The Old Reader

12 Dec 04:42

Middle-Earth's Climate Mapped in Scientific Study

by Carly Smith

Written in the voice of Radagast the Brown, and available in both Elvish and Dwarvish, the new study maps the climate of various locations in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

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12 Dec 03:48

Pudgy Doughboy With Rosy Red Cheeks Presses Nose Up Against Window Of Chocolate Shop

Nicholas Hoffmann
"The astonished butterball"

BOSTON—His woolen mittens dangling from the ends of his sleeves and his mouth partially agape in breathless wonder, a pudgy doughboy with rosy red cheeks is currently pressing his round button nose up against the display window of a local chocolate ...

Lbabwah, firehose likes this

11 Dec 20:41

Everest Panorama from Mars

If you could stand on Mars -- what might you see? Scroll right to find out.

09 Dec 16:45

You Are Your Brain

by Graham Lawton

Patricia Churchland, a neurophilosopher at the University of California at San Diego, says our hopes, loves and very existence are just elaborate functions of a complicated mass of grey tissue. Accepting that can be hard, but what we know should inspire us, not scare us. Her most recent book is Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain.

09 Dec 14:38

Opinion: Every Parent’s Worst Nightmare Is Losing A Child To Gorchul, The Dark Sorcerer Of Time (by Karen Dunlop)

Nicholas Hoffmann
That took a dark right turn about half way through...

By Karen Dunlop

04 Dec 14:06

Jane Austen MMO Reaches Kickstarter Goal

by Marshall Lemon

Nicholas Hoffmann
GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that gamers in possession of good fortunes must support a Kickstarter. So they did.

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25 Nov 21:05

Random Roles: Mary McDonnell on Battlestar Galactica and going mute front of Robert Redford

Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.

The actor: Mary McDonnell got her start in the theater, earning acclaim for her stage performances before ever stepping in front of the camera. Although her first on-camera role may have been on As The World Turns, it wasn’t long before she was being nominated for Oscars for Dances With Wolves and Passion Fish, enduring an alien invasion in Independence Day, and—after returning to the small screen—batting Cylons on Battlestar Galactica. Currently, McDonnell can be seen playing Captain Sharon Raydor on TNT’s Major Crimes.

The Closer (2009-2012) / Major Crimes (2012-present)—“Captain Sharon Raydor”
Mary McDonnell: Captain Sharon Raydor came to me through James Duff, the creator of The Closer, and the task at hand was to do a three-episode ...

22 Nov 03:53

Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare Gets a Release Date

by Josh Engen

PopCap's upcoming PvZ-themed shooter will hit retail shelves in February.

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19 Nov 17:30

Death of a Professor

by L.V. Anderson

On Friday, Aug. 16, Margaret Mary Vojtko, an adjunct French professor who’d recently lost her job at Duquesne University at the age of 83, suffered a heart attack on a street corner in Homestead, Pa. Vojtko collapsed yards from the house where she had lived almost her entire life. She was rushed to the hospital, but she never regained consciousness. Vojtko died on Sunday, Sept. 1.

15 Nov 19:22

No Faith in Science

by Jerry A. Coyne

A common tactic of those who claim that science and religion are compatible is to argue that science, like religion, rests on faith: faith in the accuracy of what we observe, in the laws of nature, or in the value of reason. Daniel Sarewitz, director of a science policy center at Arizona State University and an occasional Slate contributor, wrote this about the Higgs boson in the pages of Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious science journals: “For those who cannot follow the mathematics, belief in the Higgs is an act of faith, not of rationality.”

Nicholas Hoffmann likes this

15 Nov 18:41