The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Rob Hansen:

Bloody hell! That was a scare they really didn't need. I sincerely hope the siezure is a one-off event. My best wishes to them both.

As promised, the other half of my commute is now up at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/85428352@N00/sets/72157622495174830/

Mention of gaming the system reminds me of an article I read some years back which stated that while prisoners in the US could not vote they nevertheless counted towards the population of an area when it came to determining congressional representation and that prisoners from traditionally liberal cities being incarcerated in prisons in conservative rural areas was working to the advantage of Republicans. Anyone know any more about this?

Ok, so I've photographed my commute and split it in two as 'To Work' and 'From Work', each of which is a month's worth of free flickr space. So I've posted 'From Work' here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/85428352@N00/3948669898/in/set-72157622317448645/

and will add 'To work' in October, which is just over a week from now. This set ends at the entrance to the Greenway, that being the bit that both halves of my circular commute have in common.

These have all been tagged 'bikecommute'.

pnh: I love cycling in London, but I do have to admit that almost all the cycling I've done there has been in the company of Avedon Carol's husband Rob Hansen, who appears to know every short-cut in the city, every parking lot, hidden pathway, sheltered mews, canal towpath, and other way to minimize riding alongside fast-moving traffic on busy streets. Riding with Rob is also a great way to wind up seeing bits of London whose existence you never would have even suspected.

Well, I'm pretty good on my side of London, but the west remains terra incognita for me. I still like to set off on the bike most weekends and explore bits of this side of London I don't yet know. My mantra is: "hmm, I wonder what's down here?"

I should cycle into work more often than I do (15 mile round trip) since it's not a difficult ride for this 54 year-old and I continue to refine it so as to eliminate every last bit of dealing with major roads that I can. Actually, I ought to take and post a set of pics of some of the more interesting things I see on my route, particularly since the return leg takes me by the big Olympics 2010 development, whose progress I've been following with interest.

Of course the casual racism was less impressive.

With older works you have to overlook stuff like that, and similarly prolematic attitudes towards women, if you want to enjoy them. They were of their time and you have to make allowances for that. I remember Asimov writing of his love of Agatha Christie's work despite him being both American and Jewish. He overlooked her unfortunate attitudes in order to appreciate other qualities in her work. Of course, this leads to inevitable questions about whether or not you should excise questionable passages in older works where the loss of same doesn't materially affect a work. I vote not, though I certainly understand why, say, the dedication of the book to Hitler was removed from later editions of 'Tarka the Otter'.

I always liked this one by Billy Connolly:

"as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit"

Torchwood: Children of Earth just aired here over the last five nights and will be airing in the US on BBC America over five nights from 20th July. Even if you thought every previous episode of Torchwood was rubbish, you should watch these. Over on HuffPost, TV reviewer Ed Martin says:

Torchwood: Children of Earth is the television event of the summer. In fact, this is one of the finest television productions you will see all year.

He's right. If you can avoid spoilers, do. Tough, uncompromising, and brutal, it has some breath-taking twists. It was edge-of-the-seat viewing for all five nights.

Xopher: I suggest that if the Christian Brothers refuse to bring their criminal members up to face justice, and the government is cooperating in their obstruction, then a) all the Christian Brothers should be considered equally blameworthy (any with a shred of ethics would renounce the order after such an outrage) and therefore b) any Christian Brother you meet should be treated as if you KNEW he was a child molester

Seems entirely reasonable. This reminds me that 15 or so years ago some friends of ours, who were heavily tatooed and pierced, had drummed it into their young daughter that if ever she got lost she should seek out someone who looked like them to help her. Probably good advice, in retrospect. If I had kids I'd tell them to keep well away from 'men of the cloth'. Like it or not, events have shown there are more child molesters among their number than there appear to be in the general population.

Make that a year later. Seemed longer, somehow....

In re great logos, I have to offer the following:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-logo-to-red-faces.html

Still makes me laugh, several years later.

If you check back on that page, the author concerned has posted back today urging those wanting to boycott Amazon to continue buying books by gay authors from them but to boycott all others, and giving her reasoning.

While I'd usually be all for giving Amazon the benefit of the doubt, the fact this was pointed out to them a year ago, threads discussing it were deleted by them, and people were quite deliberately given the runaround, speaks to something different going on. For more on this see:

http://www.afterellen.com/node/48877

Happy anniversary! We hit 25 next year so 30 doesn't seem so distant anymore.

Lisa @8: The thing about aliens, though, is you can use them to explore aspects of humanity. Zombies? not so much. Nor vampires. Werewolves, maybe a little bit.

Actually, there's a show over here on BBC3 at the moment called BEING HUMAN that features a werewolf, a vampire, and a ghost sharing a house in Bristol which manages to do just that:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/beinghuman/

And talking of zombies, the most enjoyable zombie tale I've seen in an age was TV series DEAD SET, which is set largely in the Big Brother house from the eponymous reality TV show, whose inhabitants are oblivious to the zombie holocaust sweeping the globe until zombies start turning up at the gate:

http://www.e4.com/deadset/

Fantastic news! Getting out of the hospital for a while like that can only be a good thing. We all struggle for the occasional word as we get older, but I can only imagine how frustrating that level of aphasia must be. Let's hope his recovery continues.

OK, not an American - but does the Mormon church have tax-exempt status? If so, wouldn't their pouring of millions of dollars into supporting Prop 8 conflict with such status? If both of these are in fact the case, how could that tax-exempt status be challenged?

Nothing to forgive, Velma. And please be sure to attend to your own physical needs, too.

I certainly knew what the title of Van Vogt's book was referring to when I first encounted it but I don't recall whether that was from my own general reading or something I was taught at school. Certainly things like this, and Harlan Ellison reporting that a reference by him to 'the emperor's new clothes' was recently met with incomprehension by a group of college students, are a bit worrying.

Done, finally!

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