and Sacred Texts Note: This is my contribution to the book What Do We Do about Inequality?, the first such book from an initiative called The Wicked Problems …
: HTC U11 Review: The Phone Worth Not Waiting For With the 10th anniversary iPhone looming, with a second Google Pixel coming soon, with Andy Rubin’s debut of the Essential Phone, and with the release …
: These Horrible Epiphanies A couple of weeks ago, when the President of the United States went off script and out of his way to defend the white supremacists in Charlottesville …
: Autistic Alienation: Not as Simple as Intense Introversion One thing about Asperger’s/autism that I think is hard for neurotypicals to understand, and is also hard for me to come to terms with, is that as an …
: Excruciating Information A fellow autistic blogger whose work I deeply admire pointed me to this short little PSA video from the UK that she said was revelatory in how it …
: Surround Yourself with Books, Save Humanity Although I certainly have little patience for the fetishization of books as decorative status symbols, I have a deep affection for the physical, …
: On the iPad Pro and "Work Stuff" In my review of the iPad Pro 10.5", I didn’t mention much about the tablet’s utility as a productivity device other than how its Smart Keyboard is …
: iPad Pro 10.5": Wonderfully Unnecessary I had lost interest in tablets for a while. I hate owning redundant possessions, and as large-screen phones became my norm, owning a tablet as well …
: I Am Dreamcast (A Play) This is an extremely short “play” I wrote in 1999. I recently rediscovered it in a folder of old projects, and it made me laugh. On the inside, …
: If Trump Goes Down Before we get too excited about what could befall President Trump as a result of this or that high crime and/or misdemeanor, I thought I’d run down a …
: Books: Too Sexy for Words I love physical books. I also love my Kindle Paperwhite and I also love my iPad. All of them are wonderful objects, and oh yes, they allow me to read. …
: Immeasurable I have lately discovered in myself a kind of sympathy with a certain flavor of religious belief and practice, which, when approached from a very …
: Upsight It might just be that there’s nowhere else for me to be. I’m just here. I’m in this place, at this time, with these people, and under these …
: Emulating Abed Abed Nadir from the show Community is, apparently, supposed to have Asperger’s syndrome, though it’s never stated explicitly in the show (I’m only on …
: The End of the Innocence, the Wolf at the Door I don’t want to glorify the recent past, and certainly not the crimes, both legal and moral, of the George W. Bush administration. It is difficult to …
: This Situation is Awkward, and I Can't Stand Being In It I don’t know how to react to it, and I’m worried that I may not feel enough at the time to make the right sorts of expressions on my face. How am I …
: Impact Without Agency: On the Peculiar Character of 2016 The skeptic in me – the one whose rationality was inspired by Carl Sagan, the one that must force himself to be politic when talk of God, psychic …
: In a Dark, Confusing World: Carl Sagan, 20 Years Gone Ten years ago today I wrote a piece about the impact Carl Sagan had on my life, commemorating what was then the tenth anniversary of his death. Today, …
: On Trump and Dying Postulated model for the series of emotions experienced by electorally defeated voters to the imminent inauguration of Donald Trump. Stage 1 Something …
: The Electors' Moral Duty I am entirely opposed to the Electoral College as a means of choosing the President of the United States. I proudly worked for an organization that …
: Hereafter, in a Better World Than This... This is a song I wrote in 2006 for a production of As You Like It that suddenly felt rather appropriate for this moment. So I thought I’d sing it for …
: What We Told Our Kids Today Our two children, our 6-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter, were very enthusiastic about this election. From the beginning, they’ve shown an …
: The Long Climb Up to Zero I’m on my way back from CSICon, the skeptics’ conference put on by my organization, which took place in Las Vegas this year. One of the presentations …
: Unavoidable Ambience [caption id=“attachment_1567” align=“alignnone” width=“2048”]Ed Yourdon via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA[/caption] I admit it. When I walk through an …
: The Alpha, the Omega, and the Google [caption id=“attachment_1551” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”]Photo by Daniel Cukier CC BY-ND 2.0[/caption] Rumor has it that Google is set to recast …
: Quirky: Adapting for Asperger's at the Expense of Sincerity Coming to terms with being a 38-year-old man with Asperger’s, having only been diagnosed a few weeks ago, has naturally lead to reexaminations of my …
: You Choose to Exist Here: Reliving Deep Space Nine Deep Space Nine has always been my favorite of all the Star Trek incarnations. Sweeping in scope, meticulous with character, and challenging my moral …
: This Fucking Guy: How Our Shitty Electoral System Let a Monster Run Maine Even in the Age of Trump, one political figure stands out above all others as the lowest of the low, the king of the boors, the bastard of disaster, …
: You Don't Seem Autistic to Me: Asperger's and the Fear of Not Being Believed [Updated below] Do you remember when you were a kid, and being sick meant the tantalizing possibility of staying home from school for a day? I was …
: I'm Now On Patreon (And I Feel a Little Weird About It) I am now experimenting with Patreon, the crowdfunding service, in order to see if I can ease some of my financial stress by creating meaningful units …
: Madame Defarge's Memes At Wired, Issie Lapowsky summarizes some research that tells us something that is not surprising, that more or less no one is ever persuaded to change …
: Asperger's, Corrective Lenses, and the True Self What does it mean to “be yourself”? I think it means to behave as you would if you were more or less unconcerned with how others perceived your …
: The Plausibility Threshold I’m not at all opposed to the idea of allowing third party candidates into the general election presidential debates. In most cases, of course, …
: A More Forgiving Lens The author and his little brother in 1980. I have never felt like I belonged in this species. I resembled a human, and I could force myself to …
: The DNC Doesn't Owe You Anything I just want to expand upon a point I made snarkily on Twitter that’s gotten some attention and heat. I said: BREAKING: Secret emails reveal that many …
: I Watched the Mighty Skyline Fall Cleaning up the kitchen after dinner this evening, my wife Jessica had put on some Billy Joel to listen to, and asked what album of his I preferred to …
: Uniquely Okay to Mistreat “Bullying” is such a weak word, isn’t it? The word itself (not the act) always evokes silly images for me, either of cartoon schoolyard lunkheads or …
: Jill Stein's Shameful Pander on Vaccines and Homeopathy About a month ago on a Reddit AMA, Dr. Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party nominee for president, was asked a simple question about her official …
: The Facile Conflation Ariella Barker was a Sanders supporter who tried and failed to get the Sanders campaign to take seriously her concerns about what she called the …
: Apogee Apology So I’ve moved the blog again. I have a blog at the Patheos network, iMortal, which I have not written in for weeks. I’m not entirely sure why, but I …
: Romney's New Game, House Rules Mitt Romney is not an idiot. He knows that he can’t possibly win a presidential election as an independent candidate. And that’s even assuming he …
: Accomplishments The challenge today was to be alright with accomplishing nothing. Which turned into something else. I'm parenting solo with only one of the kids, my …
: Ye Who Are Unworthy of PEZ I don’t care you if you blaspheme. You can take whatever lord’s name in vain that you please. You can desecrate any holy book that tickles your fancy. …
: RT This Post for Dopamine Squirts This piece by Darya Rose is about indulging in things that are bad for you, but that you think are making you happy, like alcohol and junk food. But …
: Presidential Primaries Might Be a Terrible Idea Political parties aren’t the government, even though the Democrats and Republicans have so entirely weaved their parties into the machinery of …
: "Shoot Me Instead" I shouldn’t be surprised, but I can’t help it. No, I’m not shocked that there might be someone who wants desperately to attack Donald Trump. I am …
: Romney's Game Mitt Romney is trying to be president. When Mitt Romney took the stage yesterday at the University of Utah to inveigh against Donald Trump, there was …
: Ben Carson Makes a Correct Diagnosis Ben Carson, who for some reason believes himself to still be running for president, made what I have to assume was an accidentally astute observation …
: Suckered by Chris Christie I'm a sucker. I used to think that there was some modicum of integrity within Chris Christie. Yes, his brand was based on bluster and boorishness, and …
: Trump Can't Be Stopped by Shaming His Voters The editorial board of the Washington Post wants to stop Trump from getting the Republican nomination, citing Trump's lies, threats, lack of an …
: Trump Will Be the Nominee and the GOP (Unfortunately) Will Be Fine Donald Trump will be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party. I thought this months ago, and today it’s blindingly obvious. What baffles me …
: Jeb the Human Like almost everyone the past few months, I've not felt inclined to be kind to or about John Ellis Bush. This was justified in my mind largely by the …
: Malleable Former President Jimmy Carter would take Trump over Cruz, and so would I. Jimmy says: The reason is, Trump has proven already he’s completely …
: Ironic Imaginary Conversations Tom Jacobs at Pacific Standardreports on research that shows how animosity toward nonbelievers can be reducedby the religious having an imaginary, …
: Trump is Exactly What We Wanted I was not a Trump skeptic when he entered the race. I didn't know how far he'd get, but I knew he'd be a big factor, and as he plowed ahead and …
: 'Twas the Night Before Iowa (Which Probably Won't Matter) Here's what I think of the state of the race on the night before the Iowa caucuses. The polls right now for Iowa are more or less meaningless. Yes, …
: Immortality the Ineffable Underdog Everyone you love and everyone you know and everything you touch will someday be gone. We will lose our lovers, our friends, our parents, our …
: No, Really, They Are All Trumps John Scalzi has a good post of observations about the Trump-demagogue situation, echoing the drum I've been beating for a while about the existing GOP …
: They Are All Trumps Today, the political world is aghast because Trump said that “for now,” Muslims should be barred from entering the country. That’s awful, of course. …
: Thirty-Eight with Thanks As a therapeutic exercise, I’m supposed to be writing down things for which I am grateful. Apparently, there is some science behind the idea that …
: Leaving the Day Behind (Tablets Re-Reconsidered) I have been on a kind of device-consolidation kick for a couple of years now, shedding gadgets that I feel overlap in their use-cases a bit too much …
: Is it Okay to Drop Virtual Nuclear Bombs? This is probably a ridiculous question, but whatever: Is it immoral to do immoral things in a video game? Here’s the thing. I have a genuine concern …
: Lurve the Curve: The LG G4 Photo credit: TheBetterDay / Foter.com / CC BY-ND In my last tech-related post, I detailed my year-long persnickety quest to find the One True Phone …
: The DNC's Cowardice Kills the Lessig Campaign Lawrence Lessig ended his bid for the Democratic nomination for president today, and I don’t blame him in the least. Due to a last-minute change by …
: Lessig Says "You Win...I Will Remain President" - But It Might Be Too Late Lawrence Lessig has reversed himself on the one aspect of his presidential campaign that I considered deflating, that dampened what would otherwise …
: How I Learned to Love the Chromebook I’ve been singing the praises of Chromebooks for some time, but none of that praise has come from direct experience. The utility and potential of …
: The Democrats' First Debate: Nothing Changed, and That's Huge In a sense, nothing really changed about the dynamics of the race as a result of the first Democratic presidential debate, but that in itself is …
: Power's Out The power went out on my block tonight, and it was weird. It started around 10pm, I was the only one awake in the house, and there were no lights …
: Lawrence Lessig, Knight of the Woeful Countenance If Hillary Clinton is my Machiavellian Prince, Lawrence Lessig is my Don Quixote. I know he can’t win (and he knows he can’t win), but his platform, …
: Yes, I'm Conflicted About Hillary Clinton. But I'll Damn Well Get Over It. I have lots of feelings about Hillary Clinton. Heck, I used to work for Hillary Clinton. She had no idea, of course, but for about three months as …
: Transhumanism as a Possibility, Not a Promise I have a soft spot for the transhumanists, and as I’ve said, if they were a little less sure of themselves and their goals, and if they were just a …
: The Mutual Enhancement Society: Superintelligence in Machines...*and* Humans? Reading Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence, and having read James Barrat’s Our Final Invention, as well as consuming a lot of other writings on the …
: Let's Get Small I’m a small guy, at 5'5" I think some people almost find it alarming how tiny I am, at least compared to how tall they expect me (or any adult male) …
