July 20, 2008
In my long absence I've been reading a lot, and in that course I discovered quite a lot of neato Essays. They are "Politics and the English Language" (Orwell), "The Dragon In My Garage" (Sagan), "Twelve Virtues of Rationality" (Yudkowsky), "The Median Isn't The Message" (Gould), "September 11, 1901" (also Gould), "1967" (the name was given ad hoc since it was Russell's last and he didn't name it), "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (Nicholas Carr), "A Godless Ramble Against the Ditherings of Theologians" (PZ Myers), and "Planet of the Hats" (also Myers). I've also read a lot of short SF stories, some of which I've transcribed and linked to in Short Stories: "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth...", "History Lesson", "Expedition to Earth" (all three by Clarke), and "Counter Charm" (Peter Phillips). As for books, I've read The Zombie Survival Guide and Expedition to Earth (an anthology book from which I took the Clarke stories).
I cleaned up the Links page a bit, culling dead links and adding some new ones (tools, a deviant artist, The Jefferson Hour, and Cave Story Deluxe). I did the same with my books; I deleted reviews that were only descriptions and didn't contain a recommendation. Sometime I will have to re-read all those and make proper reviews.
As for games, Shadowgrounds and its sequel Shadowgrounds Survivor are awesome (and cheap), available from Steam. The first game has a truly unconventional ending and the second one has interesting protagonists. Apart from that, virtually all my gaming time has been sunk into Ninja Gaiden II. I have all the achievements for it except the one for clearing the game on Path of the Master Ninja. (Which is unfairly difficult. You will have to try it to understand and those who have will nod their weary necks in painful recognition.) So I've updated my little Ninja Gaiden Miscellanea section.
Finally, there's a new item in the Random page's Fun section, Trace Elements. Feel free to send me corrections and suggestions!
Here are some pretty pictures.
A wren (Malurus cyaneus).
A Yellow-winged Darter (Sympetrum flaveolum).
Pretty parrots!
An MV-22 Osprey refueling.
A cluster of mountains in Helgeland, Norway called The Seven Sisters (De Syv Søstre in Norwegian). There are actually quite a few geographical formations in the world called this. For instance, some chalk cliffs in England.
"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."