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This month marks the late Michael Crichton’s 74th birth anniversary and it got me reminiscing about Jurassic Park. Released in 1993, the film made box office history led to many other Crichton stories being filmed (Disclosure, Rising Sun, Congo, Sphere, Eaters of the Dead and of course Lost World). I have read a significant chunk of what Cricht...

Scanner Darkly (the movie) directed by the brilliant Richard Linklater came out in July 2006. The movie has so many things to talk about including the war on drugs (and why it cannot be won), PKD’s own creativity being fuelled by his substance abuse, how scramble suits could be the way to end racism etc. Instead, I’ve decided to pick form over ...

Beautiful piece of work - larger size pic and a quiz version of this is available at SF Signal

Why 2112 is relevant 40 years since it's release and what it means to me

With property prices in HK finally starting to ease looks like it’s finally time to think about buying. Fortunately, for a data junkie like me, a lot of websites, including banks like HSBC, provide detailed historic data on price trends and current bank valuations right down to individual floors and units for each apartment out there. However t...

I find myself coming back again and again to this wonderful David Foster Wallace speech (~20 mins) on how to deal with existential angst, that I found a few months ago. I recommend you listen to it here while reading it here. Summarizing or quoting here would be a disservice to the original so I am going to refrain from doing that. If you like ...

I came across John Brunner a few years ago when I read Stand on Zanzibar . I love Brunner because his writing style adheres to some of my core beliefs of what sci-fi writing should be about. Here are three excerpts from The Shockwave Rider (1975) which is based in the early 21st century that illustrate why you should be reading his works. _ FEN...

If you’ve spent any time at all talking to me about books over the past year I’ve likely hijacked a few minutes of that conversation to expound the virtues of Overdrive (of which I cannot get enough). Here is that sermon in print: Audio over E: If you don’t check your phone while sitting in front of the TV or stay away from Whatsapp or Faceboo...