: Lawrence Lessig's Noble and Dispiriting Pledge UPDATE 9/6/2016: Lessig's campaign successfully passed the $1,000,000 pledge threshold (I pledged a token amount), and formally announced his …
: How Mars One is Like a Björn Borg Clothing Line [This post has been updated with some really brilliant insight from the author.] Mars One, the pseudo-pyramid scheme that pretends to be sending …
: Consider a superintelligent agent with actuators connected to a nanotech assembler. I'm reading Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, about the possible capabilities and potential threats posed by rapidly …
: Can Alphabet Ever Mean as Much as Google Does? Google surprised pretty much everyone today when they announced that, well, they weren’t going to be Google anymore. Google CEO Larry Page (well, …
: Consciousness as Middle-Management Your conscious mind may not be doing anything all that interesting. No, not just you, but like, for everyone. From San Francisco State University: …
: The Trump-Loving GOP McCain Helped Create I keep starting and then deleting tweets that convey my overall feeling about the whole Trump-v-McCain slap fight going on right now. I know that if …
: Neal Stephenson's "Seveneves": Thoughts on an Impact Event I’ve been deeply affected by Neal Stephenson’s latest novel Seveneves. While I am often a slow and somewhat lazy reader, I found myself taking every …
: Let's Pick a Decent Pair of Cheap Earbuds The bargain I made with myself after my tortuous search for the perfect over-ear headphones, for the purposes of meditational escape and overall …
: I'm Special to CNN Last week, a contact of mine at CNN asked me to write an op-ed for the website on the recent Gallup poll showing an uptick in the number of Americans …
: Permission to be Unproductive A thing a sack of problems like me is supposed to do to mitigate crippling anxiety and PTSD is to allow oneself to escape, to decompress. I am …
: Threat What I think people don’t understand about those of us who suffer from intense anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, and the like, is that having …
: I Thync This Might Be Bullshyt There’s been a little bit of curious excitement over a new product called Thync, a wearable module that is intended to reduce stress, induce …
: Righteous Irritation and the License to Bully Yesterday, I tweeted: Get really mad. Together. Twitter. Ha ha I’m so witty. Anyway, it’s an expression of my feeling of alienation from the …
: You're CPAPping it Wrong A couple of sleep studies and an apnea diagnosis, and here I am in the midst of the CPAPpening. After the nasal mask failed to work out for me, it was …
: Mavericky Mars One Before getting into this, you might want to catch up with some of my previous writing on Mars One: Mars One: Interplanetary Travel on Underpants Gnome …
: Frozen Worms = Immortality Around the Corner Cryogenics has long been the province of cranks, charlatans, and the easily-duped (I’m not a big This American Life fan, but the “Mistakes Were Made” …
: Jettison the Brain it No Longer Requires (A Flashback to 2009) In March of 2009, I discovered the perfect metaphor for the GOP in the animal kingdom. Now that the presidential race is getting going, and fools like …
: Demonizing the Point of View of a Delicate Snowflake Rod Dreher, who fears gay equality at a visceral level, is very upset about a lesbian couple in Canada who demanded a refund on their purchase from a …
: One Man's Blogspam is Another Man's Engaging Content The truth is, folks, I don’t maintain a blog purely for the joy of doing so. I do love to write, but one doesn’t blog unless one wishes not just to …
: Let's Build Our Own Gods and Hope They Like Us: Reservations about Transhumanism Transhumanist philosopher Zoltan Istvan is “running for president.” No, he’s not a supervillain, but good-god-DAMN that’s a good supervillain name. …
: Beautiful, Beautiful Alienation: Walkmen, Phones, and (Not) Watches I was relatively late to the whole Walkman thing. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I got ahold of my own portable cassette player, partly …
: We Didn’t Find Any Type 3s Because There Aren't Any: Imagining Galactic Civilizations Where all the galactic empires at??? This is actually not a ridiculous question. Lee Billings, an excellent science writer who specializes in the …
: The Mouse in the Machine: Scientists Make a Virtual Mouse Brain In Switzerland, they've got themselves a virtual mouse (like, a rodent that exists in a computer, not like a peripheral that controls a cursor), …
: Animals Declared "Sentient" in New Zealand: Hard Questions Sure to Follow New Zealand has passed an amendment to its animal welfare law stating that animals are “sentient beings,” and the amendment seems to strengthen some …
: The Digital Wins Over Digits: Our Tech Becomes More Valuable Than Our Bodies Because I’m morbid, weird, and a pessimist-fatalist, I often find myself thinking about which sense I’d rather lose if I had to: my hearing or my …
: Photo Management on the Mac Just Sucks There are no good photo management solutions for the Mac anymore. Yeah, I said it! At least, I've seen none that satisfy the few but crucial needs …
: Memére When I first visited Maine with my then-bride-to-be, Memére filled me in on a lot of the family history, though she probably had little idea who I was …
: Dr. Oz, Disinfected by Sunshine I was a guest on HuffPost Live this afternoon, joining a panel to discuss the whole Dr. Oz imbroglio, and something struck me that I wound up …
: Sally Field, Phil Hartman, and Everyone's Jesus My wife Jessica dug up this old SNL clip today, and I love it. //player.theplatform.com/p/NnzsPC/widget/select/media/5mtKnN9OGzHe?disableEndCard=true …
: Zelda, Bottles, Glasses, Etc. [youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gvWFqrKcsU&w=500&h=281])
: The Power and Pathos of Optimus Prime As you might know, I am a great fan of the old-school Transformers, the 1986 Transformers animated film in particular. (I even hosted a whole podcast …
: Here Come the Apologetics from "Some" Mars One Candidates The true believers of Mars One have begun to respond to the criticism the program is facing, most specifically from the excellent investigative work …
: Mars One is Amway-Meets-Heaven's Gate In November I wrote about an investigative piece by Elmo Keep on the Mars One initiative, which is supposed to be screening candidates for a one-way …
: Now I Wire Me Up to Sleep You know how when you’ve had a good night’s sleep, you wake up the next morning rested, refreshed, and ready to start your day? Well, I don’t. In …
: My Son and Papa Dreadnoughtus You may recall that last year they announced the discovery of a dinosaur species which they called Dreadnoughtus, thought to be the single largest …
: To Persist, to Ponder Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi died on March 9 of lung cancer. He was, as I am, 37 years old. He had, as I do, a young daughter. (I also of course have a …
: Just Let People Use Their Damn Gadgets Here’s Federico Veticci on iPads as cameras: And yes, I think I’d look silly shooting photos with an iPad in public. But, to put it bluntly, whatever. …
: Oliver and I are Going to Die Oliver Sacks thinks differently from me. He will be dead soon. He’s handling it much better than I would: I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope …
: You Got Taylor Swift in My Trent Reznor! I am not generally impressed by Taylor Swift. I like some Nine Inch Nails and respect Trent Reznor, but I also think the whole act is a little …
: Why Not-Being in the Future Completely Sucks Adam Frank at NPR's 13.7 blog on why we shouldn't be hung up about death, even though there's no afterlife: [E]ven though none of us existed 1,000 …
: Industry as an Intrinsic End Alan Jacobs foreswears the Internet of analytics: Twitter and Tumblr […] have something important in common, which they share with most social media …
: Comics on Tablets: A High Bar Easily Cleared (Addendum to "The Tablet Reconsidered") It occurred to me that after my 3400-word opus on how the tablet is being squeezed out of its reason-for-being by big phones and sleeker laptops, that …
: The Tablet Reconsidered: A High Bar for the Middle Space The tablet computer as we know it is about to turn 5 years old. Yes, tablet computers in some for or another existed before then, but on January 27, …
: “Into the Woods”: Thoughts on What’s Been Changed for the Film As a piece of culture, Into the Woods holds deep, personal significance for me. As a junior in high school, I played the Baker in our school …
: Kirk from “Gilmore Girls”: My Goddamn Hero I am a man riddled with anxieties, hangups, doubts, and regrets, but I aspire to a greater sense of self-worth (or any sense of self-worth, frankly). …
: Gloves That Allow You To Look Like an Idiot and Simultaneously Awesome ThinkGeek is now selling gloves that also serve as a Bluetooth handset for talking on the phone...by actually making that thumb-and-pinky sign with …
: The Embassy of Google I really like Google+ for the most part (as much as I hate the name), and I find the interactions that I have there to be, on the average, much …
: Trying to Be a Phablet Guy, with Little Hands Is it time to jump on board the phablet bandwagon? I’ve never owned one of these large phones before, being cursed with wee mitts, but I’ve always …
: Oh Shit, Earth Actually is Flat That is, if you're a cosmic particle traveling at 99.9999999999991% the speed of light. [youtube …
: Reaching the Age of Dennis (Of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune) Today I reach the age of Dennis, the filth-digging peasant who loathes the self-perpetuating autocracy in spite of which his autonomous collective …
: The Superhero America, with its Systemic and Infrastructural Problems, Deserves Vlad Savov has an interesting essay at The Verge in which he laments that popular superheroes as they are written are rarely called upon to use their …
: Patrick Stewart and the Shame of Bullying I was rather moved when I saw this tweet yesterday. When I was a child at times I was a bully - and I'm ashamed. http://t.co/67ag01Mghb #NoBystanders …
: Kermit the Frog Performs Twitter's Strategy Statement [youtube www.youtube.com/watch Twitter released its strategy statement to investors on November 12, 2014, to (at best) mixed reception. Here, Kermit …
: Mars One: Interplanetary Travel on Underpants Gnome Principles There are two new fascinating articles about the Mars One mission, in which a small number of people train for ten years to be sent on a one-way trip …
: The Martians' Singularity: Thoughts on "The War of the Worlds" I’ve just read H.G. Wells’ original The War of the Worlds, and it was nothing like I expected. I have a completely unfounded prejudice about some of …
: Performing Artists, Kill Your Guilty Conscience My amazing and talented wife Jessica recently did some voice work to help another actress prepare for a film, for which she was paid. She was told …
: An Unbearable Ache and an Unexpected Alphabet I have highly mixed feelings about having my kids in daycare. On the one hand, it's wonderful that they get a full day's worth of attention, …
: HP Unveils An All-Touch, Projector-Controlled PC HP has announced something truly new and novel, a desktop PC that is entirely touch-based, but not by reaching out in front of you to touch the screen …
: The Attack, Four Years Later As you might know, a ways back two thugs beat the shit out of me outside my home Metro station when I lived in DC, and it was really, really bad, and …
: Death by a Thousand Emotional Microtransactions How much do you care what people think of you? How much do you care what people you’ve never met think of you? How much do you care what people …
: The Real People Who Serve As the Internet's Depravity Filter An incredible investigative piece in Wired by Adrian Chen reports on the lives of contract content moderators, folks whose job it is to go through …
: Jekyll and Hyde: Forefathers of Internet Trolls There is a degree of serendipity to my first reading of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I downloaded it to my iPad mostly on a whim, …
: Computers, Coats, and Chainsaws: Longevity and Turnover for Technology In an upcoming episode of the iMortal Show (which I promise is coming back soon – a new episode is being recorded this week), we’re going to discuss …
: The Quest for Peace, Through Headphones I am told that I am poor at being “in the moment,” and I confess it to be the case. I am nothing if not riddled with anxieties, large and small. At …
: Mars, Musk, and a Meditation Ross Andersen’s interview with Elon Musk at Aeon, on Musk’s ambitions for Mars colonization, is a gem. “Interview” doesn’t do it justice; it’s part …
: Perpetual Dislocation and the Angst of Techno-Conservatives Nicholas Carr is a thinker I struggle with. (I mean, I struggle with his thoughts as expressed in written form, I don’t struggle with him personally …
: Over My Dead Body A college girlfriend of mine used to pride herself on being kind of pro-death. She wasn’t goth, per se, but she was certainly contrarian, and when …
: The Apotheosis of Voltron Did you already know about this? You probably already know about this. Look, I had heard of MC Frontalot, but being 36 and out of touch, I never heard …
: A Song to Unfollow By I'm doing some light Twitter culling tonight, as the relentlessness that is the Torrent of Feelings, the constant barrage of snark and attacks and …
: Inexhaustible Novelty and its Discontents If you follow technology news at all, you’re probably tired of hearing variations on the word “disruption.” You’ve maybe heard the words …
: Angels in the iPod: Lawrence Krauss on TWiT Physicist Lawrence Krauss was recently the guest on Triangulation, the interview program on the TWiT network. It's one of those lovely convergences …
