This could be huge: The BBC is reporting the National Ignition Facility (NIF), based at Livermore in California, has succeeded in breaking even — ‘During an experiment in late September, the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel — the first time this had been achieved at any fusion facility in the world. H/T Slashdot. Read more
Author Sarah Hoyt has observed a disturbing trend: erotica is invading every other genre, for no obviously useful reason. (Note: Hoyt’s post is somewhat ribald.) At first she put it down to a last-ditch attempt by the traditional publishing establishment to retain readers…and then she discovered that the same thing is hitting independently published e-books as well…and that the books are selling. Her take-away: What you can take from this is that NO, that story you have in the drawer... Read more
Leah Libresco says that time spent on religious activities isn’t time taken away from your primary relationships; rather, religion is a relationship: I certainly spend some Sunday mornings grumping about in bed, not wanting to get up and schlep for a forty minute walk to Church. Or having to get up at 6am to get to the very early Mass, so I can make it to work when I’m needed. And I’ll admit that, in the moment, it feels a... Read more
Prayer is a massive, wonderful, frightening thing. God is there and wants to hear from us and to help us. Hard for a low-down no-good sinner to accept. Massively hard. But it’s the Truth. He has given me This Day. So saith The Fat Guy, Scott Chaffin. I’ve been distantly acquainted with Scott for many years, more or less since the dawn of the Blogosphere. I’ve read his blog off and on, and every so often he’s left a comment... Read more
This is a the first post in a series that appeared on my old blog (with minor differences) some time back. I intend to re-post the series here, one post a week, for the next few months. The interior life is an essential part of Christian discipleship, one that I’ve been learning about over the last few years, and I find that I’ve got a few things to say about it and how to embark upon it—though I hasten to... Read more
Yesterday was the feast day of St. Francis. Sts. Dominic and Francis were contemporaries, and founded the orders that bear their names at more or less the same time. (It amuses me that the Franciscans, the Order of Friars Minor, which is to say the “Little Brothers”, were found just slightly before the Dominicans.) It’s been said that Dominic is the most difficult saint to love; and Br. Leo Camurati, OP, argues that St. Francis is the most difficult saint... Read more
So what’s the real story of Beauty and the Beast? This is a post from the first incarnation of my blog, back in October of 2002. In those days I was still creating the blog pages “by hand” rather than using software like WordPress, and my eldest was five years old. It was the first in a series I’d intended to write, entitled “Pedant Errant”, but alas! it was the only post of its kind. As everyone with children already... Read more
I see that John Myers Myers’ novel Silverlock is on sale at Amazon’s Kindle Store for $0.99 today. If you enjoy fantasy fiction and have a taste for classic literature, and you haven’t read Silverlock, by all means snag it. Read more
The Warden is the first of Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire novels, which I started reading many years ago during one of my Great Literature kicks. Every so often I figure that there’s more to life than genre fiction, and go looking for something more classic. At that time I was a participant in the rec.arts.books newsgroup on Usenet (remember that?) and lots of people were talking about Trollope, so I gave it a go. I got through the first two books... Read more
A little story about a man, a plan, and a swamp full of alligators, in honor of my recent trip to New Orleans for the 20th Tcl/Tk Conference. As Jerry Reed tells us, you can sure get lost in the Lousiana bayou! Read more
Cry 'Woof'
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In