Ethel the Blog
Observations (and occasional brash opining) on science, computers, books, music and other shiny things that catch my mind's eye. There's a home page with ostensibly more permanent stuff. This is intended to be more functional than decorative. I neither intend nor want to surf on the bleeding edge, keep it real, redefine journalism or attract nyphomaniacal groupies (well, maybe a wee bit of the latter). The occasional cheap laugh, raised eyebrow or provocation of interest are all I'll plead guilty to in the matter of intent. Bene qui latuit bene vixit.

The usual copyright stuff applies, but I probably won't get enraged until I find a clone site with absolutely no attribution (which, by the way, has happened twice with some of my other stuff). Finally, if anyone's offended by anything on this site then please do notify me immediately. I like to keep track of those times when I get something right.

How to blog? METABLOGGING Blog Madness Blog Portal linkwatcher Monitor BLOGS (YMMV) abuddhas memes alamut apathy arms and the man baghdad burning bifurcated rivets big left outside boing boing booknotes bovine inversus bradlands bushwacker camworld cheek chess log cogent provocateur cool tools counterspin crooked timber delong digby drat fink drmike d-squared dumbmonkey electrolite eschaton estimated prophet ezrael fat planet flutterby! follow me here geegaw genehack ghost glare gmtplus9 hack the planet harmful hauser report hell for halliburton honeyguide hotsy totsy club juan cole kestrel's nest k marx the spot kuro5hin lake effect lambda large hearted boy leftbanker looka looking glass macleod maxspeak medley memepool metagrrrl mike's monkeyfist more like this mouse farts my dog norbizness off the kuff orcinus pandagon pedantry peterme philosoraptor pith and vinegar plastic portage q quark soup quiggin randomwalks rip post rittenhouse see the forest shadow o' hegemon sideshow simcoe south knox bubba slacktivist smudge submerging markets sylloge synthetic zero talking points tbogg twernt unknownnews vacuum vanitysite virulent memes whiskey bar windowseat tv wood s lot TECH Librenix use perl rootprompt slashdot freshmeat Ars Technica 32BitsOnline UGeek AnandTech Linux Today Tom's Hardware DevShed

