Patrick Chiles's Blog, page 29

Flying the Hump

So I’m driving home from work the other day, with my usual wait at the traffic light along runway 10L/28R here in Columbus. Being a professional airplane geek (i.e. stupid enough to work in the business instead of doing something that makes real money), I of course spend that time watching the departing airliners stacked [...]

I Want To Believe

OK, not really. This is pretty weird, though. I found it yesterday on NASASpaceFlight‘s discussion forums, just before the moderator pulled it (it’s a pretty serious website, and the subscriber-only forums are mostly populated by real rocket scientists who don’t take kindly to pseudo-scientific twaddle). And I intentionally linked to the Paranoid News version just [...]

Where Writers Go From Here

Via the Fantastical Andrew Fox: a far-reaching essay on the current state of literature (I’d say “publishing” but it’s so much more than that), where it’s going, and what it means for us ink-stained wretches who slave over our keyboards. It’s a long read but well worth it. A couple of quick excerpts: For the [...]

Ultimate Genre Mash-Up

Kirk vs. Picard? Lame. Starfleet vs. Galactic Empire? Small ball. Yoda vs. Aliens? Now that’s something I’d pay to see:

Publishing Death Watch, Pt. Whatever

From now on we’ll just leave it at “Death Watch”, hmmkay? First up: The Wall Street Journal – which generally knows a thing or two about business & legal matters – weighs in on the DOJ suit against Apple and the “Agency 5″ (which is not, by the way, the name of an opening act [...]

Mama, I’m Goin’ Fast!

From the LA Times comes an update on that Defense Department hypersonic flight test last year. Short version: it went really fast. No news on when passenger service might be available.

What to do when your book sucks

Hard-won advice from the Honorable Thaddeus McCotter (R – MI);Congressman, former Presidential candidate, guitarist, and apparently frustrated writer. But then aren’t we all?

From the “This Didn’t Take Long” Department…

Hitler just found out Obama ate his dog. No word if it was served up on top of Mitt Romney’s car.

(We Don’t Need No) Civil War

I wish this post was about a crappy and long-forgotten Guns & Roses tune. Sadly, it’s not. Nope, this is a post about the relentless jackassery of the European Union. Seems that their Ministry of Silly Walks (whatever, it doesn’t really matter – they’re all equally ineffective) has determined that to avoid harming the feelings [...]

Angry Bird is the Word

And you just knew the red one was the angriest of them all!