Author Archive

Know We Kant.

The single most vital thing I learned at the neurologist this week was: I really need to read up on Immanuel Kant.  Apparently he made a pretty valiant stab at rescuing the concept of Free Will from science, but only by redefining science itself as an unreliable construct.  Or something. My neurologist is pursuing a […]

Continue reading » 37 Comments

Blight Gallery

OK, so it isn’t cancer. Also not myocitis. Apparently that would’ve shown up in the several liters of blood they already sucked out of me over the past couple of weeks. Lyme? “Well, we could test for Lyme. If you really want. You do have the symptoms, I guess…”  Not quite sure why I sensed […]

Continue reading » 31 Comments

The Salt Vampire’s Ugly Cousin

Way back in Grade Seven— Dr. Oakley Junior High, Calgary— Keith Gill spat on my bike. He was half my size, but I knew that if I spat on his bike in return that he would beat the shit out of me. That was the whole idea. This was an act of provocation. He was […]

Continue reading » 110 Comments

Actually, You Can Keep a Good Man Down…

Or, more to the point today, a good woman.  Turns out it’s quite easy, in fact: all you need is a phone or an email account, and a certain kind of craven cowardice. Quoting Sisyphus, whom I introduced in my previous post: Hello again, Peter. I enjoyed your blog post, though thank goodness I didn’t […]

Continue reading » 62 Comments

Zounds, Gadzooks, and Fucking Sisyphus.

“Those who know what’s best for us Must rise and save us from ourselves.” —Neil Peart, 1981   Did you know that Blindsight contains 73 instances of the word “fuck” and its variants? I’ve recently been informed of this fact by a high-school teacher down in a part of the US that— well, in the […]

Continue reading » 54 Comments

The Dudette With the Clitoris, and Other Thoughts on Star Trek Beyond

I used to be a huge Star Trek fan. I watched TOS reruns repeatedly and religiously in high school. Even watched the cartoons. Bought the James Blish episode adaptations, then the (better-written) Alan Dean Foster ones, then an endless series of mostly-forgettable tie-in novels (a few written by the likes of Joe Haldeman and Vonda […]

Continue reading » 32 Comments

Insect Awakenings.

Another PSA announcement: If anyone’s trying to email me, I’m not ignoring you. I haven’t got email for going on 4 days now. Alleged attempts by Dreamhost (the ISP that hosts rifters.com) to fix the problem have so far succeeded in changing its status from from “Everything’s pretty much cool, just a bit of leftover […]

Continue reading » 38 Comments

Virtual Appearances, Virtual Realities

Couple of PSAs to start out with: I’m going to be participating in tomorrow’s Future of Mind Symposium, put on by the Center for Transformative Media down in NYC. (I will, no big surprise, be participating via video-link to reduce the chances of getting killed and/or arrested en route.) The event is free, but you […]

Continue reading » 65 Comments

Shooting Back.

For at least three years now— probably longer— I’ve been worrying at a perpetually-unfinished blog post that tries to take an economic approach to murders committed by cops. I’ve never posted it, for reasons that should be obvious when I outline its essentials. The basic argument is that conventional attempts to reform police behavior are […]

Continue reading » 87 Comments

Sigmoid.

I cried for the Chimp, once. I was there for his birth. I saw the lights come on, listened as he found his voice, watched him learn to tell Sunday from Kai from Ishmael. He was such a fast learner, and an eager one; back then, barely out of my own accelerated adolescence and not […]

Continue reading » 17 Comments