Upcoming Things and Links
Well there are some important things coming up soon here, and I’ll have some fun links for everyone too.First, I have an interview from Dana Copithorne in the works. I sent her my questions not too long ago. Sorry for the delay, but I not only was stuck right in the middle of the fall quarter, but I also didn’t want to send a bunch of typical questions. I came up with some good ones I think.Second, I’ll have a review for The Longevity Thesis by Jennifer Rahn soon. I’m catching up on all my reading over the holiday.Third, I’m thinking of releasing the first chapter of The Lies of Venicia, in its relatively unedited form, for everyone to read. Is anyone interested? It won’t read like complete garbage, but there might be little tidbits in it that will get changed at some later date, depending where the story goes, but for the most part it will stay the same. Now to links: Grasping for the Wind has this awesome link to a Youtube video where a guy shoots books he, I assume, doesn’t like with various police guns (he’s a police officer). I’m not sure if he really hates these books, but it’s somewhat entertaining to see what happens to these various books when they are shot with police-grade weaponry. Futurismic brings you cats that glow in the dark (yes, seriously). I’ve seen this article elsewhere. They apparently genetically altered these cats so they glow under ultra-violet radiation. The full official article is here. Apparently sex has already taken place in space. Yes, that’s a serious statement. US and Russian astronauts basically got to go up to space and have sex for science. I’m sure the lines for that job were rather long. The results? The Missionary Position…doesn’t work. Yeah. Who knew? Dinosaurs have mummies too! Paleontologists discovered ‘mummified’ skin in Montana. This discovery adds a whole lot to the whole dinosaur discussion! Read the article and look at the two pictures! Magnaverse has a really cool info-article-post-thingy, whatever you want to call it, that talks about parallel worlds in science fiction and fantasy. Check it out! Elizabeth Bear has a list of 15 things you should know or be aware of when you’ve finally made it (whether that be published or whatever). You can read it at Subterranean Press here. Apparently we missed Voyage 1 when it crossed the little zone called the ‘termination shock’: There, the solar wind – made of charged particles from the Sun – suddenly falters as it feels pressure from gas in the interstellar medium lying outside the solar system. Well, scientists didn’t miss Voyager 2’s trip through this zone. Nope. We were paying attention this time (I’m going to rant on this later, trust me). And apparently since the barrier fluctuates–wobbling if you will–so we got a glimpse of Voyager 2 passing through this zone a bunch of times. To add, apparently what was expected to happen during this event was a little off, and scientists are a bit puzzled. Read the full article here. The Thinking Blog has a video of what could be the next, more efficient energy source produced by wind! Wind could be used to cause the vibration of a band that could then produce cheap, efficient energy, or at least somewhat efficient. The little model the man in the video made could run a radio, a clock, and even some small LED lights. Pretty cool huh? Solaris Books have announced that they are going to produce a steampunk anthology called Extraordinary Engines: Airships, automatons and aether! Extraordinary Engines is a brand new anthology of all-original stories from some of the genre’s foremost writers. Featuring an eclectic range of Steampunk-inspired stories by such luminaries as Daniel Abraham, Kage Baker, Stephen Baxter, Beth Bernobich, Eric Brown, Keith Brooke, Paul Di Filippo, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Jay Lake, Margo Lanagan, James Lovegrove, Ian R. MacLeod, Michael Moorcock, James Morrow, Kim Newman, Robert Reed, Chris Roberson, Adam Roberts, Lucius Shepard. Brian Stableford, Jeff VanderMeer and Marly Youmans (Subject to change). All stories are original to this collection. Sounds cool doesn’t it? I’m excited about it! Artificial stem cells cure sickle cell in mice. That’s the title of the article at DailyTech. Scientists created healthy bone marrow cells by taking bad cells and snipping out all the sickle cell material and putting in healthy material. Then they take the bone marrow cells, throw it into the marrow of a mouse with sickle cell and let it go to work creating healthy red blood cells. That’s the short, rather uneducated version. Read the full article! How hard is it to find planets with plant-life? Well, in the near future it might not be so hard, assuming they exist. Futurismic has this article about new research in space research that postulates that spectral-analysis could help find planets with plant-life! So far the technology isn’t quite there yet, but some scientists have found out atmospheric contests of some gas giants around other stars. Here’s a clue: the atmospheric content is semi-related to something you put on foot to make it taste good. You can also read this article at UniverseToday and this related article. Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist has beautiful pictures of art prints for George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Check them out here. New Scientist has this article about a five story tall structure that focuses moonlight into a single beam over a small area. It might have medical applications, but really this is a fascinating waste of money and time. I mean that in a good way. It’s cool, but really sort of crazy. Prologues are evil and this article at The Toasted Scimitar explains why. Well, the article really just talks about prologues in fantasy and how fantasy redefined the meaning of prologue. Did you know that sitting down helps make you gain weight? The enzymes that control fat burning apparently just shut off when you sit
Lies: Pullman’s Persecutors
I find this subject to be fascinating really. It seems that a lot of the things being spread right now by, unfortunately, a small sect of religious nuts about Pullman’s The Golden Compass, in light of the recent film adaptation, have been flat out lies. It actually amazes me how gullible people are to believe a lot of the things being said. Here’s an example: In the words of the author, “I want to kill God in the minds of Children…. I want them to decide against God and the Kingdom of Heaven.” I got this quote from here, but you can see it everywhere in this Google search. What? When and where did he say this? As the original link points out, the author, as far as we know, never actually said this. There’s no proof. No citation, not nothing. It was spread through an email as propaganda against the author and the movie. The way it seems to me is that these people, rather than allowing their children to make their own decisions, are attempting to cloud their children from reality. This is just as bad as what they propose Pullman is doing (even though he isn’t). Kids are not idiots. I think adults have this illusion that children can’t understand matters that are adult. We think of them as these fragile creatures, when really they are not stupid or fragile. Kids can handle a lot, if you give them the opportunity to do so. If you read this snopes article, you’ll get an even more elaborate idea of how crazy the propaganda really is. I particularly liked the part where the author of some email or post said they had found a synopsis of The Golden Compass that said the story talked about castration and female circumcision. Where exactly is this magic synopsis? It doesn’t exist. It’s made up. A load of bologna. I tried to find it, using the powerful Google, and came up with nothing consequential. I haven’t finished the book, but I don’t remember there being castration or female circumcision in it.Sadly…people believe this crap. Anyone know of any other similar propaganda schemes against literature? I’m curious what other books were lambasted with such comments.
The Waterboarding Fiasco
Hold on, pause. This is not a politics rant, at least not in the traditional sense. I’m not going to argue the ethics of waterboarding, or foreign diplomacy or anything like that. This is going to be a musing on something I heard on the radio today that just made me stop and go “what?” in that ‘the logic of that statement is escaping me’ type of voice. I won’t bother repeating what the waterboarding fiasco is, as most of you probably already know. There was a short radio section that had some guy talking about two tapes showing waterboarding incidents that were destroyed by the CIA–and created by them mind you. The gentlemen talking about this remarked that he thought , and the CIA thought, this was a brilliant move on their part because we don’t want those tapes getting in the hands of extremist Muslims (his words, not mine). Basically, they’d get mad and have a fun day with the tapes and having it shown on the net and the like would be very bad. On that point I would agree. Here is where things got “what?”-ish. If you don’t want the extremists or anyone babbling about the existence of the tapes and being upset that, my lord, there is evidence that the CIA actually did use waterboarding torture, then why in God’s name would you announce that the tapes exist in the first place! Extremists don’t need the tapes to be pissed off about them. They don’t need to see them. The fact that you’ve just announced that the tapes exist goes completely against the whole point of not playing them on TV. If anything, this is a great example of the CIA trying to cover up evidence of something that is, technically, illegal. And now not only has the CIA talked about it, but so has Mr. Radioman, who has no idea what the hell he is talking about in the first place. If the extremists were going to get mad about seeing the tapes, they’re going to be just as mad now that it’s out in the open that the CIA condones the use of waterboarding to acquire information. Great job idiots. Could this government do any more stupid, idiotic, moronic, imbecilic things? You be the judge. That one up there is high on the list. (P.S.: There’s a possibility I missed something on this story, but either way it sounds stupid to me, so I’m ranting about it.)