September 18, 2021
OK, I readily admit that I am once again waaaay behind on my scifi blogging.
At some point last week, I looked up from the mass amounts of work I had left to do and went, “Uh. August 21st? Was that really the last time I posted?”
Uh. Yup.
😣
I’ll do my best to get the rest of Riss’s story online on a biweekly basis, like I promised I would.
But promises…
May 4, 2021
“When they did that design, they should have stopped and thought, ‘you know, that’s going to leave a big chunk of debris in orbit, we should change the design of the engine’,” McDowell says. “But they didn’t. This is real negligence.”
https://www.inverse.com/science/long-march-5b-uncontrolled-reentry
Four years ago, China’s first space station landed in the Pacific Ocean between Australia and Chile, after an uncontrolled reentry. China didn’t care.
Last year, pieces from a Long March 5B rocket landed in Cote d’Ivoire. They damaged buildings in two villages. China didn’t care.
This launch of the same rocket design could land anywhere from New York to New Zealand, covering a wide range of habitation. China doesn’t care.
On the other hand, once somebody in their government reads about the criticism by the scientific community, they’ll petulantly whine that this often happened in the 1960s, so that makes it OK for them to ignore rocket safety designs known for the past 30 years.
Maybe it’s technology they haven’t yet stolen from other countries.
As the self-acknowledged center of the known universe, the Middle Kingdom only cares what others think of it. Like a spoiled child that thinks it knows everything but fears it does not, China only reacts to its own mistakes by lashing out at others and disclaiming responsibility.
If you want to be respected as a superpower, you need to learn how to respect other countries and stop dumping your trash on them. Respect is not given, it is earned. China has done little to earn any respect by the scientific community.
February 1, 2021
OK, hands up who thinks this is a really super dumb and risky idea but isn’t terribly surprised by the super dumb and risky things Musk continually blurts out? 🤷♂️
October 9, 2019
Sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while. I know it’s been about two months. Summer was filled with fun family activities in Montreal. September was filled with trips to libraries and feeling sorry for myself. Got into a bit of a funk.
Now I’m back in Japan, back to the daily grind, and trying to find time to sort out all the stuff I mailed back from Montreal.
Rest assured, there’s lots of stuff to write about. Some of it even makes sense.
I’ll be writing a few quick posts about various cool science and space things in the upcoming days. Then maybe a couple of longish ones about weird family history. And maybe even an update on my SF novel.
Yeah. I still didn’t finish the first draft. Stuck on 70,000 words. But the end is in sight!
More later…
January 23, 2019
He described the concept as a “stainless-steel sandwich” that can “bleed water…fuel” through tiny holes on its surface to keep it cool as it enters the Martian atmosphere at breakneck speeds.
Not sure, but I don’t think there are a lot of people who want to travel to Mars inside a sandwich…
www.inverse.com/article/52605-starship-spacex-elon-musk-stainless-steel
November 20, 2018
Just gonna post this here for posterity…
February 11, 2018
So much for my New Year’s resolution of writing more regularly on my blog.
I can blame “writer’s block,” which is sometimes just a convenient excuse for general laziness and sometimes stems from a genuine fear of being entirely uncreative and uninnovative.
(My software program tells me that uninnovative is not a real word. Well, now it is. So there.) Continue Reading
January 20, 2018
Is it wrong to post something when nothing’s really been going on?
Well, not exactly nothing nothing. What I mean is, nothing particularly special.
Just work, family, day to day routines.
Influenza. Type B. (Not me, my daughter.)
Preparing materials for class. Doing it again. And again.
Trying to write. Failing epically. Zoning out on YouTubes on Ancient Greece and the Hittites (I’m on a big Hittite kick right now for some reason).
Finally getting to see the new Blade Runner at a friend’s house on Bluray (with kids it’s almost impossible to watch movies I want to see).
Practicing guitar for the first time in nearly a year. Then doing it every day a week straight. For 10 minutes at a time. (Before being told “Daddy, that’s noisy.”)
Yeah. Nothing in particular. Just life, I guess.
April 1, 2016
Some people have asked me on FB for some previews of Notes from the Nineties. It’s difficult to prepare excerpts from short stories (which are already short). So while I’m thinking of what’s appropriate as a teaser, here’s another poem from the volume. It appears right after the story “Boys Will be Boys” together with the poem “Grandmother.”
1000 Isles
Summers of my Upstate youth were spent
in the family station wagon, the six of us, or was it seven,
traveling to the great St. Lawrence
Seaway of a thousand islands.
The first time we stayed one night at Mosquito Heaven,
sleepless in a brown canvas tent,
and four nights on the biggest island—
half in the US,
half out.
I learned how to gut a fish, how to swim,
how to roll up a sleeping bag,
and where to buy fireworks—
I mean sparklers.
On my 12th birthday, I got a wallet,
put in a year’s allowance,
then when I forgot it in the campsite bathroom,
got advice in return the next morning—
“I told you so.”
Looking back, it makes sense
to me now
that I hate dressing.
February 23, 2015
Over the weekend, I decided to make the ebook version of Approaching Twi-Night free, in celebration of the beginning of spring training. Just for a couple days. The book slowly crept up to number 3, then 2, then late last night hit the top spot in free baseball ebooks….in non-fiction.
Hm.
I guess it’s so realistic a novel that it’s non-fiction, insofar as, yes, there was a baseball strike in 1994 and there are Class A teams in New York.
This is an Art Blog covering many topics to do with art, how to draw and paint tutorials, style, as well as creativity in general. We blog about art, photography, recommend related products and give our best SEO tips for artists and bloggers. We'd love to hear from you so get in touch if you want to start up a conversation or a collaboration!
self-publishing
Watch The Outer Space Moon and Stars
Come inside, pull up a tentacle or seven.
Heritage High School's student-run newspaper
Crafting strange fiction from stranger fact.
Blog Fiction
