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| Monday, July 20th, 2009 |
rfmcdpei
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9:06a |
[PHOTO] Keep off the tracks
This is the standard sign used by the TTC to warn the people waiting on the platform not to mention into the area of the tracks via the maintenance steps. |
james_nicoll
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8:43a |
Did you enjoy The Face in the Frost
You may want to order this upcoming NESFA book.The Face in the Frost was one of two books where WATSFIC's (the UW science fiction club) book-buying committee all shared the same opinion: it was a must-buy (from Now and Then, back when used SF was a big part of Harry's business, back when Harry was alive and Now and Then still around). The other book we all agreed on was Pel Torro's Galaxy 666, which we all agreed would not sully the club's collection. ! Looking at WATSFIC's library, I see they still have a copy and looking at some of the other books they have (like And Having Writ..., which I don't think saw a reprint after the 1970s) it's entirely possibly that's the copy we bought. Seen via Eric Walker on rasfw |
james_nicoll
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8:28a |
Be prepared
I carry a few bus tickets with me just in case [1]. Last night someone got on the bus with a friend who she had apparently promised to cover the bus fare of, only to discover she couldn't find her bus tickets (she had a pass herself). I on the other hand knew exactly where mine were so I tore one off the strip and passed it to her. Unlike most of my cunning plans, there was no unexpected fire, explosion or other calamity. The woman didn't even try to talk to me, maybe because I kept reading as I handed the ticket over. 1: OK, about 50% so that when the next panhandler tells me he's just looking for bus fare so he can go home, I can give the fellow exactly what he claims to be looking for. It's also 50% because one time I was asked by a teenager who'd lost her transfer for change or a ticket and I didn't have either. She was with friends who were going to leave her at the mall because they couldn't see an alternative (That one was handled by the bus driver). |
james_nicoll
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8:21a |
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papersky
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4:16a |
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yamanblog
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4:31a |
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xkcd_rss
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4:00a |
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yamanblog
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2:03a |
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yamanblog
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1:45a |
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| Sunday, July 19th, 2009 |
james_nicoll
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4:18p |
Rethinking a derisive laugh, a generation late
There's a comment in F. Paul Wilson's Soft and Others to the effect that he tried to be subtle in his use of libertarianism in his SF. I uttered an Edna Krabappel-like "Ha!" when I read that comment. A couple of decades later, thinking about such libertarian SF novels as The Probability Broach and Alongside Night, I think I see what Wilson meant. Sure, it's clear which side Wilson prefers but he also has LaNague completely fail to convince the LaNague Federation that he helped found and which took its name from him that LaNague's way is the best way. As I recall, the ideals that LaNague preferred are limited to one member world. Also, while the policies the Federation followed led to civil war, it's not like the only good people in the Federation were found on Tolive, the libertarian world. Contrast that with the situation in (the much later) Michael Z. Williamson's Freehold series, where the worlds other than the libertopian one are hives of scum, villainy and sssssssssssocialism. In that context, Wilson is subtle. (The trigger is a discussion of an L. Neil Smith book that featured a thinly disguised Walter Cronkite as the villain) |
anton_p_nym
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1:57p |
It's just like home.
Of course it's only when you have a big group of houseguests over that the toilet floods, even in orbit. -- Steve really wouldn't want to have to deal with that mess. How do you mop out the air? Current Mood:  sympatheticCurrent Music: Old Apollo 11 mission recordings |
nancylebov
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12:02p |
"I'm just in it for the stories"-- a possible button slogan
I had an inspiration at Shore Leave: "The military-- I'm just in it for the stories." One military person liked it, another said there should be different buttons for the branches of the military, and it shouldn't be "the Marine Corps", it should be "The Corps". Possibly there should also be "Theater: I'm just in it for the stories". Or a checklist, with a bunch of story-generating activities. Or "Life-- I'm just here for the stories". What do you think? |
rfmcdpei
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11:59a |
[PHOTO] Four 2008 St. Clair West shots
One good thing about going through my archived photos is that I've come across some gems, like these four shots of the area of St. Clair West and Avenue Road that I took last fall. The 512 St. Clair streetcar route has been quite controversial of late, with planned replacement and upgrades, including the raising of the track, meeting with substantial public opposition. Deer Park United Church, located at 129 St. Clair Avenue West just to the east of Avenue Road, recently physically closed due to financial problems. As this points out, it's a shame owing to its architectural distinctiveness and its organ. The architects for the building, Sharp and Brown of Toronto designed a building in a Late Gothic Revival style. Cruciform in plan, the church was built to accommodate 1,100 worshipers. The first organ, Casavant Opus 508 was installed behind a screen at the back of the chancel in 1913. Several renovations were made beginning in 1931 that made various modifications to the chancel including dividing the organ and choir. When discussions turned to purchasing a new organ in the1960’s, numerous locations for the organ and choir were considered as a way to solve the negative affects some of the previous remodeling work had on the sound of the organ and choir. Eventually it was determined to place the organ in the left transept.Work on the One Twelve St. Clair Avenue West condo complex, visible in embryonic form just behind the pedestrians on the southwest corner of the Avenue Road and St. Clair Avenue West intersection, has proceeded rapidly since last year despite the ongoing financial issues. I snapped this picture of the 5 Avenue Road North bus last summer just south of St. Clair. |
james_nicoll
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11:37a |
Not actually interesting but since I looked it up
Ages of Editors
Magazine 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2009
Astounding/Analog 30 40 50 60 36 46 56 65
Fantasy & Science Fiction -- 40 30 33 43 53 33 43
Galaxy -- 36 41* 27 35** -- -- --
Asimov's -- -- -- -- 51 43 53 ??
