Mssv

Someone needs to tell the BBC News Online team how to write:
“However, just a small proportion of educated people have access to IT - but the vast majority of Indians, about 70% of the population, still live in villages and the challenge is to make sure they don’t get left behind.”
‘However… but…’ - what’s going [...]

“… You should aim for a total text length of 6000 words. Other than in exceptional circumstances, you should not exceed 8000 words.”
That’s a typical guide for a dissertation at Cambridge. When I read that, I think to myself, ‘Okay, in that case I should aim to write around 6000 words.’ Seems straightforward enough.
But apparently [...]

As much as I love reading Wired, I find it a bit tiresome how they go completely over the top in using overtly techy terms when more normal (and accurate) ones would do. For example on the reviews page, Iain Banks is described as writing ‘post-cyberpunk novels’. Well, that’s interesting, because the last time I [...]

New words and terms I’ve heard at my lab:
Fiascotorial, adj.: combinations or permutations of fiasco-like situations. e.g., “And then the squirrel fell into the bowl! Just imagine the fiascotorial possibilites!”
Gene-jockey, n.: derogatory term for a geneticist or molecular biology. e.g., “Those gene-jockeys working on the squirrel genome project, they don’t understand that the real discoveries [...]

There are some novels that are truly magnificent, that remain with you for years and at times influence who you are. Most authors, having written such novels, are wise enough to leave their works alone and move on to something else. A few authors will embark on writing a sequel.
A few sequels match or even [...]

Psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers like to talk of a hypothetical instrument called the ‘cerebroscope‘. The first time I heard about this, in San Diego, I expressed a bit of surprise, and then asked, ‘Why isn’t it called a ‘brainoscope’?”
I was expecting to be told that people used ‘cerebroscope’ because it sounded more impressive (always a [...]

It used to be that I’d reply to all personal email as soon as it arrived. Those days, alas, have been gone for some time now. While I do receive more personal emails, response time has not increased proportionally - more likely it’s increased logarithmically. I’m not entirely sure why this is so. It’s not [...]

The reliably humorous winners of the 2002 Bulwer Lytton contest for worst opening sentence for a novel. Also, check out the 2001 Lyttle Lytton contest winners, which limits the sentence length to 25 words.

I’m in the middle of reading Lobsters by Charlie Stross and while it’s very enjoying (a kind of superpowered MacLeod without the communism - okay, that doesn’t make any sense, but still) I can’t help but think - does anyone actually talk like this?
“I work for the betterment of everybody, not just some narrowly defined [...]

The folks at New Mars won second place in the Kuro5hin haiku contest for the princely sum of $24! See the reaction at the New Mars forums.