Political commentary from the author of Ender's Game. Wrong inferences from his observations?

Reading it, my awareness shifts to the deepening schisms in society, and I'm saddened. Wedges are being driven in from all sides. Politics, religion, society. What unites us? Are we Raman in each other's eyes?

More fuel cell research

A followup to this... I was reading an interesting thread on Hydrogen fuel in k5.

A good article on lighting in Japanese architecture

A good collection of sacred texts. Though some of the translations are poor, this seems like a nice place to start exploring.

From a slashdot interview on outsourcing (scroll to the bottom of the interview)

Geek culture is worldwide. It's not exactly the same everywhere, but (so far) I've observed it first-hand in Mexico, Trinidad, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and now India, and I assure you, there are many more points of similarity than differences between its various "branches," at least in my (limited) experience.

Warms my heart.

Kevin Cooper wrote a piece on religion that I liked. We are human, even if we kill.

British MPs do rock

I decided to get myself a new computer. While my hardware finds its way towards me, I was wondering what OS to install... Linux / FreeBSD / shell out $$ to the big M$? I've decided on Linux, but am now debating the distros. Last I used it was maybe 4 years ago (used RH) and the world has changed since. Its a toss up between the purist distro that doesn't believe in new releases and the source distro that promises to be a pain to manage. I'm leaning towards debian for the now. And then there's the choice of a UI - GNOME, KDE, ximian? Where does one begin?

A nice read on math and music

Peace

A collection of how the LOTR would've turned out if it were written by various authors. Check it out!