Yes, I am making good progress on my next novel. The first one, incidentally, was written (mostly on duty) when I was working as a professional in the security of cultural property — and I wrote it longhand, in notebooks. This current creature is being composed on a unibody MacBook, and I’ve noticed something: as I write, I am constantly referencing Wikipedia. The following is a list (in order of appearance) of tabs in my web browser.

Saratov (Russian: Ru-Saratov.ogg Сара́тов (help·info)) is a major city in southern Russia. It is the administrative center of Saratov Oblast and a major port on the Volga River. Population: 873,055 (2002 Census);[1] 904,643 (1989 Census).[2] In addition to ethnic Russians, the city also has many Tatar, Ukrainian, Jewish and German residents.

The Notre-Dame Affair was an intervention performed by members of the radical wing of the Lettrist movement (Michel Mourre, Serge Berna, Ghislain Desnoyers de Marbaix and Jean Rullier), on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1950, at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Michel Mourre, dressed in the habit of a Dominican monk and backed by his co-conspirators, chose a quiet moment in the Easter High Mass to climb to the rostrum and declaim before the whole congregation a blasphemous anti-sermon on the death of God, penned by Serge Berna.[1][2][3]

Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and behavior, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences.[1] With numerous historical debates, many varieties and philosophical positions on the subject of determinism exist from traditions throughout the world.

Oxycodone is an opioid analgesic medication synthesized from opium-derived thebaine. It was developed in 1916 in Germany, as one of several new semi-synthetic opioids with several benefits over the older traditional opiates and opioids; morphine, diacetylmorphine (heroin) and codeine.

Eigenstate: In linear algebra, every linear transformation between finite-dimensional vector spaces can be expressed as a matrix, which is a rectangular array of numbers arranged in rows and columns. Standard methods for finding eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and eigenspaces of a given matrix are discussed below.

Joseph Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili – 18 December 1878[1] – 5 March 1953) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. In the years following Lenin’s death in 1924, he rose to become the leader of the Soviet Union.

Tramadol (INN) (pronounced /ˈtræmədɒl/) is a monoamine uptake inhibitor and centrally-acting analgesic, used for treating moderate to severe pain. It is a synthetic agent, and it appears to have actions at the μ-opioid receptor as well as the noradrenergic and serotonergic systems.[1][2][3] Tramadol was developed by the German pharmaceutical company Grünenthal GmbH in the late 1970s and marketed under the trade name Tramal.[4] Grünenthal has also cross licensed the drug to many other pharmaceutical companies that market it under various names such as MEDTRAP(NEOMED) Ultram and ULTRAM® ER. Tramadol’s chemical structure is quite different from those of opiates. The closest chemical relative of tramadol in clinical use is tapentadol, which is a member of the same chemical class as tramadol and also developed by Grünethal.

Alton Glenn Miller (March 1, 1904–missing December 15, 1944), was an American jazz musician, arranger, composer, and band leader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1942, leading one of the best known “Big Bands”. Miller’s signature recordings include, “In the Mood”, “Tuxedo Junction”, “Chattanooga Choo Choo”, “Moonlight Serenade”, “Little Brown Jug”, and “Pennsylvania 6-5000″.[1] While travelling to entertain U.S. troops in France during World War II, Miller’s plane disappeared in bad weather. His body was never found.

Short Circuit is a 1986 comedy science fiction film starring Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg and directed by John Badham. Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton, and G. W. Bailey co-star, with Tim Blaney providing the voice of robot “Number 5.” The story revolves around a sentient robot labeled “SAINT Number 5.” The acronym SAINT stands for “Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport.” The robot later takes the name “Johnny 5″.

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of uniquely human characteristics to non-human creatures and beings, natural and supernatural phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts. Subjects for anthropomorphism commonly include animals and plants depicted as creatures with human motivation able to reason and converse, forces of nature such as winds or the sun, components in games, unseen or unknown sources of chance, etc. Almost anything can be subject to anthropomorphism. The term derives from a combination of the Greek ἄνθρωπος (ánthrōpos), “human” and μορφή (morphē), “shape” or “form”.

Humans seem to have an innate capacity to project human characteristics in this way. Evidence from art and artifacts suggests it is a long-held propensity that can be dated back to earliest times. It is strongly associated with the art of storytelling where it also appears to have ancient roots. Most cultures possess a long-standing fable tradition with anthropomorphised animals as characters that can stand as commonly recognised types of human behaviour. The use of such literature to draw moral conclusions can be highly complex.

