I'm partial to David Graeber's analysis that shows Rome, like its contemporaries in India and China, collapsed because of debt that spiraled out of control (http://www.bbc.co.uk/progra…. Previous empires like Babylon had regular periods of debt forgiveness, but Rome and its contemporaries had forgotten these lessons…

The Roman Empire stuff isn't really a big part of the book, so try not to be disappointed.

Which Philip K. Dick novel is it where the Roman Empire never fell and the modern world is just a thin veneer over the truth? That was an awesome book, like pretty much all of Dick's work.

How many people are like me and didn't find out she was dead until long after the fact because it happened around the time of the 9/11 attacks and I guess the news fell to the wayside? I think around 2008 I was wondering which of the actors had fallen into porn and did a quick Google search and was kind of sad to…

This raises the question, "Is the Mechanical Violator a guy who violates machines, or a machine that violates people?" Either way, that sounds like it was gritty enough in the original.

Where is 'here' for you? All I can tell is that you're probably in Texas but not in Dallas. Austin?

A hoagie laced with strychnine, just like Alan Turing.

I made a secret group of people I don't want seeing that stuff and practically everything Facebook does concerning me. Every now and then I make a benign post available to all my Facebook friends so these people probably just think I don't use Facebook that much. FYI, you can choose to view your timeline as a certain…

Just tag yourself in all of these to creep out the original poster. This also works well for wedding and engagement photos.

I prefer the first movie, but you're right, it's better than it should've been.

The Wolf Children anime sucks ass, just romantic twaddle about nature, seemingly written by someone with very little experience with it. It doesn't even get the nature of wolves right - they're social animals, I.e. they live in packs. A lone wolf would go as crazy as a solitary human, but the film doesn't even hint at…

Since no peace treaty was ever signed, technically the Korean War is still ongoing.

Amazing, even the non-white characters look white.

Here in Toronto there is something called the Really Really Free Market. Every month people go there to drop off books, clothes, kitchen stuff, and whatever else they don't need. (No big appliances, unless they're willing to come back at the end of the day and haul it away when no one takes it). Ever since I found out…

The Predator/Magnus crossover was pretty awesome. I keep hoping that, with a few changes here and there, it can make a really good Predator movie.

Your description makes it sound like the Beyonder jizzed into a different universe, creating new life. I guess that universe was pretty bangin' back in the day.

It looked like it was heading somewhere interesting, then just suddenly stopped. The one-shot with Voight in the 1950s was pretty cool, and it wasn't written by Ellis (plus it had Voight shooting Tony Stark in the back of the head). I'm still curious how it would all have turned out.

No way it's rigged, the US government started regulating game shows after the whole Quiz Show scandal back in the early days of TV.  Didn't you ever see the movie? (Don't really recommend it, it's kinda 'meh'.)

Why did they all leave?  I'm assuming it's because they were getting shafted money-wise, like when the Onion writers wanted to be paid the same and get the same benefits as the Onion News Network people, so the CEO moved the company to Chicago and effectively fired every writer with family and other commitments in New…