Edward M. Lerner's Blog: SF and Nonsense, page 40

Arcana and SFundry

Remember the Atari game console? How about the ET game that is widely credited with killing off said console? Well ...

Documentary filmmakers digging in a New Mexico landfill on Saturday unearthed hundreds of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" cartridges, considered by some the worst video game ever made and blamed for contributing to the downfall of the video game industry in the 1980s. ...

Atari is believed to have been saddled with most of the 5 million E.T. game cartridges produced. According to...

Follow up ... the sequel

Last week, I took a second (or third, or maybe fourth) look at some hot issues of the day: Internet governance. American dependence on an increasingly aggressive Russia for civilian spaceflight -- and even launchers for military missions. The XPocalypse.

Today's post, although continuing a follow-up theme, is less connected with the mainstream news -- if no less consequential.

They're everywhere ...In February, as part of "That does not compute," I wrote about the Internet of Things (IoT). Ofte...

Follow (and foul) up

Today I'm going to revisit a few newsworthy events that have drawn my attention (and, on occasion, my ire). Because all is not well ...

The modern worldA mere four weeks ago, on April 8, the post "Wild and crazy (not always in a good way) stuff," included my latest distress about plans to relinquish American governance of the Internet. (For earlier facets of the Internet governance issue, from December 2012, see "The UN? Seriously?" and "Big Brother redux.")

Perhaps that unilateral abdication t...

Where do you get your (crazy) ideas?

(A post especially for aspiring spec-fic writers.)

"Where do you get your (crazy) ideas?" It's the question that authors -- especially SF authors -- all dread. There is simply no short but useful answer. Our first course of action is to (try to) deflect the questioner with humor.

In 2011, I took a look at the topic in Inspiration. But after a serendipitous sighting (image nearby), the time seemed ripe for a revisit ...

This isn't my photo -- I spotted this road sign (on Virginia Route 28, just n...

Cyber grief

!@%$##! Heartbleed bug! If -- somehow -- that term doesn't ring a bell, see "How to Protect Yourself From the Heartbleed Bug." Right now. Really, I'm not kidding. But do come back. 

(For a more technical look at the problem, see The Heartbleed Bug.)

Sigh ...The Heartbleed-centric hit to productivity -- certainly to mine -- is staggering. On how many websites does each of us have an account that suddenly needs a new password? While you tally those up, don't forget every long dormant etail...

Going postal. Or: The stats, stat.

About three years ago I first compiled a list/overview of what were then the most visited posts here at SF and Nonsense. To my surprise, Postscript (or is that post post?) was itself instantly popular. It remains third on the all-time list.

And so, an annual tradition was born. 

Serious posts :-)From a stats snapshot I captured a few days ago (thanks, Blogger!), here's the complete all-time top-ten list.

Of moons, clouds, and the state of the art(s), a general science-and-tech news post fr...

Wild and crazy (not always in a good way) stuff

It will surprise no one who often stops by this blog that I follow science news -- but that doesn't mean I get excited about every supposed finding. Perhaps that's because some reported results are made up. See, from Scientific American, "Publishers Withdraw More than 120 Gibberish Science and Engineering Papers." Because said papers were shown to be computer-generated nonsense!

Bigger than worldsIt should likewise be no surprise that I follow reports about hacking -- but this headline (from t...

A mission of (anti-)gravity

More than sixty years after its first publication, Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement (the pen name of Henry Clement Stubbs) remains one of SF's premier examples of world-building. Clement, a chemist, gave much thought to the physics, chemistry, climates, and biology of the fictional world Mesklin.

And a wondrous place Mesklin is, too. For valid -- if unusual -- reasons, its surface gravity varies from about three times Earth normal at the equator to hundreds of times Earth normal at the poles....

Physics with a Bang

Modern physics is on a roll. Less than two years ago: the discovery of the Higgs boson. Providing evidence long sought for the mechanism through which (some) particles exhibit the property known as mass, this discovery led to a Nobel prize the very next year. That must be in record time.

[image error] National Ignition FacilityLast month: the quest for a sustainable fusion reaction reached an important -- if interim -- milestone: a fuel gain greater than one. Deep within the National Ignition Facility, tin...

Sorry that I was so right

The background of my 2012 novel Energized includes an energy supply shock triggered by Russian meddling in the Middle East. The crisis is further complicated by many energy-consuming countries having become dependent upon Russia for gas and oil. They are unwilling or unable to risk angering their supplier.

Several critiques of the novel commented on an "obsolete" Cold War mentality. Post-Soviet Russia wouldn't act that way. Right?

Wrong. And, to be honest, those comments continue to rankle.
Late...