Moe Lane's Blog, page 733
June 2, 2021
USAF officially interested in SpaceX’s upcoming line of suborbital strategic transport shuttles.
Excuse me: ‘Starships.’
“The Department of the Air Force seeks to leverage the current multi-billion dollar commercial investment to develop the largest rockets ever, and with full reusability to develop and test the capability to leverage a commercial rocket to deliver AF cargo anywhere on the Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capacity,” the document states.
To give you an idea of what that means: that’s about 71% the capacity of a Lockheed C-5M Super Galaxy military transport plane… but much, much faster. The USAF isn’t looking for assault shuttles (dammit); but they likely are looking for things that can be converted into emergency transport in, well, an emergency. I suspect SpaceX will be happy to make that easier for them, too. It rarely hurts to have the US military owing you a favor.
Moe Lane
If you are wondering whether there will be any successful pushback on SpaceX’s plans to blanket orbital space with its cheap wireless communications network :looking at the Ars Technica article again: …yeah, I don’t think that’s a high-probability scenario just right now.
Self Tweet of the Day, This Is The Question I Ask Myself Today edition.
So, when people sell books at conventions, what do they transport the books in?
— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) June 2, 2021
I got a hundred paperbacks to move*. What’s my loadout for that? – And, yeah, bensdad00 is right: I need a hand truck.
Moe Lane
*If I sell them all, I lock up the money in the car, leave the information for getting the book online and go check out the rest of the convention. I will not sell them all.
In the email: THE QUICK AND THE UNDEAD.
THE QUICK AND THE UNDEAD is a fantasy Western by Will Neely, a sometime reader of this site. Will wanted me to take a look at it, and this particular genre is of some interest to me (I’ve even written a couple of stories along those lines), so I decided to pick it up. No complaints so far, although I’m only about six percent into the book: it’d be longer, but I have a full day today.
But, by all means, check it out.
June 1, 2021
Open thread, I guess.
It wasn’t unproductive, but work expanded to fill all available time. I had to force my schedule to let me write five hundred new words. That’s not always fun. So, what’s fun with you?
So, good news / bad news on the Galactic Con front.
The bad news? I apparently have a mild hernia. So I have to be careful about lifting things and so forth until I can get to a doctor who will tell me how we’re getting rid of it.
The good news? We decided to bite the bullet and just all go to Galactic Con. I think my kids haven’t worked out yet that going to a comics convention means that there’s stuff for sale that they could buy themselves, or wheedle out of their parents. But they will. That should be fun, and we need to get them out of the house more anyway. And, of course, this way I’ll be able to eat and use the bathroom without worrying that the stock will go walking with Jesus.
So go Team Hernia! …Okay, that sounded better in my head.
06/01/21 Snippet, WOLFGIRL KIM AND THE HOA OF DOOM.
I have odd conversations with my wife sometimes.
Patreon!The prey was wary, despite our precautions. It was female, and young enough to breed, but old enough to know there were things out there that would delight in ripping the meat from its bones and eating it raw. We had done it often enough in places just like this, after all.
But it was stupid, like all prey; and it could not quite believe that this silent grassy field between darkened houses could possibly be instantly fatal, now. And there were treasures in this place, too. Things it could not get at in the woods, where what was left of its kind hid. When stupidity joins forces with greed, foolishness always follows.
But the prey had some cunning; it crept from shadow to shadow, circling around the treasure it sought. I could see it try to look in several directions at once, and stifled my barking laughter when its spooked eyes passed over me, and saw nothing. The rest of the pack followed my example; relaxed, but ready to pounce when it pleased us to do so.
Tweet of the Day, This Is A Thing Of Beauty edition.
Not the fonts; the lawsuit.
best logo story ever: NBC spent $1 million to redesign their peacock logo in 1975, only to be successfully sued for trademark infringement by Nebraska Public TV, who paid $100 for theirs pic.twitter.com/3rxEukoD2z
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 1, 2021
It gets better.
I've actually used this as an example of trademark infringement in class. Nebraska ETV sued NBC in 1976. Parties reached an out-of-court settlement. NBC kept logo but provided $800k in equipment and paid $55k to develop a new logo for Nebraska ETV. About $4mm in today's dollars.
— Brian Carver (@UTPops49) June 1, 2021
Best hundred bucks they ever spent.
Did the first pass-through of TINSEL RAIN.
…Hoo, boy. It’s a good thing that I was planning to get TINSEL RAIN out later in the year, because I’m gonna need to do a bunch more stitching than I remembered. Starting with fixing the skeleton properly, instead of the quick-and-dirty realignment I did last November.
Nothing is actually horrible, although if I was supposed to get this to the editor by the end of the month I’d be in deep trouble. But I just decided to turn this into a two month project instead of a one month one. Best way to make a thorough job of it.
Moe Lane
PS: Eight days to go on the Kickstarter!
