Off By One

This is a bit of a catch-all posting; I’ve been entertained by a few of the things I’ve seen recently, enraged by others, and figured I would pass on a few tidbits.

Seen on thursday evening in a restaurant: A little boy, probably a bit over one year old, starts to do that high-pitched attention-getter crying bit, and after a token effort at calming him by his father, the mother pulls out a portable DVD player and sets it up on the table so that he can watch a TV show and shut the hell up.

Overheard this morning in a Starbucks: A couple having coffee together, both looking modern, professional, and stereotypically ‘starbucky’… Talking about playing online RPGs, power-leveling, and gold farming.

In the news: A film, Fitna, that is — as do so many things these days — enraging the religious of the eastern world to the point of sputtering threats. Please note, “The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

In the later hours of this day, Arthur C. Clarke — creator and muse — ended 90 years of looking past the stars in order to share with us the wonders that he saw there.

He leaves behind ideas beyond number and a culture immeasurably richer for his contribution.

My god, it’s full of stars!

Okay, that title bears little, if any, relation to the content of this post. This post consists mainly of a pointer to this wonderful critique of the underdog narrative in science journalism, found by way of Slashdot.

I’ve never given it the attention it deserves, obviously, but science reporting in the popular media — from the news outlets to the movies — is pretty bad. Cinema is especially guilty of portraying the scientific establishment as a repressive overmind bent on quashing any threat to some imagined orthodoxy, and popular science writing isn’t a lot better.

I hope you enjoy the article.

My turn, I guess.

For some reason, today, I’m just… irritable and tired.

Tomorrow I’m sure I’ll be fine, but only if my work laptop isn’t still being a bucket of cocks. It’s been that kind of day.