A Commonplace Book

Back when I was in High School, in the early 1970s, I loved Keith Laumer's Bolo stories about gigantic cybertanks. I later designed a wa...

The fight for the Hugo s continues I was going to title this Keep Calm and Swat a Puppy, but that would be mean, and nobody wants to be me...

If your stated goal is to land the first stage of your rocket on a barge in a condition suitable for reuse, then landing on the barge in suc...

For those of you who care about the Hugo awards , Mary Robinette Kowal and some anonymous donors have made a very generous offer . It is par...

Of course, he couldn't win one then , either. Because Farnham's Freehold .

The only reason this isn't quite as devoid of meaning in ordinary use as "fascist" is that the people that use it as a pejorat...

People that share the literary tastes of Theodore Beale (AKA Vox Day) and Brad Torgersen, in that order, have managed by disciplined voting ...

The earl of Derby took six minstrels with him on his two expeditions to Prussia in 1390-93: two trumpeters, three pipers and a nakerer in th...

Properly fitted medieval hose should not bag significantly at the knees. If it is so long that it can't be laced high enough, there is a...

L’Art d’archerie  divides arrows into two types, waxed and glued. The arrows from the Mary Rose seem to be examples of the first type. At th...