Hey, how to be utterly profane while sounding very formal and educated!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yes, it is satire. But how long before a press summary like this is reality?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 03:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, Fred has gotten himself an iPod. I haven't gotten any audio books yet (I'm still attached to paper versions). But I do have several gigs of music on my hard drive.

Typically, I take luck-of-the-draw when synching my iPod, but I also like to cut a variety of mix CDs to match my mood. These are usually for car rides only (the interior of my car is hard on CDs, so I like to use disposable, homemade, CDs rather than originals).

Here's my January 2008 mix:

1. Battleflag, Lo Fidelity All Stars
2. Pretty Pink Rose, Adrian Belew
3. The Main Monkey Business, Rush
4. Every Day is Exactly the Same, Nine Inch Nails
5. The Ecstasy of Gold, Ennio Morricone
6. Man With a Gun, Jerry Harrison
7. Ah! Leah!, Donnie Iris
8. Judith, A Perfect Circle
9. Baker Street, Gerry Rafferty
10. The Analog Kid, Rush
11. The Hand That Feeds, Nine Inch Nails
12. Malignant Narcissism, Rush
13. I Still Believe, The Call
14. Turn The Page, Rush
15. Synchronicity 2, The Police
16. Astradyne, Ultravox

A bit of this, a bit of that.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:04 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Why charge more for less? Here's an audiobook of Spider Robinson's The Callahan Chronicals from Blackstone Audio. Its runs $24.95 for the MP3CD version.

Now...you would think this would be cheaper. Here's the same book from Audible. For a download, since you are paying for the connection and you are paying for storage (either on your hard drive, your MP3 device or the cost of a blank CD), you would think the price would be lower. So why does Audible charge...$31.47? (O.K., you can get it if you join their "club" for $7.49. But there are terms and conditions that you might not want.)

I'm obviously "missing something obvious" (and yes, I'm being sarcastic).

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Oh my. From LOL Cats to...the horror! the horror!

Addendum: Oh noes! Plush Cthulhu meets the stuffed animals! And a Plush Cthulhu FAQ!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Now here's somebody with a lot of free time on their hands. From J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, a reconstruction of The Battle of Helms Deep and The Battle of Pelennor Fields...using licorice, gummy bears, chocolate pretzels...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So having a iPod (finally, I buy a gadet before it is obsolete!) and having had some "downtime" at the firehouse last night, I downloaded a bunch of these "podcast" things I've been hearing about. Still having a dial-up connection at home, large downloads are not really an option there.

The new revolution? A way of knocking old media off of the pedestal? Maybe, but probably not. There's an interesting contrast in the podcasts...and the better podcasts are those with money, talent and quality behind them.

Here's an example: William Gibson did a book tour to support his latest novel, Spook Country (still on my personal Mount Toberead). During the course of the book tour he gave probably a couple of thousand talks, interviews, readings and what not (or, it felt like that). I know I've read one of the key phrases he's been using this go round—how if you walked into a publisher in the 1970's and pitched a SF novel with a global pandemic (AIDS) and a climate problem (AGW), you'd be shown the door and they'd call security—several times now. Most of the interviews have hit that highlight a few others.

BoingBoing had Gibson on for one in their short-lived podcasting series (they then moved on to doing short video webcasts but I think that has died as well). It was short. Gibson seemed to be talking to them over a cellphone while outside, so you could hear wind. One of the people from the BoingBoing end of things was dialed in on something (internet telephone?) that had latency problems. Two of the others also had audio quality problems. They kept tripping over each other, and their guest, in asking questions and interjecting useless noise.

Contrast that with this interview done by Rick Kleffel at The Agony Column. The interview runs quite long so you get more than soundbites on how we're living in the future. The interviewer allows Gibson to speak, only interjecting himself when necessary to get things moving again. Gibson even contributes two readings from two novels.

Podcasting may be the radio of the future, but quality will show. I'll be returning to hear more from The Agony Column; on the other hand, I won't be sad about the demise of the BoingBoing effort for long.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 03:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Planet Stories has retired. But don't worry, he hasn't gone far.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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When Syme went out into the starlit street, he found it for the moment empty. Then he realized (in some odd way) that the silence was rather a living silence than a dead one. Directly outside the door stood a street lamp, whose gleam gilded the leaves of the tree that bent out over the fence behind him. About a foot from the lamp-post stood a figure almost as rigid and motionless as the lamp-post itself. The tall hat and long frock-coat were black; the face, in an abrupt shadow, was almost as dark. Only a fringe of fiery hair against the light, and also something aggressive in the attitude, proclaimed that it was the poet Gregory. He had something of the look of a masked bravo waiting sword in hand for his foe. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I don't have rafters from my house, otherwise I think this would be a great solution to my sprawling book collection!

(Via BoingBoing)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 12:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I buy from Amazon, as it is easy to search for stuff, keep it in a wish list or shopping basket and buy when you are ready. I don't understand, however, the weird price cycles that some things in the shopping basket go through.