"When they say, 'Gee it's an information explosion!', no, it's not an explosion, it's a disgorgement of the bowels is what it is. Every idiotic thing that anybody could possibly write or say or think can get into the body politic now, where before things would have to have some merit to go through the publishing routine, now, ANYTHING." - Harlan Ellison JOLLY OLD PALS Other stuff of mild interest to some: unusual literature scientific software blog physical oceanography glossary computer-related tutorials and texts Tuesday, February 13, 2001 TEN MORE QUESTIONS N. David Mermin was prompted to put together his own list by the briefly famous Physics Questions to Ponder featured in the NYTimes a few months back. His ten questions can be found in the Feb. 2001 issue of Physics Today. posted by Steven Baum 2/13/2001 10:53:31 PM | link Sunday, February 11, 2001 SENOR SLACKASS I've got three weeks worth of Sunday NYTimes sitting next to the desk here begging to have their salient points summarized mostly for the benefit of moi, but I've entered one of those "lazy plus drunk plus SAD plus aging dog plus whatever" stages that detract somewhat from my ability to drag my ass off the couch and away from the alcohol long enough to perform any task beyond getting another beer. Not to worry, though, I've not yet embraced any sort of Hemingway-esque eschatology thing. For one thing, obtaining the shotgun would take more time, money and energy than I can currently muster. posted by Steven Baum 2/11/2001 10:55:44 PM | link THE INTERMITTENCY RAG I told y'all I was going to be intermittent, so if you don't like the update frequency then occupy yourselves in the interim by reading such nifty novels as I've detailed in the last two entries. I strongly suspect that those who - for whatever reason - stop by here to peruse the obsessions of your humble narrator will not find those novels recommended today unpalatable. Do yourself and the authors a favor by snagging one of their novels instead of the next trendy novel du jour featured on 7 out of 10 weblogs. posted by Steven Baum 2/11/2001 10:51:14 PM | link FURTHER NEGLECT Speaking of authors whose talents - although orders of magnitude greater than those of such godawful egregrious hacks as Piers Anthony, Jeffrey Archer, ad infinitum - have yet to be rewarded on a level commensurate with their talent, Alan Cheuse reviews the latest Jonathan Carroll magnum opus - The Wooden Sea - in today's NYTimes Book Review (with the first chapter of the book available online to tantalize the uninitiated). I was introduced to Carroll via his first novel The Land of Laughs at just about the same time I was introduced to Tim Powers and William Gibson as detailed in the immediately previous entry. It was a very good year. Cheuse also comments on the thus far unappreciated Carroll. He thinks this may be Carroll's commercial breakout novel: ''The Wooden Sea'' may well be the book that brings those new readers in. It is set, as is some of Carroll's other fiction, in the imaginary Hudson Valley town of Crane's View. The action begins with the local police chief (and the novel's narrator), a Vietnam veteran and former bad boy named Frannie McCabe, taking in an abandoned dog at the station house. This turns out to be no ordinary dog. A mixed breed, ''mainly pit bull covered by a swirl of brown and black markings so he looks like a marble cake,'' the dog wears a red leather collar with a heart-shaped tag bearing the name Old Vertue. He ''has only three and a half legs, is missing an eye, and breathes weird.'' Caroll's the same sort of dog fanatic that I am, with his first and most recent novels prominently featuring a dog in the plotline, and most of those in-between also featuring a bowser in one way or another. Both he and Powers are not breaths but hurricanes of fresh air when it seems the fantasy genre has largely been relegated to interminable trilogies, tetralogies, etc. featuring a host of mythological characters whose forms and personalities were done and done much better by Tolkien more than a half century ago. Think of them as modern-day throwbacks to such as James Branch Cabell, whose talents sparked the fantasy genre before Tolkien unintentionally turned it into a ghetto of horrible, horrible hacks doomed to churn out tenth-rate "Lord of the Rings" imitations until hell freezes over. posted by Steven Baum 2/11/2001 10:14:24 PM | link I DECLARE I can count on one hand the number of authors who prompt me to automatically reach for the appropriate number of Andy Jacksons needed to snag their latest novels. Tim Powers is one of those few and his latest tour de force - Declare - was snagged by yours truly about nine hours ago. I've spent seven of those hours drooling my way to about page 300 of 500. The first Tim Powers I read was The Anubis Gates (my Powers favorite along with the out of print The Stress of Her Regard and the back in print The Drawing of the Dark, the latter still having my favorite multi-entendre title), which I recall I bought used the same day I bought William Gibson's Neuromancer at the local Half Price Books. Yep, that was a truly fine day for yours truly, fictionwise. I though Powers had retreated from his "everything and the kitchen sink" jones as his last three interlinked novels progressively become more and more about less and less (albeit still better written than 99% of the swill out there), but he's recovered his older modus operandi without retreating as a writer. When he's on, nobody but nobody can weave together the real (Kim Philby and the British intelligence apparatus over the last century and a half) and the fantastic (the djinn or genies of Middle Eastern legend) into a tapestry so intricate and compelling that the realization that disbelief has been suspended comes, if at all, as an afterthought. Given the time period covered and the huge role played by the English intelligence establishment, this impressive as hell tome can be seen as complementary to Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, with my pleasureable response to both pinning the needle well past ten and requiring recalibration. If you like rollicking, roller coaster-like novels (not unlike the unfortunately long-vanished Edmund: A Butler's Tale although without as many naughty gypsies), then you can't go wrong with the latest novel by one of the two novelists named Powers currently writing consistently interesting fiction. posted by Steven Baum 2/11/2001 09:19:53 PM | link

Comments? Archive LISTS Books Software uPORTALS cider crime lit drive-in fake lit hurricanes os scripting sherlock texas music top 100 weirdsounds wodehouse LEISURE abebooks alibris amazon bibliofind bookfinder hamilton powells all music guide best used cds cd bargains second spin raven's links ampol arts & letters atlantic art history attrition bibliomania bitch bizarre bizarro bloom country bob 'n' ed bob the angry flower callahan chile pepper classical music cnnsi crackbaby cult films culture jamming discover disinformation dismal scientist electric sheep espn exquisite corpse feed fine cooking fishbowl fluble fried society fry and laurie hotel fred hotendotey hypocrisy network jerkcity last cereal leisure town logos london times mappa mundi miscmedia mp3lit mr. chuck show mr. serpent national geographic new scientist no depression not bored obscure store onion on-line books parking lot is full pearly gates phrase and fable probe red meat rough guides salon Simpleton sluggy freelance spacemoose spike straight dope strenua inertia suck superosity tawdry town too much coffee man toon inn verbivore vidal index yes minister you damn kid