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Monthly Archives: November 2014
The Word
When I was young I thought a single word could change everything. As I grew older I thought I needed to instead depend on collections of words, and hoped that by their jostling Brownian randomness they would somehow settle into … Continue reading
Posted in Literary Theory, Literature, Writing
Tagged Ferdinand de Saussure, Jacques Lacan, Leonard Cohen, Signified, Signifier
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The Body Out of Control
For some reason literary treatment of the body out of control is both evocative and frequently avoided. You can think of Margaret Laurence’s Stone Angel which is touted as being such a great portrayal of a disintegrating mind, but one … Continue reading
Posted in Literary Theory, Literature, Singularity
Tagged Charles Stross, Gulliver’s Travels, Harry Potter, Margaret Lawrence, meatspace, Singularity, Stone Angel
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The Hot and Cold of Aid
When I first went overseas with the volunteer organization Canadian Crossroads International (CCI)—which I wholeheartedly recommend—they put us through a highly questionable selection procedure. There are a few of these organizations that offer what people in the development field call … Continue reading
Posted in Development
Tagged Aid, Canadian Crossroads International, CCI, Cook Islands, Habitat for Humanity, United Church, WUSC
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Writing the Police
I sometimes imagine telling the story of a cop in a police state. I think about what goes on in their head, whether they are merely following orders, like the Nazi underlings claimed at Nuremberg, or whether they are so … Continue reading
Posted in News, Police, Writing
Tagged Arrogant Worms, Cops, George Zimmerman, Last Saskatchewan Pirate, Mountie Bob, Nazi, Nuremberg defense, Occupy movement, Police, Police Brutality, Salty Bob, Trayvon Martin
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November is Novel Writing Month, Not Short Story Writing Month
As many of you know, November is the month that many people around the world put away the procrastination and pick up the pen, or more likely keyboard, to expand a late night idea into a novel. The challenge is … Continue reading
Posted in Code World, Writing
Tagged Avatar, Code World, Hackers, NaNoWriMo, Virtual Reality
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How to Make Facebook Work for You
This is nowhere as easy as it sounds and I am sure that people more media and tech savvy than me have worked out a better way. The problem is that my facebook feed bombards me with cat videos and … Continue reading
Posted in News, Social Media
Tagged Clickbait, Facebook, Science, Science News, Social Media, Subscribing
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To Talk About Mars
No talk about Mars is complete unless you begin with Giovanni Schiaparelli and his canali. It has become almost a cliché in the field of exobiology, at least in terms of Mars, that ancient history, complete with Percival Lowell’s maps, … Continue reading
Posted in Mars
Tagged Canali, Dr. Ed Cloutis, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Giovanni Schiaparelli, Mariner, Mars, Mars Direct, Mars One, Percival Lowell, Princess of Mars, Robert Zubrin, Viking
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Using your Hands
In the west we are taught to be fastidious about eating with our hands, and in fact, we want our hands to be as far from our food as possible. We make exceptions, of course, finger food at luncheons and … Continue reading
Posted in recipes
Tagged Cooking, Eating with your hands, No Egg Banana Bread
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Anecdotal Evidence and Climate Change
I was talking about anecdotal evidence tonight, such as you hear if you bring up global climate change in January in the northern climes: “Global Warming!? I don’t see any warming around here.” Likewise, I have heard that a ninety … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, News of the World
Tagged Biosphere, Climate Change, Eric Frank Russell, Legwork, Smoking
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Ramming Reluctant Words
Learning to do more than just ram otherwise reluctant words together is a long and difficult procedure. That is why, generally, I am a fan of blog writing. So much of it is arduously un-self-reflexively narcissistic, but it does more … Continue reading
Posted in Writing
Tagged Author, bible, James Fenimore Cooper, Marshall McLuhan, mote in your eye, Publish, Students, Writing
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