Hopefully all too frequent again
It’s been awhile. The advantage is that we can concentrate on a few things rather than the day-to-day sewage. The big story is Trump’s failed war with Iran. To explain that we have to look back at his intervention in Venezuela in January. The US bombed mostly military targets, for about 2.5 hours— cover for … Continue reading Fash Watch 5
Today’s topic: The Romans: a 2,000-year history, by Edward J. Watts. I found it fascinating, but didn’t entirely like it. As the subtitle hints, Watts refuses to take the usual approach of ending the history in 476 CE. He carries the story forward to 1204, covering what historians (but not contemporaries) called the Byzantines. To … Continue reading The Romans (Watts)
This almost slipped me by. Yep, I started my webpage in 1996. And for all that time I’ve kept to the 1990s idea of a personal webpage: it all comes out of my brain, and it’s hosted somewhere at my expense. And, to some people’s annoyance, it’s pretty much in the style of the 1990s. … Continue reading zompist.com is 30!
Two big new pages on my site today. They’ve been available on my Patreon for some time. Enjoy!
I just read Harry Tanner’s book The Queer Thing About Sin: Why the West Came to Hate Queer Love. I think that’s a very interesting question for a historian or a conworlder. (Also a very cumbersome title. The subtitle alone would have worked!) Tanner is himself gay, and has a PhD in Ancient Greek. Tanner … Continue reading The history of homophobia
My friend and military strategist HM— what? doesn’t everyone have a military strategist?— recommended Murray Bookchin’s Post-Scarcity Anarchism. It’s from 1971 and feels like it, but it’s fascinating. I know little about anarchism, so I was happy to learn more. Let me start with the biggest positive, then: the chapter “Listen, Marxist!” is the best demolition of … Continue reading Post-Scarcity…
I think someone posted an essay by Dan Wang on Mastodon, and it was interesting, so when I saw his book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future at the library, I picked it up. It’s the best book I’ve read on modern China. You should read it if you believe in any of the following propositions: … Continue reading Breakneck
How well can ChatGPT write? This question arose from a Mefi discussion about one Abhishaike Mahajan’s contention that art, in the future, might consist entirely of AI creations elicited by, and intended only for, individual users. (Their point was that human art, to survive in such a world, had to be weird and surprising.) I … Continue reading Can AI be your Netflix?
As a follow-up to this review, I read the first book in the series, Beth Revis’s Full Speed to a Crash Landing. Basic idea: Rogue scavenger Ada Lamarr is trapped in a blown-out spaceship with her oxygen running out. She’s rescued by a very official ship named Halifax, which is investigating a crashed ship, the … Continue reading Full Speed to a Crash Landing
I haven’t written one of these since April, and people have asked for an update. This is by no means complete; in fact it’s just what stuck in my mind. With this administration there is always something outrageous, stupid, and/or illegal every week. (BTW, on my machines, WordPress has been absolutely awful. It’s either horribly … Continue reading Fash Watch 4