]]>Funny thing about Ray Bradbury: yes, he hates the internet, but he also hates tv, radio, and “New York intellectuals.” Liked Walt Disney.
]]>Funny thing about Ray Bradbury: yes, he hates the internet, but he also hates tv, radio, and “New York intellectuals.” Liked Walt Disney.
Next will be a visit with an orthopedic doc to determine if I can just go do physical therapy rehab, or if I need surgery first. Knock on wood. From what I’ve read about it, I need to keep up the HI-RICE, do some exercise like walking and light cycling to keep up the healing blood flow, and just try to stay cognizant of how it’s feeling so I don’t overdo it and re-injure things.
Here’s a picture of the mother of all Wii accessories MRI machine, and then one of some unidentified internal portion of my knee, which may include an alien embryo.
Next will be a visit with an orthopedic doc to determine if I can just go do physical therapy rehab, or if I need surgery first. Knock on wood. From what I’ve read about it, I need to keep up the HI-RICE, do some exercise like walking and light cycling to keep up the healing blood flow, and just try to stay cognizant of how it’s feeling so I don’t overdo it and re-injure things.
Here’s a picture of the mother of all Wii accessories MRI machine, and then one of some unidentified internal portion of my knee, which may include an alien embryo.
“The Gun” by Philip K. Dick, from Planet Stories, September 1952.
Nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead. Only the gun showed signs of life … and the trespassers had wrecked that for all time. The return journey to pick up the treasure would be a cinch … they smiled.
“Shipwreck in the Sky” by Eando Binder, from Fantastic Universe, March 1954.
The flight was listed at GHQ as Project Songbird. It was sponsored by the Space Medicine Labs of the U.S. Air Force. And its pilot was Captain Dan Barstow.
A hand-picked man, Dan Barstow, chosen for the AF’s most important project of the year because he and his VX-3 had already broken all previous records set by hordes of V-2s, Navy Aerobees and anything else that flew the skyways.
Dan Barstow, first man to cross the sea of air and sight open, unlimited space. Pioneer flight to infinity. He grinned and hummed to himself as he settled down for the long jaunt. Too busy to be either thrilled or scared he considered the thirty-seven instruments he’d have to read, the twice that many records to keep, and the miles of camera film to run. He had been hand-picked and thoroughly conditioned to take it all without more than a ten percent increase in his pulse rate. So he worked as matter-of-factly as if he were down in the Gs Centrifuge of the Space Medicine Labs where he had been schooled for this trip for months.
“The Terror from the Depths” by Sewell Peaslee Wright, from Astounding Stories, November 1931.
“Good afternoon, sir,” nodded Correy as I entered the navigating room. He glanced down at the two glowing three-dimensional navigating charts, and drummed restlessly on the heavy frames.
“Afternoon, Mr. Correy. Anything of interest to report?”
“Not a thing, sir!” growled my fire-eating first officer. “I’m about ready to quit the Service and get a job on one of the passenger liners, just on the off chance that something exciting might eventually happen.”
“You were born a few centuries too late,” I chuckled. Correy loved a fight more than any man I ever knew. “The Universe has become pretty well quieted down.”
Bonus story
“Equation of Doom” by Gerald Vance, from Amazing Stories, February 1957.
]]>They grounded Ramsey’s ship on a hostile planet hoping he would starve to death, so the first thing he did was give most of his money away and lose the rest gambling. Then he picked a fight with the Chief of Police and joined forces with a half-naked dream-chick who was seemingly bent on self-destruction. The stakes were big—a planet or two—but it all added up to an Equation of Doom.
“The Gun” by Philip K. Dick, from Planet Stories, September 1952.
Nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead. Only the gun showed signs of life … and the trespassers had wrecked that for all time. The return journey to pick up the treasure would be a cinch … they smiled.
“Shipwreck in the Sky” by Eando Binder, from Fantastic Universe, March 1954.
The flight was listed at GHQ as Project Songbird. It was sponsored by the Space Medicine Labs of the U.S. Air Force. And its pilot was Captain Dan Barstow.
A hand-picked man, Dan Barstow, chosen for the AF’s most important project of the year because he and his VX-3 had already broken all previous records set by hordes of V-2s, Navy Aerobees and anything else that flew the skyways.
