pspinrad

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• Commented on Supreme Master Television
  Ching Hai is interesting, but her book "Aphorisms" was a disappointment-- the packaging was nice, little red book, and it had a bunch of photos of Supreme Master Ching Hai dressed fabulously in a wide variety of elegant outfits, but...
• Commented on Vegas uses computers to nab card counters
  Bad and unnecessary move by Vegas in publicizing this. My friend Peter counted cards for years, and he says card counting is already dead thanks to the multiple-deck endless shuffle machines that are standard now in big casinos. But meanwhile,...
• Commented on Two Good Reasons To Always Read the Methods Section of a Scientific Paper
  The one that comes to mind for me is from a decades-old paper on the chemical composition of human semen: "Samples were obtained through massage."...
• Commented on Robert Spinrad, computer pioneer, RIP
  Wow, Xeni, I didn't know that-- thank you, and my heart goes out to you too, back through time! It's an awful disease. Thank you all for your kind words! Wolfiesma-- yes, amen to that. Wizardofplum-- that's beautiful! But what's...
• Commented on Robert Spinrad, computer pioneer, RIP
  Thank you, David and everyone! My sister Susan and I have been supporting our mom, Verna, who was my father's high-school sweetheart and wife of 55 years, and we have all been appreciating what a nice family we've had. My...
• Commented on Wikileaks publishes large cache of US neo-Nazi group's emails
  FWIW, the best thing the White Supremacists can do for their cause is to fight against global warming. Genetic immunities have been found in African and South American populations against malaria, schistomiasis, leishmaniasis, susceptibility to parasitic worms, and other tropical...
• Commented on Errol Morris: Seven Lies About Lying (Part 1)
  (Forget that last one-- I guess the buffalo wasn't disappearing yet after all.)...
• Commented on Errol Morris: Seven Lies About Lying (Part 1)
  Add to my previous comment that I also appreciate the environmentalist subtext to the Bonassus thing-- ouch! The buffalo extinction issue is yet another feature that makes the exhibit so discussable....
• Commented on Errol Morris: Seven Lies About Lying (Part 1)
  How do we know the Bonassus was meant to be believed rather than simply discussed? Maybe Barnum sold tickets by presenting things that everyone had to see because everyone would want to talk about and analyze them-- not simply because...
• Commented on Backwoods Home Magazine: "Imagine Martha Stewart as a gun-toting Libertarian"
  Along the same lines, I enjoy Wilderness Way magazine, published by Christopher Nyerges: http://www.wwmag.net/core.htm...
• Commented on Dushechka, or how I learned to love baseball and bluegrass
  Dushechka sounds like a great character-- but why is it cautionary? Where's the danger in sharing the interests of the people you love while they're there, and then not keeping up with them so much when they're not? Wonderful posts...
• Commented on Compact marble machine
  +1 for thinking that staircase is brilliant-- I've never seen that before!...
• Commented on Gareth gets magical in London
  Wow, Gareth, that sounds so amazing! I'm excited for you going and looking forward to reading your reports!...
• Commented on Debt is not a good product
  "Complexity confers invisibility" Meaning that, since investment products are abstract and can be made infinitely complex, the more complex you can make something, the less people can take the time to understand or oversee it, and therefore the more you...
• Favorited What does Black Sabbath song have to do with Iron Man? on Boing Boing
• Favorited Bush administration: Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to domestic military operations on Boing Boing
• Favorited Short documentary on Rev. Moon on Boing Boing
• Commented on Artist paints herself having sex with each president of the USA
  Beautiful! Who wants to illustrate a series about beating up every president and then taking Ms. Lai?...
• Commented on Puppy Dog Journos Protect Poor Dick Cheney from Criticism
  Different personality types find their way ahead by playing either outsider or insider. In journalism, the insider types have banded together and shut out the outsider types. The problem is, the outsider types are by nature better investigators. Oh, for...
• Commented on Essay Jukebox: Playlist #1
  Hi again-- hey Zuzu, thanks again for the pointer to the Erlang language. So cool! That's exactly the kind of thing that I figured should exist and must exist somewhere. I want to learn it now, and I hope everyone...
