On Saturday, I went to my local eat-and-drink movie house to watch the new SF flick Ad Astra. I have opinions.

1) I found the movie a bit ponderous. Some of that is characteristic of the plot, which is basically Heart of Darkness as interpreted by Apocalypse Now. Some of that is just because it's ponderous ( Read more... )

No, I'm not obsessed with Mars. I can stop thinking about the Red Planet any time I want to. (Clears throat.) Since that day hasn't come yet, I'd like to talk about this article How Will Police Solve Murders on Mars?I found a lot of the article spot-on, but there was a big red (orange?) flag for me. The author said that Martian police won't ( Read more... )

For some unknown reason, I am the editor of my Rotary club's weekly newsletter. (For another unknown reason, I'm also the webmaster.) As part of a tradition going back to before I was a member, our weekly newsletter incorporates a trivia section and a cartoon at the end. Since I've got things to do after the meeting, I'm writing my trivia ( Read more... )

I’ve periodically written about space colonization. (No, I am not obsessed about space. I can quit thinking about it any time I want to.) While doing that highly-important task of dinking around on the Internet, I came across this Twitter threadThe author, Dr. Sarah Taber, is an expert in agriculture, and does a lot of work in support of ( Read more... )

I've been busy, so have some links:

1) I'm still giving away free e-copies of my book The Night Watch.

2) You can read an interview of me.

3) An interesting article: Why Nothing Works Anymore. Best opening line: "“No… it’s a magic potty,” my daughter used to lament, age 3 or so, before refusing to use a public restroom stall with an automatic- ( Read more... )

Comes news today that SpaceX just successfully recovered their first stage, making them the second entity to fly a reusable spaceship to orbit. (NASA's Shuttle was the first, of course.) This event is critical, in that if we are ever to have colonies in space, the cost of getting to orbit has to go down. The only way that happens is if we stop ( Read more... )

Busy morning equals late posting.

A) Boeing announces metal that's lighter than air.

B) A fun and quick story by a friend of mine.

C) I've not read the report yet, but NASA's plan to go to Mars.

D) Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote a constitution for Haiti. The locals weren't fond of it.

E) An amusing picture:


( Read more... )

Been saving this up...

A) An interesting thought on police misconduct. The author compares fear of police as equivalent to the fear of terrorism. Both are random events that could happen to anybody anywhere, where as other forms of violence can in theory be avoided.

B) What do you eat in Antarctica? The hot dog soup actually looks pretty good ( Read more... )

A) On the space front, growing food in shipping containers is exactly the kind of tech we'll need to settle in space.

B) Disordered thinking, or, thinking that Muslims have taken over a number of cities including Dearborn, MI and established "no go zones" wherein Sharia law is practiced, why does nobody check if perhaps his collar is a bit too ( Read more... )

The title of today's post comes from a comment at this post. The short version is Somebody On The Internet Is Upset, this time over a black female pirate in fiction. Well, despite the fact that one such person really existed, the discussion has proceeded along the usual lines. Moving on to the links:

A) La Maupin, a 17th-Century opera singer, ( Read more... )