Vonnegut's fun, and any random Mark Twain is great (especially Huck Finn), but man do I love me some Umberto Eco. His novels establish themselves in the period of their setting and just drill down deep into the minutiae, so his books are great if that's your bag. The first I read was The Name Of The Rose, largely as a way to hate-fuck that awful, awful movie adaptation (don't watch it by the way, it's awful. And by "it" I mean Christian Slater.) I have no qualms recommending it, nor Foucault's Pendulum, which is like The Da Vinci Code for people not confused by fractions. The Island Of The Day Before is also a cracking read. I cannot speak to the merits of Baudolino, but it sits on my shelf, taunting me. He also has collected essays, which are fine for what they are. But the novels have the advantage that they are so damn long and dense you'll only need one book for the whole break.

As for me, I'm spending the holidays plowing through the Lemony Snicket cycle.

Wait, so Michelle Bachmann is a liberal now? Jesus fuck, the Republicans must have really gone far right then.

Slashdot Asks: Whom Do You Want To Ask About 2012's U.S. Elections?

Regardless of outcome, a fucking grief counselor.

Ask and ye shall receive...

No, this is *actual* capitalism at work. Now, if these developers were to fail due to their greed and rank incompetence and receive an 800 billion dollar taxpayer-funded bailout...

The fact that the "Global Warming" (oh sorry, now it's "Climate Change" since Al Gore's P.R. folks sat around and came up with that as a more palatable term to use instead when speaking in public) crowd wants to call everyone else a "denialist" shows the amount of polarization on this topic.

Wow, you really are an uninformed asshole aren't you: Origin of popular usage of "climate change" instead of "global warming".

That's what politics is all about!

So does Slashdot, with the proper use and dosage of alternate pharmaceuticals...

Given the number of true believers here (people I equate with the deniers on the skeptic side), I am wondering how long this post, all of which is factual and can be confirmed with relative ease, will be modded "troll". Seems to happen to all posts that are in any way skeptical.

One thing that could have been confirmed with relative ease is the name of the person who led the study — MullEr, not MullAr. Although given your description of him as part of the "mainstream side", maybe you are talking about a completely different person. Unless by "mainstream" you meant a scientist who goes where the facts lead him instead of his politics.

In case you aren't just being an ass, I'll avoid being one (just this once) and ask...

How does your list of ecological atrocities compare to that for the extraction of fossil fuels? Unless it is wildly out of balance (and it's not), the net gain comes from not injecting X amount of mega-million-years-old sequestered carbon per joule created into the atmosphere.

I hope they found his saddle so the Creation Museum can update their exhibits.

Guess what else? Congress defunded the closing of Gitmo. And while it was expected that Republicans would be their usual demogogical selves, at least it's comforting that we can still count on Congressional Democrats to be as craven as they have been since the whole GWOT bullshit started in the first place.

Moot point, since Bush's terms were over. Now, if can you say that he was no worse than a hypothetical McCain administration...

Although to be fair, I am fairly certain that McCain also would have withdrawn our troops from Iraq. I'm just not completely sure that his withdrawal would not have been across the border with Iran.

I haven't read the article, but the idea sounds kosher.

Good night, tip your waitresses.

Considering their attention-whoring targets are the likes of military funerals and Mr. Rogers, it would be a fucking honor to have made these douchebags' lives miserable enough to justify them picketing my funeral. Sic semper cuntannis.

I should probably check that before I post to slashdot, because they'll be cruel if I remember incorrectly. But, eh. I'll take my chances.

You lose! For exoplanets of mass insignificant compared to its parent star, the relation is
M(star) x Period^2 = Distance^3

So if the mass of the star were doubled, the period would decrease by a factor of 0.7071. And if the orbital radius doubled, the period would increase by a factor of 2.828.

On the plus side, that would alleviate the global warming situation, although to a degree of compensation much to our detriment.