Buffy ,'Potential'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
The Anathem Wiki can be helpful for untangling the math/science historical references.
The glossary helps a lot, but because the terms refer to real philosophies/philosophers (Socrates, Plato, and their posse), I have a hard time remembering what real philosophy maps onto any given made-up term.
Interview at Tor with Lois McMaster Bujold about the Vorkosigan Saga.
Anathem: Orolo just got kicked out. I wasn't expecting that.
I'm so glad I didn't change my tagline to the spoilery one that Steph is about to get to!
Oh, Tom. I'm a spoiler ho, and I read your whitefont already. So I'm guessing that's what Orolo saw (or was at least looking for). t edit Uh, not a protractor. The other thing.
More Anathem: whoa. Mass voca. I didn't see THAT coming.
Tep's read and post would have me re-reading right now if I weren't in the middle of re-reading Dune already. But I think one jargon-heavy major sci-fi epic at a time is all my brain can handle.
Stephen Fry's podcast on language is erudite, funny and totally absorbing.
His three W's are: Waugh, Wodehouse and Wilde.
But he also goes into linguistics and the pleasure of words and an anti-prescriptivist rant. (While acknowledging how he has to fight his own instinct for pedantry.)
I, apparently, am Stephen Fry.