Paul Simon is good

I was listening to a random playlist on my Rio Karma the other day when "I Know What I Know" from Paul Simon's "Graceland" album popped up. It just reminded me what an incredible artist Paul Simon is.

I remember in early January 1992, I bought Simon's "Concert in Central Park" on dual cassette tape (remember those?) in Hong Kong on my way to China's Hainan Island. I sat on the deck of this Chinese passenger ship with a fellow traveller named Tim. We each took an earbud and listened to the concert over and over again under the tropical sun. We marvelled at the skill of the musicians and Paul's magical lyrics.

I recently read something someone wrote somewhere about Dylan being the only decent modern lyricist, but Paul beats Bob hands-down in my book.

Schild's Ladder is a tough climb

I just finished the sci-fi novel "Schild's Ladder" by Greg Egan. It was very difficult to get through. The science is very hard.

I can deal with, indeed I relish, hard sci-fi that focuses on engineering and technology. I'm down with the likes of Greg Bear and Alastair Reynolds. But "Schild's Ladder" gets into quantum weirdness that goes way over my head.

It might have worked better as a novella.

Year of the Seahawk?

There is a lot of buzz building for the Seahawks this year. Some people think they could go 12-4, which would be the best record since 1983. A surprising number, to me anyway, of ESPN experts are picking the Seahawks to go to the Super Bowl, though, sadly, no one expects them to walk away with the championship.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are from my middle school years, when QB Dave Krieg, WR Steve Largent and RB Curt Warner, under the tutelage of Chuck Knox, made the Seahawks into a real football team. Hopefully Mike Holmgren will finally find the success in Seattle that has eluded him for the past few years.

It's tough being a Jedi

In an e-mail exchange with a friend today I was reminded of this interesting feature from GameSpy.com back in March. It is about the struggle by LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment to properly balance the gameplay in "Star Wars Galaxies", the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game set in the Star Wars universe.

The most interesting bit is about the introduction of the Jedi class. Basically, the developers made it possible to become a Jedi, but because they didn't want everyone in the game suddenly acquiring amazing Force powers, they made it pretty difficult and on top of that didn't tell anyone how to do it. Because no one could figure it out, they eventually had to start dropping clues. Plus, the Jedi were hobbled by critical weaknesses that could bring a player's weeks of hard work to a frustruating end.

Apparently there has been lots of tweaking to the game and pretty thorough overhaul of the Jedi system. There also is a new expansion pack coming out for the game, called "Jump to Lightspeed". I've never played any MMORPG but I have to admit this is pretty tempting.

Stem cell success

This seems like really good news:

ROME, Sept 6 (Reuters) - An Italian boy has been cured of a a potentially lethal form of anaemia by a new type of stem-cell therapy, using cells from the placenta of both of his recently born twin brothers, the health ministry said on Monday.

The operation carried out at San Matteo clinic in Pavia, northern Italy, is an alternative to the usual cure -- a bone marrow transplant which is often complicated by the need to find a compatible donor.