Lately, I found myself unable to resist the temptation to translate this very pertinent classic of science fiction to English. If you, reader, know of a better translation, do not hesitate to write in. Meanwhile, here goes: “The Star Diaries of Ijon Tichy: The Advantages of a Dragon.” Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006). Until now, I’ve said […]

Below is an entirely unofficial translation of “Иногда ночью мне снится лодка”, by Alexander Pokrovskiy — an old sailor-turned-memoirist, AFAIK entirely unknown in the English reich. On some nights, I dream about the boat. It is underway, beneath the water. I dream about it after I’ve had a very tiring day. The dream is always […]

This post exists to give a permanent home and linkable reference point for certain materials. Specifically, a — to my knowledge, currently the only one found anywhere on the entire Net — grep-able plain-text English-Romanian dictionary. The original source was an ancient piece of MS-Windows nagware. The perpetrator of this item (I hesitate to dignify […]

Rumor has it that a well-known industrial giant will soon attempt to bring head-mounted displays back into fashion. One ought to remember that, for a number of reasons, they were never really “in” fashion to begin with.  To my knowledge, every single one ever marketed fell into one of the following categories: Military toy, priced […]