Actually, let me start with the last thing first. I’m not blacked out because I have something to say, and the entire point of opposing SOPA and PIPA is to preserve the ability to speak freely without worrying about government or Big Media stomping us. Follow the links above to get a précis of what …
Author Archives: Michael Scott Shappe
The Future is not what it Seemed
Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it I can sing it for you. Which makes today the 20th …
Firing up the fiction site
Some time ago, looking to experiment with the new multi-site capability of private WordPress installs, I set aside a second URL, “fiction.radiofreeotomorrow.org“, and set up a second WP there. And then, promptly failed to do anything with it. Until today, when I finally posted the first chapter of something that’s been sitting around in my …
Apple Update
I find the tone of this post to be more than a little irritating, but this article pretty much explains what’s going on with the “secret tracking file”.
Memo to Apple re: apparent location logging
[And no, I don't really expect anyone at Apple, except maybe my friend Mike Rawdon, to read this, but it's worth a shot]. Dear Apple: I am an advocate, nay, an absolute unfettered unapologetic lover of almost all your products. I just bought a new MacBook Pro; I stood on line on the first day …
RIP Elisabeth Sladen, 1948 – 2011
Although there’s still some confusion about reliable sourcing, at this point, with the BBC willing to confirm it, it seems that actress Elisabeth Sladen, known best for the role of Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures has passed away at the age of 63. She had been ill for some …
Sorry for the Radio Silence!
Right, so, I restarted this blog, was doing OK for a while…and then fell off the blogging wagon again. There are several reasons, and at the risk of sounding like I’m making excuses, I’ll enumerate a few of them. I got stuck on the second Tom Baker Doctor Who recommendations article. Why? Because I’m trying …
Politics: Understanding American Health Care and Welfare Attitudes 101
In order to understand why so many Americans think that affordable health care is a privilege — hell, to understand why so many Americans think that eating is a privilege — you need to go back about 450 years, to the foundation of the Puritan movement, and more to the point, to its theological underpinnings.
The Tudors: Clean and Dirty
It’s an open secret that, despite being as avid a student of Tudor history as someone who isn’t actually in academia can claim to be, I kinda like The Tudors, meaning the Showtime series written by Michael Hirst. I freely admit that I like it despite its lack of historical accuracy. I have no illusions …