WebWeasel!

My Sturgeon and Locus Award-nominated story THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON (please share!)

Sat, 23 May 2015 16:08:05 -0500

My Sturgeon and Locus Award-nominated story THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON (please share!):

Here’s a thing I didn’t know: there are some cancers that can only be diagnosed after a week’s worth of lab work. I didn’t know that. Then I went to the doctor to ask her about my pesky achy knee that had flared up and didn’t go away like it always had, just getting steadily worse. I’d…

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 23:41:32 -0500

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century:

mostlysignssomeportents:

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century is a bestselling economics tome whose combination of deep, careful presentation of centuries’ worth of data, along with an equally careful analysis of where capitalism is headed has ignited a global conversation about inequality, tax, and policy….

mostlysignssomeportents: ourvaluedcustomers: While discussing...

Thu, 21 Aug 2014 00:13:52 -0500

mostlysignssomeportents:

ourvaluedcustomers:

While discussing the internet…

(Thanks Allan!)

Website comment sections make me thankful I don’t have telepathy.

picturesinboxescomic: Check out this absolutely unreal guest...

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 11:36:42 -0500

picturesinboxescomic:

Check out this absolutely unreal guest comic from my friends over at 1111 comics. Get to their Facebook here, Twitter here and jump over onto their site because if you don’t then you are seriously missing out

:-)

Why Space?

Tue, 01 Apr 2014 23:57:57 -0500

fakescience:

class-struggle-anarchism: It’s true what he says though -...

Sat, 16 Nov 2013 17:00:53 -0600

class-struggle-anarchism:

It’s true what he says though - there is no subject position from which it’s ok to talk about inequality - if you’re poor you are doing it out of jealously, if you’re not poor you’re doing it out of guilt/saviour complex, if you are young it’s just a phase, if you’re old you are hankering for times long gone and trying to recapture your youth, if you’re not well educated you just don’t understand the complexity of the situation, if you are well educated you’re in an academic bubble divorced from reality, if your politically apathetic you’re not allowed to complain, if you’re politically active you’re just trying to push your own sectarian agenda…

For every possible type of person there’s an established reason why your opinions on inequality are invalid. That’s not an accident.

georgetakei: We would watch this. http://ift.tt/15wngsZ

Sun, 13 Oct 2013 02:45:06 -0500

georgetakei:

We would watch this. http://ift.tt/15wngsZ

wilwheaton: neil-gaiman: wordsthatfit: sandandglass: Jessica...

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 19:46:25 -0500

wilwheaton:

neil-gaiman:

wordsthatfit:

sandandglass:

Jessica Williams proposes applying New York’s Stop and Frisk policy to Wall Street bankers.

This all day.

Oh yes.

*mic drop*

Monkeys in Space

Sun, 14 Jul 2013 13:23:24 -0500

fakescience:

Photo

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:44:50 -0500

… that is if you’re paying attention.

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 20:33:49 -0600

… that is if you’re paying attention.

fakescience: Consider the perfect holiday gift: Fake Science’s...

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:09:59 -0600

fakescience:

Consider the perfect holiday gift: Fake Science’s Fake Tonic. Developed in the late 1800s, this tonic:

Cures Pneumonia!

Removes troublesome hair on your head!

Eliminates extra tastebuds.

Makes you see colors. Beautiful, terrible colors.

Reverses the outcome of the election of Grover Cleveland in 1892.

Cleans grease off of frying pans.

Gives you the ability to develop echolocation.

Hurts, but a good hurt.

Cannot be boiled or frozen.

Is illegal.

It’s featured in Fake Science 101 and tastes like a mistake.

Photo

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:21:16 -0500

NPR: In 1967, Vladimir Kamarov and Yuri Gagarin, the first...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:12:06 -0500

NPR:

In 1967, Vladimir Kamarov and Yuri Gagarin, the first human to reach outer space, were assigned to the same Earth-orbiting mission, and both knew the space capsule was not safe to fly. Komarov told friends he knew he would probably die. But he wouldn’t back out because he didn’t want Gagarin to die. Gagarin would have been his replacement.