Within these terms, humans have more recently been identified as having an equivalent opposite propensity to deny common traits with other species—most particularly apes—as part of a feeling that humans are unique and special. This tendency has been referred to as Anthropodenial by primatologist Frans de Waal.

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, GCB[1] (January 26, 1880 – April 5, 1964) was an American general, United Nations general and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and later played a prominent role in the Pacific theater of World War II. He was a highly decorated US soldier of the war, [2] receiving the Medal of Honor for his early service in the Philippines and on the Bataan Peninsula.[3] He was designated to command the proposed invasion of Japan in November 1945. When that was no longer necessary, he officially accepted the nation’s surrender on September 2, 1945.

MacArthur oversaw the Occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. Although criticized for protecting Emperor Hirohito and the imperial family from prosecution for war crimes, MacArthur is credited with implementing far-reaching democratic reforms in that country. He led the United Nations Command forces defending South Korea against the North Korean invasion from 1950 to 1951. On April 11, 1951 MacArthur was removed from command by President Harry S. Truman for publicly disagreeing with Truman’s Korean War Policy.[4]

MacArthur fought in three major wars (World War I, World War II, Korean War) and was one of only five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army.

Have you checked out BarbaryShore.com? The website of an august local publisher called, well, Barbary Shore, this is your one stop shop for books by local authors — including the writing of Vincent Scotti Eirene, Jesse Hicks, Matt Stroud, and yours truly. What are you waiting for?

JG Ballard was born in the International Settlement in Shanghai prior to World War II, received some of his earliest education in Japanese prison camps, and eventually traveled through space and time to conduct violent autopsies of the Western psyche through an uncompromising form of science fiction. Best known for Crash, the Drowned World, and Empire of the Sun, he had been fighting prostate cancer since 2006. He was 79 years old.

Check out a short interview with the man after the break.

[Via NME]

I have a pretty casual relationship with Jonathan Phillips over at Reality Sandwich. He’s extremely hands-off as far as editors go, something which I appreciate. I can generally trust him to make minor edits to these little news items I post on the site from time to time, since I don’t really want to be bothered with okaying every little edit. Unfortunately, he really hacked up the last thing I wrote for him, an item about Alex Jones’s “documentary,” The Obama Deception. Which is a shame, because the whole thing read much better and made more sense the way I presented it.

In the weeks since this review was written, three police officers were tragically murdered here in Pittsburgh by a “white power” type, and for a time, Alex Jones was implicated by some members of the local and national media. It seems as though they both tread in different ends of the “conspiracy milieu,” and in the narrow minded view of mainstream media that was enough to indicate a cause and effect relationship. It’s highly unfair and more than a little irresponsible to connect a madman’s violent outburst with the work of a radio talk show host half a continent away (especially on less than no evidence at all), so it looks like someone owes Jones an apology.

In one of his books, Adam Parfrey writes of the fine American tradition of the “folk researcher,” the type of person with “the audacity to consider themselves their own best authority, in repudiation or ignorance of the orthodoxy factories” of the universities, the State, and the media. Not only is the urge to rebel a fundamental part of the American character, but I’d argue that the ability to “think for yourself and question authority,” as Tim Leary used to put it, is an essential skill in these times of climate change, economic upheaval, and accelerating technology.

It was with all this in mind that I watched Alex Jones’s documentary The Obama Deception the other night. Jones is one of a long line of home grown conspiracy researchers, from Mae Brussell through William Cooper — with whom he shares a gravelly voice and the firm conviction that all of the world’s problems can be blamed on a multinational cabal of Satanists. You have to give these guys credit: they are grassroots historians and media critics, expending heroic amounts of time and effort into the search for a truth that just cannot be found in the mainstream of American society. Still, as a whole, these types generally turn me off: the “conspiracy” crowd has always been far too cultish, too sectarian. Their literature rarely evinces the sort of nuanced thinking or essential humor of Robert Anton Wilson, for example.

I enthusiastically watched the movie, and I really wanted it to be successful. The central argument is, indeed, one that I agree with: That the corporations are corrupt, that in order to become President of the United States one has to be in bed with the corporations, and therefore any President — even one with the charm and intelligence of President Barack H. Obama — is to be watched very closely, if indeed they are to be trusted at all.

