Blog Entries tagged 'Rants'

The problem with the interweb: It's stupid

rhughes

The Internet is a lowest common denominator medium. Unlike newspapers, books, and magazines, there's no editorial staff, no advertisers to please, and no style guides, standards, or traditions to uphold. It's a Tower of Babel mishmash filled with junk. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, a 15 year old pimple-faced kid, or just an idiot. Why does this matter? Because one person's opinions are not just as valid as another's, if that other has absolutely no background, s [...]

The Chelm Effect

rhughes

Chelm is the mythical town of fools in Jewish folklore. (There is actually a town named Chelm in Poland, but the stories have little to do with the actual town.) A tradition of Jewish children's literature exists that takes place in Chelm, where the well-meaning townspeople have foolish solutions to real-life problems.

In one classic tale the "wise men" of Chelm (as they're often called) decide to build a library. It had occurred to them that Poland's capital, Wars [...]

Cryptonomicon hurts my brain

scififan

Scifi and fantasy are my greatest loves when it comes to what I read, admittedly, however, there is a hell of a lot of science fiction and and fantasy that I simply don't understand.

A lot of it seems to center aroung the technology or science and the characters play second fiddle-that's just not the way it's supposed to work. I prefer a story that take seriously cha [...]