• Commented on Essay Jukebox: Playlist #1
  That's great info about Erlang, Arexx, Minton's Playhouse, etc. Will investigate. Thank you!...
• Commented on Let's Just Say Hors d'Oeuvres
  Thanks very much! The pleasure was mine! Paul...
• Posted Let's Just Say Hors d'Oeuvres to Boing Boing
  Boingboing guest blogger Paul Spinrad is Projects Editor for MAKE magazine. He enjoyed everyone's attention enormously.  Guestblogging for Boingboing has been a real treat-- I always love the discussions here, and as anticipated, I learned and will continue to learn a lot from this opportunity. Thank you! If you're interested, check out my website Premises, Premises, devoted to one-paragraph descriptions of new business ideas and inventions. I haven't updated it in a while and need to re-do it using all the great free online community tools available now, but I think many of the ideas there have real potential. Others are just for grins, and most are somewhere in between. Deciding which is which is left as an exercise for the reader. It also lists other "ideas sites" -- which is a genre I love and have been following, although it has yet to succeed as a frame. FWIW, with this post about atheism I apologize to any atheists who thought I was saying they should shut up or be untrue to their beliefs-- that's not what I wanted to say! I am an atheist myself, by Greta Christina's definition of certain enough although I've always been fascinated and inspired by religion. I like these quotes: "Religions fulfill deep-seated psychological needs for people, and if you don't get it from a specific religious doctrine, you'll get it from the kind of films I like to make. A film like The Terminator is consciously meant to give a sense of empowerment to the individual." --James Cameron, American Film, July 1991 "We think heaven on earth is a real possibility. There are resources enough to create it. And people are intelligent enough to advance it. Now all that remains is to market it." --Olivier Toscani, (media director of Benetton), Colors #12Thanks also to Mark F. and all of the other boingers for their help and support-- and I'll see you on the boards! I will leave with another favorite quote, from Flaubert, which I got from my father (it's originally from Madame Bovary): "Human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when all the time we are longing to move the stars to pity."...
• Posted Essay Jukebox: Playlist #1 to Boing Boing
  Boingboing's current guestblogger Paul Spinrad is currently Projects Editor for MAKE magazine. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Wendy, their two children Clara and Simon, and their cats Ron and Nancy.  In this post I asked boingboing readers what mini-essays by me they would want to read, and now it's time to pay the piper. Here are the votes tallied from the first 103 comments, in descending order, followed by the goods. Since some interest was expressed in all of them, I'll hit them all with at least a line or two. The top vote-getter was "D) Guys need a coming-of-age ritual that has some teeth, like exist in other cultures," with 35 votes. I guess it's true! Anyway, for those interested, thank you for your interest!...
• Commented on Replace Hardcovers with a Bunch of Big Signs
  @82 Samurai-- Great analogy with the fashion industry, great idea! Yes, a sort of "book week" -- now that's really the way to do it! Better than the signs, better than TV or the internet. Maybe some authors are shy...
• Commented on Replace Hardcovers with a Bunch of Big Signs
  @68 Andy-- I fear you may be right about billboards being too crass. We don't want a Caesars' Palace vibe with this (no matter how brilliant the design of those cocktail waitress toga-miniskirts). But I love the PBS ad idea!...
• Commented on Replace Hardcovers with a Bunch of Big Signs
  Many great points about hardcovers-- yes, they are nice, durable, etc. I like them too. If we want the printed version, let's expect to order the Hardcover Option for a few dollars more! @ 51 Ecologist-- good question. It doesn't...
• Commented on NuRide for mobile devices?
  That's really neat about this working in Germany and about the Scott Adams posts and the Dynamic Ridesharing site! If something like this becomes available here, I think I'd use it all the time....
• Commented on Replace Hardcovers with a Bunch of Big Signs
  ...also, maybe it would be classier and more fitting to not use video at all, but go the old fashioned way with paper....
• Commented on Replace Hardcovers with a Bunch of Big Signs
  To clarify: this would only be in one location. Not a few major cities, not a wide campaign-- just one single, significant, sole location-- it makes sense to make it NYC, or wherever the publisher is based. As I see...