Well, that wasn't very informative. Analog's numbers are due to its habit of long tenures for editors (in particular Campbell and Schmidt's long tenures). F&SF by way of contrast has gone through a lot more editors in less time. Nothing double-checked. Could all be wrong. * If Fred Pohl was doing most of the editorial work by that time. If Gold still was, that should be 46. ** Galaxy shut down in late 1979 but lets pretend it lasted another few months. |
james_nicoll
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10:51a |
Please explain
I carried a large container of cat litter home a couple of days ago. It seems logical that the easiest way to carry something with a handle on it is to let one's arm hang straight while hanging onto the handle of the object. In fact it's much easier to carry it with the arm bent between 45 and 90 degrees. Why? |
james_nicoll
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10:31a |
Hearts and Minds
In celebration of the US landing on the Moon, author Michael Mandel questions whether the US space program was worth the money sunk into it.Things he overlooks: weather satellites, GPS, spy satellites (which arguably greatly reduced the odds of an accidental WWIII or at least changed the nature of the sort of accidental WWIII we might have. I've run the figures and a civilization-ending global thermonuclear war has significant economic consequences) and modern aps like Google Maps, all of which involve a region of space not much farther out than geosynch, and all of which involve the one thing that can be transported fairly quickly and relatively inexpensively across space: information. I am not sure how to put a price on the abstract knowledge we've gathered from space but since deep space probes can run over a billion dollars a pop, someone must have a way to measure the value of the returns. The ensuing discussion is rather energetic. I note in one of the comments farther down an interesting habit Americans have when they talk about the wars they are involved in: Iraq is said to have cost "has cost 4,000 lives, injured 10,000 or more [...]". In fact, estimates of the violent deaths in Iraq due to the current adventure start at about 90,000 and range up to one million. There is a good possibility that the moon and the gas giants contain quantities of helium-3, which is rare on Earth but has a good chance of solving our energy problems.[Primal Scream] Intercontinental ballistic missiles. Those were nice to have....Arrow of causality pointed in wrong direction. In any case, enjoy! Also, blame Carlos |
| Saturday, July 18th, 2009 |
nihilistic_kid
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11:56p |
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nihilistic_kid
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5:47p |
Announcement of rate change
If anyone wants me to watch GI Joe, it's gonna be thirty bucks. Perhaps two or more of you could form a syndicate to finance the endeavor. |
rfmcdpei
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8:24p |
[FORUM] Flesh-eating robots? Why not?
In violation of my established protocols of doing only one text-content post and one or two media-content posts a weekend, I'll start this second [FORUM] post by reproducing this item from WIRED's Danger Room blog. In response to rumors circulating the internet on sites such as FoxNews.com, FastCompany.com and CNET News about a “flesh eating” robot project, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. (Pink Sheets:CYPW) and Robotic Technology Inc. (RTI) would like to set the record straight: This robot is strictly vegetarian.
On July 7, Cyclone announced that it had completed the first stage of development for a beta biomass engine system used to power RTI’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR™), a Phase II SBIR project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Sciences Office. RTI’s EATR is an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling.
RTI’s patent pending robotic system will be able to find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment. Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes “human bodies,” the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips – small, plant-based items for which RTI’s robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI.
