Author Archives

writer, singer, webwrangler, blogger, comedy tragic | about.me/vivsmythe

• The Church Of Bob

  By tigtog on 2014-03-12 • ( 15 )

  

  There are the beginnings of a promising SFF fandom TOD developing over at Scalzi’s joint, for those who have spare popcorn lying around.

• Cannot brane today need randoms

  By tigtog on 2014-03-10 • ( 11 )

  

  It’s one of those days where one needs whimsy. Whaddya got?

• SIgnal Boosting: Surly Amy’s Skeptic and Atheist Do Better Challenge

  By tigtog on 2014-03-06

  

  As an atheist, I do not get to find solace in the idea that I have an afterlife to plan for. I have to make peace with the idea that this one life is all that I have and that every single solitary moment counts right now. It counts in moments, that are slowly ticking away. And while I also have to realize that while there is no God keeping track of those moments and my actions within them, that none-the-less they matter.

• Perhaps now the usual suspects will stop being undeservedly smug about the Sokal hoax

  By tigtog on 2014-03-03 • ( 1 )

  

  In 2005, a group of MIT graduate students decided to goof off in a very MIT graduate student way: They created a program called SCIgen that randomly generated fake scientific papers. Thanks to SCIgen, for the last several years, computer-written gobbledygook has been routinely published in scientific journals and conference proceedings.

• Media Circus: sabre-rattling sparks Cold War nostalgia edition

  By tigtog on 2014-03-03 • ( 3 )

  

  Conflict in the Crimea, Arizona legislation, biblical amusement parks, celebrities “giving up” and our embarassment of an Immigration Minister.

  What news story/commentary/analysis has grabbed your attention lately?

• Kurt Vonnegut on The Money River, aka neo-liberalism

  By tigtog on 2014-02-24 • ( 11 )

  

  The Money River, where the wealth of the nation flows. We were born on the banks of it. We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts’ content. And we even take slurping lessons, so we can slurp more efficiently.

• Sunday Singalong: I’ve Got The Music In Me

  By tigtog on 2014-02-23

  

  An assortment of versions of the song first made famous by Kiki Dee in 1974.

• The attempts to shut women down continue

  By tigtog on 2014-02-19 • ( 16 )

  

  Two women who have been the subject of floods of contemptuous and dismissive abuse as part of their public life write about their experiences and point out that their experience is the cultural norm, not any outlier experience.

• Media Circus: Liars and TPP and Conflicts Of Interest, Oh My

  By tigtog on 2014-02-18 • ( 25 )

  

  At this rate every single Abbott government minister is going to get a lump of coal in their Santa stocking.

  What news story/commentary/analysis has grabbed your attention lately?

• “Post-secular”?

  By tigtog on 2014-02-12 • ( 12 )

  

  Secular is one of those words that theocratic propagandists have shifted the Overton Window on, to make it seem like secular is the opposite of pluralist when in fact it is only a secular stance that makes pluralism possible. Post-secular? Hm.