Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Well, At Least Some Of The Future Happened

I know. We're not living with jetpacks, flying cars, starships, anti-gravity, or any of that other cool stuff they promised us. And it sucks. But it turns out that at least some of the groovy future is with us at last. Check this article:

http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2009/may/Blind_stemcells.html

No shit! Fine work from an Australian university -- and more importantly, a huge forkin' stride in The Right Direction for stem cell research, human health and well-being, and me not needing to get glasses any time soon. (Full disclosure: I seem to have inherited my eyesight from my father. So far, I'm still 20/20 or better.)

It's nice to get some good news once in a while, eh?

Then there's this:

Vale David Eddings

What can I say? I never liked the man's work. From the outset, I found it terribly derivative, heavily manufactured, and clumsy. But I know that he made a lot of people very happy with his fiction -- and so, I'll make a liar of Marc Antony here. Let the evil be interr'd with the man's bones, and the good live after. Eddings seemed to be a decent bloke, and didn't have any pretensions about the quality of his writing. He had a good innings.