Probably it's not that surprising

To see a Heinlein quotation in a discussion of the latest Mark Steyn book.

[reconsidering subject line due to comments]

The following is the current forecast discussion for Hurricane Katia. Note the last line:

An interesting anecdote

scott_sanford linked to this article on Jane Jacobs (whose work I find worth considering without building my life around it [1] or feeling the need to buttonhole people about it in meatspace). There's an interesting claim in it. Can anyone verify that this is not an illustrative exaggeration?

There are also regions bypassed by city life-- hardworking areas living by subsistence agriculture, slowly losing skills they once had. Jacobs mentions a settlement where her aunt was sent as a missionary. The aunt wanted to build a church from the large stones found in the riverbed; but the locals patiently explained that this was impossible. As everyone knew, mortar could only hold small stones; and even those could only be used for small structures like chimneys, certainly not a whole wall. This was not the Third World; this was 1930s North Carolina, and the people were descendants of people with a long tradition of stonemasonry.

How long does it take to lose skills like that?

1: I did use her stuff as the motivating philosophy of a community of fanatics in one RPG.

Emily Lakdawalla's New Horizons Day 2: Tectonic features on icy worlds

"Let's start," he said, "with what we know about the tectonics of Pluto." His next slide showed the current best image of Pluto and was otherwise blank but for the text "there are difficulties."

Old news I meant to link to but forgot

Look, SFWA Active and Lifetime Active members! It’s the ballot for the incorporation of the organization in California, which will allow for a raft of useful benefits to our organization, including tax-deductible donations to the organization and the ability to give grants through our emergency medical fund and legal fund, rather than loans.

I had assumed for no reason whatsoever before I saw this that donations to e.g. the emergency medical fund could be tax deductable already.

Dark secrets of SF writers revealed

Derryl Murphy lives in Saskatoon?

I think Napier's Bones was one of the books I read during this field trip. It had a Tim Powers vibe to it. Not too ostentatiously Canadian but I could tell the author was probably from there because they'd heard of specific places in Canada.

Celebrating compassion seems harmless enough

so why does this creep me out?

GRAIL on its way to Moon

NASA Launches Mission to Study Moon From Crust to Core

Noticed at the Way the Future Blogs

Hannes Bok: Futurian Artist in Chief

That expedition worked so well for Hannes that it gave him the funds to make the move to New York, and that too worked pretty well. Well enough, at least, for Hannes to enjoy some years of relative affluence — affluence enough, that is, for him to pay the rent and have enough left over to eat regular meals.

The Unhappy Ending

Is something the matter?” [Hannes] asked.

I lied. “No, nothing,” I said. But what I had seen in that quick snarling grin had been a real shock. The man had no teeth at all, not even dentures.