December 5, 2022
Just saw someone on my morning commuter train wearing a fluffy beige coat with a single word in all capital letters, stretching across the back from left elbow to right elbow:
EXPLOIT
Yeah. That’s what happened, alright.
August 12, 2022
Our search for alien life is getting serious. With better telescopes and a growing scientific consensus that we’re probably not alone in the universe, we’re beginning to look farther and wider across the vastness of space for evidence of extraterrestrials.
But it’s possible we’re looking for too few signs in too few places. Having evolved on Earth, surrounded by Earth life, we assume alien life would look and behave like terrestrial life.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/alien-hunters-need-to-start-rethinking-the-definition-of-life?
I agree that we are biased, simply based on the basics of what we understand as (carbon-based) life (i.e., ourselves).
And I agree — in principle — that scientists need to keep an open mind when looking for other life forms on exoplanets.
However, they also need to retain a sense of skepticism.
Continue Reading
December 11, 2021
Well, the writing was already on the virtual wall from the beginning. The anime had only one season.
White fanboys got butthurt by the use of diverse actors – anime is anime, but live action is real actors in the real world where “race” and ethnicity are still issues and women don’t actually look like hourglasses.
Ratings plummeted after the initial hype. Netflix always panders to the masses, so this is not surprising.
Adios, amigos. See you, space cowboy.
— Read on soranews24.com/2021/12/10/there-will-not-be-a-season-2-for-netflixs-live-action-cowboy-bebop/
December 9, 2021
Sorry, everyone, for the lack of posts lately!
I wasn’t able to post short stories and news from my smartphone (which is what I had been doing on the train to work) bc I went way over my ISP plan and got throttled for about a week.
Then December started, and work got really busy. And I look up and suddenly realized I haven’t even watched more than the first ep of the live action Cowboy Bebop.
(It was OK. Too many guns and not enough kung-fu.)
I’ll get back to regular posting soon.
In the meantime, here’s a picture of what it looks like on the hiking trail behind my house. (“Wild dogs and boar suddenly appear. Beware!”)
(Yes, I have seen a few. They come with their piglets down to the creek near us at night and then on the property next door dig in the ground with their tusks, looking for bugs to eat.)
November 12, 2021
Where’s the Artemis?? What’s up with Mars? And Ceres seriously…?
Sorry I haven’t kept up the story posts, everyone.
I know it’s been almost a month since the last Bringer of Light episode. Work just got dumped on me, and I can barely find time to give my writing students feedback. We switched back to face to face classes…with live streaming on Zoom for students who couldn’t or wouldn’t go back to campus…which is definitely NOT a teaching style I would recommend to anybody, anywhere, ever.
It’s been like laying down tracks in front of an oncoming train. Every day.
There is lots more good stuff for Riss and her crew, I swear. I’ve got drafts up to Chapter 42, and plots to the end after that. Let me see if I can get the next one up for you all in a day or two…
February 4, 2021
There’s a reason I didn’t post a while ago about the supposed “there’s life in the clouds of Venus” finding.
It was just a big load of gas.
Sorry, folks. Venus is a big rotten egg. 🥚
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/signs-life-venus-might-just-be-ordinary-sulfur-gas-n1256739
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? 🤷♂️
June 30, 2020
“In the future, our system could be part of a global quantum network transmitting quantum signals to receivers on Earth or on other spacecraft,” says Aitor Villar, lead author of the study. “These signals could be used to implement any type of quantum communications application, from quantum key distribution for extremely secure data transmission to quantum teleportation, where information is transferred by replicating the state of a quantum system from a distance.”
OK, OK, so it’s not the first time quantum entanglement has been demonstrated. But it sure is the smallest. Only 20 cm by 10 cm!
Now we only need a few thousand of these things and a way of somehow making tangled photons actually carry encrypted messages…
(Sorry, thinking of the SF novel I should have published by now…still figuring out the last two chapters!)
See more at New Atlas (note: I seriously doubt the CubeSat actually looks like that picture when it’s doing its thing).
February 2, 2020
“Being able to get humans on Mars and actually collecting one of these samples would be such an incredible moment, I would kind of hope it would almost bring us back to the moon days of everyone being glued to the TV.”
Um. Well. OK. TV is dead so we’ll all be watching it streamed on our smartphones, but the point is taken.
And how much did they pay for this? 💰 👽 📺
— Read on http://www.livescience.com/amp/super-bowl-space-commercials.html
January 20, 2020
File under “strange reasons to study Earth science in school” and “things to do when you have far too much free time.”
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