Defining things is often a task best left to linguists or philosophers, but there a large number of things about which we have these vague, yet certain, concepts living in our minds. The idea of “the future” is one of those things, but if only because there is both (A) a strict definition of “the future” that exists, while simultaneously (B) another vague meaning implied by the same term that is available for common usage. By this I mean, simply, that if I use the term “the future” I can give you a precise definition of this point in time anywhere within a linear chronology following this precise moment: you will finish reading this paragraph sometime in the future, presumably in the near future (a [...]

For the fourth time, I’m re-reading Anathem. And as such, I’ve been pulled back into thinking about (and sort-of in) that Long Now-type thinking, a kind of concept that holds a standing philosophical booking in a dusty back-room of my brain. Long Now philosophically seems to suppose that we try more often to counter-balance our day-to-day, moment-to-moment way of interacting with modern reality by contemplating time scales larger than we are normally accustomed to considering. This kind of thing tends to push timescales of thousands or tens of thousands of years, dwarfing human life-spans and even the collective generations of recorded human history. I’m not quite ready for those kinds of timescales, but it occurred to me that it might be interesting to consider starting [...]

There were a trilogy of science fiction books that I read back in my high school and university days called the “Requiem for Homo Sapiens” by an American author named David Zindell. I don’t really have a solid gauge on their popularity because (a) I’ve rarely encountered anyone else who has read them, but (b) everyone who I have encountered gushes about having read them — so I ask myself: are they unpopular or just unknown? Likely it is simply that they are not to everyone’s taste: hard, rich, and complex sci-fi, rolling-fantastical and quasi-spiritual-philosophical epics with characters that stretch the limits of believability… but I enjoyed them, for what they were. And have re-read them since. Actually, to be fair, I more than just [...]

I’ll avoid this becoming a commentary on the anti-intellectual nature of our society, but I wanted to make it known that I was deeply disappointed to get an email from Indigo.Chapters (the bookstore) providing me with suggestions for books that are “great reads for dads” — presumably just in time for father’s day shopping. This dismayed me not because it was an unsolicited email (which it was not, since I am willingly on their mailing list) but instead because all but one book on their list-fit-for-dads fell into one (or more) of the following categories: non-fiction books about sports non-fiction books about sports media non-fiction books about alcohol non-fiction books written by stand up comedians non-fiction books written by quasi-celebrities non-fiction books about food fiction [...]

The Author of this blog has been reading. Not that the Author has had much time. But nevertheless, the Author has been reading. Ahem. Let me back up. When I was in high school I liked to hang out in bookstores. This is not particularly different from today. I still like to hang out in bookstores. And while most of the books I bought and read whilst in high school were pulp science fiction, there were a couple of rare occasions when my scouring of the stacks netted a paperback that was just that little bit different from the rest. One of those, ahem, rare books was a novel that (at the time) struck me (standing in the bookstore reading the back cover, without the [...]

I had an interesting encounter on the weekend with a good friend who after a short conversation on other topics asked me about this ‘ersatz owl project I’ve been doing.’ He’d found it, read some of it, and (though mispronouncing the name of this blog) had seemed to enjoy reading my work here — and was complementary. Or, at least, complementary to a point. What is the point? What does it mean? He quizzed me. While in some parts of this blog I have spent too many words writing about the operational purpose of building a website that functions as one part resume, one part portfolio, and one part dynamic, shameless, self-promotion tool, I haven’t written much on the philosophy of why one would do [...]