Blogroll

Plains life sans car

A friend has embarked on an interesting summer venture: he’s going to see how little he can use his car. He’s launched a blog, appropriately named MinusCar, to detail and document his efforts, which involve a combination of mass transit in Sioux Falls, such as it is, and his love of bicycling.

Take a look […]

Book Review: Lies, Inc. (2004)

I am a Philip K. Dick fan. I think his induction this year into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame was long overdue. That said, Lies, Inc. has value only in allowing you to see in one book both standard Dick and the author at his worst.

During a time period in which he was […]

Deep Throat, “Woodstein” and life

I’ve been rather blase about the disclosure that Mark Felt was the “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame. I think that’s because that while Woodward and Bernstein and Watergate moved me from sportswriting to political reporting, the discussion of that time period is saddening. It demonstrates just how far we’ve come in the wrong direction.

I […]

Marginalia

Not sure quite what to make of parts of the NYT story on Book ExpoAmerica. Consumer spending on books has increased 8 percent over the last three years. On the other hand, the total number of books sold declined three percent in that same time period and nine percent over the last five years. […]

Accelerando to use Creative Commons license

Reportedly, the latest novel from Charles Stross is not only more of his somewhat unique approach to SF, it uses a different copyright approach. Accelerando is comprised of a short story sequence dealing with a couple generations of a family that gives away ideas for a living. In addition to normal book sales, Stross also […]