A few days ago I got this message:

Please note that the price of The Wild Geese (30th Anniversary Edition has decreased from $17.99 to $14.99 since you placed it in your Shopping Cart. Items in your cart will always reflect the most recent price displayed on their product detail pages.

Now I get this message:

Please note that the price of The Wild Geese (30th Anniversary Edition) has increased from $14.99 to $17.99 since you placed it in your Shopping Cart. Items in your cart will always reflect the most recent price displayed on their product detail pages.

Did I miss a run on the film? Has the supply gone down dramatically? Has the need for DVD discs gone up dramatically that they are grinding up recorded ones for fuel use or something?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 11:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One night, while we were in these tropics, I went out to the end of the flying-jib-boom, upon some duty, and, having finished it, turned round, and lay over the boom for a long time, admiring the beauty of the sight before me. Being so far out from the deck, I could look at the ship, as at a separate vessel;-and there rose up from the water, supported only by the small black hull, a pyramid of canvas, spreading out far beyond the hull, and towering up almost, as it seemed in the indistinct night air, to the clouds. The sea was as still as an inland lake; the light trade-wind was gently and steadily breathing from astern; the dark blue sky was studded with the tropical stars; there was no sound but the rippling of the water under the stem; and the sails were spread out, wide and high;-the two lower studding-sails stretching, on each side, far beyond the deck; the topmast studding-sails, like wings to the topsails; the top-gallant studding-sails spreading fearlessly out above them; still higher, the two royal studding-sails, looking like two kites flying from the same string; and, highest of all, the little skysail, the apex of the pyramid, seeming actually to touch the stars, and to be out of reach of human hand. So quiet, too, was the sea, and so steady the breeze, that if these sails had been sculptured marble, they could not have been more motionless. Not a ripple upon the surface of the canvas; not even a quivering of the extreme edges of the sail-so perfectly were they distended by the breeze. I was so lost in the sight, that I forgot the presence of the man who came out with me, until he said, (for he, too, rough old man-of-war's-man as he was, had been gazing at the show,) half to himself, still looking at the marble sails—"How quietly they do their work!"

(Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana, Jr.)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 11:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Following up on this posting, how about an atlas of the universe?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via Baen Books...Get writing!

Announcing the 2nd annual Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest!

Since its early days, science fiction has played a unique role in human civilization. It removes the limits of what "is" and shows us a boundless vista of what "might be." Its fearless heroes, spectacular technologies and wondrous futures have inspired many people to make science, technology and space flight a real part of their lives and in doing so, have often transformed these fictions into reality. The National Space Society and Baen Books applaud the role that science fiction plays in advancing real science and have teamed up to sponsor this short fiction contest in memory of Jim Baen. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Astronomers have detected a galaxy with arms that "wind" in the direction opposite of most galaxies. How...inconvenient!

Paging Halton Arp! Paging Halton Arp! Paging Halton Arp! Halton Arp to the white courtesy phone, please. It appears the universe is getting strange again. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This is pretty amazing. Here's a guy who makes his own vacuum tubes.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 03:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Something to look forward to! Baen Books is bringing more of Poul Anderson's works back into print.

Volume I: The Van Rijn Method (September 200
“The Saturn Game” (novella)
“Wings of Victory” (short story)
“The Problem of Pain” (short story)
“Margin of Profit” (novella)
“How to be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson” (short story)
“The Three-Cornered Wheel” (novella)
“A Sun Invisible”(novella )
The Man Who Counts (novel, a.k.a. War of the Wing Men)
“Esau” (short story)
“Hiding Place ” (novella)
Total wordage: about 190,000 words.

Volume II: David Falkayn: Star Trader
“Territory” (novella)
“The Trouble Twisters” (novella)
“Day of Burning” (novella)
“The Master Key” (novella)
SatanÂ’s World (novel)
“A Little Knowledge” (short story)
“The Season of Forgiveness” (short story)
“Lodestar” (novella)
Total wordage: about 188,000 words.

Now...if they also do the independents and the Flandry tales, we'll be sitting pretty. And I wonder if they'll include the one short story in The Canon that has, as far as I've been able to determine, been collected, a short work called "Sargasso of Lost Spaceships" (Whoops! See comments for correction information! I was thinking of a classic Andre Norton book, Sargasso of Space!). I finally bought it in the original magazine appearance (Planet Stories), but would like it in something a little less...pulpy.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:16 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Launched 1,255 days ago, the MESSENGER probe to Mercury has beamed back its first images of the iron planet. This is MESSENGER's first encounter with Mercury, a flyby only, but it should yield significant information.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Imagine the hue and cry if a kid tried to replicate these experiments today? Given the wimpy nature of chemistry sets, there probably would be a visit from the Department of Homeland Security...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Here's a pretty nifty graphic. A visual catalog of all (known!) objects in our solar system that are 200 miles or larger in size.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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