For some wacky reason, Hollywood has decided to remake one of the all-time classic science fiction movies: The Day the Earth Stood Still (directed by Robert Wise). Before you trot off to see yet another accounting error from the studios, take some time and read the story that inspired the original. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Posted at The Library of The Nostalgia League.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If it comes to pass that the one name being bandied about as the next NASA Administrator is nominated and serves...we could see the end of the agency as a functional institution.

Don't believe me? Start digging around and see what disasters he headed.

Update: Lori Garver? Ah, another political hack.

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Assuming that the weather holds, space shuttle Endeavour will liftoff at 7:55:39 Eastern today on a mission to the International Space Station. Should be a spectacular site, given the light conditions at the time.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One of my most treasured astronomy books is a massive NASA-published collection of pictures from the 1960's-era Lunar Orbiter series of probes. You can get a copy online, if you search, but if you want a "deadtree" edition, be prepared to get another mortgage out.

So it was pretty amazing to see that the data from these probes is still of use: it is being reprocessed to get more detail and will help out our future unmanned and (the new administration willing) manned missions to our nearest neighbor.

I really hope that they reprocess the image known as The Picture of the Century (download the 9.8MB version for a real "wow!). That is my all-time favorite.

(Some details here.)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It looks like the Hubble Space Telescope has directly imaged an extra-solar planet. Pretty good for a piece of equipment on "life support"!

Dorsai? Why, everybody knows that the Dorsai are from the Fomalhaut system!

Phil Plait, a.k.a., The Bad Astronomer, has details.

Pictures of the second extra-solar direct image here.

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Somali and Yemeni pirates learn the hard way that it is not wise to attack a vessel of Her Majesty's Navy:

By the time the Royal Marines boarded the piratesÂ’ vessel, the enemy had lost the will to fight and surrendered quietly. The Royal Navy described the boarding as "compliant".

And...the Russians have developed invisible helicopters, apparently:

The Russians claimed a helicopter based on their own frigate Neustrashimy had also taken part in yesterdayÂ’s battle, though the Royal Navy knew nothing about it. The Royal Marine commandos who boarded the pirates' dhow were supported by a Lynx helicopter from HMS Cumberland, the MoD said.

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While they were derided as being "Battlestar Galactica missions", Cassini and Galileo provided (and in the case of Cassini, still provides) returns up and beyond their original specifications. Jupiter and Saturn are almost solar systems in their own right; sending a single-purpose mission that far is almost a waste.

So it is interesting to hear about plans for future missions of this class. For example, how about dropping a hot-air balloon to explore Saturn's moon Titan?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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An article looking at the hoops one has to jump through in order to do experiments at home. Have you looked at a kid's chemistry set recently? Trash!

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You'll have to take my word on it, but from this article the maker of Legos has lost its exclusive right to make bricks. Cheap bags of bricks for those who make aircraft carriers ahead?

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India's Chandrayaan-1 satellite has entered lunar orbit to begin an intensive study of our natural satellite. Instruments onboard include some provided by NASA and the JPL. more...

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Mystery Science Theatre 3000 is twenty (!!!) years old.

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The venerable Martian rover Spirit is endangered by dust. On Mars for over 1,725 "sols", dust has cut down the rovers ability to generate power to the point where engineers need to take steps to protect the rover. more...

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This is currently circulating as comments by David Letterman...previously it was circulating as comments by Jay Leno. Comments by Craig R. Smith on the whining of America.

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Chizumatic has some thoughts about the now finished (thank God!) election cycle. Considering some of the wing-nut commentary I've already read (on both sides of the fence), this is pretty tame and actually parallels a lot of my thinking. more...

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...he had to prepare the ship, dressed all over, for the grave ritual of saluting the Fifth of November. He and the bosun had of course laid aside great quantities of bunting and streamers...

Dr Maturin, properly uniformed, was propelled up the companion-ladder to the quarterdeck as the noon observation was in progress. He was somewhat astonished first by the flood of midday light after the shaded cabin and then by the colours all about him, high, low and on every hand, a variety of reds and yellows and blues, square, oblong, triangular, swallow-tailed, chequered, strangely brilliant after the eternal blue or grey, for the ship was now dressed over all, a splendid sight under a most luminous and perfect sky....

'Make it twelve, Mr West,' said Jack, noon being reported to him, and his words were still floating in the air when eight bells struck.

But whereas they were ordinarily followed by the bosun's pipe to dinner and a wholehearted Bedlam of cries and trampling feet and thumping mess-kids, now there was a total silence, all hands looking attentively aft.

'Carry on, Mr West,' said Jack.

'Away aloft,' cried West, and the mass of the frigate's people raced up the shrouds on either side in a swift and even flow. 'Lay out, lay out,' called West, and they ran out on the yards. When the last light young fellow was right at the end of the starboard foretopgallant yardarm, holding on by the lift, Jack stepped forward and in a voice to be heard in Heaven he uttered the words 'Three cheers for the King.'

'You must pull off your hat and call out Huzzay,' whispered Pullings into Stephen's ear: the Doctor was staring about him in a very vacant manner.

Huzzay, huzzay, huzzay: the cheers pealed out like so many rolling broadsides, and after the last nothing could be heard but Sarah and Emily, beside themselves with glee, who huzzayed on and on, 'Huzzay, huzzay for Guy Fawkes', very shrill, until Jemmy Ducks suppressed them.

'Mr Smith,' said Jack, 'carry on.' And the gunner in his good black Presbyterian-elder's coat stepped forward with a red-hot poker in his hand: the salute, beginning with Jack's own brass bow-chaser, came solemnly aft on either side at exact five-second intervals, the gunner pacing from one to the other with the ritual words 'If I wasn't a gunner I wouldn't be here: fire seven." When he had reached 'fire seventeen' he turned aft and took off his hat.