: Stuck in the Middle with You: The Awkward Sidelines of Skepto-Atheism's Internal Battles Mommy and daddy are fighting, and they’re ruining Christmas. This is pretty much how I feel most days when I glance at my Twitter feed or peruse the …
: Final Fantasy VII's Final Battle Against Sephiroth...Sung A Capella Smooth McGroove, he who produces amazing a cappella renditions of music from video games, has created his masterpiece. I've previously heaped praise …
: When in Doubt, Blame Slender Man This is entirely predictable, and disappointing. Because of a couple of recent incidents in which young people have commited crimes because of the …
: The Less-Than Doomed E-reader I’ve been seeing more and more writing lately about the allegedly imminent death of standalone e-readers (and really, Kindles, because no one is …
: The Moore's Law Express Hits the Great Ceiling: A Possible Hitch to Alien Contact Amid the discussions of the potential for contact with extra-terrestrial civilizations, there’s one big buzzkill I don’t recall ever hearing posited …
: Skepticism Warranted in the Panic Over Twitter Changes The thing that's been giving the online world a collective ulcer is the idea that Twitter is going to fundamentally change the way its service works …
: Measuring the Immeasurable Heavens [youtube www.youtube.com/watch In this video from Nature, we are introduced to Laniakea, the incomprehensibly vast supercluster of galaxies of which …
: Learning Not to Be Tormented by the Twitter Torrent I took a vacation from work last week, but I’m not good at vacations. One way or the other, I usually find some way to taint what should be a chance …
: Let's Agree to Disagree with Those Other People: The Stifling of Meaningful Dissent Online A recent study from Pew that’s getting a lot of attention suggests that social media use is contributing to a dynamic in which people are afraid to …
: The Collision: Enforced Religion Meets the Internet Every human being alive today, provided they have access to even the most rudimentary computing hardware, is now a broadcasting platform. Compared to …
: To Save Us From the Police, It's Cameras All the Way Down In order to bring more justice into the American criminal justice system, we may all need to point cameras at each other. That’s where a lot of the …
: The Pixel-Based Employee: In Praise of Remote Working I work from home, but not because I wanted to stay home with the kids. At the time of the arrangement, I had just moved to Maine, this position …
: You Can Be Jailed for Internet Blasphemy Before You've Even Committed It in India If you use the Internet in a particular state in India, you might be jailed for pre-crime. I wish I was being overly dramatic, but it really does …
: Twitter is Monkeying with What Makes it Great Twitter has a lot of problems. It doesn’t seem to have the wherewithal to deal with abuse and harassment on its platform, it’s managed to antagonize …
: As Ye Live, So Shall Ye Google In American counties considered the easiest in which to live, cameras, iPad apps, and jogging are among the subjects that residents are googling for. …
: Ferguson as Portrayed by Facebook and Twitter: Algorithms Have Consequences If Facebook’s algorithm is a brain, then Twitter is a stream of conscience. The Facebook brain decides what will and will not show up in your …
: What Happens When You Starve the Facebook Brain? The Facebook algorithm, the “brain” which decides what content to feature, what content to bury, and what content to put in front of you, is being …
: This Isn’t Self-protection; It’s Cosplay Alan Jacobs asks us to consider the influence of the first-person shooter video game genre on the minds of young men, in particular the young men …
: What the Hell is Going On Here? I have a new blog-home, iMortal, at the Patheos network. They've imported pretty much everything from this blog into that one, so I need to start …
: Weird Al Offers Safe Passage to Pop Music “Weird Al” Yankovic was the first “popular music” I ever liked. Well, him and the Monkees, because I was a kid. From a young age I felt alienated …
: What the Facebook Brain Thinks of You If you’re in public relations, journalism, entertainment, or other similar fields, you already know that Facebook wields enormous power, probably far …
: Robin Williams and the False Promise of Success I have no idea why he did it. I have no special insight into whatever darkness weighed on the heart of Robin Williams. I haven’t even seen a Robin …
: Of Muggles and Mutants: Sci-fi's Concern for "Better" Humans I’ve moments ago finished The Bone Season, a novel by Samantha Shannon that I quite enjoyed, about a near-future world in which “clairvoyants,” those …
: Social Media and the Imprisoned Juggler Speaking of whether social media can subsume one’s identity, I’m reminded of a piece from last year by Sara Scribner on “breaking up” with Facebook, …
: The Spectacle of Ourselves: Social Media and the Superfluous Will Are we losing ourselves in social media? A lot of people feel that way, that we’re all just absorbing ourselves into some kind of swirl of ones and …
: EU's "Right to Be Forgotten" Hits Wikipedia, Blocking the Memory of the Web In May, the European Union's top court made the controversial ruling that search engines were responsible for upholding a so-called "right to be …
: It's No Longer a Crazy Idea to Move to the Cloud Jeff Jarvis (media critic, journalism professor, co-host of This Week in Google, and warrior in the battle against Verizon's LTE device activation …
: Montaigne: A Skeptic and Secular Humanist Before It Was Cool Montaigne is a huge influence on my writing, as he exemplifies what I love best about the form of the “essay,” where certitude about a subject is put …
: One Way to Play "50 Ways" What happens if you play Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" as a slow, bluesy, pained, Neil Young-inspired number? Let me back up. Yes, I'm a …
: Spark! A Telekinetic Girl Superhero is Pitched for a Brilliant New Comic A few weeks ago I came upon perhaps my favorite website ever, Little Girls Are Better At Designing Superheroes Than You, where Alex Law and others are …
: Humanism in Software. Stop Laughing. When I talk about humanism, I’m really talking about compassion. Whatever the tenets of a given strain of humanism, whether you think it should have …
: Abuse on Twitter: Humans Can't Always Just "Brush it Off" People being assholes online is hardly new, though awful people using Twitter as a kind of heat-seeking missile to hurt people has only lately begun …
: Quick! Get This Man to a Homeopathic Hospital! There's something particularly insidious about homeopathy, isn't there? I can't put my finger on it, but something about it gets under my …
: Collective Genius and Brains in Vats I’ve at times felt some discomfort of the idea of the “genius,” maybe chiefly because I discovered I am not one, much to my delusional childhood …
: Your Unique Amalgam: On the Fluidity of Geekhood [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“852.0”]Geek in training.[/caption] I had assigned myself* the task of writing a post about what it is to be a …
: The Old School Transformers Movie You've Been Wishing For There hasn't been a Generation-1 Transformers animated movie since Transformers: The Movie (discussed in depth on my podcast) in 1986. As excited as …
: Stuck Outside of the Comic Books Multiverse As a nerd, it really does seem that I ought to be into comic books, but it just never happened. As a pre-teen, eventually I became devoted to The …
: What Old Dad Can Offer Lee Siegel on being the father of young kids while in his 50s: [I]t isn’t too difficult to squelch the regret that I didn’t have children at a …
: A Ravenous Insistence on Having an Opinion Andy Greenwald, in a post that’s really about the show Louie, diagnoses the tweetosphere: “We live in an era of opinions. In the Internet economy — in …
: "I'm Sure We'll Hear of Him, Very Soon." "Yes, the soon-to-be-famous Jeff...Dun-Ham...with his puppets." [youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8Afv3U_ysc&w=854&h=480]
: Rocks I usually really don't like going to the beach, but I acquiesce for the sake of getting the kids out of the house, plus my wife really loves it. But …
: Twitter Tsunamis of Desperate Signaling Alan Jacobs on the swarm of me-too righteousness online, in the form of “Twitter tsunamis.” This kind of thing always makes me want to flee Twitter, …
: We Are All Short Now Reihan Salam writes on short men’s failure to collectively reject heightism, and it’s a piece so good I found myself highlighting more than half of it …
: Peak Outrage and the Exhausted Amygdala Why have I lost interest in politics, when it was once such a passion of mine that I left theatre and performing Shakespeare for a living to pursue …
: "Just Bring the Kids" is an Option. But it is One That Sucks. Maybe this will help you understand. Christine Skoutelas at A Morning Grouch enlightens those without children as to why she and other people with …
: Being a Bully is Good for You The old trope has it that while bullies make your life hell during your years in school, once you’re all grown up and in the world, the bullies’ …
: Dreaming of Ice-Roofed Worlds I have been moved. Lee Billings at Aeon writes about the decent chance for life on Europa, relative to Mars at least, and makes a strong case for …
: Public Discourse, Public Persona Marjorie Romeyn-Sanabria counters the eulogy for Twitter, which I responded to here, with thoughts about what makes Twitter valuable: Twitter is a …
: Lament for a Pre-Dudgeon Twitter The enemy of Twitter? It's us. Well, not me. But possibly you. Here's Adrienne LaFrance and Robinson Meyer with a eulogy for Twitter: Twitter used to …
: The Web of Finger-Wags and How-Dare-Yous Far too much of my experience of the Web is now dominated by folks pointing out with snideness or outrage just how horrible some person or persons …
: I Don't Really Know What's Happening, So I'm Going to Call it "Emergent" Freddie de Boer on some of the pseudoscience found in the writing and evangelism about artificial intelligence: ... there’s the notion of …
: As it Turns Out, Things Are Pretty Far Apart A beautiful piece of web art by Josh Worth, a kind of science lesson/meditation/poem in a browser window. Start with the idea that the Moon is …
: All Small We are all small. <img …
: Frivolity to Grow Your Soul These are all connected in my mind. First, Alan Jacobs’ “commonplace Tumblr” quotes Auden (of whose work I am almost entirely ignorant): If a poet …
: The One Unwelcome Intrusion on the Near-Perfect "Gravity" Having just now seen Gravity with my wife this weekend, I have a feeling that I had more faith in the movie's power than even the filmmakers did. I …
: The Loudest Voice is a Bawling Baby Frank Rich: ...these days Fox News is the loudest voice in the room only in the sense that a bawling baby is the loudest voice in the room. In being …
: Stretching Awake on the Rooftops of Tarbean If you have ever slept the whole night without moving, then awoke in the morning, your body stiff with inaction. If you can remember how that first …
: That's What Civilization Is Kevin Kelly: Most of the problems in the future are going to be created by technologies we're creating today. Technology is a means of producing new …
: Big Week for a Topaz Paragon It’s been a busy week for me on the Internet. Let’s quickly review: I have new digs at Huffington Post as a blogger, for which I am compensated …
: Follow Your Passion into Oncoming Traffic I am sour. Expanding on yesterday’s post on the pressure we feel to have careers that realize the “follow your passion” and “do what you love” ideals, …
: Do Not Follow Your Passion When it Jumps off the Empire State Building Do what you love! Sacrifice all! Wait, no. First, Emily Hauser: The whole notion of following one’s passion is so steeped historic, economic, and …
: Writing on the Surface of a Lake Is it cool if I try and work something out with you here? Okay, cool. Thanks. I mentioned a few days ago on Twitter that I was considering giving up …
: Friendly Substitute Atheist Oh, hey. Over the holiday, Hemant Mehta finally went on his honeymoon, and once again called upon me to run the Friendly Atheist site. So once again, …
: The Big Sticker So my wife's dad (who is a really good guy all-around -- just today he paid for two strangers' layaway at Walmart without their even knowing because …
: My Top Ten Ranking Positions 1. 2 2. 1 3. 3 4. 10 5. 6 6/7. 5 & 8 (tie) 8. 4 9. 7 10. 9
: If You Have Anything Bad to Say about Phil Collins, I Don't Want to Hear It The time has come for us nerds who really like Phil Collins to stand up. My friend and erstwhile musical collaborator Chris Seiler, who currently …
: Oh You Are Sick of Self-Love, Snarker In a previous post, I responded to the recent discussion going on in Internet-land about snark vs. smarm by essentially declaring a plague on both …
: Life. Don't Talk to Me about Life. Because it’s not really a thing. Here’s Ferris Jabr at Scientific American: No one has ever managed to compile a set of physical properties that …
: Gorged on Snark I was kind of on the same page with Tom Scocca and his anti-smarm essay at Gawker for the first chunk of it. He has some great zingers and I’m a …
: The Sublimity of Bagpiping for a Penguin This is quite possibly the greatest photograph ever taken. Gilbert Kerr of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, playing the bagpipes for/at/in …
: The Sublimity of Bagpiping for a Penguin This is quite possibly the greatest photograph ever taken. <img …
: www = IRL No doubt you've seen some manifestation of a species of essay wherein the author goes cold turkey on the Internet for some length of time, and …
: And Now for Sports Via Vector Belly, h/t Ana Jenkins.
: And Now for Sports Via Vector Belly, h/t Ana Jenkins.
