If you all kick in a buck or three, I'm sure I could afford this $100,000 watch in no time. That way I'll be able to keep track of when I should be posting here!

Addendum: Alternative watches sent in by friends. Winchell Chung suggests the Ulysses Nardin Astrolabium G. Galilei Watch. Chris Weuve temporarily lusted after the Stargate Watch.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Have you had enough of network TV yet? I sure have. Is this the best they can do for creativity? A television show based on a series of commercials?

What's sad is that this appears to be a better effort than what all the forces of network TV can muster.

Even sadder, a amateur (?) effort trumps them all.

I just want to run right out and get an HDTV just so I can watch this quality programming!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 01:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Tell me this image doesn't remind you of the classic illustrations by Clifford Geary from the original hardcover of Starman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein!

(With thanks to Winchell Chung for sending me the link. Great illustrations!)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 12:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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At the end of the day, there's always room for a can or two of beer.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 12:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via Ian's Messy Desk, an idea generator. As I watch the current market bubble deflate, I'm reminded of the heady days before the last bubble burst when this was probably all the business plan some dot coms actually had!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Good new story from Michael Totten posting from Iraq. The other Michael, Michael Yon, has a new one as well, Three Marks on the Horizon (if you haven't read Michael Yon yet, can I recommend Gates of Fire?).

And am I seeing things? A positive story out of Iraq from somebody other than these two? From Der Spiegel? Clearly something strange is going on here! more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The host of the CBC's Vinyl Cafe swears he is never going to buy another book. Never. Never, never, never, as long as he lives!

Let's see how long that lasts!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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"At his feet I noticed,...a girl in a loose coral pink gown, who was his very antipode. Princess Heru, for so she was called, was resting one arm upon his knee at our approach and pulling a blue convolvulus bud to pieces—a charming picture of dainty idleness. Anything so soft, so silky as that little lady was never seen before.Who am I, a poor, quarter-deck loafer, that I should attempt to describe what poet and painter alike would have failed to realise? I know, of course, your stock descriptives: the melting eye, the coral lip, the peachy cheek, the raven tresses; but these were coined for mortal woman—and this was not one of them. I will not attempt to describe the glorious tenderness of those eyes she turned upon me presently; the glowing radiance of her skin; the infinite grace of every action; the incredible soul-seaching harmony of her voice, when later on I heard it—you must gather something of these things as I go- suffice it to say that when I saw her there for the first time in the plenitude of her beauty, I fell desperately, wildly in love with her."

—Edwin Lester Arnold, Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation (a.k.a., Gullivar of Mars).

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Spook Country by William Gibson for $25.95 (sale price) or $23.36 (newsletter price)? Sounds pretty good...until you realize that this is an eBook you're buying and you can find a copy of the hardcover for significantly less than either of those prices in your local store (and save even more if you are a member of one of the big box chain clubs).

Reality check, please!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via BoingBoing, a supercomputer has figured out how to unscramble a Rubik's Cube in 26 moves or less (one better than the previous record). How about those of us without supercomputers? Is there a SETI@Home equivalent for Rubik's Cubes?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 12:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The best thing in a bad movie. Not sure of the mileage, but the rockets on the roof would sure be a good thing in morning traffic around here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:14 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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If you have been lucky enough to have clear, dark skies last night (and tonight), you might see this. It's raining Perseids!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One of the smartest guys I know is coming out with a new book! And...in this essay...he has some interesting things to say about "climate change".

My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:17 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Watching the rendezvous between the space shuttle and the ISS right now. Usual inane, boring chatter on NASA TV. Trust NASA's public-relations machine to continue to make space travel...dull. You would think they would overlay some music like the Blue Danube Suite here!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've got a hand-cranked emergency radio. Now for our brave new century, a hand-cranked gadget that can play music files, videos and more! UK-only, though? What about us poor colonials?

(Via BoingBoing.)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Two articles on the Heinlein Centenary. The first reads like it came from a series of cribbed notes scribbled from various dustjacket comments. The second is a more in-depth look at how many of Heinlein's "fingerprints" can be found on today's world.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:27 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Like this. Once upon a time (when I was in college), I could go to a back road around the campus and see the Milky Way. When we got our house, I could still see the Milky Way. Then it was only during the dead of winter, or after the air had been cleared out, etc. Now it is a rare occasion when our increasingly urbanized skies allow me to see sights like this with one of my telescopes, let alone my naked eyes.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:59 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A site dedicated to various events in science fiction. How long before the Nostromo finds that xenomorph? We have less time than you think!!!

(With a click of the analog clock to BoingBoing.)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hot in from the e-waves and the inter-tubes. Issue #241 of Dave Langford's Ansible!

David A. Hardy is wary of political spin: 'I've just been watching Al Gore on TV kicking off Live Earth in the USA. All very stirring and worthy stuff, and I fully approve of the sentiments; so it's probably churlish of me to mention that that lovely Earth on the big screen behind him was spinning clockwise. What would that do to the climate?!'

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 11:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The mirror-world version of another famous online encyclopedia.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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