“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO. “We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.” (emphasis in the original)
Yes, they have said repeatedly that say that the robot's vegetarian. Do you really believe that it has to be vegetarian? Technology as a whole is advancing so quickly that I don't see any reason why Baltar's seduction by a comely Cylon leading to the destruction of the Twelve Colonies couldn't develop parallels in the real world. Cloaking devices, ion drives for spacecraft, self-maintaining robots, remarkable biotechnologies, immensely powerful and swift computer networks, new theories describing the behaviour of humans as individuals and in groups ... we have the potential to map our world more completely than any preceding generation of humans, and do with it almost what we will. And this prospect terrifies me. Most technologies don't spread uniformly across the world, each getting to different places at different times thanks to things like widely varying income levels and degrees of cultural receptivity and the simple ease of physical access, among many other variables. Do my readers think it likely that the advent and deployment of these technologies could help entrench existing global inequalities, leaving the developed world and perhaps the BRIC and other notable economies to dominate the rest of the planet, and different social clases within these victors to dominate others? Thoughts? |
| Sunday, July 19th, 2009 |
dubaiwalla
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1:08a |
A film is a petrified fountain of thought. - Jean Cocteau
The performing fountains at Dubai Mall.  I may only have used a camera with a wide angle lens for a single day, but I am already beginning to wonder if I can ever go back. Here is a panorama I stitched together from behind the fountains seen in this video above. Even with my fancy new equipment, I cannot quite capture everything to be seen from this location. That would require a helicopter and a special lens allowing for 360° views. Poll #1431622 Meta
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllFrom your vantage point, does LiveJournal appear to be dying? This week's ridiculous newspaper headline comes by way of ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tomscud: Goldman Sachs in Talks to Acquire Treasury Department. There's some disturbing news from Israel, where people protesting on religious grounds have thrown stones at Jews. Did you correctly guess why? Tourism might be down worldwide, but some hotels are still maintaining a 400 percent occupancy rate. The standards and punishments for indecency are far from universal. By the time I left the DC area, I'd gotten pretty good at figuring out where on a platform to wait. That way, I could make connections easily or exit a station quickly upon leaving my train. New York's subway system is far more complicated, but you can now get help. It took Dubai less than a year to abandon its sole women-only bus route. The flaws in the concept were so obvious as to make one wonder why they even experimented with the idea. Women make up well under a quarter of bus riders, and can already sit in designated sections where men cannot bother them, so the benefits of infrequent bus service along a single route were never going to be especially great.  Deira after dark. ( Pictures from my old camera ) Current Mood:  tiredCurrent Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California |
| Saturday, July 18th, 2009 |
thesaucernews
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3:27p |
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james_nicoll
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4:20p |
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infrogmation
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2:45p |
Walter Cronkite Memorial Truth Telling
Telling the Truth About the War on Drugs, by Walter Cronkite, March 1, 2006 As anchorman of the CBS Evening News, I signed off my nightly broadcasts for nearly two decades with a simple statement: "And that's the way it is." To me, that encapsulates the newsman's highest ideal: to report the facts as he sees them, without regard for the consequences or controversy that may ensue. Sadly, that is not an ethic to which all politicians aspire - least of all in a time of war. I remember. I covered the Vietnam War. I remember the lies that were told, the lives that were lost - and the shock when, twenty years after the war ended, former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara admitted he knew it was a mistake all along. Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home. While the war in Iraq is in the headlines, the other war is still being fought on our own streets. Its casualties are the wasted lives of our own citizens. I am speaking of the war on drugs. ( Read more... ) |
rfmcdpei
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2:41p |
[FORUM] What do you think about people in space?
Forty years ago plus two days, Apollo 11's lunar module landed on the Mare Tranqillitatis and Neil started out on the historic first walk ever on the moon Readers of my blog have probably noticed that I've tried to follow space-related news, as evidenced by tags like "space science", "space travel", and so on. I am excited by the fact that new space probes are being readied for launch to many different destinations, by established and new spacefaring powers, and the idea of suborbital flights as tourism appeals to me (the idea of suborbital spacecraft as the poor man's ICBM, not so much). But manned space travel? Space colonization? What's the point, really? (Please please don't cite lunar helium-3.) Yes, active selenological research bases would be nice; yes, a terraformed Mars and clouds of O'Neill habitats at any number of LaGrange points would be fantastic; yes, a world like Tirane serenly and greenly orbiting Alpha Centauri A would be a great place to visit. But will any of these things happen in my lifetime, or even start to happen? I doubt it. Projects too costly, too difficult to achieve with current technology, and with too little support from the general population aren't going to happen, at least not until human societies become wealthier and more technologically advanced and so convince potential objectors that the project's worth the expense. Why do you think that it took forty years after the Apollo missions before the world as a whole became interested putting people on the Moon? Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union drove the manned missions of the 1960s, and it's worth noting that the abortive Chinese manned space program using Shuguang vehicles was driven by the demons of the People's Republic in the early 1970s. As for the drama of space, well, David Bowie's Major Tom song cycle starts with a man who's a detached if noble hero and makes him into a junkie who's probably also closeted. The mythos of the noble astronaut is dead; space is just another place to live and work and die. Before I die I can imagine different national bases on the Moon, then, I can easily imagine clouds of unmanned space probes scattered across the greater Solar System, I can even imagine at least one manned landing on Mars. Anything more than that? Silliness. What do you think? |
nancylebov
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1:19p |
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