| simulated nuke or asteroid impact |
[May. 4th, 2009|05:07 pm] |
Here's an app that'll give you a basic idea of the blast coverage of a variety of nuclear devices or a 10-km asteroid impact. Lets you choose any place in Google Maps and then nuke it. Oddly refreshing.
http://www.carloslabs.com/node/16
Now to work out those comm links to Omaha and Alexandria.... |
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| Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate Tweets |
[May. 4th, 2009|12:32 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | garrulous, dammit | ] |
Could creating a Twitter account be construed as part of a mid-life crisis? After all, I am a bit old and set in my ways, and anti-social, for all this social media stuff. I mean, just look at how ofter you find me gushing here. However, I'm tired of people asking me "What's this Twitter thing all about?" and my not being able to provide a coherent answer. So, in order to keep up my techno-creds, you know, the ones I originally got by screwing around on Hazeltine terminals and Apple II computers, I present my Twitter account:
http://twitter.com/interrociter
This also counts as my reply to Jay's nudge. So there.
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| Trinoc*con is no more |
[Apr. 5th, 2009|08:38 pm] |
Word's starting to get around that Trinoc*con has been canceled. This is correct. I've seen one posting that said Trinoc*con 2009 was canceled. This too is correct, but it's my understanding that Trinoc*con in general, and not just for this year, is gone. Unless someone comes along and starts up the franchise again, there will be no more Trinoc*cons *ever*. If anybody knows that this is incorrect, please let me know.
I'm okay with this. It was always a pretty good con, in my opinion. Keep in mind that I was a founder and always closely involved with it except for last year. But a large number of its experienced con runners moved away or had kids or just wanted to do something else, and with the economy in the crapper, it's no surprise that the con couldn't continue. But it was good up until the end, and this way it avoids an embardassing and potentially fiscally devastating denouement.
My thanks to everyone who worked and helped out to make Trinoc*con, pound for pound, the best little con in the Southeast. |
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| marry merry Mary |
[Mar. 25th, 2009|09:18 pm] |
My son's first-grade teacher gave us a note she confiscated from him, apparently in the act of passing it to a girl. The note read, "Can you merry me". My son denied writing the note and said he wasn't passing it; instead, he was trying to find out who really wrote it. Besides, he added, whoever wrote it didn't know how to spell "marry." That's proof enough for me that he didn't write it. |
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| Dept. of a la mode with ice cream |
[Mar. 23rd, 2009|09:17 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
So I'm at the drive-thru for Captain D's Seafood Kitchen and I order the fish 'n' chips. The voice in the kiosk says, "You want fries with that?" Better safe than sorry, so I said "yes". Next time, I might just say "no" just to see what happens. |
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| joys of parenting |
[Nov. 9th, 2008|09:31 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
Quote of the day from the six year old boy: "The name of this game is Aim for the Head."
The last movie I saw in a theater: "Beverly Hills Chihuahua"
Number of days last week I went to work and discovered poop stains from baby on my shirt: 1
Number of spare clean shirts I keep in my office: 1, thank ghod |
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| Best Dog Ever |
[Aug. 2nd, 2008|06:47 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sad | ] |
We had to put Jane to sleep on July 31. She was between 13 and 14 years old. I got her as a puppy from the pound in 1995. She kept me sane during a bad time and was instrumental in my connecting with the woman who'd become my wife. We miss her very much. |
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| cleanliness is next to.... |
[Jul. 25th, 2008|07:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
Earlier today I shampooed by sick dog's shaved ass. How was *your* day?
We thought we were going to lose the dog, Jane, this week, but she appears to be improving now that her ass abscess is getting some care. Her appetite is back and she's no longer walking on her hind knees. Still senile, though. If she recovers enough strength, maybe we'll try putting her on the drug for "canine cognitive impairment." Needed a supply of that from the get-go, though of course she's always been The Best Dog. |
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| It really is "who you know" |
[Jul. 14th, 2008|04:41 pm] |
I love this story, taken from Robert X. Cringely's column for InfoWorld:
Recently I [one of Cringely's readers] signed up for Comcast Cable TV, having already subscribed to the phone and broadband service. While the guy on the other end of the phone was filling out the necessary form, he inquired as to how I liked my phone and Internet service. I replied that it was fine but that there was no way I was getting the 6mb/sec they advertised. He said "Oh", I heard a mouse click and he replied "There you go". Now I get 10-13 mb/sec. Go figure. If only this worked, with, say, my own brain. Or God.
