Week 90

07.28.03

I am way into these "Taklamakan"-style schemes where simulation guys with algorithms just kinda evolve some machine tools. That could be pretty handy, huh? Can't wait to see 'em at Home Depot!

http://www.discover.com/aug_03/
gthere.html?article=feattech.html

07.29.03

Early Apple people were weird, but Jef Raskin, that guy is out-there by any conceivable standard. I can imagine people a hundred years from now uncovering Raskin's carryings-on and just shaking their heads.

http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/j_raskin_2.html

07.30.03

I like it a lot when scientists create some art, and you can see that they really like art and are proud of their efforts, and yet, they just aren't really very good at it. They're about as good as, I dunno, a lawyer who designs his own summer house and is really proud about his architecture.

http://www.anl.gov/OPA/sciart/index.html

07.31.03

Okay, so, Iran and Iraq had this war once, as you may recall, and among its lesser-known incidents was an aerial encounter with a UFO north of Teheran.

http://iiaf.net/stories/warstories/s8.html

The Imperial Iranian Air Force: deader than Hammurabi.

http://iiaf.net/archive/patches/
Patches2/images/AFPilotInsignia2_jpg.jpg

Here's the former Iranian Empress hanging out reading her email, and doubtless receiving many a gallant compliment from the graying cavaliers of her former Air Force.

http://www.farahpahlavi.org/

http://iiaf.net/stories/warheroes/warheroes.html

08.1.03

Handy dossier here of all the nation-states that have abjectly disintegrated in the last half-century. What do you do for "international order" when there's no nation there?

http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/stfail/sftable.htm

I reckon you engage in "nation-building," except then they might blow up the power lines and sewers just as fast as you can build 'em.

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006D87C.htm

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-429es.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0703/p06s01-woiq.html?worldNav

Bruce Sterling writes books like Darwin watched animals. Find out more about him, and read tattered electronic copies of Cheap Truth, at the Bruce Sterling Online Index. He lives with his wife Nancy and their two daughters in Austin, Texas.