The Cambias Digression

Notes and thoughts on everything from what I had for breakfast to the fate of the Universe.

  • Medical-Historical Notes

    No, I'm fine. Not that kind of medical history. I'm talking about the history of medicine, and the history of medical terminology. A couple of weeks ago I had my annual checkup. It mostly consisted of a blood draw and some lab work, to see if all my humors were properly balanced. But I did…

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  • Random Encounters: The Infinite Library

    "The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty shelves, five long shelves…

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  • The Baristiary

    For more than twenty years now I've done a lot of my writing in coffee shops. It gets me out of the house, I can observe my fellow pseudointellectuals and blowhards, and I don't have to answer the phone or walk the dog. In that time I've seen a lot of coffee shop employees. A…

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  • Random Encounters: Martian-Ravaged London

    (Yes, the Random Encounters are back! Once again, I'm going to try to put up one table each week.) The Martians dropped down out of the sky onto southern England in the spring of 1899, and got as far as London before succumbing to Terrestrial germs. They left behind a devastated city, transplanted Martian organisms,…

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  • A Curious Omission

    Like most people, I went to see the Disney/Marvel super-epic Avengers: Endgame a couple of weeks ago. It was good; I give it an A overall. This post isn't a review or analysis of the film. It's just one question. The question is this: during the Big Final Battle with all the heroes against the…

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  • Unleash The Wild Hunt!

    No, not the one with mythical hounds and/or Celtic deities crossing the sky on dark nights. The one with University of Chicago students taking a break from being obsessive overachievers in order to overachieve obsessively. Here's this year's list. Can you get all these things before noon Sunday?   And if you haven't got the…

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  • Hollywood Insider Gossip!

    According to my Hollywood sources the actual title for Star Wars Episode IX will not be The Rise of Skywalker, but rather Everything Rian Johnson Told You Was A Damned Lie A Film by J. J. Abrams    

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  • Be Careful What You Wish For

    It's an old lesson, but one we must re-learn every now and then. Recently I began to suffer from "gamemaster withdrawal" after half a year or so without running any roleplaying campaigns. I was bursting with ideas for games, so finally I sent out a call for interested players, and drew up a "prospectus" of…

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  • A Cinematic Contradiction

    Recently I was watching a video bemoaning the current state of Hollywood. I won't bother linking it — you've seen it before, or read it in print. Hollywood has no creativity left, it's all remakes and adaptations of older stuff. You know the drill. I don't really disagree. I do think that we forget how…

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  • Disaster Excuses

    One common thread running through science fiction, almost since the beginning, is a concept I call "Disaster Excuses." A Disaster Excuse is some awful event used to justify what would otherwise be an unlikely technological project, journey, or social change. For a long time the standard Disaster Excuse was nuclear war. From 1945 up to…

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The Worldbuilding Index