: Tony Stark and Me and Our PTSD On an episode in May of this year of the podcast The Incomparable, which is a great panel discussion show about whatever bit of culture, …
: Shattering My Dreams of Disunion A piece in The Economist argues that despite popular fatigue with our country’s countless foreign entanglements, Americans ought to appreciate those …
: Walking on the Video Star Killed the Ocean (Two New Cover Songs) Here's two cover tunes I cooked up in my almost nonexistent spare time: my own little versions of The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" (which …
: iPad Air, 20 Days In Twenty days with the iPad Air, and a quick follow-up. I'm still in love, but the sparks of young romance are evolving into a mature and seasoned …
: Why Use an iPad to Write? Alan Jacobs, one of my favorite writers, declares that writing on the iPad, as opposed to a laptop, sucks. Lamenting the device's frustrating …
: Sisko's Restaurant and My Blog: The Star Trek Economy is User-Generated If you're deeply into Star Trek, as I am, you've wondered what the hell people do all day. Not the folks in Starfleet of course, but, well, everyone …
: Two-Day Weekends and My Cold, Dead Hands Joe Wiesenthal creates out of thin air the first-worldiest of all first-world problems. (And I say this as someone who loathes the "first-world …
: Now or Never for Elizabeth Warren So there's that new Noam Scheiber piece in The New Republic that everyone's talking about, positing that Elizabeth Warren could well be the insurgent …
: I Am a Winner *Because* You Are a Loser Psychotherapist Joseph Burgo writes in The Atlantic about research linking bullying to narcissism. (For some reason this is news.) Looking back at the …
: In Which My Boy Fills Me with Despair for My Own Mortality I recently wrote about how I had been compelled to introduce the concept of death to my son when he was a little over 2 years old, and how he was …
: Longing and Subtext, Future-Proofed The New York Times rounded up some opinions from authors about the effect of modern technology on one's ability to write contemporaneously-set …
: I Got Mad at a Clever Hipster Thing for No Good Reason So this odd thing appeared in my Facebook feed yesterday, originating here, and my first response was rather shockingly visceral, something akin to, …
: In Russia, Lucky Is Up All Night to Get YOU I love stuff like this, when a stuffy-seeming artistic institution embraces a piece of pop culture with genuine enthusiasm. However, I feel like I do …
: Star Trek's Human-ish Aliens, Vindicated [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“400.0”]He has a hat, so I can’t tell if he’s an alien. But he does have a bumpy nose, so.[/caption] The aliens …
: iPad Air: The Zen Device of Choice I originally thought of the iPad as a kind of novelty; a neat toy for someone who can afford to have a frivolous third (or fourth) device between a …
: A Boy and His Baby Sister, Through the Chaos It's been kind of a rough parenting week. The baby, at 15 months old, is teething (again) and we think has been carrying a stomach bug, which my wife …
: The Functional Hair Shirt: The Utility of Regret Let go of regrets, I am told. They are purposeless, serving as an unnecessary and often-overwhelming burden on my day-to-day life, my relationships, …
: Creativity and Personality for Cash Thomas Frank pores over the literature on creativity, and pins down its themes, motivations, and its intended audience: Those who urge us to "think …
: I Stay Awake, My Brain Decays I have written previously and with great despair of my (eventual?) surrender to sleep. By that, I mean giving in to the fact that I am older than I …
: Intrigued by the Depth of His Loathing I've never read a Jonathan Franzen novel, and I've been inclined to maintain that status quo considering the territory Franzen has staked out as the …
: Instead of Smaller Government, Let's Elect Fewer Assholes Ilya Somin kind of blew my mind with this piece at Cato's website, and it briefly shook my belief in a strong central government. Briefly! Ever so …
: iOS and Android: Physical Logic and Cyber-land Alex Payne helps me understand what really differentiates the ideas behind iOS and Android: Everything from Android’s name to its styling speaks to …
: Catching You Up on "SVU" and "Downton Abbey" Jed Groettum watched these shows so you don't have to. Law & Order: SVU: A quick recap so far of that Law and Order SVU episode you just turned on …
: In Case You Don't Want to Be an Unpaid Spokesmodel If you don't want to have your mug showing up all over the Web, appearing to endorse products and services in Google's ads, go to this site, scroll …
: Articles of Faith in Silicon Valley There is a theme gaining traction in some of the writing I've come across lately, and I think I just want to flag it as a compelling topic to which …
: Struck in the Skull with a House of Worship I woke in a bed. In a room. In an inn. More than that was not immediately clear to me. It felt exactly like someone had hit me in the head with a …
: The Facts, Not in the Flow Jeff Jarvis: . . . I have long believed that the real job of journalism is to add value to what a community knows — real value in the form of …
: If We Were Taught to Feel As I've noted several times before, one of my favorite promotions of Shakespeare, and indeed of all rich and substantive art, comes from the …
: A Forward from No One I've asked this question on Twitter a number of times, but no one will respond, and it's making me feel like I might be going crazy. So I'm going to …
: Attacked in the Park This story about an out-of-the-blue attack in Riverside Park by a guy with scissors, slashing people up, stabbing a guy in the stomach, a woman in the …
: The World Cannot Stand Idly By Henry Porter, like me, can't believe the U.S. populace puts up with its gun insanity epidemic, and wonders whether the rest of the civilized world …
: Propagating Virtue Through Use (Or, Humanism as Inexhaustible Doritos) A little while ago I posted about Claude S. Fischer's piece exploring the phenomena of sympathy, and how our "moral circle" has expanded over time to …
: Our Big, Crowded Moral Circle As you might already know, as horrible as we humans are to each other, we used to be much, much worse. In the Boston Review, Claude S. Fischer takes a …
: There's a One-in-Three Chance I Understand the Monty Hall Problem That god damn Monty Hall problem. God damn that thing. God damn it straight to Hell! I hadn't never heard of the Monty Hall problem until I saw a Sam …
: Why I'm Not Watching the Best TV Shows in the Universe Can I tell you how happy I am Alan Jacobs' Text Patterns is back? When he retired it a ways back, I paid tribute. Happily, he couldn't hold back his …
: Pax Horribilis Anil Dash has coffee with an asshole: [Disgraced misogynist Pax Dickinson] offered up a pretty boringly conventional defense of male privilege, and …
: If You Could Only Hear Yourself Read your writing out loud, advises Alan Jacobs, particularly in the case of opinion or argument. Hear how your words might affect an audience by …
: Triceratops Never Existed. Wait, Yes it Did. I have a problem with this headline from the National Post, which says, "Triceratops never actually existed, scientists say." Oh no! But it's not what …
: You're Going to Lose Your Life, So Go Ahead and Lose Your Self Stephen Cave talks to Susie Nielson about ways of coping with the reality one's inevitable demise, something with which I cannot deal. Cave's …
: Embedded in a Matrix of Perceived Consciousness Michael Graziano explains his theory of consciousness, and I swear, it's the first such explanation I've ever felt like I could grasp. This isn't to …
: Introverts: We're *Genuine*, Not Jerks (Or, Genuinely Jerks) Is there some kind of “introversion is the new black” thing going on? It’s probably due more to confirmation bias on my own part, but it sure seems …
: Maybe the Clipboards Have a Start Button Matt Licata discovers (happens upon? stumbles into? wakes up in?) a real-live Windows mini-store in a Best Buy, and shakes his head: Wood floors and …
: The Keys to Hemant's Ferrari Hemant Mehta, empresario of Friendly Atheist, is getting married this weekend, and he's leaving me with the responsibility of maintaining his blog …
: A Losing Battle with Nothingness Sleep robs me of my life. I don’t mean to be overly hyperbolic (just appropriately hyperbolic). But I really do feel this way. It is a plague to me, a …
: How My Boy Sees Me This is not definitive, of course. His three-year-old's brain is always finding new ways to classify and assign value and meaning to things. But …
: The Fortitude to Try Again Luke Eplin notes with disappointment what is obvious to any perceptive parent: Kids' entertainment is rife with unrealistic portrayals of inevitable …
: We Will Be More Space-Dwellers than Planet-Dwellers Ian O'Neill covers a high-minded conference discussion about the best protocols for potential encounters with alien species once our own ventures out …
: I'm a Pundit on a Tech Show and the Host Calls Me the Kwisatz Haderach In my valiant attempts to win the interest of tech geeks for my skepto-atheist organization, I somehow managed to finagle my way into a stint as a …
: The Two Greatest Tweets of All Time Twitter has become one of my favorite mediums. When used well, its strict character parameters enforce pith and concision. Over the years, my twit-fu …
: The Self and its Ever-Corrupting Shell Lionel Shriver quotes one of her own novels' characters to explain the different worlds inhabited by attractive and non-attractive people: People …
: A Little Too Much Character Building Hannah Dale Thompson has lived both sides of the attractiveness divide, and cops to behaving much as her tormentors did, once she had a taste of the …
: The Boy Will Turn into an Ice Cube The Boy (3 years old): Daddy, one day, when I'm an ice cube... Me (35 years old): Wait, you're going to turn into an ice cube? Boy: ...Daddy, when I'm …
: I Married Up Last year, I made a little photo montage video as a gift for my wife on our fifth anniversary. Today is our sixth, and I have her permission to share …
: The Approval of the Civilized World Stephen Fry says Russia's treatment of gays and lesbians must have international consequences. In an eloquent and moving post, he declares: An …
: The New Toad Record Gives Me Feelings Toad the Wet Sprocket has just dropped their first record in sixteen years to Kickstarter backers (I was late, but got in under the wire), New …
: It's American to Welcome the Weirdos In a previous post, I mentioned how Emily Hauser directed me to a revelatory article on introversion by Jonathan Rauch. One of the things I like about …
: One of the More Beautiful Asymmetries I am in no way qualified, and in no way inclined, to judge between the arguments over the existence or nonexistence of free will. Let me just get that …
: Nexus 7 Gen. 2: The Tablet for People Who Live in the Sky Wow! The new Nexus 7 has a Retina-level screen AND gets nine hours of battery life! What's your excuse, Apple? Oh. In my test, the new Nexus 7's …
: The White Butterfly is Broken: Kids and Death Virginia Hughes looks at the way children process the concept of death, and the prevailing research on their timetables for comprehension. She focuses …
: Prose before Superheroes [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“300.0”]This is obviously not me.[/caption] Jonathan H. Liu at GeekDad is putting a temporary ban on comic …
: The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known Tim Kreider on the disorientation that results from accidentally discovering what people think of you: Hearing other people’s uncensored opinions of …
: You Are a Wonderful Person, But Now Please Shush Following my previous post on introversion, the delightful Emily Hauser directed my attention to a piece by Jonathan Rauch from 2003 that not only …
: On Depleting My Precious Glucose Resources Some studies are suggesting that introverts don’t know what’s good for them, and that by acting like extroverts, they will be happier. From the Wall …
: Paul's Nine Stages of Giving a Conference Presentation Anger: What do you mean I have to give a presentation?! I don’t have time to put this together at such short notice! I have too much other stuff on my …
: Delicious Disunion, Ctd. I'm still hung up on this fantasy notion of the United States being a little less united, as I find speculations on a divvied-up sectioning of the …
: This Cake is Serious Photo taken by Kathy Santamore.
: He Just Wasn't Made for These Times The Nate Silver saga: Silver leaves the New York Times for ESPN, and the Times’ public editor says, essentially, we didn't want him anyway: I don’t …
: Bookstores as Literary Outposts in the Digital Age Virginia Postrel at Bloomberg has an idea for saving bookstores like Barnes and Noble in the digital era: Separate the discovery and atmospheric value …
: Toad Pays its Dues Toad the Wet Sprocket is back together, much to my delight, and about to release a new record, which last happened during the first year of Clinton's …
: An Atheist's Prayer, an Actor's Vulnerability, a Patient's Trauma There's something a little bit eerie to me about Jerry DeWitt's article in Huffington Post in which he exhorts his fellow nonbelievers to engage in a …
: On the Occasion of My Little Girl Turning One “I’m the nicest guy I know, and I’m an asshole!” This is my standard line to describe my anxiety about being the father of a baby girl. Here’s another …
: A Song I Wrote Was Gonna Be in a Movie But Now It's Not So You Can Hear It Now I Guess Earlier this year, I was asked if one of my original songs, "Selfless," could be used in a film being produced that a friend of mine is involved in. I …
: Gerson Shows a Heart Michael Gerson, though I have accused him of having a lizard brain and doing the Douthat Twist, shows a heart with ambition, calling for a great …
: They're On Their Way to Get Loki [youtube www.youtube.com/watch
: For Winter, Respect. For Summer, Contempt. It is summer, which is a bad thing, I await the change of seasons, but things are not as simple as they once were. There was a time when winter didn't …
: Threats, Trade-offs, and a Tinderbox Pratap Bhanu Mehta at the Financial Times compares American perceptions of threat and the liberty-security balance, which leads me to contemplate an …
: The Enemies of All Mankind I am no libertarian. I find them, frankly, scary in their bizarre faith in markets and contracts to keep civilization from eating itself alive. And …
: A Website You Can Talk Over: Assigning Responsibility for a Meaningful Blog What do I want this blog to be? Perhaps using that very word, blog, assumes too much, imposing a definition. What to I want this website to be? A …
: Rewarded for Cat Pictures (and Whatnot) All Things D interviews Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Labs, home of the online virtual world Second Life. I have tried out Second Life a number of times …
: To Be a Species is to Be Special John S. Wilkins considers the argument that humans are somehow more than "just animals." The evolutionary view of human capacities is that they have …
: That Wound Has Been Healed a Little Today [youtube www.youtube.com/watch
: Scrooge McGroove on the Moon My new favorite YouTube star, Smooth McGroove has fulfilled what he told me was a very popular request (and one of my requests as well): The Moon …
: Stephen Fry and the Paradox of Loneliness Stephen Fry, one of my heroes, recently tried to commit suicide, and has since told the whole tale of his battle with depression in such a way that …
: And Don't You Forget it for a Second!
: We Asked for This The NSA snooping story is fishy. Here's Ed Bott at ZDNet: . . . a funny thing happened the next morning. If you followed the link to [The Washington …
: There's Only One Rule I Know of, Babies Image by Miranda.
: Bernanke on Oxen and Parasites Ladies and gentlemen, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, at Princeton: This is indeed an impressive and appropriate setting for a commencement. I …
: For Mother and Father, In Equal Measure Patrick Stewart magnificently describes his efforts in combatting (and his childhood experience of witnessing) violence against women. Watch the whole …
: A Tendency Away from Certitude: Our Blogosphere Needs the Essay It had seemed to me that, in the ideal, the chief distinguishing characteristic of the blog format, as opposed to, say, formal print newspaper and …
: Syria, Us, and Nothing For the sake of my own sanity, I don't keep up with the day to day developments of the world's centers of crisis. Syria, however, holds a special …
: Those Funny Germans Stephen Evans realizes how off-base some myths about the German people are, including the idea that they are somehow humorless (most of my own …
: Boxes Checked, Conquests Forgotten I once began watching a film I had felt was important for me to see. Universally acclaimed to a level seldom seen, it was a cinematic box I knew I …
: Not That Big a Deal This comment is my final word on why this blog is here and not at Freethought Blogs. Long and the short: please chill out.
