The obsession with any sort of off-planet future is completely irrational.
Look: Mars, for example, is uninhabitable as is. So you’re going to have to build bubbles or bunkers to live in. So why not just build them here? Save the travel expenses.
Jun 02 2025
a few of the many insights in Holly Bourne’s When We Were Friends
“That song [“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” by Carole King) is the most true song that’s ever been written.” p175
“Speaking so loudly [about football] and with such arrogant authority that everyone else sort of had to listen.” p219
“Is it just me or is it crazy that football chat is taken seriously when it’s basically astrology for men? … They never have mercury going into retrograde as a news segment, do they?” p220
“I wanted him to want me to stay. I would’ve stayed all night happily, if only he’d asked me one question about myself and listened to the answer.” p240
And p401-2. All of it, every line.
Jun 01 2025
Truth
Only someone who doesn’t know very much thinks the truth is simple.
(just finished Crichton’s Airframe,which illustrates that very claim through, notably, a reporter)
May 29 2025
Men ‘experience’ labour pain
Read the comments too, especially about the relative duration of the pain …
May 26 2025
Dear Committee Members, Julie Schumacher – delightful!
“… I argued that the arts are a form of diversity [which was] sadly characterized as ‘divisive'” p28
“… watching me pull at what remains of my hair while I stamp back and forth in paroxysms of incredulty caused by the half-baked ideas casually lobbed in my direction from the back of the room.” p55
“I would also eschew the twin barbarities of ‘attendance’ and ‘participation’ as grading criteria …” p55
“… ability to form coherent sentences not randomly punctuated by ‘like’ or ‘really’ … ” p55
May 25 2025
Does advertising really work? Prove it.
So this obsession on the internet with clickbait. I get that the more clicks on an ad, the more money the company will pay a website to have their ad on the site. And I get that more clicks mean the ad is being seen by more people. And I get that the more people who see the ad means the more purchases will be made. No. Actually, I don’t get that.
I can’t think of one thing I’ve purchased because of an ad I saw. Not my house. Not my car. Not my kayak. Not my new tv. Not my laptop. Not even any of my groceries.
Show me ten studies that find otherwise. Ten independent studies. That consider and rule out other causes. That prove that seeing an ad for a product or service does indeed lead to a person’s purchase of that product or service.
May 14 2025
from “Emergency Skin” by N. K. Jemisin
” … the Founders told us that the Earth died because of greed. That was true, but they lied about whose greed was to blame. …”
“What the Leaving proved was that the Earth could sustain billions, if we simply shared resources and responsibilities in a sensible way. What it couldn’t sustain was a handful of hateful, self-important parasites, preying upon and paralyzing everyone else.
fiction
