Author Archives: Alaska

And We’re Back!

Posted on March 6, 2018 by Alaska

As a quasi-test of my ability to embed stuff after almost a year’s absence, here’s a link on Twitter to David Hines’ awesome running list, followed by the video links to the ones I liked. The Gael was played at … Continue reading →

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On Moonlight

Posted on February 27, 2017 by Alaska

I have not yet seen “Moonlight,” but will now; not for the Oscar, but because I used to swap between Fuji and Kodak for artistic effect: …the three chapters of the film were designed to imitate different film stocks. The … Continue reading →

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Mandocello Madness!

Posted on February 23, 2017 by Alaska

As a child I wondered why you could not find a acoustic bass guitar. Enter the mandocello: Hat tip: Allison Hayward, whose sighting of Mike Marshall at Wintergrass 2017 spurred me down the rabbit hole. Check this out!

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

RNS Quote of The Day, 01/02/17 — Vice Edition

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Alaska

(He had done, he liked to say, all the vices.) —Larissa MacFarquhar, describing philosopher Bernard Williams in her endlessly-delightful New Yorker article on the late Derek Parfit, “How to Be Good.” I find her prose, BTW, to be both astonishing … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense, Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel! | Leave a comment

Time Travel: Berlin, 1900

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Alaska

I found this video, film of 1900 Berlin colorized and slowed to normal speed, tremendously affecting. The facial expressions did it. Those ghosts are all too real.    

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Stephen Hsu and Some Guy Who Played Bongos

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Alaska

To some of us, this photo has the same emotional resonance as the one of Bill Clinton shaking JFK’s hand had to a very different tribe: I still try to reread Feynman’s QED every year. You should too.  

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense, Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel!, Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

There Goes My Bank Account

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Alaska

…seen on Facebook: “Find out the Snap-On part number for what you want. Go to amazon and paste in the part number with “Williams”. You’re welcome.” This is not what to say to a completist. Snap-On’s outrageous (yet understandable) pricing … Continue reading →

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Greenmantle Lived!

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Alaska

Y’all may recall my liking of John Buchan’s early twentieth-century thrillers. One that’s a rollicking read but that I’d always thought more than a bit fanciful is Greenmantle, about a Muslim uprising in the Caucasus, instigated by the non-Muslim Germans, … Continue reading →

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Epic Fail

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Alaska

This is delightful.

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Pre-Thanksgiving Entertainment

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Alaska

I don’t know about you, but similar to Playboy and articles, I read Slate Star Codex for the puns. And other humor, like amusing metaphors: “Like the ski resort of young girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for young … Continue reading →

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