: Me, Bill Richardson, and Crippling Doubt A couple of years ago, I resolved to write at length about my four years living and working in Washington, DC. If I did it well, if I was diligent, it …
: OSIRIS-REx Will Use TAGSAM to Get a NEO Gesundheit. But seriously, folks. In 2016 NASA's going to launch a probe, OSIRIS-REx, to make contact with, and then bring back a sample of -- you …
: Everybody Knows What's Good for Me A billion years ago, I wrote a song intended for a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor I was in at the time (I played Slender, la!). We never …
: The Cheese Stands Alone What's this now? This blog seems familiar, yet somehow alienating. I no longer hear the hum and din of other bloggers tapping and opining around me. …
: The Universe is a Slacker I'm reading Bertrand Russell's The ABC of Relativity (well, listening to it, in an audiobook read by Derek Jacoby FTW), and for one, it's helping me …
: It's Okay to Put Down the Book Tim Parks, blogging at NYRB, writes a thought-provoking piece positing that there may be something to the idea that a reader may opt not to finish a …
: Where Obama Has and Hasn't Blown It Norm Ornstein looks to dispel the notion that Obama's agenda is stifled because the president lacks some certain, special, nameless something that …
: Thank You For Enduring the Bullshit, Star Wars Kid I loved Star Wars Kid. When his video was cruelly put online for all to mock, I only saw myself. I mean, I'm human, I laughed and cringed. But I also …
: Big Bucks to be Made When Middle School Becomes an Urban Warfare Training Academy From Liz Halloran at NPR, we get a story of the Rocori school district in Minnesota which is spending $25,000 on, wait for it, bulletproof white …
: Delicious Disunion In Kansas, they've declared that they won't abide by any federal law having to do with guns. In North Carolina, some folks tried to pass a law that …
: Bowser the Fascist, Mario the Warchief I've just finished Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, and I'm generally trying to get myself better acquainted with the societal and political …
: Repent, or Get a Pizza for $5! [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“256.0”]20130429-000341.jpg[/caption] This kind of thing actually still happens, even in Maine. The really …
: I'm on HuffPost Live, Talkin' Nazis! I think their usual lineup of guests must have all simultaneously perished, because HuffPost Live invited me to join a panel this evening, literally …
: If I Can't Change Your Mind Then No One Will Because after over 20 years, Bob Mould's song needed to have a mandolin, Rubbermaid bin, and egg whisk applied to it. Here's my own twangy take on a …
: Jon Huntsman, a Deeply Flawed Political Role Model Jon Huntsman ran what turned out to be a pretty pathetic campaign for president in the 2012 cycle. Running to capture the nomination of a party that …
: Smooth McGroove is the Smooth McGrooviest Paul likes cleverly-arranged a capella music. Paul also likes beautifully composed music written for video games made before 2000. In walks Smooth …
: A Song for Quetzalcoatlus It's been a while since I last debuted a dumb song about a prehistoric reptile for the amusement of my toddler son, so let's correct that right now. …
: "I Am Thrilled That He's Dead." Andrew Sullivan has what at first seems like an alarming reaction to the death of his friend David Kuo, following a ten-year-long battle with brain …
: Eat My Feelings I am known as something of a high-strung, ever-disappointed, self-loathing stick in the mud. Guilty as charged. So Hemant Mehta pointed me to a …
: Squatting for Caro I was curious as to whether Robert Caro, he of the voluminous Lyndon Johnson biographies, might be on Twitter. Imagine my amusement when I found this: …
: Seduced by Trinkets of Power David Kuo, 1968-2013: I have seen what happens when well-meaning Christians are seduced into thinking deliverance can come from the Oval Office, a …
: You're Gonna Hear it in the Recording Billy Joel reminisces about producer Phil Ramone, who just recently died, and his anecdotes and reflections about him make clear in conversation what …
: Internalizing vs. "Sharing" James Shakespeare on social media, which he calls "the curse of our age": The key thing to remember is that you are not enriching your experiences by …
: Ew, Your Comments are Sticky This bit from a Financial Times piece, ostensibly about how social media is improving people's writing skills, explains so much: “Major Memory for …
: Who Facebook Home is For When I donned the blue shirt of the Apple Store specialist not so long ago, one question came up an awful lot from customers. Whether they were …
: Bluster v. Nuance Oh, hi, Internet. Angus Croll: Writing online is so nearly effortless that reading (not to mention reflection, deliberation and thought) has become a …
: Well-being for Virtually Nothing The coming generations will make less than those that came before. Jerry Brito says, well, so what? Today...we are in a position to derive much of …
: Trying to Figure Out If It's Shitty or Not Frank Chimero: It irks me that we’re throwing around the word “timeless” all willy-nilly. At this point, “timeless” is hyperbole for something with a …
: Mecha-Obama and Micro-Payments Technology guru-turned-Cassandra, Jaron Lanier, thinks he knows why Obama won reelection. In a recent interview with UK's Spectator, he said: If you …
: The Agent of Change, the Barbarian Richard Nash at the Virginia Quarterly Review has a long piece that is ostensibly about the business of literature, but really gets at the heart of …
: The Blood Will Not Come Off, Ctd. There is a torrent of Iraq War soul-searches in the media right now, and they continue to stick in my craw for their evasiveness, especially after the …
: The Blood Will Not Come Off This feels like an academic debate. But it isn’t. I have blood on my hands. However many times I try to wash them, the blood will not come off. …
: Mike Daisey vs. The View From Nowhere Mike Daisey, in a Facebook comment thread, confronts a former CNN vice-president with the press's blindness to its own sickness, in the wake of CNN's …
: A Population Equally Brave Jennifer Michael Hecht is one of my favorite writers, and in her review of Susan Jacoby's new book on Robert Ingersoll, she leaves me with this …
: A Phase of Incestuous Contraction As a performing artist, here's a thing I've definitely fretted over; doing art only for an audience of people who all do the same thing. Here's Steve …
: Hospitality Used to Scare Me (And a Humble Ask) I don't know what to do in the face of hospitality. It confuses me, frightens me. Prime example: On our honeymoon, the wife and I were stranded by our …
: Self-Flagellation over Books Not Read I was just complaining on Twitter that I feel genuine and physiologically-palpable anxiety over the idea that there are so many Important Books that …
: Augmenting Reality All the Way Down I sometimes think that if you could personify the current state of American society, and "film" our economic situation, it might look kind of like a …
: Hey Gandalf, Where Are the Freaking Eagles? [Updated] Sean Crist confronts a problem I didn't even realize existed, but now sticks in one's literary craw: Why didn't the eagles just fly Frodo to Mordor, …
: The Family Reunion You Can Never Leave There's an interesting article at The Verge on why teenagers seem to be moving away from Facebook, the thing I loathe but feel compelled to use …
: A Suggestion for the Papal Conclave A classic idea, might be the way to go. Just a thought.[vimeo 59509411 w=500 h=281] “Find the Pope in the Pizza” from George Nimeh on Vimeo.
: John Kerry, Still Tolerating It Right wingers got all squirrelly in their pants the other day because Secretary of State John Kerry had the audacity to say, while visiting Germany, …
: When the Bullied Becomes the Bully (You Can't Punch Up, So You Punch Down) A study from JAMA Psychiatry, as reported in Time, looks at the effects of bullying in school into adulthood, from the perspective of all parties …
: It Apparently Doesn't Take a Psychic You really have to watch this video of this mystical guy who really seems to know things he could not possibly know about the people he's giving …
: Starbucks on the Death Star Why I love the Internet: I thought to myself, they often talk about overseas military bases as being places where a lot of famous chains come and …
: Jack White Turns into John McCain Before his time, Jack White shakes his fists at the clouds. Via The Verge: "Getting out of your chair at home to experience something in the real …
: Mining Value from Machiavelli: You Need Me On That Wall! As mentioned in the previous post, which is about something else entirely, I was delighted by a 41-year-old essay in the New York Review of Books by …
: Me vs. the Western Canon As part of a recent initiative of mine to read a bunch of the foundational classics that I'd so far missed, I finally got around to reading …
: Near-Earth Object, Too Close for Comfort From the NYT report on the Siberia meteor: “I opened the window from surprise — there was such heat coming in, as if it were summer in the yard, and …
: The Bodies of Those Who Happen to Be in the Way Ta-Nehisi Coates on our perpetual state of war: The president is anti-torture — which is to say he thinks the water-boarding of actual confirmed …
: Is Not the Truth the Truth? - Galileo as Falstaff Go ahead and let this passage from a wonderful piece on Galileo by Adam Gropnik in The New Yorker blow your mind. What would Shakespeare’s Galileo …
: Words, Once Said, Can Never Be Unsaid I can't help but think that Justin Timberlake, perhaps many years from now, will find himself unable to sleep some nights, haunted by these words: Bud …
: The Game Should Leave an Imprint With a few exceptions, I haven't been into video games in a very long time. Part of that is, of course, being a grownup with a job and a family, which …
: The Stream of Invective, a Price Well Paid Wikipedian Brandon Harris takes to Quora to talk about how he felt being the subject of a lot of Internet derision during his famous banner …
: Shame What’s not news is that high school is, for many, hell. But the effects of one’s experiences during adolescence (and for this purpose I’ll use “high …
: Too Cute By Half You know, I actually kind of dig Seth Godin. He really does drop some useful wisdom about work and creativity here and there, things I do try to …
: Shut Up and Listen We do not like to be told we are being jerks. We do not like to be told we are being demeaning, or belittling, or discriminatory, or bigoted, even if …
: The Home of Lost Causes and Nostalgic Lunacy Gary Wills, a conservative, shakes his head at his native South: This is a region that rejects sex education, though its rate of teenage pregnancies …
: Deep Riffs: Ain't Tryin' Don't worry, girl. [soundcloud url=“http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/2994963” params="" width=“100%” height=“166” iframe=“true” /] From my album …
: John Kerry, Goddamn Class Act A young protester interrupts his confirmation testimony, and he says, yeah, that's what I was here to do when I got here. Word up, sir. …
: Toby (3 Years Old) Assesses the 2012 Presidential Race My three-year-old boy Toby and I were talking about presidential politics in the car this morning, like we do. (While his baby sister Phoebe said, …
: The Facebook Trap I feel trapped by Facebook. A recent Salon piece by Sara Scribner has rekindled my nascent desire to exit it altogether. Scribner comes to her own …
: The Realizable Good Before the Unrealizable Perfect Andrew Sullivan, reacting to the president's second inaugural: Over the years, I’ve never let go of that understanding of conservatism’s core truth - …
: Played at Once by Cynics and Crazies I just ate up this essay by Benjamin Kunkel at n+1. Chiefly it diagnoses the two main political strains with their corresponding pathologies …
: Gun Culture, Running Roughshod Josh Marshall speaks up for the legitimacy of the opinion of folks who hate guns: It’s customary and very understandable that people often introduce …
: Deep Riffs: Bussard Collector [soundcloud url=“http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/2994961” params="" width=“100%” height=“166” iframe=“true” /] A song of mine from 2006 that’s …
: Thoughtful The only difference for me is that I begin by dreading the responses. Comic by Jim Benton.
: IV, V, II, III, VI Thanks to a Fireballing, I rediscovered this essay by Rod Hilton on a suggested viewing order for the Star Wars films which, he says, makes for a much …
: Deep Riffs: Running Gag The opening track from my 2004 record Paul is Making Me Nervous. It'll slay the crowd and impress your mom. [soundcloud …
: Grow Sweeter Each Season as We Slowly Grow Old One of Toby's favorite songs for bedtime used to be Toad the Wet Sprocket's "Walk on the Ocean," and like all bedtime songs he favors, it had to be …
: Ruthless Curation of One's Online Experience I've been looking for ways to express my feelings about online interactions of late, and rather than articulating them successfully, I've been having …
: A Rap for Euparkeria It can't be helped. When you have a household with a 3-year-old obsessed with dinosaurs and a daddy with a weird sense of humor and desperate need for …
: You Just Try and MAKE Me Love Myself From Miriam Mogilevsky, who blogs here at Brute Reason, but posted this elsewhere for no reason: . . . our society pushes certain types of people …
: Deep Riffs: Information Desk Girl Good morning. Play this loud. [soundcloud url=“http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/3223486” params="" width=“100%” height=“166” iframe=“true” /] From my …
: Science is Working on a Cure From Toothpaste for Dinner.
: That's a Mighty High Dudgeon You've Got There My wife asked me a question I at first dismissed when I told her about the previous post. I'll have to paraphrase from memory. But I was telling her …
: Sam Harris as a Trophy for Righteous Indignation Here is Sam Harris's great sin: In the context of many hot-button issues, the data leads him to a conclusion or approach that conflicts with one or …
: This Tumblr is a BFD Whatever's bothering you, however crappy you're feeling, this Tumblr will make you feel at least a little bit better. Unless you're a bad person. (Hat …
: Monty Python and the Scarcity of Irreverence David Free in The Atlantic susses out what about Monty Python worked so well, and why we can't have that today. It’s a pity that the word irreverent …
: Internet Comments vs. Knowledge Apparently, I'm not the only one who doesn't like Internet comment sections. Neither does science. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: In an …
: Comments. Boy, I Don't Know. I don't generally like comments sections. Though I appreciate the ethos behind them, the notion that a blog is a place where folks can continue an …
: Call Her an Asshole Friend of the blog, and our whole little family, really, Meg Rhem, has advice for fathers of daughters (and I have a baby daughter). Dads, here's a …
: The History of Not-Reading As one whose shelves were once littered with not-reading, I liked this. From the Chronicle of Higher Education: “The history of reading,” [Leah] Price …
: Not All Deep Rifts Are Worth Diving Into Kate Donovan, who is a real blessing to the interwebs, makes a great point about the Deep Rifts in the skepto-atheosphere, which I will then pour a …
: No, I Was Not Bullied into Not Being an Asshole Oh, barf. Okay, so apparently that Thunderf00t guy (who I didn’t know anything about before the tumult he brought to FtB) has a video in which my name …
: Making Tools to Fix Their Own Problems Catherine Bracy on the tech sector's obliviousness to genuine social causes and crises: The well-documented lack of diversity in the Valley would be …
: The Constitution, On its Merits When I read this piece by Louis Michael Seidman in the New York Times today, I wanted to throw a parade. Our obsession with the Constitution has …
: An Unnecessary Hell The Economist has a very worthwhile exploration of the enduring concept of Hell, but concludes in such a way as to baffle me. [Hell] should have been …
: Social Lasers of Cruelty Jaron Lanier, a kind of web reverse-guru, perhaps the Anti-Shirky, talks to Smithsonian magazine about what he sees as the existential threat of …
: E-readers Aren't Dying, They're Entrenched A new Pew report with all sorts of nifty data on tablets and e-reading suggests that the sales of dedicated e-readers themselves, like Kindles and …
: E-books, DRM, and the Problem of "Owning" An article at Ars Technica asks an interesting question: why is DRM still tolerated on e-books when it's been killed in regards to music? The reasons …
: Conservative Politics at Gunpoint This is how politics and advocacy is done on the right. Unlike progressive or reality-based groups who snipe behind each other's backs, arguing about …
: "Spiritually Convinced" David Kuo, most famous for being formerly of George W. Bush's office of faith-based initiatives, and for later exposing much of that initiative's …
: Romney Didn't Want to Be President? Don't Believe It. The Boston Globe has a really good behind-the-scenes look at what went wrong for the Romney campaign, including the still-baffling decision to put a …
: The Conclusion of the Harrowing CD Baby Non-Saga My little tiny-violin, poor-me post about CD Baby clearing its shelves of my old 2004 album has become something of a roller coaster. After I posted …
: Cory Booker's Books Cory Booker just announced that he will not be running for governor of New Jersey in 2013, and instead will look to run for the U.S. Senate in 2014 …
: CD Baby Declares Me a Waste of Space In 2004, I had a couple of months off between theatre gigs, and I took that rare opportunity to pour my heart and soul into the recording of my first …
: Hence the Gloom The Economist's Lexington blog: As for the National Rifle Association bumper stickers arguing that only an armed citizenry can prevent tyranny, I …
: Now It's a Home Lookin' good, Joe.