Entire column is here.
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| strange going-ons inside the house |
[Jul. 13th, 2008|05:30 pm] |
Suddenly this morning, without any discussion or conversation, Beth and I both grabbed cleaning implements and started in on different sections of the house. This is called, I believe, achieving critical mess.
Later, I boxed up and stored the already-read paperbacks from the big bookshelf in the den. That left on the shelf nearly as many or more unread paperbacks. I hope having them out by themselves will help goad me into reading more of them. The warm feelings of nostalgia that were elicited by packing away, for example, the Tales of Known Space box set -- which I bought almost exactly 30 years ago in Laurinburg, NC, during the summer I attended the N.C. Governor's School (East) -- the Book of the New Sun, and Dangerous Visions, were balanced by the pleasant surprises of re-discovering unread books that I'd forgotten I had. Voyage of the Space Beagle and The Midwich Cuckoos, here I come! |
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| Memorial, but not yet gone |
[May. 26th, 2008|10:01 pm] |
Here is a pretty good article about my Dad, timed for Memorial Day, although Veterans Day would be more appropriate. It's from the site of (what's left of) the home town newspaper. I didn't see any egregious errors in it except that my Mom didn't go by "Martha". Instead, everyone called her by her middle name, Inez. Also, the Smith Crossroads job was not, I believe, related to the 321 job that my Dad supervised, which came many years after Smith Crossroads was turned from a roundabout into a highway. I'm sure the reporter was born long after those events. |
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| Author alert! |
[May. 6th, 2008|12:36 am] |
Herr Doktor Kessel informs me that he and that swell guy Greg Frost will be barnstorming across N.C., promoting their new books to anybody left alive in the wake of the Democratic primary. In my own environs, they'll be appearing May 13 at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh -- where the night is Greg's but John will introduce him -- and on May 16 at McIntyre's Fine Books' "Sci-Fi [sic] Author Event". The description says it's a "dual Sci-Fi author event." I'd prefer at "duel" event, but I'll settle for what they got. Not everyday that the Fine Books people unlock the gate and let in the rabble. Hope to see you there. |
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| The mighty hunter... |
[Apr. 14th, 2008|08:14 pm] |
...returns from a couple of library book sales with a few really neat finds:
The Right Stuff, Illustrated. A gorgeous big hardcover book with the complete text of Wolfe's classic along with dozens of photos of the people, places and machines of the early American space age. There's a lot of photos here I've never seen before, and I've looked through more than a few books like this. $1 for a pristine, unmarked copy. I feel like a thief, except not really.
Watch the Skies! by Curtis Peebles. The best cultural history of the UFO phenomenon in the twentieth century. Another area where I've read more than a few books on the subject, and this is one of the few that gets my highest recommendation. It's accessible to readers who may not be steeped in UFO lore and culture, but deep enough to be well worth the reading for those who are. $1 for the copy that I originally read from the Durham County library.
Quatermass, a.k.a. The Quatermass Conclusion. A 2-tape VHS set of the original, complete (240 minutes) BBC serial, Quatermass. I've seen the cut-down version known as The Quatermass Conclusion or Quatermass 4, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the whole thing, for I remember the shorter as being fairly incoherent. The writer, Nigel Kneale, was one of the unappreciated masters of modern science fiction, and the Quatermass series were way ahead of their competition in terms of intelligence and intensity. $5 for two VHS tapes that I hope still work; at least I still have a functional VCR. May have to gather the usual suspect ssome weekend to watch this, maybe toss in the other three Quatermass series -- or movies, since I'm not sure the first two series are available -- and have a Quatermass marathon. |
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| Arthur C. Clarke |
[Mar. 29th, 2008|07:27 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | sf | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | melancholy | ] |
In a just world he would have died on Mars.
Clarke and Carl Sagan probably influenced my personality more than any other people I never met in person. But then, after reading as much of their work as I did, I feel like I knew and understood them a lot better than many people I know and see in person on a regular basis. It's hard to estimate exactly how much influence books like Across the Sea of Stars (which was one of the 4 books* I bought at the first library book sale I ever attended) and The Dragons of Eden had on me when I first read them in junior high and high school. But it's harder to imagine what kind of person I'd be if I hadn't read them then. I certainly wouldn't be me.
