I've been keeping quiet about the mass school shooting in Florida some weeks ago because it's such a hot-button topic, and many people speaking out are catching harrassment and death threats - even the students who survived the massacre.  Of course, the National Rifle Association went on the record as saying, quote, "The NRA doesn't back any ban."  Meaning, of course, they'll do their damndest to hamstring any new legislation that has to do with guns.  It's also worth noting that there were multiple law enforcement officers - trained and armed - at the school, and they did nothing.  Which isn't surprising to …

As I write this, it's roughly a week before my 40th birthday.  I'm sitting in a hospital waiting room tapping away on Windbringer while Lyssa undergoes surgery to remove a cataract from her left (and only working) eye.*  When this post goes live on the day of my actual 40th birthday, more things will undoubtedly have happened.  I don't know how much time I'm going to have in the next few days, so I guess I'd best take advantage of the spare time I have due to how busy I've been lately.

A lot's happened in this past year that …

I guess I should wish everybody out there a happy Thanksgiving that celebrates it.

I haven't been around much lately, certainly not as much as I would like to be.  Things have been difficult lately, to say the least.

Around this time of year things go completely berserk at my dayjob.  For a while I was pulling 14 hour days, capped off with feverishly working three days straight on one of the biggest projects of my career, which not only wound up going off without more than the expected number of hitches but has garnered quite a few kudos from …

And now, hopefully sooner than the last set, my notes taken during the Transhuman Superpowers and Longevity Conference held on 12 July 2015 in Oakland, CA. Everything's behind the cut, with references as applicable. Personal observations (are on separate lines in parenthesis) to differentiate them from the speaker's material. Vertical Farm Civilization - Karl Doerrer

• Dr. Dickson Despommier at Columbia University in 1999
• Resource management
• Published his first book on the topic in 2009 - The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century
• People seeing your own rig makes people want to build their own
• Social symbiosis
• Indoor vertical farming …

Mirrored from this pad at Telecomix, here are links to the deaths of multiple peaceful protestors in Syria. Much of this footage is graphic in nature, but it's also of people literally putting their lives on the line in the hope of making a better world to raise their children in. Please repost and retweet this widely.

You're an adult the moment you sit down and work out how many years you probably have left.

"You won't be young forever
there's only a fraction to the sum
you won't be young forever
nor will anyone."

I'll spare everyone my usual apology for not posting anything lately and jump right into a catch-up post as a warmup for a longer, hopefully more interesting entry later today.

First of all, earlier this week a cultural icon passed - Bettie Page, queen of the pin-up, died of pneumonia at the age of 85 following a heart attack suffered earlier this month. Page was well known for her line of 'naughty girl' photographs, which featured nudity, lingerie, implied lesbian trysts, and even light bondage (the latter two scandalous for their time). Page stopped modelling in 1957 and all but disappeared …

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, famous for writing novels such as 2001: A Space Odyssesy and Rendezvous With Rama died today at his home in Sri Lanka. Clarke was 90. A prolific author during his lifetime, he penned over one hundred texts, science fiction and otherwise. Clarke had been confined to a wheelchair since the year 1995 due to the onset of post-polio syndrome, an affliction that plagued another famous author some time ago, one Robert Anton Wilson. Clarke is also widely credited for the invention of something we take for granted today, telecommunication satellites in geostationary orbit around the planet …

Word is slowly seeping into the gaming community that Gary Gygax, the inventor of Dungeons and Dragons, went beyond the veil early today. Reports are sketchy - the usual newswires don't have anything yet, but it's been said that he died quietly and was surrounded by family.

EDIT: Official news release here.

Mr. Gygax, thank you for everything. You've given thousands, if not millions of people over the years hours without number of fun and taught many how to imagine. My heartfelt condolences go out to his family and friends.

See you beyond the edge of Time, perhaps.

Right now, it's de rigeur for people on the Net to make fun of the ingominous death of the Reverend Gary Aldridge, who was found dead in his home this past Sunday. Because the details in the news report may not be safe for work, I'm going to put the rest of this article behind a cut... It seems that the good Reverend, a buddy of Jerry Fallwell's, had a thing for rubber (he was found wearing not one but two wetsuits), self-bondage, and autoerotic asphyxia, and when he was found dead it seems that the ligature around his neck …