Students choose a topic related to history that either doesn’t have a substantial article already written about it, or a topic that is listed on the history stubs page on Wikipedia. Then, they research the topic and contribute ~500 words to the article. The article must include footnotes, and reference at least two published books, two external websites, and link to at least two other Wikipedia pages.

I've read a fair few of the "Grand Tour" novels now, and I have come to the conclusion that Ben Bova is a bad writer. His prose is flaccid, repetitive, and full of cliché. When he is writing exposition he's very dull. When he's writing descriptively he permits no noun to go naked before the reader without slapping on one or more adjectives; and he allows no verb to shed its adverb. Bova perhaps thinks this renders his prose more vivid and immediate, but it has exactly the opposite effect, making it sticky and overegged. Any student who has taken a Creative Writing 101 class, and had their tutor blue-pencil their overcompensating profusion of descriptors, knows better than Bova how to write evocative prose. Indeed, and speaking generally, I can't think of a writer working today with less of a feel for the rhythms and expressiveness of the English language.

This regular department of the sf newsletter Ansible enshrines gems of "differently good" prose from (mainly) science fiction and fantasy. It is to be assumed that the chosen selections are stuff which brutish Thog really likes.

John Carmack is een god. I sent an email to the Wolf 3D Redux project maintainer to see if he might be interested in working on an iPhone project with us, but it had been over a year since the last update, and he must have moved on to other things. I thought about it a bit, and decided that I would go ahead and do the project myself.