The story begins around 1967, when Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union, decided to stage a spectacular midspace rendezvous between two Soviet spaceships.

The plan was to launch a capsule, the Soyuz 1, with Komarov inside. The next day, a second vehicle would take off, with two additional cosmonauts; the two vehicles would meet, dock, Komarov would crawl from one vehicle to the other, exchanging places with a colleague, and come home in the second ship. It would be, Brezhnev hoped, a Soviet triumph on the 50th anniversary of the Communist revolution. Brezhnev made it very clear he wanted this to happen.

The problem was Gagarin. Already a Soviet hero, the first man ever in space, he and some senior technicians had inspected the Soyuz 1 and had found 203 structural problems — serious problems that would make this machine dangerous to navigate in space. The mission, Gagarin suggested, should be postponed.

The question was: Who would tell Brezhnev? Gagarin wrote a 10-page memo and gave it to his best friend in the KGB, Venyamin Russayev, but nobody dared send it up the chain of command. Everyone who saw that memo, including Russayev, was demoted, fired or sent to diplomatic Siberia. With less than a month to go before the launch, Komarov realized postponement was not an option. He met with Russayev, the now-demoted KGB agent, and said, “I’m not going to make it back from this flight.”

Russayev asked, Why not refuse? According to the authors, Komarov answered: “If I don’t make this flight, they’ll send the backup pilot instead.” That was Yuri Gagarin. Vladimir Komarov couldn’t do that to his friend. “That’s Yura,” the book quotes him saying, “and he’ll die instead of me. We’ve got to take care of him.” Komarov then burst into tears.

On launch day, April 23, 1967, a Russian journalist, Yaroslav Golovanov, reported that Gagarin showed up at the launch site and demanded to be put into a spacesuit, though no one was expecting him to fly. Golovanov called this behavior “a sudden caprice,” though afterward some observers thought Gagarin was trying to muscle onto the flight to save his friend. The Soyuz left Earth with Komarov on board.

Once the Soyuz began to orbit the Earth, the failures began. Antennas didn’t open properly. Power was compromised. Navigation proved difficult. The next day’s launch had to be canceled. And worse, Komarov’s chances for a safe return to Earth were dwindling fast.

All the while, U.S. intelligence was listening in. The National Security Agency had a facility at an Air Force base near Istanbul. Previous reports said that U.S. listeners knew something was wrong but couldn’t make out the words. In this account, an NSA analyst, identified in the book as Perry Fellwock, described overhearing Komarov tell ground control officials he knew he was about to die. Fellwock described how Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin called on a video phone to tell him he was a hero. Komarov’s wife was also on the call to talk about what to say to their children. Kosygin was crying.

When the capsule began its descent and the parachutes failed to open, the book describes how American intelligence “picked up [Komarov’s] cries of rage as he plunged to his death.”

nique: Nature’s toothbrush for your colon. …sorta tastes like...

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 21:05:15 -0500

nique:

Nature’s toothbrush for your colon.

…sorta tastes like it too.

Loved Mister Rogers Remixed | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Digital Studios - YouTube (via Boxee)

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 01:09:07 -0500

Loved Mister Rogers Remixed | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Digital Studios - YouTube (via Boxee)

"Naturally, any tool for getting rid of bugs in your program is called a ‘debugger’. Mundanely..."

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 16:22:47 -0500

“Naturally, any tool for getting rid of bugs in your program is called a ‘debugger’. Mundanely enough, the corresponding tool for putting bugs into your program is called a ‘programmer’”

- Beginning Perl, Second Edition by James Lee

Photo

Tue, 22 May 2012 15:10:33 -0500

Photo

Fri, 11 May 2012 10:31:26 -0500

rocketboom: via

Thu, 10 May 2012 15:14:33 -0500

rocketboom:

via