Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 236

We Three

Daniel Abraham, SM Stirling, and I will be at Bookworks in Albuquerque on Tuesday, at 7pm, for a talk and a signing.Y'all come.

Space Fab

So here's the plan. NASA sends an "electron beam freeform fabrication" unit up onto the Space Station. Then, when the aging station needs a part, the fab just . . . prints it.While the EBF3 equipment tested on the ground is fairly large and heavy, a smaller version was created and successfully test flown on a NASA jet that is used to provide researchers with brief periods of weightlessness. The

Hardening of the Arteries

The National Security Agency seems to have won its turf war with the Department of Homeland Security over control of the nation's cyber security efforts. Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander is the director of the National Security Agency, the largest intelligence agency in the government, and with little public fanfare he has been setting up the central nervous system in the government's new campaign to

The Prize

It's probably a little late to chime in on the Nobel Prize thing, but what the hell. I had a busy weekend that kept me from posting, but at least I had time for mature consideration. I'm sure I was as surprised as anyone else. "This is, at best, premature," I thought. I voted for the guy, I have no reason to actively dislike him (yet), but I did think it was a little odd to give a Peace

TINAG UK

Here's the preliminary cover for the British mass-market edition of This Is Not a Game. There'll be some tweaking between now and the final version, but it's mainly in place. The binary code actually spells out This Is Not a Game. How cool is that?

Taos Toolbox 2010

Taos Toolbox, a master class in writing science fiction and fantasy, will take place June 6-19, 2010, in Taos Ski Valley. I will teach alongside Nancy Kress, and with special lecturer Carrie Vaughn.More details here.

Shroud II: the Deliverance

An Italian scientist has succeeded in duplicating the Shroud of Turin, which he says exposes the Shroud as a fake.Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid. A mask was used for the face.The pigment was then

Reviews Too Late: In Bruges

Imagine a gangster film in which nothing happens. That's where I thought I was for the first half of this movie, in a film about what gangsters are like when they're on vacation and not being gangsters. Not that this is a bad thing. The first half of In Bruges is the best part. Nothing happens in very interesting ways. Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and Ray (Colin Farrel) are a couple Irish hit men who

Free Spaces

The first seven chapters of Implied Spaces are now available for free on the Baen webscription site. If you don't have your own copy yet, you might want to give them a read. For the following eighteen chapters, however, you still have to buy the book.

Resting Place

Here I am at my parents' final resting place. "Resting" being an understatement, since their activities may also include flying, swirling, scudding, and fertilizing giant fir trees. My mom passed away a little over a year ago, and my father twelve years back. His ashes have since resided in a kind of shrine I built to him atop a bookshelf. My mother's wish was that her ashes be scattered