Back in 2023, I happened to read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011), by Yuval Noah Harari. I ended up not impressed by the book [see Sapiens: The Book] but did find two aspects of it compelling and memorable: the idea of our facility with fiction, and the idea of game-changing human Revolutions.
It is said: ‘Once you have an X hammer, everything becomes an X nail.’ (For whatever value of ‘X’.) Our mental concepts frame our worldview, and I’ve been considering human culture through the lens of these Revolutions.
Here I take a stab at just listing them.
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3 Comments | tags: history, homo sapiens, humanity | posted in Society
The last edition of Sci-Fi Saturday reported on the science fiction books I’ve read recently (for a rather generous definition of “recently”). This edition reports on the recent science fiction movies (and some TV shows, mostly animated).
Early warning: among the ones new to me, there is only one I’ll particularly recommend. Most were “just okay” (though one is worth a small rant). Others were re-watches, and those generally have higher scores — of course they do; I re-watched them because I liked them.
By the way, the definition of science fiction is also a little generous here.
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9 Comments | tags: Edgar Wright, Gore Verbinski, Project Hail Mary, Sam Rockwell, science fiction movies, Superman | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday
After putting the blog largely on hold this spring and summer, I’m trying to get back into it by doing a bit of catch-up. (Or at least discover if and how I really want to get back into it.)
Five posts so far this month (not counting this one) compared to five posts during the three summer months (June, July, August), so I’m off to a good start.
Didn’t manage even to post a Friday Notes in August, so there’s more than enough for (at least) a second edition this month.
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6 Comments | tags: 9-11, Bentley, blog, dogs, Field of Dreams, human consciousness, parachute, Science Notes, skydiving | posted in Friday Notes
The recent Sci-Fi Saturday post listed the SF books I’ve been reading (so far) this year, and the even more recent Mystery Monday post listed the murder mystery books likewise. Haven’t read any science books lately (I’ve been getting science news from New Scientist magazine), but I have been watching TV. Maybe too much, but at least it’s evenings only.
Baseball has occupied a lot of my viewing time this summer (the MN Twins are a whole other post). I can only stand to watch three to five hours of TV in an evening, so a three-hour baseball game doesn’t leave much room for my stories.
Nevertheless, there is more than enough for a TV Tuesday post.
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12 Comments | tags: Futurama, Invincible, Jack Reacher, King of the Hill, Night Court, Rick and Morty, Scrubs, The Tick (TV series) | posted in TV Tuesday
It has been more than two years since the last post for Mystery Monday — a series I introduced in 2019 with a post about the delicious Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout [see Nero and Archie]. Posts since have explored my other favorite genre: murder mysteries.
The gap is due to [A] reading much more SF than mystery these last two years and [2] my mystery reading was mostly of two authors I’ve already covered: Dame Agatha Christie and Patricia Wentworth (albeit the latter only in passing).
Now, circle closing, I’m back to reading the Nero Wolfe books again.
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9 Comments | tags: adaptations, Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Nero Wolfe, Rex Stout | posted in Books, Mystery Monday, TV
I’ve posted quite a few Sci-Fi Saturday posts devoted to specific works, but it has been almost exactly four years since the last post carrying the “Sci-Fi Saturday” title. Such posts usually cover a number of works and therefore need a generic title.
As mentioned last post, I’ve been in a bit of a blogging lull lately. One reason is that I’ve been reading and watching a fair amount this summer. Much of it, of course, is SF, so there is plenty to record here today (hence the generic title).
Starting with a seriously strange book.
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19 Comments | tags: Christopher Priest, Edward Ashton, John Scalzi, Martha Wells, Peter Watts, William Gibson | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday
“I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my …” interest in blogging. (In fact, I have a pretty good idea wherefore, but I really like the speech the quote comes from. It’s the same one with the memorable lines: “What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason. …”).
Only six posts May–July and none in August — not even an edition of Friday Notes. I am seriously off my blogging game!
Which means I have a bit of a backlog on these Notes posts, so it’s beyond time to crank out another edition.
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8 Comments | tags: block universe, blog blah, Life Science Library, MWI, odometer, quantum computing, the past | posted in Friday Notes
A little Math fun…
Hint: there is more than one answer.
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2 Comments | tags: fun with numbers, multiplication | posted in Math
On this day fifteen years ago, in 2011, I started this blog and published the first Logos con Carne post. Since then, I’ve published 2,118,480 words comprising 1,503 posts (plus 42 pages) — an average of 1,375 words per post.
The anniversary means it’s time for the biannual extract and analysis of the blog’s content and page views. It’s time for lists and charts and stats (oh, my). And a bottle of champagne tonight.
These posts tend to be a bit dry and uninteresting to anyone but me, so, dear reader, you’ll be forgiven for skipping this one.
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10 Comments | tags: Anniversary, blog, blogger, blogging, charts, July 4 | posted in Life, Writing
After taking May and most of June off from blogging (in fact, from anything involving sitting at my computer), I tried to jump-start myself by putting out five posts at the end of June. The more eagle-eyed readers may have noticed I put out only three.
I intended a Monday post about movies I’ve seen lately followed by a TV Tuesday post about TV shows. But both days passed without posts because reasons — mostly ennui, to be honest.
But I am motivated to put out this early-in-the-month Friday Notes post because it’s the last post of my 14th year blogging here; tomorrow is the 15-year anniversary!
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12 Comments | tags: AI, artificial intelligence, Fermi Paradox, Kylo Ren, the past, weather | posted in Friday Notes
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