Heke’tan or Rogal Dorn, which is right? Perhaps neither of them (with due...
In the distant future the Emperor of mankind (not yet referred to as “God Emperor” as the official position, at this time, of the Imperium of mankind is that the Emperor is not a God) faces a terrible...
View ArticleThe Walking Dead
“Walking Dead” and the rest of television and movie entertainment shows that the left still have not learned the lessons of the the colony the Mayflower founded. In the “Walking Dead” the world is...
View ArticleBook review: First Hook
Simon Gibbs has a review of Clive Fox’s cute quick techno-thriller ‘First Hook‘, which has launched today. The series is modelled on shows like the A-team, but produced natively for consumption in...
View ArticleA question for our times
Anyone else watching Star Trek: Discovery? ‘Tis quite the novelty in Solent Mansions: my dear husband and I sit down and watch television. On the very day a new episode comes out, my dears, for we will...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day
An Engineer, a Mathematician and a ‘Climate scientist’ are each asked “what is 2 + 2?” The Engineer says “somewhere between 3.9 and 4.1”, the Mathematician says “4” and the ‘Climate scientist’ says...
View ArticleIn order of priority
“Comicsgate is the latest front in the ongoing culture wars”, writes J A Micheline in the… I don’t really need to say it, do I? The results of both the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential...
View ArticleIt was a GOOD day for justice
Of the many stories of science fiction, fantasy and horror that I have read in my time, the one – I think the only one – that for years afterwards I wished I had never seen was It’s a Good Life by...
View ArticleTwo discussion points inspired by Stephen Wolfram
The first one is straightforward. The internet threw me a talk by the computer scientist and businessman Stephen Wolfram today. It lasts three minutes 21 seconds and is called “How humans can...
View ArticleAh, happy days
“Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing. He couldn’t be more wrong”, writes Jason Hickel, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics. Prior to colonisation, most people lived in subsistence...
View ArticleA book right out of the R. A. Heinlein tradition
Gregory Benford has a new book out, called Rewrite, and while I tend sometimes to be careful of pre-publication hype, this looks mighty promising and a good way for me to while away the hours as I fly...
View ArticlePerils of alternate history wargaming
A father and son duo run a YouTube channel about historical tabletop wargaming called “Imperator Vespasian”. They run through demo games, talk about making and painting models and so on. Recently they...
View ArticlePresident Bush will soon bring Gilead to America!
Some time ago a striking article by Fiona Maddocks appeared in the London Evening Standard. The link that Google gives you to the Evening Standard’s own site is dead, but I found a working one on...
View ArticleSpaced Out review
Found on the 8-12 shelf, Space Case by Stuart Gibbs is a science fiction adventure story set on a realistic moon base in which its twelve-year-old protagonist helps to solve a murder mystery. Its...
View ArticleIt lets us pretend that it is us talking
Samizdata no longer needs me. Soon it will no longer need you. I took the text from the sidebar: The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect...
View ArticleRefelections on wealth from City 17
Sometimes you do not quite appreciate a thing until you find you can not get it. In the game Half Life: Alyx (one of the best things you can do in virtual reality right now), the Earth is oppressed by...
View ArticleI predicted this, it didn’t happen. I predicted this, it didn’t happen. I...
European MPs targeted by deepfake video calls imitating Russian opposition
View ArticleTo call it “Project Cassandra” was hubris
As soon as I saw it I thought of psychohistory. I was not alone, judging from the most recommended comment to this fascinating Guardian article: ‘At first I thought, this is crazy’: the real-life plan...
View ArticleThe work of construction
As the author says, this is a long thread, but in these days of uncertainty when so many yearn for examples of selfless effort for the common cause, well worth your time. I found #15… disturbing. Edit:...
View ArticleThe Matrix Preloaded
I thought that after most of a lifetime reading science fiction and alternate history I knew all the ways Hitler could have won World War II if just one little thing had turned out differently, but I...
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