Odd Lots

[jeff_duntemann]

• While putting our Christmas decorations up a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that I only hear the word "stocking" in connection with Christmas these days. Does anyone actually wear stockings anymore?
• Well, the best Christmas present we telescope freaks could ask for is a successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, now scheduled to head for orbit on Christmas day at 7:20 AM EST. Here's the countdown page. I'm keeping it in a tab.
• My first car was a Chevy. As far as I'm concerned, this is the best car commercial of all time.
• Astronomers are finding a great many free-floating planets (FFPs), which are planets just drifting around without any star to circle. How they form remains a mystery; are they failed stars or ejected planets? And what sorts of stories could an SF writer tell about FFPs?
• Now here's a headline that somebody waited years to write: Imaginary numbers might be needed to describe reality. You need to know more quantum physics than I do to understand the point they're making, but it's a marvelous headline nonetheless.
• Watching a video lecture twice at double speed can help you retain what you learn better than watching it only once. I dunno. I still prefer books.
• This is why we don't live in the midwest anymore. Freezing rain? Our problem is evaporating rain. And you don't skid on heat, heh.
• We're short on snow here in the desert southwest. We have no shortage of tumbleweeds, though. And this leads to the obvious conclusion.
• I've posted a much cleaner version of my flash fiction story "STORMY Vs. the Tornadoes," which originally ran in PC Techniques. The new copy is an excerpt from Souls in Silicon , my collection of stories about strong AI. $2.99 ebook, $11.99 paperback.
• Enjoy Christmas Eve. At our house we always had the Polish Wigilia (vigil) supper at sundown, when the first star of evening (the Gwiadzka) appears. Alas, in Chicago, seeing any stars at all on Christmas Eve was probably a one-in-three chance. We did our best. I've always considered this verse from Nehemiah 8 as a Christmas Eve injunction: "Eat fat, drink sweet wine, and send portions to those who have nothing, for this day is holy to our Lord."