Dan Barstow, first man to cross the sea of air and sight open, unlimited space. Pioneer flight to infinity. He grinned and hummed to himself as he settled down for the long jaunt. Too busy to be either thrilled or scared he considered the thirty-seven instruments he’d have to read, the twice that many records to keep, and the miles of camera film to run. He had been hand-picked and thoroughly conditioned to take it all without more than a ten percent increase in his pulse rate. So he worked as matter-of-factly as if he were down in the Gs Centrifuge of the Space Medicine Labs where he had been schooled for this trip for months.
“The Terror from the Depths” by Sewell Peaslee Wright, from Astounding Stories, November 1931.
“Good afternoon, sir,” nodded Correy as I entered the navigating room. He glanced down at the two glowing three-dimensional navigating charts, and drummed restlessly on the heavy frames.
“Afternoon, Mr. Correy. Anything of interest to report?”
“Not a thing, sir!” growled my fire-eating first officer. “I’m about ready to quit the Service and get a job on one of the passenger liners, just on the off chance that something exciting might eventually happen.”
“You were born a few centuries too late,” I chuckled. Correy loved a fight more than any man I ever knew. “The Universe has become pretty well quieted down.”
Bonus story
“Equation of Doom” by Gerald Vance, from Amazing Stories, February 1957.
]]>They grounded Ramsey’s ship on a hostile planet hoping he would starve to death, so the first thing he did was give most of his money away and lose the rest gambling. Then he picked a fight with the Chief of Police and joined forces with a half-naked dream-chick who was seemingly bent on self-destruction. The stakes were big—a planet or two—but it all added up to an Equation of Doom.
]]>While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.
]]>While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.
Bloomsday is a commemoration observed annually on 16 June in Dublin, Ireland, and elsewhere to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and relive the events in his novel Ulysses, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904. The name derives from Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses. 16 June was the date of Joyce’s first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, when they walked to the Dublin village of Ringsend.
The daily poem from Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac today is an excerpt from Ulysses:
]]>“O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the
figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue
and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and
cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put
the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how
he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and
then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to
say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him
down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like
mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”
Bloomsday is a commemoration observed annually on 16 June in Dublin, Ireland, and elsewhere to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and relive the events in his novel Ulysses, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904. The name derives from Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses. 16 June was the date of Joyce’s first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, when they walked to the Dublin village of Ringsend.
The daily poem from Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac today is an excerpt from Ulysses:
]]>“O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the
figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue
and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and
cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put
the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how
he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and
then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to
say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him
down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like
mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”
Biologist Robert Full studies the amazing gecko, with its supersticky feet and tenacious climbing skill. But high-speed footage reveals that the gecko’s tail harbors perhaps the most surprising talents of all.
Full talks about a concept he calls “biomutualism,” a back-and-forth process of contribution between disciplines that tends to contribute in surprising ways. In the video, it’s biologists and engineers. Fascinating talk.
]]>Biologist Robert Full studies the amazing gecko, with its supersticky feet and tenacious climbing skill. But high-speed footage reveals that the gecko’s tail harbors perhaps the most surprising talents of all.
Full talks about a concept he calls “biomutualism,” a back-and-forth process of contribution between disciplines that tends to contribute in surprising ways. In the video, it’s biologists and engineers. Fascinating talk.
]]>In timely fashion, here’s a new article by the impressively monikered Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of the Computerworld Cyber Cynic blog with “The top four Linux netbook trends”:
]]>I can barely keep track of all the Linux netbook-related announcements from this week’s Computex trade show, and I follow this stuff for a living. So, I sat down and put together a list so I could a grip on what’s coming up with the Linux netbook for the rest of the year.
In timely fashion, here’s a new article by the impressively monikered Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of the Computerworld Cyber Cynic blog with “The top four Linux netbook trends”:
]]>I can barely keep track of all the Linux netbook-related announcements from this week’s Computex trade show, and I follow this stuff for a living. So, I sat down and put together a list so I could a grip on what’s coming up with the Linux netbook for the rest of the year.
]]>This week marks the UK release of We’ll Always Have Paris, the latest collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The author of such modern cultural touchstones as The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 is one of the more prolific writers of recent decades; even though he’s approaching his 90th birthday, it comes as little surprise to find another volume of his hitting the shelves. What is perhaps surprising, however, is that Bradbury can still produce a book of such high quality at this late stage in his career.
]]>This week marks the UK release of We’ll Always Have Paris, the latest collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The author of such modern cultural touchstones as The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 is one of the more prolific writers of recent decades; even though he’s approaching his 90th birthday, it comes as little surprise to find another volume of his hitting the shelves. What is perhaps surprising, however, is that Bradbury can still produce a book of such high quality at this late stage in his career.