: We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change. The president on Sunday, in Newtown. [www.youtube.com/watch](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftlT41LpIOY&feature=player_embedded) Full text here. …
: 200+ Years Ago MG Siegler: Honestly, I don’t give a shit that you think you have the right to own a gun because someone 200+ years ago said you do to prevent (or …
: Statement from the Interplanetary Black Hole Association Everyone knows that Red Matter isn’t the problem. Of course, we all grieve at the loss of the planet Vulcan. The billions of individuals senselessly …
: The Earth Will Be Peopled by Entirely Another Generation Yes, they cared about this a hundred years ago, too. From the New York Times, December 12, 1912: For those who delight in that sort of amusement …
: Alber Saber Convicted of Blasphemy My heart breaks at the news. I just did a post at Friendly Atheist on Alber's conviction, and here's a taste: Egypt has struck a major blow to the …
: Toby Nails Mitt Romney Me and my boy Toby, three years old, in the car on our way to daycare this morning: Toby: Daddy, what does Mitt Romney look like? Me: Well, he's tall, …
: After the Attack, the Work I’m not sure if this was a “secret,” if I intentionally haven’t written about this because it was too personal, or what. Well. The thing is, since I …
: Tittering at Tombs So this guy seems like he was in a hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil: Whereas these folks seem like they took their sweet time: I bet this guy …
: Hillary and the Continuum Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast: The presidency was once described by some historians as a prize, won in one election by this team, in another by …
: Charlie Crist's Metamorphosis, in Four Feelings Charlie Crist, former Republican, former Florida governor, former victim of Marco Rubio's dreaminess, has entered his latest metamorphic stage, …
: My Own Conspiracy Theory about the Disability Treaty Everyone with even a shred of humanity is livid with the Republican Party today, because yesterday they voted down the U.N. treaty that would have …
: Google Death-Drones to Murder Rhino Poachers From the Skies! Wait. First, I saw the headline. Google-Funded Drones To Hunt Rhino Poachers Badass! Now this is what technology is for! Look out, rhino-killers! Time to …
: Drink Me Though I am going to be very deliberate about keeping my work and FtB activities separate, I would be remiss if I did not plug the fact that you can …
: Cry-Me-a-River Tweet of the Century Thus: I am amazed at the hatred, filth, sacrilege, anger, condescension, ignorance, triviality, & flippancy heaped upon @pontifex on #askpontifex — …
: Freethought Blogs, Unscrewed Hey, you know what's neat? Freethought Blogs now hosts me, Hank Fox, and Stephen "DarkSyde" Andrew, and we three have something kind of cool in …
: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the E-book I have trouble understanding the panic that much of the culture seems to be experiencing over the rise of e-books at the expense of their dead-tree …
: A Song for Eustreptospondylus You know what dinosaur has a musical sounding name? Eustreptospondylus. Just say it out loud. I mean, if you can. It's pronounced "you strepped a …
: A Guy Walks into a Blog... Greetings, folks! I'm Paul, the one referred to in the nice banner up there. I'd been putting a lot of thought into what I might say in my first post …
: Best Newspaper Correction in the Universe From the New York Times on the declining birthrate of stars: An earlier version of this article misstated the sound made by a black hole in the …
: Not qualified to answer a question like that Many mysteries remain about the origins of the universe; how rapidly it has expanded, and how all the atomic parts fit together. There is a lot left …
: Out came the knife Cops, cashiers and railroad men: my people sprang from the Bronx. My parents used college like a pole vault, soft-landing in the burbs. At 23, having …
: The Internet doesn’t do secrets. The age of the password has come to an end; we just haven’t realized it yet. And no one has figured out what will take its place. What we can say for …
: You'll feel worse There are two in every package so you learn the nature of regret. After you eat the first one, you know enough to stop, but you already know how this …
: The heroic entrepreneur The Republican story about how societies prosper — not just the Romney story — dwelt on the heroic entrepreneur stifled by taxes and regulations: an …
: Contempt for the reality of human suffering We can … know with certainty that the Christian God does not exist as standardly defined: a being who is omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly …
: Additional Thoughts on the Kindle Paperwhite I posted some initial thoughts about my first couple of hours with the Kindle Papaerwhite a few days ago, and after some more substantial use, I have …
: Entrenched unfairness A capital gains tax rate (making money off money) that is lower than the earned income rate (making money off work) is just not fair. Bestowing that …
: The art of crawling uselessly Many losing candidates became elder statesmen of their parties. What lessons will Romney have to teach his party? The art of crawling uselessly? How …
: Affirm my enlightened opinions The upper middle brow possesses excellence, intelligence, and integrity. It is genuinely good work (as well as being most of what I read or look at …
: Behold the New Jerusalem … make no mistake: Change is a motherfucker when you run from it. And right now, the conservative movement in America is fleeing from change that is …
: Hollow tower of hubris Romney was also no doubt dragging his heels because, as he confidently told journalists earlier Tuesday, “I just finished writing a victory speech. …
: Voting is Apparently All the Rage in Small-Town Maine Jessica and I voted first thing in the morning today, and I decided to bring Toby along. He’s not even three, of course, and he was bored and a little …
: A man in full One of the few things that Christie and Obama share is a palpable sense that their political opponents are lesser men, though in Obama this exhibits …
: Never saw us coming To my fellow seculars, skeptics, humanists, and nonbelievers, the political class did not see us coming. For decades, maybe centuries, they’ve been …
: What if it All Goes Horribly Pear-Shaped? In 2004, though I had high hopes, it was not really a surprise that George W. Bush was “re”-elected. Oh, there was despair. I remember the sharp …
: Kindle Paperwhite I’ve had the Kindle Paperwhite for only a few hours, but I want to get down a few quick first impressions. As far as the object itself, it’s a big …
: They just hate computers This is a sentiment you often hear from people: casual users only need «entry-level» performance. Even casual users themselves perpetuate it: «Oh, I’m …
: The Attack, Ctd? Last year, the anniversary of my assault carried great weight with me. I dreaded the coming of the date October 27, and worried that I would relapse …
: The belligerent South Anthropologists have long noted that societies that herd livestock in rugged terrain tend to develop a “culture of honor.” Since their wealth has feet …
: Fired from the polity Private equity is concerned with rewarding winners and punishing losers. But a democracy cannot lay off its failing citizens. It cannot be content to …
: Reading Shakespeare is like going to church While I’m very much interested in Shakespeare’s life, I’m more interested in my own. What I extrapolate from The Winter’s Tale is that if Leontes …
: But America Didn't Listen Connor Friedersdorf on how we should have listened to George McGovern, now nearing death: Over the course of his career, McGovern made a lot of …
: 269 This horror scenario of an Electoral College tie is completely plausible. I have an unprovable hunch that this scenario is far more likely than almost …
: Break the seal of shame … should Obama fail, the people who will suffer under a triumphant Republican administration will not be abstract to him; they will be down the …
: Invisible hand Maybe a couple of magazines will survive in print as status symbols at the high end, or as supermarket check-out tabloids at the lower stratosphere. …
: But not even I expected Romney to let his entitled, Lord-of-the-Manor freak flag fly as proudly as he did on Tuesday night. He got in the president’s …
: … many a BlackBerry owner will not mince words about how they feel about their phone. “I want to take a bat to it,” Ms. Crosby said, after waiting …
: That’s the trouble when you run against a shape-shifter. He has no shame in jettisoning every position he took in the primaries. That was a different …
: THE ROMANTIC PORTRAIT of the blasphemer that I have just painted does not apply to us, not least owing to the success of blasphemy in the West, where …
: Whether you read it online or hold the physical object in your hands, this issue of Newsweek is best viewed as an archaeological artifact that is …
: The loss is there, an old wound never fully healed. My disappointment was certainly personal, made deeper by the awareness that many thousands of …
: Is such a mode sustainable, over the long haul, and not just for one project, by people other than the handful of Special Cases like Doctorow and …
: Anxiety and Grief over the Quantified Self Craig Mod, in an essay reflecting on how we come to know ourselves through our networked collected data, discovers a new kind of tragedy as he uses a …
: Here’s some breaking news: the kind of people who choose to watch a vice-presidential debate instead of baseball or football or a cooking show are not …
: The e-ink Kindles are designed to do one thing really well: display long-form text. Page-turning is at the heart of the Kindle reading experience. An …
: I am sorry that the president finds debating before the public to be annoying. And I am very sorry that more Americans don’t delve into the footnotes …
: Thousands of Years of Religious Slaughter in One Cartoon Thousands of Years of Religious Slaughter in One Cartoon You know what’s hilarious? The idea that for millennia, various religious and ethnic factions …
: The problem with “I’m entitled to my opinion” is that, all too often, it’s used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes …
: One final debate note: I’m not a fan of “both sides do it” journalism, but to be fair, while there’s no equivalent of economic birtherism on the left, …
: The president seemed unable to concentrate or focus throughout the debate, mouthing occasional numbers and assorted caveats to points he could never …
: Ramifications of that Awful Debate On The Page this morning, Mark Halperin (disclosure: he was my boss when I was an intern at ABC News, and I’ve defended him on this site) asks some …
: About That Bag... David Frum on the first debate: Obama, by contrast, rarely looked at Romney. He looked down at his podium, which meant that the audience saw closed …
: Dana Milbank Belittles the Atheist Movement and Edwina Rogers Dana Milbank Belittles the Atheist Movement and Edwina Rogers
: So the Afghan army is trying something new: a guide to the strange ways of the American soldier. The goal is to convince Afghan troops that when …
: For some reason, though, The Next Generation awakened in me a feeling of terrible and suffocating yearning — that hopeless childish escape wish …
: I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll be wrong again, but I may never have been as wrong as I was when I initially predicted that Mitt Romney’s heinous …
: … we couldn’t even imagine that the authorities would be so dumb that they would actually legitimize our influence by arresting us… . But unlike …
: What I've Been Up To at "Friendly Atheist" Not all of my bloggy energies are spent here at the Object. No, nor are they exclusive to the website of my employing organization. If you’ll recall, …
: How are you going to vilify Romney as a heartless plutocrat unfit for the presidency, and then enthusiastically recommend a guy who held Bradley …
: Among the country’s stupefied elites, the bad news induces the wish to make time stand still, to punish the presumption of a future that presents …
: The Republican Party – not just the Romney campaign, but the party as a whole – is running on nothing. They are running on the presumption that the …
: Galvanized by anger over the killing of the popular American ambassador here last week, thousands of Libyans marched through this city on Friday, …
: Yes, there will always be hucksters. And spending all one’s time fighting them is a foolish enterprise. On the right today, they are so numerous, …
: [gallery] Willard Mitt Romney, right now. (Artist’s impression.) Although.
: Devastating? Romney was recorded saying this: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent …
: His desire to hear out junior people is a warm personality trait as much as a cool tactic, of a piece with his desire to play golf with White House …
: Om Malik argues that Bezos is the inheritor to Steve Jobs’s crown. I agree. Not because Bezos has copied anything Jobs did, but because he has not. …
: Tweet of the Decade Though, I admit, perhaps a bit insensitive of me to post today. Nonetheless. me, just now, looking at google calendar: Patriot Day? What is… Oh my …
: [www.youtube.com/watch](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXr1kmuqGcU) parislemon: Apple has been known to poke fun at itself by showing a comical video …
: I’ll say that again: Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman in Congress, and George Wallace, the most notorious segregationist politician of the 20th …
: I am the organizer for the world’s largest annual convention of elevator manufacturers. Although our attendance rates have their regular ups and …
: TO JUDGE solely by its high number of blasphemy cases, Pakistan seems to be a nation of wanton profanity where the Koran is routinely desecrated and …
: Last year, there were more than two dozen Android tablets launched into the marketplace, and nobody bought ‘em. Why? Because they’re gadgets, and …
: Clinton calls for a round of applause for W - and gets it. Magic. David Frum on Twitter last night.
