So today we heard about the Flame Virus, now infecting the Middle East and Iran. What this demonstrates is how effective governments can be when they turn to cyberwar.  It puts the hack tools used by the likes of Anonymous far, far into the shade. “The complexity and functionality of the newly discovered malicious programme […]

Someone pointed me at the online edition of Forbes, which features an article about an independent bookstore that is, contrary to about every other independent bookstore in the country, thriving in the current ebook-saturated environment. Jeff Mayersohn, the new owner of the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, managed to create a bookstore even more efficient than […]

Here we see a view of one of the most famous back porches in America, that of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. I spent a couple days traveling through Virginia before the Nebula Weekend, and one day— while Kathy was visiting a school chum in Charlottesville— I decided to go off in search of history. I started […]

Behold!  A composite photograph of yesterday’s annular eclipse, showing all stages of the event. The reason the light turns amber as the eclipse progresses has nothing to do with the eclipse, and everything to do with the fact that the sun is setting as the event occurs. In fact, the sun was still in partial […]