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Christmas on Mars
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No comments on Christmas on MarsToday I received an invitation from Space School UK to their ‘Christmas on Mars Reunion Weekend’ (it’s not really Christmas, but mid-December). I went to a Space School UK course several years ago, and it was enormous fun – building rockets, going to lectures, and meeting lots of other teenagers who were interested in space.…
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Small Things
A few days ago, I received a package from Japan that I presumed contained the tape recording of the radio interview I did a couple of weeks back. I wasn’t in any particular hurry to check its contents because I don’t have a cassette player to listen to the tape, and even if I did,…
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Retroactive destruction
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…
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Cereal
Turning books into cereals – who knew it could be so fun? Witness ‘Consider Breakfast’ by Iain Banks, ‘Chomsky’s Universal Grahams’ and Stephen Hawking’s ‘Universes in Nutshells’.
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Reprise
Saw Donnie Darko a second time today, with a friend from Leeds; it survived rewatching quite well. Afterwards, I described my ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ theory of cognitive development to her. It’s a little like Piaget’s controversial theory (although obviously much sillier). Jean Piaget was a psychologist who believed that children when through qualitatively different levels…
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Musical
The soundtrack CD of Spirited Away I ordered from Play.com arrived today, and it’s wonderful. While I wouldn’t go so far as saying that I don’t like Disney songs – there are, after all, some great ones – would it really hurt them that much to make a film without a single song? If they…
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Donnie Darko
I saw Donnie Darko on Saturday; it’s a teen/SF/thriller/dark comedy movie, and not necessarily in that order. I thought it was very entertaining – there were some great lines in the school scenes, the music and direction was well done and overall the acting was good. It’s interesting how Donnie Darko turned out. Usually there’s…
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Army of Penguins
Such is the power of Google; I go to a lecture by Steve Jones tonight, and five minutes after I get back I can find the exact same image of a bull elephant seal surrounded by its army of penguins used by Steve.
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Robert Mundell’s Top Ten Benefits From Winning the Nobel Prize
Robert Mundell’s Top Ten Benefits From Winning the Nobel Prize – starts with ‘Can end almost any argument by asking, “And did you ever win a Nobel Prize?”‘
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Spiritng Neal Stephenson Away
A review of a lecture by award-winning SF author Neal Stephenson, on ‘Newton/Leibniz’, together with a review of Miyazaki’s film ‘Spirited Away’.