But if Americans need a fair appraisal of their President and the dangers facing the world as we move headlong into the 21st century, they ain’t gonna find it here. The film is more of an expressionistic mood piece than a documentary, using dislocated soundbites, montage, and ominous music to scare the bejeezus out of you, without relaying any useful information at all. Unless, of course, you consider the “fact” that humans haven’t (and cannot) cause global warming to be “information.” In which case, you might want to check out the YouTube video that proves that President Obama and Osama bin Laden are the same person.

Ray Goulding (b. March 20, 1922 – d. March 24, 1990) was an American comedian and one half of Bob and Ray. He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts — a little over a week after the birth of that other famous comedian and son of Lowell, Jack Kerouac. Historians are unsure who’s work evinced more pathos, but they are quite clear on which one lived longer.

My introduction to Norman Mailer was The Time of Our Time, the anthology of his work published on the fiftieth anniversary of his first book, The Naked and The Dead. Time was like one of the old Audubon bird books, a full color catalog of one man’s ecosystem. This guy rough handled the 20th century much in the same way Didion did, except at the end of the day no one really wants to have a beer with Joan Didion.

Mailer was large; so large, in fact, that he somtimes contradicted himself — he contained multitudes, in the words of Mr. Leaves of Grass. He made “mistakes,” committed artistic crimes that were obvious to everyone but himself. He made boring / compelling films, committed existential violence that on occasion spilled over into very real violence, and he said silly things about feminism. And in the end, this is why Mailer matters — he was an excessively honest writer, and when you’re being honest you can’t always be appealing.

One reaches a point where they must choose between commercial appeal and what they feel — and I don’t think Mailer ever seriously considered anyone but himself when it came time to put pen to paper. And this is evident in his work: his books are flawed, but they’re masterpieces, and even when they’re terrible they’re compelling. And this is why he’s still the champ.

As most of you undoubtedly don’t care, my life lately has been devoted to a loving mistress and superlative technology blog called Engadget. This is a post that I wrote today only to find out that it was already covered — in April. Not exactly news anymore, is it? Still, it’s fun, so I though I’d share it with the 3.2 visitors I get to this site each and every month.

Smile detection for your camera is one thing — but if you’re in the "smiling business," as they say, you’d better have some high tech kit to keep your employees in line. At least that’s what the digital imaging folks over at Omron think — the company has just debuted its "Smile degree real time scanning sensor," a system that uses a small video camera to capture a person’s face — after that it’s a small matter of rendering it in 3D and determining whether you’re smiling "enough." Perfect gear for service industries, or any organization that wants to regiment and control every aspect of your life — including the way your mouth is hangin’. Now wipe that stupid smile off your face and get back to work!

Read: Real time scanning smile smile once scanner

A semi-regular look at the heartache and pain of self-serious celebrities. Is there anything more annoying than a Baldwin Busey in rehab?

When the gang in Season Two go to art therapy, we are surprised to learn that our celebrity rehabistas are angry, fucked up people with lots of issues stemming from their childhood — hurt feelings that they mask with drugs and alcohol.

My man Sean Stewart — son of ‘Rod the Bod’ (see above) — knows a lot about taking heroin but, sadly, never learned to spell the word.

Click ahead past the break for some more Celebrity Rehab ‘art.’

Gary Busey's tales of angelic intervention would give L. Ron Hubbard a run for his money.

Jeff Conaway has the same high-pitched, nasal New York, manic energy of the late Dee Dee Ramone -- whose paintings weren't much better than this.

What can I say? My man Rodney King has had a tough life, and we're hoping for the best. For reals.

We're waiting to find out if Sean Stewart has any musical aspirations himself -- and we're really hoping he doesn't. But it would be awesome if he hooked up with Amber Smith -- they'd make a cute couple.

A semi-regular look at the heartache and pain of self-serious celebrities. Is there anything more annoying than a Baldwin in rehab?

You know, it occurs to me as I watch this ex-American Idol freak out on her first day of clean (reality TV) livin’ that I need a new land line. Something like the one above. Where do you even find a rotary dial phone anymore?

… and you know what that means! Inauguration Day specials for all of you Beltway “johns.” There’s no taxation without representation for these patriotic escorts.

[Read: "Washington, DC craigslist, erotic services, inauguration"]