Patrick Chiles's Blog, page 19
February 5, 2013
End of the World Update, Part Infinity
In case you’re not feeling gloomy enough, then check out these two not-entirely-unrelated stories from Zero Hedge: Argentina orders a two-month supermarket price freeze. Because the velocity of money always responds to government dictates. The Argentinians who suffered through the Peron collapse – at least the ones who understand the how & why of it [...]
Hit & Run Posting
A couple of quick hits here just to make sure the blog still has a pulse, and to encourage other writers. Here are two more recent signs that the “establishment” media is coming around to a grudging acceptance of the Brave New World of indie publishing. Yesterday, NPR interviewed Mark Coker of Smashwords in a [...]
January 30, 2013
More from APOGEE
Denver An early riser by habit, Arthur Hammond was still surprised to have a call from the control center this soon. If the phone rang at all during the night, it was never welcome news. Otherwise, the flight directors tried to leave the Chairman alone after hours. Not that Hammond ever really shut himself off: [...]
January 23, 2013
Dive Alarm
A fascinating story in the NY Times Book Review about professional deep-sea divers: Diving Deep Into Danger. It’s called “saturation diving”, and is not for the faint of heart: “The best are those who have a great deal of confidence in themselves and their abilities,” one former diver, Phil Newsum, told me. “You have to [...]
APOGEE, Chapter 1
As promised, here’s the next round of Apogee sneak previews. If ya’ll haven’t guessed, we pick up where Perigee left off: that is, with Art Hammond hell-bent on sending people around the Moon. The tech combines elements of Buzz Aldrin’s “lunar cycler” concept, Bigelow/Transhab type inflatable modules, L2 depots, and a few other things that [...]
January 21, 2013
Sneak Previews
Can you say “Insta-lanche”? Dr. Helen Smith (wife of Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds) recently started a new social hub for like-minded libertarian-ish people, called simply Helen’s Page, and yesterday I posted a notice that Perigee was on sale for 99 cents. Professor Reynolds then gave it a brief plug on Instapundit, and BOOM went the dynamite! [...]
January 17, 2013
Creeping Tyranny Update
Nope, I’m not talking about the Prezzy’s gun-control confab yesterday. It was mostly unsurprising and in the end will probably have zero effect for good or ill. Except for the recent panic buying of guns, ammo, bb’s, rocks, and pointy sticks, nothing’s changed my plans to update our family arms locker in the next month [...]
January 15, 2013
Here Goes Nothing
Perigee is now entered in the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Not much anyone can do at this point other than pray, cross your fingers, and wish me luck. I’d been planning to pursue an Amazon Publishing contract for the sequel (which I’m pretty well settled on titling “Apogee” – go figure) but this [...]
Dogs and Cats Living Together
Mass hysteria! OK, not really. Via Instapundit, a fascinating account of a meeting between Tea Party and MoveOn bigwigs which illustrates there is still some room for agreement between left and right. Ask yourself: How many of you voted for trillion-dollar deficits? I haven’t yet met the voter who did, yet representatives on both sides [...]
January 13, 2013
Sunday Music
Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band: Not recommended for child care, however.
