Ted Rabinowitz's Blog, page 44
October 20, 2012
October 18, 2012
Alpha Centauri Has Planets!
One, anyway. How cool is that?
Between our nearest stellar neighbor having planets, and the possibility that an Alcubierre FTL drive wouldn't require the dismantling of an Jupiter-sized planet for each trip, these are banner days for interstellar travel.
Now all I have to do is stay alive for the next 100 years to see the end of the 100YSS initiative, and I'll be good to go.
Oh...and get over my fear of falling, roller coasters, and high-g acceleration. But for a trip like that, it would be worth it. Worse comes to worst, I'd just take some Space Age, ultra-modern super-Valium.
Between our nearest stellar neighbor having planets, and the possibility that an Alcubierre FTL drive wouldn't require the dismantling of an Jupiter-sized planet for each trip, these are banner days for interstellar travel.Now all I have to do is stay alive for the next 100 years to see the end of the 100YSS initiative, and I'll be good to go.
Oh...and get over my fear of falling, roller coasters, and high-g acceleration. But for a trip like that, it would be worth it. Worse comes to worst, I'd just take some Space Age, ultra-modern super-Valium.
October 16, 2012
Bosses Day. Yeah.
Apparently, today actually IS Bosses Day.
The list of bosses who have done their best work negotiating their own compensation and severance packages is long and ever-growing: Carly Fiorina, LIBOR-fixer Bob Diamond, Richard "I took my private jet to beg for congressional money" Wagoner, BP's Tony Hayward, etc. etc. It seems that no matter how badly they mess up, they still keep getting mo' money. Based on that, I have to say that unless you're Tony Frikkin' Stark (who at least gives us ARC reactors and exoskeletons for our taxpayer dollars), it's pretty clear that Every Day Is Bosses Day.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Tuesday.
The list of bosses who have done their best work negotiating their own compensation and severance packages is long and ever-growing: Carly Fiorina, LIBOR-fixer Bob Diamond, Richard "I took my private jet to beg for congressional money" Wagoner, BP's Tony Hayward, etc. etc. It seems that no matter how badly they mess up, they still keep getting mo' money. Based on that, I have to say that unless you're Tony Frikkin' Stark (who at least gives us ARC reactors and exoskeletons for our taxpayer dollars), it's pretty clear that Every Day Is Bosses Day.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Tuesday.
October 14, 2012
A little Clockpunk for your attention
io9.com has this excellent squib about a 16th Cent. knight's prosthetic, spring-driven metal hand. You know I'm going to use it in TWS.
October 13, 2012
Plus-
-It looks like my short story, The Saturday Dance, will be anthologized in Persephone's Kiss, along with stories by Jane Yolen and Jeffrey Ford, among others.
Hoo-ah!
Hoo-ah!
Zombies. Why?
Seriously, I'm like the last nerd in the world who doesn't get zombies.
What's the deal?
What's the deal?
October 7, 2012
Particle AND Wave
A little complementarity on Niels Bohr's birthday...
The walls between science fiction and fantasy are breaking down. Back in the day, it was either Tolkien or Heinlein. Not only was fantasy non-technological, it was almost always pre-technological. Horses, not cars; swords, not guns. Even fantasy ostensibly set in the modern world would often wend its way to a secondary world - through a wardrobe, for instance - where technology simply wasn't.
Then came wainscoting (which I've mentioned before) where magic does exist in the here and now, but is carefully hidden away from ordinary muggles...er, mortals. Obviously, the magic's hidden away in Harry Potter, but Rowling was far from the first to use the wainscot. Any pre-True Blood vampire story, for instance, has the undead hidden away. The Borrowers is classic wainscot. Percy Jackson, Neverwhere, Highlander. Tim Powers turned history into wainscot fantasy with masterpieces like The Stress of Her Regard and On Stranger Tides. Fantasy and science fiction edged closer and closer. And then came the '60s.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," said Arthur C. Clarke. And in the 60s, writers like Michael Moorcock and Jack Chalker took him at his word, creating futures whose inhabitants no longer understood the forces that gave them their magical powers. But there was one writer who followed that avenue while delineating the philosophical difference: Roger Zelazny.
He created worlds full of characters who were literally deii ex machina - people with godlike powers granted by technology; so godlike, in fact, that they assumed the identities of the Hindu, Egyptian (and even alien) pantheons. But even while he was doing this, Roger never lost site of the border:
"It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy – it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool." (Lord of Light)
Science and magic, SF and fantasy, reason and the unknowable, particle and wave - complementarity. The next big step in fantasy is bridging the gap, writing science and magic in the same story at the same time.
The walls between science fiction and fantasy are breaking down. Back in the day, it was either Tolkien or Heinlein. Not only was fantasy non-technological, it was almost always pre-technological. Horses, not cars; swords, not guns. Even fantasy ostensibly set in the modern world would often wend its way to a secondary world - through a wardrobe, for instance - where technology simply wasn't.
Then came wainscoting (which I've mentioned before) where magic does exist in the here and now, but is carefully hidden away from ordinary muggles...er, mortals. Obviously, the magic's hidden away in Harry Potter, but Rowling was far from the first to use the wainscot. Any pre-True Blood vampire story, for instance, has the undead hidden away. The Borrowers is classic wainscot. Percy Jackson, Neverwhere, Highlander. Tim Powers turned history into wainscot fantasy with masterpieces like The Stress of Her Regard and On Stranger Tides. Fantasy and science fiction edged closer and closer. And then came the '60s."Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," said Arthur C. Clarke. And in the 60s, writers like Michael Moorcock and Jack Chalker took him at his word, creating futures whose inhabitants no longer understood the forces that gave them their magical powers. But there was one writer who followed that avenue while delineating the philosophical difference: Roger Zelazny.
He created worlds full of characters who were literally deii ex machina - people with godlike powers granted by technology; so godlike, in fact, that they assumed the identities of the Hindu, Egyptian (and even alien) pantheons. But even while he was doing this, Roger never lost site of the border:
"It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy – it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool." (Lord of Light)
Science and magic, SF and fantasy, reason and the unknowable, particle and wave - complementarity. The next big step in fantasy is bridging the gap, writing science and magic in the same story at the same time.
October 5, 2012
Today's word is STYLITES
Can you say "stylites"?Or, to be more explicit, saint-on-a-pole.
Very popular in the Byzantine Empire around the EMA (early Middle Ages).
Apparently, Indian fakirs aren't the only holy folk who feel the need to mortify the flesh, but it's an impulse that is utterly alien to me. Why would God desire self-inflicted pain from his creatures? How do you get so deep into your own belief system that this sounds like a good idea?
I don't mean to offend any rockin' stylites out there. I'm just asking.
October 4, 2012
Scored the Annotated Alice
Long ago, my brother and I had a copy of The Annotated Alice, Martin Gardner's astounding edition of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass which explained all the mathematico-logical in-jokes and history that Carroll had scattered through the books.Well, I just found a copy in the "put-a-penny tak-a-penny" bookshelves of my building's laundry room. I will bring down all my thrillers and the Millennium Trilogy in return.
Yes, I'm a massive nerd. We've met, no?