: [I]t’s apparent that Democratic conventioneers remain more enthusiastic about Barack Obama than Republican convention-goers ever got about Mitt …
: I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Mr. Obama told Patrick Gaspard, his political director, at the start of the 2008 …
: If Obama survives, the shifting composition of the electorate will also be a—and perhaps the—critical factor. In 1984, whites without a college …
: Not Loyal Enough Steve Coll compares Chris Christie’s keynote speech to Obama’s in 2004, and finds Christie sadly wanting. Obama came to Boston as an unknown and left …
: We’re in a panic, as a nation, that we don’t work hard enough, and blame this iniquity for our “decline.” God—the one who blesses America—is …
: Romney advisers so trusted Mr. Eastwood, 82, that unlike with other speakers, they said they did not conduct rehearsals or insist on a script or …
: Matthews said he told the rowdy group, “What’s this, a douchebag convention? Chris Matthews gets into confrontation with GOP delegates - The Hill …
: … the principals don’t seem to be experiencing much joy as they go through their market-tested paces. A kind of faux-ness permeates everything this …
: The One Way that Weird Eastwood Thing Could Screw Things Up for the President If any single speaker at the Democratic National Convention decides to, even slightly, make fun of Clint Eastwood. The media and faux-outrage machine …
: Paul Ryan Explains His Medicare Plan to a Giant Spatula
: GOP Festival of Lies, Day Two Once again, on day two of the Republican National Convention, it was ominous how few mentions of the nominee himself were made. It wasn’t quite as …
: Cowards at Yahoo News Give Wingnut Hacks a Scalp David Chalian was fired by Yahoo News yesterday because he was caught saying something unflattering about the Romneys and their pals by NewsBusters. …
: My Summation of the First Night of the GOP Convention This was a night of Republican politicians selling themselves for future campaigns. They are writing this one off. #gop2012 — Paul Fidalgo …
: Some have said that Romney’s lifestyle is overly privileged, pointing to the fact that he has an elevator for his cars in the garage of his San Diego …
: Members of Team Obama still believe the Electoral College favors them; they see little or no prospect for the opposition to be able to make …
: Ultimately, the curated aspect of the homepage brings people to big brands, right?” [Wall Street Journal managing editor Raju Narisetti] said. “The …
: The Myth of the Tight Presidential Race The headline Washington Post chooses for its new poll showing a tight national popular vote race between the president and Mr. Romney says: But this …
: [gallery] invaderxan: A scale picture of the Earth and Moon, and the distance between them. The Moon’s a lot further away than you might realise… …
: Strange, Mindless, Near-Racist My paraphrase of The Economist on Romney (words in bold used in the actual piece): “We’d love to love you, but you’re a strange man with mindless …
: It’s very likely that there will not be a living human being who knows what Neil Armstrong knew. It will all be for videotape and digital libraries, …
: In Case You Needed Further Proof That Obama Has it in the Bag... Former Florida governor, Charlie “I Must Find out Where They are Going So I Can Lead Them” Crist, endorses the president.
: If [Romney] is not successful, holy Toledo, there will be hell to pay in this party. The right wing is going to drive further right,” said Gross, …
: Another joke, a bit more wistful and a bit closer to the bone, comes when people tell him that he would have governed differently than Mr. Bush. Mr. …
: We’re going to touch this with our fingers. And we have invented a new technology called multi-touch, which is phenomenal. It works like magic. You …
: Right off the bat, Romney hits us with some unscripted juice. “My, oh my, you guys are great to be out here with this rain,” he says. He has declined …
: "What the Hell is a Simpson Bowl?" Andrew Sullivan, whose writing I generally adore, is, I think, really wrong on an important aspect of horse-race analysis for the presidential …
: Twisted Sister joined a list of other artists telling Romney/Ryan to stop using their music, but this is especially interesting to me, because how do …
: I believe that it is possible to believe women and to support WikiLeaks at the same time without moral hypocrisy, and I believe that those across the …
: Is fantasy intrinsically hostile to technology? That is, was Tolkien simply drawing out what is already there in the genre? Or has he limited it in …
: Alexander Aan and Me, Ctd. An update for my tens of readers. The White House petition for Alexander Aan pushed by my employing organization failed to achieve orbit. Ironically, …
: There are no rights in nature, only in a society with a legal system and a police force. Does Copyright Matter? by Tim Parks | NYRblog | The New York …
: My dear young friend,” said Mustapha Mond, “civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political …
: I don’t want good causes like secularism and skepticism to die because they’re infested with people who see issues of equality as mission drift. I …
: You are Stuck with Joe Biden So there is this small flurry of rumors fluttering about the murkier reaches of the Beltway media saying that President Obama has been courting …
: In the event, we have not only missed a chance to do some good for Alexander Aan (however remote that possibility was); we have made it look as if the …
: I do no research. Given that I’ve just written a book that revolves around two London Met police detectives, this might seem a little foolhardy. I …
: It's More or Less in the Bag I worry a lot. Bad things really do happen. Unexpected things. It’s smart, I think, to never be too comfortable that you fail to prepare for …
: Alexander Aan and Me Considering the maniacal focus I’ve had on the case of Alexander Aan at work, it’d be remiss of me not to deal with it on my own blog. So a quick …
: Love's Humble and Astounding Magic A good friend of mine, and a fellow I’ve been honored to share the stage with for several productions, recently gained a daughter-in-law. James …
: In an email, Maria Spiropulu, a professor at the California Institute of Technology who works with the CMS team at CERN wrote about the Higgs, “I …
: The Terribleness of Two is Apparently in the Eye of the Beholder Daycare teacher 1, a few weeks ago: “Toby’s being very aggressive with the other kids. He’s doing a lot of pushing, and he’s shouting at the …
: Music. Boy, I Don't Know. There are times (and these times grow ever more frequent) that I begin to worry about how little I know about contemporary music. I don’t just mean …
: Things I Can't Do When I'm Depressed Listen to music: If it’s somber or richly produced or instrumented (which is the only kind to which I’ll be inclined), it may only depress me …
: Is it time to pull the plug on Web publishing pioneer Salon.com? (Link) Is it time to pull the plug on Web publishing pioneer Salon.com? (Link) It seems to me that the problem with the idea of Salon becoming a kind of news …
: Is 2012 Plutocracy's Last Gasp? (Spoiler: No, it's Not) Gary Wills, no knee-jerk liberal he, marks this year’s election as a crucial moment for the right. … this election year gives Republicans one of …
: The Tech Press and the Truth I was rather angered by how the tech press handled the Mike Daisey affair. They seemed to me to be dancing with glee at the prospect of having their …
: In Praise of Maine at the End of America George Scialabba, reviewing Morris Berman’s final installment of a trilogy of books diagnosing the ills of our grand experiment, provides of litany of …
: In Which I Read the Sam Harris-Bruce Schneier Debate So You Don't Have To Long story short: Sam Harris said that we should specifically profile Muslims at airports, not grandmas in wheelchairs and 4-year-old girls, because …
: Cicero Would Have Hated Facebook I’m reading The Essays of Montaigne because, well, it’s there. In discussing friendship, ol’ Michel blockquotes Cicero: Those are only to be reputed …
: The Banal Quest for Validation ZachsMind just posted a very thoughtful response to a post of mine from a few weeks back that seemed to get a wee bit of attention from the …
: Fuselage is a Hilarious Word The following is a collection of thoughts about air travel that I typed into my iPad’s note program or twiddled into my iPhone’s Twitter client while …
: I Want Revenge I don’t know if Mitt Romney’s cruelty toward those he perceived as weak in high school is relevant to how he would handle the presidency. But I know …
: 186th Place Would Be Awesome Charles Wheelan gives some unconventional commencement advice, that, while welcome, I feel misses where the pain and anxiety really sit. He writes: …
: If I Had a Dollar If I had a dollar for every time someone complained about wage discrimination against women, I’d be a millionaire. Unless I were a woman, in which …
: I Need to Listen a Little More Slowly Stephen Fry, with a hat tip to Kylie Sturgess: A concerto is an argument between an individual and the state. Between an individual and society. It …
: You Are Your Own Paywall I am highly wary of anyone who would write a book entitled You Are Not a Gadget; oh here we go, a Luddite screed about how Goog-Face-Pads are making …
: Introverts Defeat Geography There is a tension that exists between introverts and the extroverts who love them. Extroverts feed off live, in-person human interaction — it refuels …
: This Isn't What I Wanted, But I'll Take It It’s a long story, so I won’t bore you with it, but suffice it to say, I wanted to spread my own bloggy wings and fly out of the nest so generously …
: Science Can Be Even More Awesome When Everything is Wrong The IceCube Neutrino Observatory just figured out that gamma bursts have nothing to do with cosmic rays, and that means no one knows where they come …
: End the Tweaking Advice I could stand to take, from Rob Beschizza, editor of BoingBoing: Getting snared by technology-tweaking, especially design, is the fastest and …
: Formed by Boredom This worries me a little (by Toby Litt in Granta): A couple of years ago, I spent three months playing World of Warcraft – partly as research for a …
: Don't Get in a Car with an Atheist! Spotted on Indeed.com, a “job listing” from a Texas mother looking for someone to help her transport her teenage daughters to school and activities, …
: The Veracity and the Vicissitude of Mike Daisey Listening tonight to the nearly-unbearable “Retraction” edition of “This American Life” in which Mike Daisey is taken to task for his fabrication of …
: Oh, That's Why People Like Tablets So Damn Much! The so-called post-PC revolution came to my house. This has been my first weekend off in a couple of weeks, and though I’ve been browsing the Web, …
: Suggesting People into Loving Their Servitude Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as …
: Cutting and Bleeding the Sick Architecture professor Thomas De Monchaux, in a piece that has almost nothing to do with economic policy, helps to clarify thinking about the concept …
: The Age of Wonder: Science as a Means to Emancipation Richard Holmes’ 2009 tome is aptly titled. It’s a wonder, and it takes an age to read it. Right. I wanted to get that out of the way, as the fact of …
: Crime Has Not Fallen in the United States, It’s Been Shifted My mind (and sense of conscience) was blown by an article in n + 1 on the horror that is the American prison system. I won’t go into the horrifying …
: Reading is Self-Mastery D.G. Myers positions reading not as an escape but as a challenge to ourselves: To read an author is to read someone different from ourselves. Reading …
: Mitt Romney is Not One of Skeletor's Henchmen This should give you an idea about where my brain is at any given time. In today’s New York Times, a pieceabout Mitt Romney and his faith is …
: My Treatise on Atheists in Politics is Now a Kindle Book I know what you want. You want a heavily footnoted, yet deliciously readable academic tract on the plight of American atheists in the contemporary …
: Mitt Romney's Tax Returns Explanation, as Performed by Kermit the Frog It’s obviously very important to Mitt Romney that people understand with absolute clarity what his position is on the release of his tax returns. To …
: In Defense of E-ink and Plain Old Words At The Loop, Matt Alexander predicts the coming demise of e-ink-based readers. His contention, which may be right, is that the rapid evolution and …
: Ron Paul, Stopped Clock If you’re in the spheres of my online social networks, you may have noticed that I’ve had a certain fixation on the more insane or upsetting aspects …
: Then Vonnegut Asked Caro, "Are We in the Same Trade?" I’ve not yet read any of Robert Caro’s enormous Lyndon Johnson biographical series, even as he readies to release the latest volume that takes the …
: Constructive versus Destructive Atheist Activism Chris Stedman gives voice to a concern I’ve had of late (and unfortunately does so in the Huffington Post, but we’ll let that go): I maintain …
: Unnecessary Nostalgia for the Idiot Box Almost a year ago, the New Yorker published a piece by Adam Gropnik digesting various tomes about what the Internet was doing to us as a culture, …
: Unsubscribed Just as I don’t actually have meaningful relationships or friendships with my 700+ “friends” on Facebook, I also don’t need to feel obliged to give …
: Serenaded for My 34th For my 34th birthday (December 1), my lovely wife commissioned a song about me from our friend Joe Langham. Just…just…don’t even ask me to express how …
: On Violence: Accepting What I Could (and Couldn't) Have Done As the tens of readers of this blog are no doubt sick of being reminded, I was the victim of a violent assault about a year ago in Washington, DC. …
: You're So Smart! No I'm Not! I tell my almost-two-year-old son Toby how smart he is all the time. It was said to me over and over when I was a kid. Decades later, I know in …
: My Atheism Will Not Save the World, Ctd. Friend-of-the-blog Marty Pribble picks up on my lamentations about the state of atheist/skeptic activism, and explains my point about there being a …
: My Atheism Will Not Save the World After working professionally in the atheist movement, something about my passion for the cause dwindled. This happens a lot to me — I take on a given …
: Those Delightful Social Media Squirts Michael Erard tells the tale of his avoidance of indulging in the trope he calls the Social Media Exile Essay, a report never written of his exit from …
: Know Thine Enemy, Or Look Like a Damned Idiot Might as well be Hitler. Few things are as frustrating to do-gooder liberals like myself as when other do-gooder liberals go off the deep end. …
: Superiority over the Superior David Brooks, from his fixed position as Moral Center of the Universe, bemoans our collective feeling of superiority over those who failed to stop the …
: The Fashionably Late Don’t Get to Be President I don’t think anyone could have foreseen Rick Perry’s dizzying drop in support during the past few weeks. I, for one, definitely feared him as some …
: The Fashionably Late Don't Get to Be President ”Hey, ev’rybody! What’d I miss?” ** I don’t think anyone could have foreseen Rick Perry’s dizzying drop in support during the past few weeks. I, for …
: It's Not Meningitis! So, I thought that getting through the anniversary of my violent encounter on the streets of DC would be something of a relief, a release of some …
: Don't Bother Facepalming for Jon Huntsman So, it turns out Jon Huntsman doesn’t actually speak “fluent” Mandarin. He can apparently garble his way through, which is way more than I will ever …
: The Attack, Ctd. This past Wednesday marked one year since I was assaulted by two thugs outside a DC Metro station, and everything changed. What’s odd is that I had …
: Harold Ford's Qualifications for Being a Political Analyst Harold Ford is on TV a lot. He’s on Meet the Press and Morning Joe more often than the hosts themselves. I’m fairly certain he has a cot under David …
: Why, Oh Why Must I Have Mitt Romney's Back? ”I’m delightful now!” I still hate Mitt Romney, but it continues to get under my skin when he gets knocked for presentational hangups he had four …
: Man vs. Terminal Services Session Friend-of-the-blog Jason Guy was an early influence on my decision to switch over to the Apple ecosphere back in 2004. A recent email from him somehow …
: Grieving an Ethos: Thoughts on the Loss of Steve Jobs Most of the people I work with are, naturally, having very strong feelings about the death of Steve Jobs. But not all, and that’s fine. My wife is …
: The Steve Peace be upon him.