Jack returned his salute and said 'Mr West, the hands may be piped to dinner.'

A last wild long-drawn cheer, and before the white clouds of smoke had rolled a cable's length to leeward the usual midday hullaballoo rose to a splendid pitch.

'By land, in the northern parts of Ireland, I have seen the fifth of November celebrated with fireworks,' observed Stephen.

'Nothing can exceed the cannon's noble roar,' said the gunner. 'Squibs and burning tar-barrels, even sky-rockets at half a crown apiece, is mere frippery in comparison of a well-loaded gun.'

(Patrick O'Brian, Clarissa Oakes/The Truelove)

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When I sent the dogs out in the night, I was amazed to hear two crickets, calling to each other. This after a couple of heavy frosts and some generally cold weather. It almost feels like Indian Summer again, so it is nice to hear a couple of the night voices that have survived this late in the year.

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I've done my civic duty, have you? If you haven't...if you're too busy, if you think the lines will be too long, if you think you won't make a difference...then I don't want to hear one freaking complaint from you for the next four years.

It doesn't matter who you vote for. Just get off your posterior and do it.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Naomi Novik; His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1) (Del Rey; 2006; ISBN 978-0-345-48128-3; cover by Dominic Harman).

For a couple of years now, friends have been recommending this series to me. After all, they reason, you read that Patrick O'Brian stuff and this is just like that, but with dragons.

The series is set during the 1800's, when much of the known world was involved in various wars, mostly revolving around a certain Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte. However, unlike the world of Jack Aubrey, or Horatio Hornblower, the world of the main character, Captain Will Laurence is inhabited by dragons, dragons that the various nations have used in these wars. Laurence captures a French frigate and discovers a precious cargo: an unhatched dragon's egg. When it hatches, the dragon, soon named Temeraire, bonds with him. This simultaneously gains him a new friend, but loses him the life he knew up to that point, that of a naval officer, as he must join the Aerial Corps.

Much of the book revolves around the growing relationship between Laurence and Temeraire as they train with the Aerial Corps, make friends and enemies, fight French spies and an invasion of England and learn more about Temeraire's abilities. The book is set around the time of Trafalgar (October 21, 1805), which means that we can look forward to several more installments it the careers of Laurence and Temeraire parallel that conflict.

So, is the series "just like" those Patrick O'Brain books? The book was fun and it was a fast read. But it had no where near the level of detail and background of the O'Brian tales, or the complex storylines and character's of his series. Perhaps in time, with subsequent books, Novik will grow as a writer. Right now, it feels more like a mix of Patrick O'Brian and Anne McCaffrey, with a dash of WWI flying aces tossed into the mix.

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Number 256 in a series. Dave Langford, the gift that keeps on giving.

John Norman plugs his new Gor novel: "What man, in his deepest heart, does not want to own a female, to have her for his own, utterly, as a devoted, passionate, vulnerable, mastered slave, and what woman, in her deepest heart, does not want to be so intensely desired, so unqualifiedly and fiercely desired, that nothing less than her absolute ownership will satisfy a male, her master?" [GW] Answers on a postcard, to anyone but me.

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Fred's Reading Report (October 200

With two months to go I've hit 78 books and 548 short works. Books read this month include: Hereticus (Dan Abnett); Dark Integers and Other Stories (Greg Egan); Pyramid Scheme (Eric Flint and Dave Freer); The Fortune of War (Patrick O'Brian); Into the Looking Glass (John Ringo); Manxome Foe and Vorpal Blade (John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor); Footprints on a Secret Moon (David Senechal).

One thing that struck me this month is how much reading I am doing on electronic devices (either my Sony Clie PDA or my Bookeen Cybook) and how ludicrous it is whenever I hear someone say "I can't read a book on a computer screen!" If you work with a computer on a daily basis, you're reading the equivalent of a book over time. Probably several books. I've been reading eBooks since I got my first Apple Newton and have since then used the first two generations of the Palm PDA, the first two generations of the Handspring Visor PDA, a Sony Clie and now the Bookeen Cybook.

This month I read the following in electronic format: Pyramid Scheme, Into the Looking Glass, Manxome Foe, and Vorpal Blade.

Previous to this, I read the following in electronic format: The Secret of Sinharat and The People of the Talisman; Cetaganda; To Prime the Pump; The Broken Cycle; Balefires; Other Times Than Peace; Lt. Leary, Commanding; Ring of Fire; The Stars Are Ours!; Pyramids; The Last Centurion; Princess of Wands; A Hymn Before Battle; Unto the Breach; A Deeper Blue; Manxome Foe (in January); Telzey Amberdon; One Day on Mars, The Tau Ceti Agenda; Warp Speed; Rainbows End.

That means of the 78 books I've read this year...25 were read in electronic format. Plus a number of the short works as well. So much for "not being able to read a book on a computer screen".

I don't think eBooks will ever replace real books. I enjoy collecting books, reading books. But once I put in the amount of time I can read books on electronic devices...standing in line, waiting for a cup of coffee at work, waiting for the car to warm up, etc....electronic books are starting to add up.

If you investigate the titles listed, you'll see that most are from Baen Books. Baen's Webscription service still stands head and shoulders above all the competition. Other publishers (or distributors of eBooks) should look to the way that Baen distributes their books as a model. Heck, just look at my average expenditures at Webscriptions vs. other sites!

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1 Psycho.

Posted by: John D. at November 01, 2008 10:10 PM (A8+6d)

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