Sequiturs

Sci-fi author Stephen Brust has penned a Firefly-based novel entitled My Own Kind of Freedom. You can download it for free at the link I’ve so thoughtfully provided. It’s pretty good; he gets inside of the characters’ heads, and a lot of the lines sound like they could’ve come straight out of the show. If you like Firefly (and you should!), it’s probably worth a read.

UPDATE: By the way, for anyone whose never seen the show, you can find some episodes here. “Serenity (Revised)” is a fair place to start. “Objects in Space” is my favorite episode, but you need some background to understand it. The whole season can be purchased, of course, from Amazon.

Next time your Windows machine crashes, this should give you Dixie to whistle.

Via GeekPress.

Oliver the…chimp?

I don’t really lend this any credence, but it is a diverting read.

One of the funniest things I’ve found online is Chris Onsted’s comic “Achewood.” The latest strip is fairly typical, and a great introduction.

EDIT: I made a new post with the strip I meant to link to. This link points to comic with less comic genius, in my opinion.

This survey says the technology gets much more favorable reception in Europe. The survey’s author believes religion is the predominant factor in the difference, with religious conservatives in America being skeptical of advances that “are viewed as ‘playing God.’” He also asserts that Americans who oppose nanotechnology were informed of what it is, so they’re not just scared of scary long words they don’t know.

Color me perplexed. I cannot think of anything in Scripture or Christian doctrine that lends even a sliver of support to the idea that building tiny machines is morally suspect. We “play God” all the time, if using technology to alter nature rises to such sonorous description. That’s what humans do. We build houses, develop medicines, and invent machines of all sorts to make life easier and better. Nanotechnology is just the application of the same approach a smaller–and often more useful–scale. So: does this survey reflect some perceived moral difference between large machines and small ones, or is it just wrong? Or, more ominously, does it reflect a general skepticism toward science on the part of Christians? Such a skepticism has no support, to my knowledge, in the Bible, but it wouldn’t be historically unprecedented.

If you’re under clear skies tonight be sure to step out and have a gander at the total lunar eclipse! Saturn will be right in the same neighborhood, too.

The sight of Venus and Jupiter, the two brightest objects besides the Moon in the night sky, within just a couple of degrees of one another, is a spectacle not to miss. The pair will be visible anytime during the last couple of hours before sunrise for the next several days.