In February of 1975, I read The Annihilation of Angkor Apeiron by Fred Saberhagen in Galaxy magazine. This not-so-recent news story reminded me of it. Perhaps I need to explain. The resolution of AoAA hinges upon a point of intellectual property protection, i.e. how would a publisher of dictionaries or encyclopedias protect themselves against profiteers [...]

Gina used to have a recurring dream where her teeth would crumble in her mouth and fall out. Apparently, this is a common dream. Her mother used to have the same dream. And, shortly after Kayla went away to college, she called home to say that she had the teeth-falling-out dream, too. A few weeks [...]

In Adobe Illustrator I type the word copyright into the search box in the Help Center. The page that results includes the following paragraph: This product includes either BISAFE and/or TIPEM software by RSA Data Security, Inc. This product includes cryptographic software written by Eric Young (eay@cryptosoft.com). This software is based in part on the [...]

I got back from Boston, and there was a package from Apple. It was (another) copy of Mathematica. Academic Edition. After three separate progressively less cordial conversations, I made (another) trip to Kinko’s — this time to send a return and await my refund. Plan B involves trying to purchase a non-academic edition direct from [...]

My copy of Mathematica arrived yesterday. Yay. Today, I sent it back. Boo. Here’s what happened. I ordered it on May 28th from the Apple store. 2-day shipping. Yay. Then, I got the bad news — they couldn’t ship it on the original estimated date. It would ship on or before the 16th of June. [...]