“‘I had no master. I taught myself.’ ‘How?’ ‘From books.’ ‘Books!’ (This in a tone of the utmost contempt.) ‘Yes, indeed. There is a great deal of magic in books nowadays. Of course, most of it is nonsense. No one knows as well as I how much nonsense is printed in books. But there is […]
Hieroglyph: Stories & Visions for a Better Future is an outgrowth of Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination. Since the project was inspired by a Neal Stephenson essay (one of my favorite authors), I figured it would be an enlightening and worthwhile collection of speculative fiction. And while that turned out to […]
“How to describe a London party? Candles in lustres of cutglass are placed everywhere about the house in dazzling profusion; elegant mirrors triple and quadruple the light until night outshines day; many-coloured hot-house fruits are piled up in stately pyramids upon white-clothed tables; divine creatures, resplendent with jewels, go about the room in pairs, arm […]
“A gentleman could not do magic. Magic was what street sorcerers pretended to do in order to rob children of their pennies. Magic (in the practical sense) was much fallen off. It had low connexions. It was the bosom companion of unshaven faces, gypsies, house-breakers, the frequenter of dingy rooms with dirty yellow curtains. Oh […]
“Mankind can build a Great Thing. Sometimes we do it. But then we have to live with the consequences of greatness. What does a Great Thing tell us about ourselves? Not that we are great, but that our Great Things are so rare, and so much abused. So many in our dreams, so few to […]
“‘If you don’t feel temptation, you’re not making moral choices.’” ––Hieroglyph: Stories & Visions for a Better Future, “Periapsis,” by James L. Cambias, pg. 294 “As an example of unintended consequences, Oxford University ethicist Nick Bostrum suggests the hypothetical ‘paper clip maximizer.’ In Bostrum’s scenario, a thoughtlessly programmed superintelligence whose programmed goal is to […]
“Imagine awakening in a prison guarded by mice. Not just any mice, but mice you could communicate with. What strategy would you use to gain your freedom? Once freed, how would you feel about your rodent wardens, even if you discovered they had created you? Awe? Adoration? Probably not, and especially not if you were […]
Tom Holland’s Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic makes it easy to understand why the fall of Rome still animates the imaginations of contemporary scholars and history enthusiasts. Striking a deft balance between erudition and accessibility, Holland’s narrative is replete with lush sensory details that bring the Roman Republic’s last century to life. […]
“There was only one thing you could do on Wegetit.com: show that you understood someone’s framing of an idea. There were two text fields, one for a word or concept (very short) and a longer one, for about a tweet’s worth of definition. You could let fly your idea of what something meant and wait. […]
“On 19 August Octavian, still not yet twenty, was formally elected consul. Then, having secured the condemnation of Caesar’s assassins as traitors, he left Rome and marched northward, straight toward the advancing army of Antony and Lepidus. Between the rival Caesarian leaders, unchallenged masters now of the entire Western empire, there was to be no […]