Author Archives: admin

Brain Stretching of a Spinning Skater

So I was wasting time on reddit the other day (happens all too often) where I came across the following video of a girl practicing spinning for figure skating using an off-ice apparatus: You can see the post I read … Continue reading

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Cost/benefit analysis of martial arts training and self defense

I was thinking about my history of training martial arts and how it’s worth/benefit would be analyzed from a purely dispassionate/rationalist perspective. Many (possibly majority) of people start learning martial arts for self defense: i.e. to (hopefully) learn how to … Continue reading

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How High Can a Bullet Go?

There was a question posted on the physics subreddit asking how high in the air a bullet would go if you shot it straight up. It was later removed by the moderators (who knows why?), but I thought it was … Continue reading

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Kensei: a pulpy Japanophobic 80’s technothriller

So yesterday I was doing some housecleaning and getting rid of a bunch of old books that had been stashed in my home office bookcases: novels I’ll never read again, kid’s books that my children have outgrown, etc. I ran … Continue reading

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Black Hole and Earth

In the spirit of what if at xkcd, I saw the following question posted on a thread in reddit/r/space: What would happen if a black hole the size of a grain of sand existed on Earth? The thread was deleted … Continue reading

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Sci-Fi RPGs and Rendering Planets

My bi-weekly RPG group has, like most now, had to move online to keep playing. Though to many playing pen-and-paper RPGs online has become the norm, we’re a bit older and more traditional so it was a first for all … Continue reading

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Imaginary Dice in Your Head – Taking it to the Extreme

Today I saw this post on boingboing with a method to generate a random number from 1 to 6 without the need of a die. The basic method is this: Pick a random word, using any method you like. Sum … Continue reading

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Science Fiction and Fantasy Recommendations: Brandon Sanderson

Where to start with Brandon Sanderson? He is by far my favorite fantasy author today. If I had to sum up his style in one sentence, it would be “Fascinating and intricate magic systems, amazing action sequences, and flawed characters … Continue reading

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Science Fiction and Fantasy Recommendations, pt. 3: Hannu Rajaniemi

Hannu Rajaniemi He’s a fairly new author, and he’s the only Finnish author that I can think of in science fiction right now. He’s best known for his trilogy that begins with Quantum Thief. It’s a little hard to explain … Continue reading

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Science Fiction and Fantasy Recommendations, pt 2: John Scalzi

John Scalzi He’s also a big name in science fiction. Though he’s been publishing short fiction since the 90s, it was the release of Old Man’s War in 2005 that really put him on the map. Old Man’s War is … Continue reading

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