The Cambias Digression

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

  • Where to Find Me at WorldCon 76

    This coming week the 76th World Science Fiction Convention will be held in hazy San Jose, California, and I'll be one of the participants. If you want to see me, here are my scheduled appearances: THE CULINARY SPECULATIVE: Food in Fiction (Friday, August 17, 12:00 noon in room 210C of the San Jose Convention Center).…

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  • Emotionless Bad Guys

    Yesterday I was reading a James Lileks blog post about the legendary 1956 Roger Corman sci-fi movie It Conquered the World. If you haven't seen it, you probably should — because effects, locations, and extras were expensive, Corman reduced an alien invasion of Earth to a character piece, focusing on Lee Van Cleef (of all…

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  • More Bad Flags

    This time it's not me griping about flags, it's a gentleman with the incredibly badass name Roman Mars. The scarlet-faced avenger gave a TED talk about flag design, highlighting some of America's best and worst city flags.  He properly cited Chicago's flag as one of the best, and derided New York City's as lackluster. He…

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  • Revolutionary Thoughts

    As one does on July 4th, I was thinking about the American Revolution. Specifically, about the commander of the Continental Army, George Washington himself. From all accounts, Washington was not a quixotic man. He wasn't the sort to throw away his life and his fortune in a doomed cause. (Unlike his admirer and relative by…

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  • A Scientific Hypothesis

    Regular readers of this 'blog (you both know who you are) may have noticed that I spend a fair amount of time thinking about Life, the Universe, and Everything. Specifically: where is all the Life in the Universe, and why is Everything so silent? Yes, it's time for yet another look at our old friend…

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  • Humorous Interlude

    Ever since I got rid of my gall bladder I've been thinking about the ancient medical doctrine of the Four Humors. A brief recap: until about 1830 or so, medical theory in Europe was based on the idea that the human body's processes are dominated by four "humors," and that illness is the result of…

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  • The Pessimistic View

    In my last 'blog post I may have come across as a little over-pessimistic. My theme was the fundamental impossibility of telling "realistic" future stories. In particular, I mentioned that by the time humans venture to other star systems, they will no longer be human by our standards. Is that true? Well, consider. It's going…

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  • Pure Fantasy

    Most of science fiction is pure fantasy. Seriously. Take my own story A Darkling Sea. It involves humans traveling to another star system and interacting with aliens. That's fantasy, right there. There's no way to actually travel faster than the speed of light, and we have no evidence of any other intelligent life in the…

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  • Thoughts On The Dreaded Backstory

    David McGrogan writes interesting roleplaying games, and he had some interesting thoughts about fictional characters in his most recent 'blog post. You can read it here. If you're lazy and want me to just tell you what it says, his main point is that the urge to bolt a backstory onto archetypical characters (like James…

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  • Why I Have Four New Holes

    "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres . . . " — Caesar A week ago, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, my stomach hurt. The sensation was very precise: a single point, directly under my sternum. I had been out to lunch with my son, so I cleverly deduced the cause. Obviously I had…

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