Sequiturs

Nothing particular to say about this excerpt that I find it awesome. Here is how Neil Stephenson introduces a main character in his novel Cryptonomicon.

Let’s set the existence-of-God issue aside for a later volume, and just stipulate that in some way, self-replicating organisms came into existence on this planet and immediately began trying to get rid of each other, either by spamming their environment with rough copies of themselves, or by more direct means which hardly need to be belabored. Most of them failed, and their genetic legacy was erased from the universe forever, but a few found some way to survive and to propagate. After about three billion years of this sometimes zany, frequently tedious fugue of carnality and carnage, Godfrey Waterhouse IV was born in Murdo, South Dakota, to Blanche, the wife of a Congregational preacher named Bunyon Waterhouse. Like every other creature on the face of the Earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo–which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn’t a stupendous badass was dead. As nightmarishly lethal, memetically programmed death-machines went, these were the nicest you could ever hope to meet.

It seems like every other paragraph of the novel starts with something completely out of the blue like this. I think I’ve found another favorite author.

Achewood is awesome. The old link was broken, so I’m reposting this. If you haven’t visited yet, you’re missing out.

Sometimes, if the police can’t think of a law to arrest you under, they’ll just arrest you anyway. Call it disorderly conduct! It may not be disorderly, per se, but it surely is conduct, at least.

I have no idea what event this man was photographing, but it must have been embarrassing or worse to warrant confiscation of the camera without a warrant. As Michael Silence points out at the link, the authorities will probably remove or delete the offending pictures even if the charges against the photographer are dropped. This sort of thing has become all too common, and a legislative solution is needed. Policemen who knowingly and blatantly violate civil rights should be liable to criminal penalties, and have their immunity from civil legal action revoked. Some measures to prevent the destruction of evidence, such as those photos, also need to be in place. Most policemen are decent people and respect the rights of citizens. But a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.

Airline pilot Patrick Smith offers a morbidly interesting take on the current state of airport security:

“Ma’am, that’s an airline knife. It’s the knife they give you on the plane.”

“No knives. Have a good afternoon, sir.”

It also looks like TSA is trying to bolster its image by pretending it has police powers, rather than by acting more reasonably. The whole thing is worth reading.

Hat tip: Geekpress.