The director of the Academy Award-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth” and the well-received “Hellboy” films was on hand at midnight last night at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood to autograph copies of his new vampire book “The Strain,” co-written by Chuck Hogan. He stated that he would not leave until “every last geek” was satisfied — and he meant it. I didn’t get to record this bit of video until 3:30 a.m., when he signed his last book.
Seems like a great guy. Here’s a first trailer for the new book:
]]>The director of the Academy Award-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth” and the well-received “Hellboy” films was on hand at midnight last night at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood to autograph copies of his new vampire book “The Strain,” co-written by Chuck Hogan. He stated that he would not leave until “every last geek” was satisfied — and he meant it. I didn’t get to record this bit of video until 3:30 a.m., when he signed his last book.
Seems like a great guy. Here’s a first trailer for the new book:
]]>
“all cats are gray” (1953) by Andrew North. Published in Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, August–September 1953.
]]>An odd story, made up of oddly assorted elements that include a man, a woman, a black cat, a treasure—and an invisible being that had to be seen to be believed.
Under normal conditions a whole person has a decided advantage over a handicapped one. But out in deep space the normal may be reversed—for humans at any rate.
Steena of the spaceways—that sounds just like a corny title for one of the Stellar-Vedo spreads. I ought to know, I’ve tried my hand at writing enough of them. Only this Steena was no glamour babe. She was as colorless as a Lunar plant—even the hair netted down to her skull had a sort of grayish cast and I never saw her but once draped in anything but a shapeless and baggy gray space-all.
Steena was strictly background stuff and that is where she mostly spent her free hours—in the smelly smoky background corners of any stellar-port dive frequented by free spacers. If you really looked for her you could spot her—just sitting there listening to the talk—listening and remembering. She didn’t open her own mouth often. But when she did spacers had learned to listen. And the lucky few who heard her rare spoken words—these will never forget Steena.
She drifted from port to port. Being an expert operator on the big calculators she found jobs wherever she cared to stay for a time. And she came to be something like the master-minded machines she tended—smooth, gray, without much personality of her own.
But it was Steena who told Bub Nelson about the Jovan moon-rites—and her warning saved Bub’s life six months later. It was Steena who identified the piece of stone Keene Clark was passing around a table one night, rightly calling it unworked Slitite. That started a rush which made ten fortunes overnight for men who were down to their last jets. And, last of all, she cracked the case of the Empress of Mars.
“all cats are gray” (1953) by Andrew North. Published in Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, August–September 1953.
]]>An odd story, made up of oddly assorted elements that include a man, a woman, a black cat, a treasure—and an invisible being that had to be seen to be believed.
Under normal conditions a whole person has a decided advantage over a handicapped one. But out in deep space the normal may be reversed—for humans at any rate.
Steena of the spaceways—that sounds just like a corny title for one of the Stellar-Vedo spreads. I ought to know, I’ve tried my hand at writing enough of them. Only this Steena was no glamour babe. She was as colorless as a Lunar plant—even the hair netted down to her skull had a sort of grayish cast and I never saw her but once draped in anything but a shapeless and baggy gray space-all.
Steena was strictly background stuff and that is where she mostly spent her free hours—in the smelly smoky background corners of any stellar-port dive frequented by free spacers. If you really looked for her you could spot her—just sitting there listening to the talk—listening and remembering. She didn’t open her own mouth often. But when she did spacers had learned to listen. And the lucky few who heard her rare spoken words—these will never forget Steena.
She drifted from port to port. Being an expert operator on the big calculators she found jobs wherever she cared to stay for a time. And she came to be something like the master-minded machines she tended—smooth, gray, without much personality of her own.
But it was Steena who told Bub Nelson about the Jovan moon-rites—and her warning saved Bub’s life six months later. It was Steena who identified the piece of stone Keene Clark was passing around a table one night, rightly calling it unworked Slitite. That started a rush which made ten fortunes overnight for men who were down to their last jets. And, last of all, she cracked the case of the Empress of Mars.
]]>Written by award-winning author Keir Thomas, Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference is a totally unique and concise guide for everyday Ubuntu use. It’s the world’s most popular Ubuntu book, with over half a million readers (and rising!).
]]>Written by award-winning author Keir Thomas, Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference is a totally unique and concise guide for everyday Ubuntu use. It’s the world’s most popular Ubuntu book, with over half a million readers (and rising!).