I started as a photographer in the late 80's with a 70's era Olympus SLR. Not a great camera, but I loved it so much I recently bought a used one on Ebay. I built a darkroom, got a Minolta Maxxim, got a used Ricohflex, and eventually moved into large format with a Sinar 4x5. I had to put my photography on hiatus…

It's worth noting a couple of things here. First, Dickey throws his knuckleball harder than is the norm - it really shouldn't work. A knuckleball thrown much faster than 65 mph is a batting practice ball usually, because the velocity straightens out the pitch. How he manages is a mystery. Second, while the video is…

I don't see why. There's absolutely no reason a woman couldn't be a conventional pitcher in MLB. Certainly, there probably aren't very many women who could throw a 95 mph fastball, but there aren't that many men who can either, and there have been many hugely successful conventional pitchers who never threw higher…

"Understand" is sort of a problematic term. This is one of the best Open Channels in awhile, and I've really enjoyed the posts, but I think we understand art in many different ways beyond rational delineation of plot and chronology.

"Understand" is sort of a problematic term. This is one of the best Open Channels in awhile, and I've really enjoyed the posts, but I think we understand art in many different ways beyond rational delineation of plot and chronology.

Or,

Am I the only one who thinks that trailer would have fit perfectly with the trailers in Tropic Thunder?

Well, one does wish to be polite. As opposed to being a fucking prick.

Thank you for the illuminating and edifying introduction to basic astronomy and your continued condescension - although many of your statistics further illustrate your apparent aversion to reading things. While I am deeply impressed by your ability to dodge my assertions by setting up a straw man argument - that is,…

Not Science Fiction, but I am now old enough to acknowledge transgressions of youth, and admit that until I saw the films "Romero" and "Salvador," I was sort of a young Republican. I was still in high school, but nonetheless.

Have you actually read anything Sagan wrote? Essentially everything you say is wrong. Not in the sense that perhaps we disagree about how to interpret what Sagan said and believed, but in the sense that what you are saying is factually incorrect. And your condescending dismissal that he was "a great popularizer of…

I started this novel probably 3 or 4 separate times when it was first published, which was right after I finished my English Lit degree. I just couldn't get through the first part - Maya Toitovna. It really is pretty boring, but once you get through that first part and its important exposition and character…

From The Confusion by Neal Stephenson:

Some years ago, just after my divorce, my daughter, who at the time was 6, was having a very hard time, and my mother and I decided that we would take her to Disneyland to try and cheer her up a bit. Now, as far as I was concerned, this was a "take one for the team" kind of proposition. I was fully prepared to bury my…

Wow. I saw "The Quiet Earth" during its very short theatrical run in . . . '86? Where I live we didn't get small independent films until really the last decade, but for a few years there was a theater here in town that tried to bring such films to town. I have never forgotten this film. The music, the photography, the…

Concerning the claim about wheat bread raising LDL, the cited study was very small - only 36 men - and the participants were already overweight, and the supposed increase was relative to oat cereal. This is the sort of nonsense - what Michael Pollan refers to as "nutritionism" - that gave us trans fats and the Atkins…

There is definitely some pretty noxious chauvinist/paternalistic bullshit in the article, but I have to say that the pathologizing of introversion is equally noxious. Speaking as an extreme introvert, I can say that a consistent difficulty for those of us with this particular personality alignment - which is not a…

I complained initially about the redesign, but then thought that I was simply being cranky and would get used to it; I've certainly had this experience with site redesigns before - initial hostility at the change and then coming to like it.

I both agree and disagree. Bottom line is that I was very sloppy with that statement. My point was that a case can be made that both of these sides are predicated on a false dialectic as regards the truth of scripture and dogma.

Thanks to everyone for both your praise and critique; I would like to point out that my comment contained some over-simplification for the sake of brevity. I also appreciate the unexpected absence of outright trolling. Finally, I'm only oversimplifying and distilling the thought of a number of thinkers and…