Kara’s Blog

George Orwell was an English author of great talent. In addition to Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, his two most well-known works of fiction, he was a journalist and an essayist. His topics varied; he covered politics and philosophy, as well as the evolving nature of language. Nineteen Eighty-Four has had a profound affect on our culture, introducing phrases like "Big Brother" into the English language. I'm certain that Orwell would shudder to learn…

The back to school ads have landed.

Going back to university is different from going back to high school. For one thing, I'm not in school all day, so it feels like I have more free time. In general my schedule is more flexible. Since I'm in a fairly academic program, my school supplies are limited to notebooks, pens, and pencils. I can otherwise ignore the exhortations of sneakers, markers, pencil crayons, and whatnot.…

Where would we be without villains? Well probably happier, and healthier ... maybe safer. But perhaps a little more ignorant when it comes to matters of the human soul....

On Saturday I went to see a performance of Zastrozzi: Master of Discipline by a local amateur theatre group as a fundraiser for their local Belegarth guild. The play consists of an insane artist on the run from Zastrozzi, master criminal of all Europe (apparently set…

I woke up today and went to Future Shop to buy Stargate: Continuum, although I couldn't actually watch it until after work tonight. It was worth the wait.

I admit that I feared Continuum would be a "Well, let's turn 'Moebius' into a movie." Yet another time travel episode. Yes, there were similarities--it's time travel, after all, with alternate timelines and whatnot--but this movie really captures the Stargate genre and provides the essential link…

Let me begin by saying that I don't support age rating of books (i.e., saying "this is for ages 8-12, this is for young adults, this is for adults..."). However, when you look at how we rate our other content by age, it seems hypocritical, does it not?

Games and movies receive official ratings that state whether or not the content of those products is suitable for a certain audience. Sometimes, the law enforces these…

Act three of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is up. You can watch all three acts until midnight July 20. Go do it. Right now.

I've got mixed feelings about act three. As I write this, it's only been up for about an hour and a half, so fan reaction is still formulating. A lot of people are angry. I can see how act three seems like a let down after the first two acts. Now,…

For those of you who haven't watched Buffy, Angel, or Firefly, (I hear you exist, apparently) let me give you a quick rundown on who Joss Whedon is. Those familiar with his oeuvre, please skip to the third paragraph.

Joss Whedon is an amazing writer. He is the creator of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel, along with a western science-fiction (yes, it's that cool) series called Firefly. Once upon a…

I wish I knew who did this so I could nominate him or her for a Darwin award. This is what I found when I had to change a light bulb in one of the pot lights above the front desk at work. The light bulbs are standard; the fixture is recessed. So someone came up with this brilliant idea to avoid having a recessed bulb. Take a look at the design! It's actually two…

When I first purchased paid hosting in October 2005, I needed a domain name. I needed something snazzy, so I chose tachyondecay.net. Then I needed a domain registrar, so I registered tachyondecay.net with Yahoo!, since I already had a Yahoo! ID. Nearly there years later, all is good. I've got two domains registered with Yahoo!, no complaints. Until now....

Recently I learned that Yahoo! had raised the price of domain renewal to $34.95/year. :|…

Every day I find myself becoming more of an autodidact whose primary goal is to propagate knowledge. Seems like a pretty worthy goal for a set of self-replicating DNA, no? After all, that's all we--everything in the universe--are: information, in one form or another.

My thirst for knowledge is perhaps my most consistent trait as far back as I can remember. I loved and continue to love to read. When I first got MSN…