I’ve got a story from my daughter’s one-year-old birthday party. When kids are 5 or 6 years old, a birthday party is all about Curious George or My Little Pony or some shit, but a 1-year-old party is mainly for the adults. I was sipping on a beer and holding my little girl, and she tried to grab my bottle. I thought…

You want odd? I showed my kids the video for “Go”, which they loved. While looking for more videos they might enjoy, we came across “The Salmon Dance” (which I have since had to watch about a thousand times).

I didn’t mean to imply that ALL K-pop groups fade away after a few years, there are obviously exceptions (which is why I mentioned Shinhwa the “longevity group”). Bigbang is also very exceptional, one of the few K-pop groups that have a significant following in the Western world. But the fact still remains that most…

Agreed. 2NE1 has released Japanese-language versions of their albums in the past to cater to that market, so until and unless we see an English-language version of an album (or a brand new album that is all or mostly English) then I’m not considering it a proper attempt to break into the American market. And the…

Be fair here. Shrayber and ROYGBIV have nothing to do with editorial-level decisions made by Gawker as a whole.

1) Try this: type “IRS targeted conservative groups debunked” into Google and then read any one of the dozen or more articles that come up.

Right there with you, bud. Consider Phlebas had massive issues, pacing and characterization being the worst of them. If I had read Phlebas and nothing else, I would not have understand the love people have for the Culture. Player of Games was what made me a lifelong fan of Banks, and in fact gave me the patience to…

I would like to disagree with the other recommendations here that you have to read them all in order. Culture Novels are designed such that you can pick up any of them at any point and read them in any order (there are a few small clues to other books, barely even “Easter eggs”. If anything, it’s an impetus to re-read…

Welllllll...???

The news of Ms. Lee’s passing hit me right in the heart. Biting the Sun is one of my top-10 all-time reads. I must have read it a dozen times in my life.

I was actually going to mention this exact series/narrator, and I’m only going on a strong second-hand recommendation. My brother and I have very similar tastes in movies/literature, so we’re always trading suggestions. I told him to check out Storm Front about 3 months ago, and he just told me last week that he’s…

I think the Grey/not-Grey status is particular to each site and sub-site. You might be not-Grey on io9 but still Grey here on Gizmodo, or vice versa.

Reviewers often tend to mention your name in the same breath as William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Do you consider them to be your peers? Are there other authors/scientists/artists that you think of yourself as being associated or “on par” with?

To paraphrase a great review that I read somewhere about season 1 of The Strain: “They somehow managed to cram four or five episodes’ worth of plot into thirteen episodes.”

The person that makes me coffee is The Best Person On Earth right at that moment. I am always polite, friendly, and patient at a coffee shop because I know that no matter how shitty my day has been up to that point, it is about to get (at least a little bit) better. The phrases I use most often at a coffee shop are…

That reminds me of one of the most fucking awkward moments of my adult life. I was hanging out with my (now ex-) girlfriend's mother Sarah, who I had a decent friendship with. The two of us were watching an old episode of the Simpsons, in which Homer is explaining to Moe that Lisa is a vegetarian. Moe is so repulsed…

Dr. Seuss is a timeless treasure. I feel that parents will be reading his books to their kids for generations (or even millennia) to come.

Hah. For me it was Fox in Socks. My twin daughters are now five so we don't read that one much anymore, but I swear I must have gone through it like 800 times in the past few years. I tried different tricks to keep it interesting - reading it in different accents or funny voices, trying to rip through the…

I noticed that too!

I am not entirely sure why I started with Consider Phlebas since someone had informed me well in advance that all the Culture novels can be read in any order. It was the one I had heard the most about, I suppose. I wasn't really that excited by Phlebas (pacing issues, spotty characterization, and the…