Somehow I can't imagine it will be long before we hear from Iana on that front as well.

Agree with all of the above. Also, isn't he pretty clearly playing in the vein of Roger Corman and the Troma folks? Seems odd to draw a line from him to something as self serious as "Saw" and its ilk.

It's funny you mention "Idol" because the only reason I paid as much attention to figure skating as I did this time around is that I've become a recent convert to "So You Think You Can Dance".

Thanks for the pointer to the article as it finally at least partially allowed me to understand what the hell is going on in figure skating judging.

A thousand times this. People like Kurzweil have been predicting the keyboard would become obsolete "in about 10 years" since the 1950s. And here we are in 2014 with speech recognition software that's still fairly clunky (though it really has gotten a lot better of late).

I don't really think the two are very similar. Hung was an arrogant, confident, brash, badass the entire season (plus he smiled and could be funny - e.g. the cereal challenge). There was never any question he was an exceptional chef.

You're completely right, but I think the show tries to have it both ways and that's what leads to the frustration.

Those little news and interview clips are perhaps my favorite part of DOTD - they just add so much texture and depth. For my money there's never been a more fully realized apocalypse put to film.

"The normal question, the first question is always, are these cannibals? No, they are not cannibals. Cannibalism in the true sense of the word implies an intraspecies activity. These creatures cannot be considered human. They prey on humans. They do not prey on each other - that's the difference. They attack and they…

Properly canned food can last almost indefinitely, and most food lasts a lot longer than we tend to think more generally. Expiration dates have more to do with quality (taste, texture, etc.) than actual spoilage.

I also think it's relevant that he *did* have at least minimal human contact through the radio/rocks system. Psychologically, the difference between "minimal" and "none" is gigantic.

This book is if anything even better than the review makes it sound. It's compulsively readable and funny while while also being a true "hard" sci-fi book - not always an easy to find combination. I could happily have read 1000 more pages of it.

She really was, and I say that as someone who was a bit on the fence about her debut column here. Not that there was anything wrong with her piece, I just wasn't sure how up my alley it was*.

You were in good company with your idea - I've been meaning to try this myself for a while now.

I like to think that the unspoken subtext there is that we'll all clear out our second bedrooms so they can easily jump ship to our side.

good christ, get over yourself.

Disagree completely and utterly. I guess that's about the extent of what we have to say here. Cheers.

I can't speak for British atheists, but in America nobody cares what theologians think, because academic arguments about the existence of god lag far, far, behind more pressing issues like people pushing to ban contraception and enshrine the oppression of gay people into law.

I think it's a bit of a "fine dining" thing, as some (many?) high end restaurants actually don't have salt on the table. The dish represents the chef's vision, and you're more or less expected to take it as is. If it needs salt or anything else, that's a failure on the chef's part. And if it's meant to come with…

John Teti and Sean O'Neil need to start a podcast together. They are an axis of awesome.