*The 4 being: The Clarke omnibus -- I'm currently re-reading Childhood's End in this worn and battered volume; Ballard's The Crystal World which, I regret to say, didn't do too much for me when I was 14 but which I suspect I'd like a lot more these days; Typewriter in the Sky & Fear by L. Ron Hubbard; and The Fifth Galaxy Reader, from which I remember only two stories, the ones by Gordon Dickson and Cordwainer Smith; that was almost certainly the first Smith story I ever read. |
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| new book from John Kessel, and readings |
[Mar. 29th, 2008|07:12 pm] |
Distinguished local author John Kessel asked me to pass along his announcements about his new story collection and some upcoming readings. This along with news that there's a new collection and novel from Greg Egan substantiating into meatspace makes me happy. -- Dan
FROM JOHN KESSEL:
Colleagues and Friends:
I hope you won’t mind my promoting myself a little. My new story collection, THE BAUM PLAN FOR FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE AND OTHER STORIES, will be published in April. In connection with this I will give some readings, including one at Quail Ridge Books and Music, at 7 pm on Wednesday, April 16, and at The Regulator in Durham, at 7 pm on Tuesday, April 22.
I’ve also recorded podcasts of readings of several stories from the collection, including the title story and another, “Pride and Prometheus,” which are available for free download at my website, http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Podcasts.htm.
Excerpts from a couple of advance reviews:
From Publishers Weekly:
This nuanced . . . collection, the first in a decade from Nebula winner Kessel (Good News from Outer Space), plays on the theme of a hapless, down-on-his-luck man thrown into extraordinary circumstances. “The Juniper Tree,” the Tiptree-winning “Stories for Men,” “Sunlight or Rock” and “Under the Lunchbox Tree,” all tied to Kessel's lunar colony sequence, explore the limits placed on a man's life in a beautiful, woman-dominated city on the barren moon. In “Powerless,” the only story original to the volume, a hapless inventor finally perfects a strange new power generator, destroying his relationships along the way. Paying homage to the classics, “Every Angel Is Terrifying” serves as a sequel to Flannery O'Connor's “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” while in “Pride and Prometheus” Mary Bennet meets Victor Frankenstein. These well-crafted stories, full of elegantly drawn characters, deliver a powerful emotional punch. (Apr.)
From Locus Magazine:
John Kessel is one of American SF’s finest writers, but the reverse of prolific, so his first book of the current decade, the quirkily titled collection The Baum Plan for Financial Independence, is a welcome event. Occasionally dashing into whimsy, but in general employing a finely calculated combination of realism and satire, Kessel constructs stories of subversive eloquence, their full freight of meaning exploding in the mind a while after reading has ended. That meaning relates to the folly of cynical capitalism and ruthless fundamentalism, the adaptive desperation of individuals left bereft, the chafing perfection of gender utopias, and the difficult reconciliation of sensibility and science; each tale is a shrewd, stylish vehicle for such concerns, never too blatant, never too obscure. . . .
The closing story in this collection, ‘‘Pride and Prometheus’’, recently published in F&SF, is a splendid exercise in Jane Austen pastiche, a younger Bennet sister meeting Victor Frankenstein and striving to reconcile his cruel Gothicism with scientific ideals. Enlightenment scientism is beautifully burlesqued here, both Austen and Mary Shelley coming in for gentle mockery, the worldliness of the one interweaving mischievously with the emotional extravagance of the other. Each satirizes its counterpart, and the result is a spirit of wry realism. In short, a perfect summary of the complementary contraries within John Kessel, who in The Baum Plan for Financial Independence has produced one of the best collections of the year. |
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| fair and balanced |
[Jan. 31st, 2008|09:41 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | sociology | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  grumpy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | A Simple Desultory Philippic | ] |
"Wearing the helmet, I am just like everyone else and the world makes sense. The war is not an endless war, but a necessary defensive action in the interest of peace and will end shortly. The Masters are not creatures who lie to us and keep us in bondage, but lords of great wisdom and justice who, in the rooms of this great building, prepare us kindly for the world which we will in turn someday ourselves rule. The others who accompany me through these corridors and classrooms are not fellow victims but fellow students, and in the long or short run, everything is for the best."
So begins the short story, "The Helmet," by Barry N. Malzberg. I'd pontificate on how it relates to our "news" culture, but right now I have to go watch Fox News' coverage of Britney Spears.
Oh, and that story was first published in 1973. |
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