: "If They Like Printed Books, They Should Be Buying the Damn Things" Richard Nash validates my take on what I call the “But I Love the Smell of Books” argument against the digitization of the traditional codex, focusing …
: I Hate Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney for President! I don’t think those of us in the reality-based community are sufficiently panicked about the prospect of a Rick Perry presidency. First, it’s foolish …
: This Isn't the William Shirer You're Looking For: Thoughts on Steve Wick's "The Long Night" Readers of this blog may already be aware of my deep affection for the thousand-plus-page tome The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, journalist …
: Listening to 9/11: My Experience of the Attacks from Brooklyn In September of 2001, I had just decided not to go back to school. I had been agonizing over whether to return to the Actors Studio Drama School (then …
: What Obama's Bad National Numbers Definitely Don't Tell Us A “Blue Wall.” A new poll today has some grim numbers for the president. Though it shows him besting Perry and Romney in head-to-head match-ups, it’s …
: Save Science by Not Talking about Science, Ctd. Side note: My dad actually bought me this shirt. I love it, and my wife hates it when I wear it. She just thinks it makes me look stupid. I don’t …
: Save Science By Not Talking about Science ”At last! I have discovered the formula for making the uneducated feel even MORE inadequate!” I almost wasn’t going to read the recent Paul Krugman …
: In (Reluctant) Defense of Mitt Romney EXCLUSIVE: Human beings enjoying the company of Mitt Romney I have no love for Willard “Mitt” Romney. He has consistently proven that he is an …
: Cory Booker: Maker of Twitter Lemonade The mayor has indicated that, should your schedule permit, he would like to put a little love in your heart. If you have at all dipped your social …
: Obama in the Fog I know, it’s easy to continue to beat the I’m-disappointed-in-Obama drum from the comfort of my MacBook. But there’s a couple of new news items that …
: So Long, and Thanks for All the Text The text stops here. My webby little heart is broken, as I have just read that author and scholar Alan Jacobs is retiring his blog Text Patterns. It’s …
: What's a Book Review For? Miranda Celeste Hale (my Bespectacled Blog Twin™) writes thoughtfully and passionately in favor of the continued existence of the book review, a …
: Trojan Asteroid Follows Earth, Reinforces My Insecurities It turns out that our fair planet has been tailed by a shy asteroid for perhaps thousands of years. This “Trojan asteroid” is caught between the …
: The WTC Cross: Like it or Not, It's a Piece of History Among the many government-funded museums of New York, Washington, and other cities across the country, there are historical artifacts and pieces of …
: Bloggy Relevance: Thoughts on What This Blog Is and Ought to Be As long-time readers of this blog probably already know, I have at various times struggled over the identity of this blog, and my identity as a …
: These People Haven't Read This Consent Form My friend Jed, newly-graduated with a fancy advanced degree in something science-y, is having a rough time of finding employment — like many, many …
: What's in a Domain? Just to alleviate any confusion among my tens of readers, I wanted to let you all know that I recently changed the official domain for this blog. Once …
: A Natural Worshiper of Serendipity and Whim: Alan Jacobs' "Pleasures of Reading" Alan Jacobs, who readers of this blog (all ten of you) may know from previous references to his excellent blog TextPatterns, has recently released a …
: Hopelessness Watch: Mommy and Daddy Bought Me My Own Paywall I know what you’re thinking. “Paul,” you’re thinking, “it feels as though the economic divide between the rich and poor is not quite as gaping as it …
: Why We 'Refudiate' the Brasolaeliocattleya: Thoughts on ''The Lexicographer's Dilemma'' Jack Lynch’s fascinating book, The Lexicographer’s Dilemma, is full of original insights, refreshing perspective, and delightful trivia about our …
: My Brilliant Wife Messes with a Facebook Scammer If you’re on Facebook long enough, you’ll probably get a wall post, a message, or a chat request from someone who seems to be one of your contacts, …
: Self-Evident Job Ad So says a Craigslist job ad: NEED A ENGLISH TUTOR No kidding. And the post itself just keeps proving itself true. We are looking for someone who is …
: David Mamet Exchanges One Herd for Another The National Review has a must-read cover story on David Mamet’s (de)evolution toward conservatism, and despite my loathing of everything the magazine …
: Romney and Gore as Victims of Bullying Jonathan Chait manages to come to the justified defense of Al Gore, attack the political media for its laziness and shallowness, and make me …
: Hume and the Panhandler: The Chief Triumph of Art and Philosophy I am directed to a quote of David Hume’s, whose 300th birthday is this week, from Robert Zaretsky in the New York Times, which for me sums up …
: Shows What I Know I was on tour with the American Shakespeare Center in 2004, and we were performing in a suburb of Chicago. During our stay in the area, we were hosted …
: Darwin's Mischief, Through Antebellum Eyes In 1860, botanist Asa Gray reviewed the brand new book, On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, for the Atlantic Monthly, and it is a fascinating …
: The Moral Stain on the Electoral College I wholeheartedly agree with Hendrik Hertzberg, this editorial from the Los Angeles Times in support of the National Popular Vote initiative (which …
: Spinoza, Leibniz and Teabaggers Reading Matthew Stewart’s The Courtier and the Hereticis proving most fascinating. It is illuminating to me how genuinely modern Spinoza and Leibniz …
: The Internet is as Exhausting as You Make It In the consistently-fascinating journal n+1, Alice Gregory insightfully expounds on the modern race to keep pace with the imagined expectations of the …
: Facing Irrelevance How many readers does it take to make a blog worthwhile? What constitutes a sufficient number of pageviews for a given post? The most obvious answer …
: Fumes There’s been a lot of upheaval in Fidalgo Land since my violent encounter in October of last year. As my tens of regular readers already know, not …
: Topping Off at the Ebook Station Booksquare's Kassia Krozser is on to something. In a larger post on the necessity of physical booksellers, she adds in a parenthetical: . . . I would …
: The Food of Art On last week’s Thinking Unenslaved podcast, we considered raising for discussion the topic of religion in the arts, and what might become of the arts …
: Coulda Been a SOTU Last month, John Kerry gave an excellent speech to the Center for American Progress which almost word for word ought to have been what the president …
: Yesterday Yesterday was kind of an important day for me. As many of you know, I was brutally attacked by two thugs on the street outside my Metro stop in DC a …
: The Unforgivable Mitt Romney Mitt Romney is waving his proverbial arms about this week, getting as much attention for himself on TV, readying himself to run for president again. …
: I Don't Know Who to Boycott Anymore The wife and I are struggling with chicken. We’ve always known Chik-fil-a to be a “Christian business,” whatever that means, if only because they’re …
: Cultivating a Good Depression I like to cultivate a good depression. Well, I suppose “like” is a poor choice of words when discussing uncontrolled despondency. Perhaps it’s better …
: 'A Better Pencil': A Good Point That Needs a Better Book Apart from some interesting bits about the challenges presented by, and the romanticism associated with, various writing tools and implements, Dennis …
: On Fulfillment: The Noble Pursuit of 10 Percent The wife and I are in something of an existential pickle. Here we are, resettling ourselves (ever-so-slowly and awkwardly) in small town southern …
: DADT and the Religious Right's Clout Jonathan Chait dissects the breach in Republican resistance to gay rights in the wake of the coming repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and reaches an …
: Facebook Probation I am flattered that over 850 people have considered me a “friend” on Facebook. The thing is, I don’t actually know the vast majority of them. There’s …
: Kay Hagan Spits on Another Maligned Minority I was inspired to begin blogging on atheism in American politics when Kay Hagan, running for Senate against Elizabeth Dole in 2008, enabled the …
: Lest We Forget: Thoughts on “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” The edition that I own of William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich advertises that the book is one that “shocked the conscience of the …
: The Attack On the evening of October 26, I was returning home from my second day of training at my new part-time job. I was in the midst of a transition; in my …
: It's In The Mighty Hands of Steel Stan Bush serenades the Transformers. [youtube www.youtube.com/watch Now I am an unabashed fan of this absurd movie; as a kid I must have seen it …
: Jail That’s where the two thugs who attacked me are going, I found out today. I don’t know for how long yet. I hope to be able to tell you more in the …
: Let's Get More Humans Jen McCreight has a very smart take on the issue of a lack of ethnic diversity among we seculars. The biggest problem in her mind is the denial that a …
: Peace In DC, I earned a master’s degree in political management, interned for a major network’s news operation, worked on a historic presidential campaign, …
: One Personal Consequence of Violence I still intend to write in more detail about my recent assault, but what’s most on my mind about it in my day to day life has to do with my kid. You …
: A Little More Huckabee, a Little Less Bloomberg John Heilemann might be my favorite political journalist these days, if for no other reason than because of this phrase from a 2007 profile of Mitt …
: The Lizard Brain of Michael Gerson Michael Gerson has gone off the rails. Common wisdom holds that he’s one of the sane Republicans, a man of words and ideas rather than rage and wrath. …
: I'm More Interested in Whether Being a Douche is a Choice Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Colorado, Ken Buck, made a little news today saying on Meet the Press that he believes that being gay is …
: My New Career: Full-Time Daddy In 2004, I decided to begin to move away from my life in theatre to one in professional politics. I was tired of being on the sidelines, feeling …
: John Kerry and Barack Obama as Leaders Ryan Lizza’s recent New Yorker piece on the aborted climate change legislation of John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsay Graham is dispiritingly …
: Waterfowl, Nazis, and Birth Certificates For your reading pleasure, I present the first comment posted on a short and fairly banal Politico blog post about Charlie Crist and the Florida U.S. …
: Do the Douthat Twist I know I’m a little late to this, but I was reminded of Ross Douthat’s column a few days back about reactions to the Park51 project from what he sees …
: Thanks for Nothing, Ken Mehlman I was at the RNC’s winter meeting in 2007, immediately following their electoral drubbing the previous year, interning for ABC News. There, I watched …
: Clearing the Smoke from History's Horrors and Heroes I’ve just read Nicholson Baker’s take on the first years of World War II, Human Smoke, and it is certainly unsettling. But I have come across a couple …
: Toby Meets His Great-Great-Grandma Fidalgo This was such an important moment for me: my 8-month-old son meets his 96-year-old great-great-grandmother, with his great-grandma (as well as her …
: I'm an NPR Daddy Much to my surprise, I was part of a panel of daddy bloggers on NPR’s “Tell Me More” with Michele Martin, which aired today. The piece is the latest …
: In Which I Am Flummoxed by a Reverse-Charitable Act at Burger King I was at a Burger King near my office (stop glaring, wife!) and they were collecting donations for the charity Jerry’s Kids. If you donated a buck, …
: Go Ahead and Organize Your Life around Atheism Michael De Dora has written in a recent controversial piece that, in essence, questions the wisdom of “organizing [one’s life] around atheism,” and at …
: Dreams from the Father? I recently read Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father, and it took a couple of weeks before something about it dawned on me. While Obama gained a lot …
: Hypoliteracy I am not reading a book. Washington, DC is shut down today, and besides doing some catch-up work here and there, I essentially have a bonus day off. …
: Bryson's "At Home": A Delightful Slog through Human Misery About halfway through Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life, one can’t help but come to a couple of stark conclusions. One, that most …
: Armstrong's "The Case for God": A Case Not Made Few religious thinkers have eased the consciences of spiritual liberals, anti-fundamentalist religious moderates, and functional nonbelievers …
: Parade of the Fanatical Ignoramuses All photos in this post: http://www.flickr.com/photos/progressohio/ / CC BY 2.0 It is almost becoming a ritual in our house these days. At the end …
: The Evolution of God: Brilliant and Maddening Robert Wright, in his latest book The Evolution of God, promises up front that he will make a plausible case for the existence of some force or …
: Disbelieving Outside the Lines Ross Douthat writes in defense of the Yahweh concept, reminding we stuffy atheists that it’s not as silly as Russell’s teapot assumes: This analogy – …
: Elizabeth Dole and the GOP Tell Me to Go to Hell My day was flat out ruined by a political ad. I’m very passionate about politics to begin with, but usually if a political ad upsets me it’s in the …